In the aftermath of the Mumbia terrorist attacks, Muslims are finally standing up for the ethics of their own religion, the tenets of their faith. India's Muslim Council has declared that the bodies of the Muslim terrorists killed in the 3-day attack on Mumbai (and responsible for killing almost 200 people) cannot be interred in Indian soil -- not just Mumbai, but anywhere in the country. Wow! This could be the first openly defiant act against "Islamic terrorism."
MOST MUSLIMS ARE NOT TERRORISTS
"Most Muslims are not terrorists!" is a cry heard over and over since 9/11. But it's a statement that has been difficult to believe for victims of Muslim terror, and for those who fear becoming future victims. This is especially true when so many Muslim leaders have refused to condemn the terror or even acknowledge the Muslim attackers as terrorists. By their silence, their omissions, they have invited the perception that they, and other Muslims, could be co-conspirators in the terrorism. We do not know each other.
Even before the Muslim Council's orders, a Muslim cemetery in the heart of Mumbai broke with Islamic tradition and refused to bury the bodies of the nine dead terrorists. The influential Muslim Jama Masjid Trust, which runs the graveyard, says that it refuses to bury the gunmen because they were not true followers of Islam.
"People who committed this heinous crime cannot be called Muslim," said Hanif Nalkhande, a spokesman for the trust. "Islam does not permit this sort of barbaric crime," reports The Australian.
NO BURIAL IN INDIAN SOIL
Unclaimed bodies believed to be Muslim are traditionally given to the nearest Islamic graveyard for burial after three days. Right now the bodies of the nine dead gunmen are lying in a morgue waiting. It looks like they'll have a long wait. Muslims are insisting they not be buried in India. The police don't know what to do with the bodies -- they do not believe anyone will claim the terrorists' corpses.
Burial in Islam is a highly sacred way of disposing of a body, said former Chairman of National Commission for Minorities Mahmood. (India's population is 80 percent Hindu and a minority 20 percent Muslim, who have a history of bloody clashes.)
"Which Indian would like to pray for these brutes and why on earth should the religious sanctity and spiritual aura of any graveyard be desecrated by letting them be buried there?" asked Mahmood, saying that bodies of "inhuman plotters" must not be buried anywhere on the Indian soil, as reported by Zee News International.
The following is a statement by Ibrahim Tai, president of the Indian Muslim Council, as told by The Inquisitr:
"They are not Muslims as they have not followed our religion which teaches us to live in peace. If the government does not respect our demands we will take up extreme steps.
"We do not want the bodies of people who have committed an act of terrorism to be buried in our cemeteries.
"These terrorists are a black spot on our religion, we will very sternly protest the burial of these terrorists in our cemetery."
EVEN TERRORISTS DESERVE PROPER BURIAL?
Other Muslim groups have written to their assembly representatives saying that if the authorities force the terrorists to be buried in a Muslim cemetery they will protest en masse. And, of course, there are some Muslim dissenters, who object to the decision.
Islamic Scholar Maulauna Zubair Ahmed said that even terrorists must be given a proper burial under Sharia - or Islamic - law. "The Sharia says whether a Muslim is a drunkard, rapist, criminal, you must offer him a place for burial," he said, according to Dispatches from the Culture Wars, a Scienceblog.
An excellent article on the "Mumbai Massacre" by Soumya Bhattacharya can be found in the New Statesman (London). I highly recommend it, as it provides a knowledgeable perspective and information about India and Mumbai about which most Americans are unaware. For example, there is an explanation of the symbolic significance of targeting the Taj Mahal luxury hotel:
THE TAJ AS A SYMBOL
"Of the five locations, it was the attack on the Taj Mahal hotel near the Gateway of India that was, in terms of symbolism, the most resonant," wrote Bhattacharya. "Mumbai's monuments are secular, and the 105-year-old Taj, built by a Parsi businessman because he was turned away from a hotel for being Indian, is the picture-postcard emblem of the city. It is to Mumbai what the Empire State Building is to New York and the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. It is Mumbai."
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