By Adeel Akhtar 

The Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind seems to be the fiefdom of Madanis. Mahmood Madani’s father Maulana Asad Madani inherited the presidency of the Jamiat from his father Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani, investing his influence and the group’s assets in the service of Congress party. He has remained instrumental in amassing  support of the majority of Muslims for the Congress – much like bonded labourers. The Congress, in return, gifted Asad Madani the membership of Rajya Sabha.

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Ghalib’s maxim: “Bana hai Shah ka Musahib Phire Hai ltrata” means Mahmood’s father, throughout his life, was at the disposal of the Congress. The party often used him to ward off troubles India faced from external front in the wake of communal riots and marginalisation of Muslims, informally deputing the Maulana, mainly in the Muslim world. In short, he was a trouble shooter for the Congress, mainly on issues related to the Muslim community.

The government used to send him as an emissary to a number of Muslim countries in order to refurbish its secular credentials, which had suffered due to spate of communal riots name Nellie massacre, Hashimpura and Maliana massacres among others. For example, when Muslims were massacred at Eidgah on Eid day in Moradabad in the 1980s, the Congress government promptly dispatched Asad Madani to the Muslim world to paint goody goody picture of the Indian Muslims. He stated to have told the Muslim world that there was nothing to be concerned about the Indian Muslims. During his life, Asad Madani continued to indulge in such activities.

Over the times, however, Muslims became aware of Asad’s deceptions. His sphere of influence shrunk. In the eyes of common Muslims, Mahmood’s father’s moral status deteriorated with a vast majority of Muslims begun to view him with suspicion.

In the 1980s, Mahmood’s father organised a “Tahfuz-e-Haram Conference,” which was derided by the Urdu press. In a poetic commentary titled “Maulana Amdani kee Tahfuze Shikham Conference” a poem was published by a popular Urdu newspaper.

Mahmood Madani is the “promising” son of such a “famous” father. Precisely, he stepped into his father’s shoes. If the son is ignorant of his father’s wisdom or if it is forgotten, how can a son be a worthy father?

So, once his father died, Mahmood Madani used all he had learned from his father to prove his father’s legacy, and Mahmood’s uncle used everything he had learned from his father to obtain his father’s estate.

These uncles and nephews fought like claimants of the Jamiat, which had become a hereditary empire for the Madanis’ family. These mullahs didn’t  leave any stone unturned to humiliate each other by pouring millions of rupees.  Obviously, all these money came a donation from a deprived  community.

Pathetically, the Jamiat ulema never utter a word against the uncle-nephew duo. Instead of condemning the ugly fight on fiefdom, all the mullahs of the Jamiat chose to fall either of the two camps (Mahmood Madani and Arshad Madani). Had they really followed the Islamic sprit, they would have chosen a pious and trustworthy scholar to lead the Jamiat.

Every knowledgeable person knows the conflict of interest between uncle and nephew with each of them proclaiming ‘natural’ claimant to lead the Jamiat.

Mahmood Madani lacks a formal education as well as real knowledge and awareness. He inherited arrogance and bad temper, as well as hubris and conceit from his father. He is proving to be the most harmful for both the community and the religion of Islam because of these “attributes.” In fact, Mahmood Madani is much more obstinate than his father.

His unwise and inconsistent statements made at a recent meeting in Deoband and elsewhere are exceedingly dangerous for Islam and Muslims. In the incidents of Varanasi’s Gyanvapi mosque and Mathura’s Shahi Eidgah, misinterpreting Qur’anic terminology of infidels and polytheists, asking people to plant trees in temples and go for watering, re-issuing assurances that they will accept the court’s ruling, and so on and so forth.

There have been assertions that naïve and simpleton lot keep following him, but people with common wisdom are concerned about the harmful impact such Maulana is laying on the community. In the war undertaken by Hindutva against Islam and Muslims, it is paving the way for Hindutva’s success and turning Muslims into a second class citizen.

May Allah Almighty guide him and grant him repentance, as well as safeguard the Muslims from his evils.