More Graveyard Politics

A declaration from India's Muslim Council Trust: the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks were apparently not Muslim.

"Islam does not approve of wanton killings and targeting non-combatants. As such it can be safely surmised that such criminals cannot be Muslims. Hence we request you to deny them burial..."

It is understandable to see this reaction from the Indian Muslim religious authorities. Here, their own homeland had been attacked brutally, many of their relations and neighbors had been murdered. Furthermore, it is impossible to ignore India's troubled history of communal violence, especially since Partition in 1947. How could one not fear that the thought that such an attack was perpetrated by Muslims create an excuse to blame all Indian Muslims and lead to the possibility of greater violence? It makes sense that Indian Muslims would want to distance themselves greatly from any of the perpetrators. But to declare them non-Muslims? Is that a little too far?

Denying someone a religiously directed funeral is an interesting expression of what I call Graveyard Politics. A few weeks back, I had written an entry concerning the case of Shafayet Reja, whose parents had decided upon cremating him after his death. That touched of a minor storm over whether Reja's purported Muslim identity in life should trump his parents' wishes. Those trying to prevent cremation were essentially trying to claim Reja's memory as a win for Islam over the secularism of his parents.

Here we have the same effect going on in the opposite direction, denying so-and-so the last rites expected of a Muslim, to be washed and buried. Doing such is essentially the most effective form of excommunication that Muslim groups may see in their disposal. Those who desire to declare living individuals as non-Muslims have to contend with their opponents simply reciting the shahada, lessening the power of such a claim. But when people aren't alive to demand a Muslim burial for themselves, the excommunicator can get off scott-free.

I'm very troubled whenever I see people clamor towards declaring terrorists and murderers as non-Muslims. It's definitely a fairly understandable emotionally driven behavior - we hate what they do and hate them for claiming what we may find beautiful. Furthermore, some Muslims may find themselves on a hot-seat, questioned why Islam doesn't excommunicate the likes of Bin Laden et al. as one would expect a wayward Catholic or Mormon to be excommunicated by the authorities at the Vatican or Salt Lake City.

Is it a problem that the Muslim community is not organized as centrally as Catholicism or Mormonism? At times, I guess. Muslims, who place their authority in God and His messenger, can find no present authority to give any religious matter a final word. We're all then left with a heavy burden to weigh the validity of competing opinions, all of which claim to be the best. Thus, no group among Muslims has an easy ride in proving that its opinions are best - it would have to work for it.

Arguing for the excommunication of unrepentant terrorists and murderers as a valid Islamic practice, in spite of the prophetic narrations that seem to condemn all forms of excommunication, would be essentially validating the takfirist ideology that we are trying to counteract. The discourse degenerates and loses all substance - we're left with two parties, each claiming to hold truth from God and claiming the other as expressing disbelief. The real issues that must be resolved - about when fighting is necessary and when it is sinful - gets pushed aside.

Rather than hoping for religious authorities to excommunicate those whose actions we consider repulsive, Muslims should accept the reality that there is no such central authority which can comment on what's going on in the world. Our focus must then shift to what we can do in our communities and societies to encourage good and prohibit evil, knowing well that God and only God will judge between us in our intentions and our actions.