Most likely, WhatsApp-a free messaging and voice calling software — trumps every other non-essential mobile application in its popularity. Everyone has to carry it in their smart phones, even those who do not buy the internet data and rely on Wi-Fi for the connection. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, which run on larger public platform, WhatsApp provides privacy, an unsolicited environment and a closed network.
Old class fellows, colleagues or playmates connected through WhatsApp thus coalesce together in a group where everyone knows everyone else for years-if not decades. In this relaxing and refreshing environment of peers, people let their guards down and speak their minds without fear of being judged, victimised or excommunicated.
After all, how can you undo your past? Once, a class fellow must always stay a class fellow. How can you not respect someone or doubt the patriotism of those who you have known since childhood?
Being a part of many such subsets, I can surmise the regular themes that follow in them. After initial excitement and exchange of pleasantries, old friends dish about their political views, their national inklings, their geo political understandings and of course about their religious tilt.
So far so good, till one day, when in one of the groups that I am a member of, the admin made a policy against every kind of political or religious discussion. Not so much about the politics, people understood that everyone had got the same right to like the political party of their choice, the main resistance originated on the restriction of religious posts. Quranic verses, the Sayings of the Prophet (PBUH), short religious stories just kept on showing up. Admin too was determined, regardless of the opposition; it continued to warn them, reprimand them and sometimes even provided them with alternate not so popular points of view. The environment you could feel, was getting tense.
Centuries-old Platonic Euthyphro’s Dilemma, which brings the divine relationship with virtue to limelight, stays relevant to this date and needs to be discussed, thin-sliced and interpreted in our national discourse
Then two things happened which in turn have pushed me to write about the incidence. First, the chat group went quiet, people except to share quotidian greetings, had nothing to talk about. In just a few days, a group had turned from the most active, humorous and interactive to become the dullest, most boring and monotonous. It made me think how less we could communicate with each other in the absence of a religious color or tone, how confined were we within the boundaries of our own faith, how limited, and how divided were we in our minds between the world separated by us (good) and them(bad).
The group’s second reaction struck me even harder: people started badmouthing the admin, not openly, but through private massages, calling them atheists, agnostics, non-Muslims and in the worst case scenario, accused them of being Ahmadis, demanding them to explain their own faith. Admin offered to make a separate entity where all such discussions were not only allowed but encouraged. That did not work either, no one showed any interest, their point being how could one stop being religious or Muslim, so to say, in a particular group. How can a forum shut Islam out?
Anyways, some members continued to share a verse of Quran or slip a hadithor upload a sermon by a preacher with a note that said that they did not think the massage held any religious or sectarian bias, instead, it shed light on a general human predicament, a helpful insight, or a learning lesson.
One member left because he could not imagine himself to be a part of group where the name of God and his Prophet was ‘banned.’ The group leaders still did not budge and stuck to their guns even after recognising the hostility and resentment. In the end, the group rule prevailed, but the group could not flourish, it kind of died.
What I learnt from the experience, was, first, that when it came to religion, earthly rules do not apply, no matter how hard one tries. Second, if the rules are strictly enforced, it can cause religious backlash which can jeopardise personal safety of the members, exposing their association with or having a soft corner for a beleaguered minority.
Third, we as a nation are preoccupied with and engulfed by the idea of piety that springs from faith alone. For most of us, it is getting harder and harder to imagine an honest, respectful and competent person who is not a practicing Muslim or even worse, does not take inspiration from his creed.
In short, centuries old Platonic Euthyphro’s Dilemma which brings the divine relationship with virtue to limelight, stays relevant to this date and needs to be discussed, thin-sliced and interpreted in our national discourse. As I pondered more, another reality descended upon me: this newer form of piety did not resemble nobility as much as it resembled vanity, an in-your-face type of religion whose spirituality was questionable, objectionable and doubtful.
What I would have liked to learn from the experience though was to learn to respect people with different and sometimes opposing sets of beliefs. As many sects exist in Islam, and as many religions exist in the world, not a single religion or sect can claim to behold the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Then who can judge the veracity of one sect over the other? Only God knows what happens after we die, but till that time we must live and let others live without dehumanising or vilifying them. Quran says, “For you is your religion, and for me is my religion.” (109:6).
The writer is a US-based freelance columnist. He tweets at @KaamranHashmi and can be reached at [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, March 30th 2018.