THE%20SINDH%20STORY

Long have we suffered; see how grief’s blood flows down the drain.
From a heart pierced by the scalpel, hear his cry of pain.
The thought of converting Hindus to Islam never entered the mind of Shah and
Sachal.”
Iqbal’s Jawabi-Shikwa (God’s Response to the Complaint):
“There is loud talk that Muslims have disappeared from the earth’s face.
We ask you; did true Muslims exist anywhere in any place?
Your style of living is Christian, your culture that of the Hindu;
A Jew would be ashamed if he saw Muslims such as you. You are Saiyyads as
well as Mirzas, and you are Afghans --- You are all these but tell us are you also
Musalmans?”
The imperative of religious synthesis intimately connected with lslam’s attitude
towards minorities in an Islamic State. If the Islamic State is, by definition, an
ideological State and the ideology is wholly Muslim, it is manifest that minorities
can never be treated equally and justly. What has happened to the Ahmediyas in
Pakistan, Bahai’s in Iran and to a lesser extent, the Copts in Egypt, is not a very
heartening experience or experiment. If Muslim States treat their minorities in
this manner can they easily forget that a quarter of the world’s 750 hundred
million Muslims are minorities in non-Muslim countries? Sheer self-interest ---
quid pro quo --- would indicate that unless the Islamic states are willing to mete
out complete equality before the law and equal justice in every sense of the word
to non-Muslims, they cannot expect similar treatment for Muslim minorities in
non-Muslim States. This is not to suggest that the Muslim minority in India
should be held as a hostage to guarantee good conduct of Muslim governments
the world over. But, ugly reactions to what happens to non-Muslim minorities
elsewhere are not easily avoidable, particularly when it is not strongly
disapproved and condemned by the minorities in India.
The lesson of recent historical events might well induce some sober and
responsible thinking amongst the fanatics. The Arab heart-land of Islam suffered
a crushing military defeat in the 1967 War with Israel --- a humiliation that was
felt personally not only in Egypt, Jordan and Syria, the actual combatants, but, by
all Muslim States, Arab as well as non-Arab. Then, in 1972, the largest Muslim
State, Pakistan, broke up into two. The hatred, bitterness, mass-suffering and the
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