Karnataka & The Hijab Ban | Mufti Abu Layth

those of you that are not aware india there's been quite a lot going on recently in india and it's unfortunate that the you know the rise of right-wing populism for the last several years under the bjp which is the political party which is in power which is a kind of right lean it is a right wing it is a right-wing party and quite somewhat fascist almost in the approach and and the way they often win votes is just by dividing people

and so whenever the elections will be due you'll get modi will do some stunt he'll kind of create division between hindus and muslims and and then all the hindus will kind of vote for him and it's the same kind of trumpian tactics that that take place so recently what's happened uh one of the issues that's happened is in towards kind of southern india karnataka where you have the with its capital is bangalore so it's like one of the the high-tech kind of um [Music]

states of southern india what's happened there they've generally as far as i'm aware they've had a kind of harmony in the south of india so unlike north india there's not been this clash between muslims and hindus and stuff like this as far as i don't know my my kind of understanding because islam in southern india has been this since arguably from the time of the sahaba and it didn't come in violently whereas islam in the north of india came through iran through sindh in

modern-day pakistan and came in the form of armies so there's all and then there's been dynasties dynasts that have ruled and the lord these and the thor lucks and the mughals and whereas in south india the muslim community has just been a kind of for an initial migrant and then an indigenous community that's just lived there so there's been much more harmony now things have got stirred recently and i i think it's because the elections once again and there were certain colleges that

just suddenly denied entry to muslim girls wearing the hijab and they did this on the ground so this was in january um just last month and they did this on the grounds of of breaching the uniform but the issue was that colleges generally don't have a uniform i believe in india and so they said that we're not going to have this hijab that you're not allowed to with hijab so the girls had made a valid point in this kind of recordings of them online where they are arguing and they're saying that look well you know why now because there's only two months left for the exams either when we were taking entry you

should have they have a very valid point that when we were taking entry you should have made it clear that we can't you're not allowed to come here if you wear the hijab then we wouldn't have come but if we've come and paid and now we're two months away from the exam and suddenly you come up with a rule then if anything you're just causing our education to suffer and so this got it heated and the the principal whatever the college denied entry and then the girls protested and then in contrast to that some of the hindu kind of groups or factions kind of pumped up a group to kind of counter

protest and so this has been going on i believe the mata went to some kind of local court and the local court i think it kind of just gave a vague ruling in saying that that colleges should just it just kind of said that look they should use their discretion wisely or something like this it didn't really make it clear so the colleges are still where they are they seem to be adamant i think the mata has been taken to some higher court in india now and the awaiting some um they have some kind of collegiate boards or something that have to make a

decision for that college and so up until then there's just this tension and there's this very famous viral clip now of a girl going in a car and she's surrounded by these uh counter protests that have come wearing the kind of saffron scarf yelling jeshuri ram which is become the kind of counter slogan and it's become a slogan for right wing a hindu fascism so jesus which in essence just means i suppose just glorifying ram but

so they're yelling that in her face and i think there's about like 50 of them and then she just stops in the middle and says allahu akbar and she says allahu akbar and tremendous courage tremendous courage and you know may allah protect her and you could see the principal there who i don't think was a muslim of the college he does he is there to he does protect her there as well he kind of makes sure that none of them these people can harm her and tells her to to go inside and she does kind of i have to say it's become symbolic of freedom

because in the face of all of this adversity this woman i mean even as a man i mean if you've got a hundred men around you this is a woman and she's being intimidated and they're yelling and shouting and this tension and the whole it's the whole thing is so horrific and then in the face of that she kind of raises her voice as a symbol of freedom and the right to self-determination and she says allahu akbar and yeah and it's become and it's become

a huge it's an internet sensation she's become an internet since they have forgotten her name now um ah i i think in it i think muskaan is her name and so may allah make it easy for everybody that is struggling there it really is it's hurtful to see these things well i i watched in uh when when i was watching some of this online i saw this interview by some indian politician uh politicians amongst them ashashi taharur or and

and even how he was just saying that this is so embarrassing that how can that this is happening in india a country which for a millennia has had this culture that how all of a sudden this is an issue and he said that even if schools have a uniform he said that's true but the uniforms always kind of cater he said like when you have seeks in a class he said that they will cater that okay they will somehow accommodate within the uniform maybe matching it that they will wear a certain turban and he said in the same thing you know he said that look there's many girls who don't wear nikabu hijab and there's many who do but

to kind of impose it on them it's it is it is sad what is happening with faith honestly wallahi if anything it just it saddens me you know i see this stuff and i think what are people even fighting over like what are they like what is that somebody believes something a bit different to me

what has really got to people that you become my enemy if you if you hold a different belief to me wow honestly it is it and i tell you this is so far from the human fitrah we by our fitrah as human beings are not like this if given the choice i do believe that we would show love but it's just that it's been poisoned man the world has been poisoned and it's a shame seeing it and you see it kind of like we saw in america in the

trump era and you're seeing it in places like india which is you know one of the largest countries in the world so it's a shame allah make things easy i mean i remember a meme i mean it wasn't a meme it was a clip which was a ridiculous clip many of you may have seen it was a viral clip an american where some lady who is a fundamental fundamentalist christian and she's uh she's in some supermarket and she starts swearing you guys must have seen it she's using all

the mother and the more she's swearing so she's got this water really and and the guy is recording her and she's saying to him that jesus jesus is your savior you have to accept jesus it's like you mother you better accept jesus so the uh the the sharp assistant comes and she goes she goes uh so what's going on here mom and then she says so have i got this correct she says she says that this man doesn't believe in what you believe in so that has made you

angry just sounds you know the way that the lady doesn't laugh but the lady just says it the sharp assistant she says so he doesn't believe he holds different beliefs to you so so because of that you are angry that's what's made you angry and so she's trying to understand it and it sounds so ridiculous [Laughter] but yeah