Learnings from NE Exodus - Re-inventing Muslim Leadership

 I'm reminded of an old Dawud Wharnsby song, while seeing the country in disorder by some irresponsible, anti-social elements, focused on:-

• Violent emotions
• A rumor mongering, 
• Slandering 
• Spreading corruption and disorder in the Earth 
• Impelling others into violating the Permanent Moral Values 
• Involved in Bad company

"I sent an email to my loved one, just the other day,

it’s sad communication has evolved this way.

We use so many words but have so little to relay,

as angels scribble down every letter that we say.

All the viral attachments sent and passionate insults we vent,

it’s easy to be arrogant behind user passwords we invent.

But on the day the scrolls are laid,

with every word and deed displayed,

when we read our accounts,

I know, for one, I’ll be afraid."

~ Afraid To Read

Album: The Prophet's Hands (2003)

On Charity, Sacrifice and Social Concern

Allah speaks about these as

"Whenever he (man) holds the upper hand, he goes about the earth corrupting it, destroying (people's) crops and breeding stock. Allah does not love corruption. (Surat al-Baqara: 205)

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Of the three arrested here last week for sending SMSes and MMSes inciting violence against people from the Northeast, the main accused, Anees Pasha, a 26-year-old cellphone repairman, alone forwarded controversial images and messages to 20,000 people using multiple SIM cards and cellphones, according to preliminary investigations. Read more here Man held in Bangalore sent messages to 20,000: probe

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The recent havoc that mindless messaging created is unprecedented -- so much as to trigger violence, death, destruction of public and private property; loss of peace of mind, and ultimately the biggest internal exodus the country has seen.

Forward crazy

The online social bonding is amazing. Without batting an eyelid, people forward messages and emails that they find interesting, bizarre, entertaining or scandalous. No one pauses for a second to think whether they are passing on fact or a figment of imagination. Who cares?

But the real problem crops up when people think they have got a very important piece of information — messages that are very specific on details, more details than what even newspapers and television news channels have got, stuff that are actually inflammatory. And they are overwhelmed by an urge to pass it on to everyone who they think should know it. In no time the message zips across networks. And we have seen the horrendous results.

Social media — comprising everything from texting and web messaging to Facebook and Twitter — have taken over the information exchange mechanism. That's now the default information consumption interface. All of us are part of this media in one way or the other. Most often we get to know initial alerts about newsy events from strangers rather than from acclaimed and credible sources.

With so much unverified information zipping across, the social media is undoubtedly polluted. The immediate questions that this raises in my mind are — whom do I trust and what do I believe? If I shouldn't believe any SMS message or a Twitter update, then why am I reading them, subscribing to them? Should I stop believing everyone? Should I transform myself into chronic skeptic? Aren't we supposed to have faith in others, and believe what they say? 

Read more here Social media is polluted, doubt everything

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http://www.firstpost.com/india/mumbai-violence-reinventing-the-muslim-victimhood-stance-416071.html

Muslims in India and elsewhere have a right to feel concerned for their co-religionists anywhere in the world if they are targeted and discriminated against – whether in Myanmar or Assam is immaterial. But the violence in Mumbai last Saturday, where the media and the police were at the receiving end, shows that they are being taken up the garden path once again. Muslim leaders are creating in them a new sense of victimhood and anger that does not square with the facts.

It is easy to blame the police for being unprepared for the huge crowd that turned out, but it is the leadership of the protest organisers who must be blamed more, since they would have been even more aware of what was really going on in their mosques and bylanes in the run-up to the protest.

According to The Indian Express, a confidential report had been sent to the Mumbai Police Commissioner that he should expect “law and order problems,” especially because Muslims were being told in their mosques during Friday prayers to attend the Saturday protests. They were being pumped up on stories of atrocities on Muslims in Myanmar and Assam.

Of course, the police must be blamed for assuming that the permission given to an unregistered group to hold a prayer meeting at Azad Maidan would be a placid affair. But given the context in which the protest was being held, they were clearly underprepared. However, given also that 45 of the 50-and-odd injured in the violence were policemen, it is their extraordinary restraint that must be commended rather than just being apportioned the blame for not being adequately prepared.

Rather, it is time to throw the spotlight on the Muslim leadership for building up the anger and not doing anything to rein it in.

More than the police, no one in the Muslim community could have failed to note the misleading SMSes and MMSes doing the rounds in the run-up to the protest day. ( Naim - Here it proves the lack of leadership qualities in an average Muslim and an important attribute to take moral responsibility to inform Appropriate Authority before the damage occur )This video proves the muteness of moderate muslims, who though in 1000s, are busy watching or recording in their cameras, when destruction of property is happening.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXNqo6L06Pg

 Certain Muslim in India feel like a hunted animal and angry and victimised. According to The Times of India, the SMS read thus: “Burma, Assam, Gujarat, Kashmir ke bad na jane kahan? Burma mein Musalmano ke qatl-e-aam or zulm ke khilaf Azad Maidan me Sunday ko rally hai. America me 5 Sikho ka katal hua to media or sarkar me hadkam hai, or lakhon Musalmanon ki zindagi ki koi keemat nahi. Sab ki ankhen band hai. Is SMS to Sunday se pehle Hindustan ki har Musalman or mantriyo or media tak pohchao..”.

The bashing of the media and destruction of television OB vans can be traced to this SMS message.

Look at the number of deliberate truth distortions here. The Indian media has been more than fair in reporting the Bodo-Muslim violence in Kokrajhar – in fact, it has been balanced, and did not overtly take the Bodo side even though the Bodos have as much reason to be angry as the Muslims, thanks to the influx from Bangladesh, some of them illegal immigrants. The fact that many people are infiltrators from Bangladesh is not even mentioned. Every word in the SMS is designed to feed a sense of victimhood without context.

It is easy to blame the police for being unprepared for the huge crowd that turned out, but it is the leadership of the protest organisers who must be blamed more. Reuters

As for the Myanmarese violence against the Rohingyas of the Arakan, the SMS assumes that it is somehow India’s job to take up the issue. This is why the murder in the US Gurdwara is mentioned – to show that if India can take up that issue, why not the riots in Myanmar? That many of the Rohingyas are taking shelter on the India side (some have even shifted to Hyderabad) is not seen as a reason to be grateful to this nation which has not so far discriminated against the flood of migrants from Bangladesh and even Myanmar. Would Indian Muslims be so angry if told that we are providing shelter to these victims of violence?

Then, there were the fake MMSes doing the rounds – many of them put up on social media – showing pictures that purport to show that Muslims were being slaughtered by the hundred. A Pakistani journalist-blogger – Faraz Ahmed – who is no friend of the Myanmarese, investigated these pictures and found that many of them were bogus, and possibly morphed by mischief-monger to enrage Muslims everywhere (Read Ahmed’s article, ‘Social media is lying about Burma’s Muslim cleansing,” here, and another related report How to start a riot out of Facebook: Yousuf Saeed, and see my facebook post here Facebook HOAX pictures).

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 Effective Islamic Leaders should have some leadership qualities such as conviction, justice, sacrifice, eloquence, sound decision –making, etc.

According to some researchers, leaders in the Islamic perspective have been identified to have some leadership qualities geared towards the Holy Qur’an.

THERE ARE 25 CHARACTERISTICS NECESSARY FOR LEADERSHIP BASED ON THE WAYS AND TRADITIONS OF THE PROPHET (PBUH) AND THE QUR’AN:

                                                ABILITY

                                                BRAVERY

                                                CALMNESS

                                                DEPENDABILITY

                                                EXEMPLARINESS

                                                FAIRNESS

                                                GENUINENESS

                                                HONESTY

                                                INITIATIVE

                                                JUDGEMENT

                                                KNOWLEDGE

                                                LIBERALISM

                                                MODESTY

                                                NOBILITY

                                                ORGANIZATION

                                                PERSONALITY

                                                QUALITY

                                                RESPONSIBILITY

                                                SACRIFICE

                                                TEAMWORK

                                                UNDERSTANDING

                                                VERSATILITY

                                                WISDOM

                                                YOUTHFUL

                                                ZEAL

Read more here Leadership and Islam

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Related Quran verses

"Take immediate corrective action if any misconduct has occurred from you. [3/135] 

"You shall treat kindly your related neighbors, and unrelated neighbors, companions by your side in public gatherings, or public transportation. [4:36]

Do not follow blindly any information of which you have no direct knowledge. [17:36] 

Most people follow nothing but conjecture and they only live by guesswork. [6:116, 10:36, 17:36] 

The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Deliberation is from Allah and haste is from the Satan." (As-Silsilah as-Sahihah )

Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "Beware of temptation ( fitnah), for a word at the time of fitnah could be as devastating as the sword.

 Verifying News

Allah Almighty says, (O ye who believe! If an evil person brings you tidings, verify it, lest ye smite some folk in ignorance and afterward repent of what ye did ) (Al-Hujurat 49: 6).

What is meant by verifying is to make strenuous effort to find out the facts behind a certain issue so as to establish whether this can be proven or not. Verifying also means to be sure of the truth of a certain report and its circumstances. Al-Hasan al-Basri said: The believer reserves judgment until the matter is proven. 

In conclusion, we advise everyone to verify matters and not to rush to pass on news until they are sure that it is true, even if the news is good because if it becomes apparent that the one who passed it on is mistaken, he will lose credibility before the people, and anyone who bears a grudge towards him will use it against him .