‘Books, literature or singing can’t be any religion’s patrimony’

“When Rahi Masoom Raza wrote screenplay of Mahabharat, he received a blizzard of letters at his home. And soon the letters—wherein people praised him profusely—turned into a large number of bales. But besides such bales, there was a small bundle of letters which found its place on study-table of the writer. These were the letters in which profanities had been written—asking the writer how dare he write the dialogues of Mahabharat. These letters were written by both Hindus and Muslims,” said Haider Rizvi in an anecdote shared on Facebook yesterday, adding that “the fundamentalists targeted him that being a Muslim how could he write on a book revered by Hindus.”

“Rahi sahab would say that this small bundle of letters inspires him and keeps him motivated. It reminded him that the number of bad people is so small,” recalled Rizvi and commented, “Heard that a Muslim girl is drawing flak for singing a bhajan. No worries. Even today their bundle is smaller than our bale. Keep singing. Books, literature or singing can’t be any religion’s patrimony.”

Suhana Syed, 22, from Sagara town in Karnataka, sang Shreekarane, a song from the movie Gaja in praise of Lord Balaji while auditioning for Kannada edition of music reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa recently, and become a victim of trolling on Facebook for singing a Hindu devotional film song.

“Anyone who is attacking a Muslim girl for singing a bhajan is not only petty and bigoted but also ignorant of great traditions of Indian music,” noted writer and poet, Javed Akhtar tweeted in support of Suhana. In another tweet, he asked a troll, “Do you know the great tradition of Indian poetry? Have you read Kabir and Bullay Shah? They preach love not hate.”

Notably, there are many evergreen bhajans which have been written, composed and sung by Muslims. Madhuban Mein Radhika is one such. And who can forget to mention Man Tarapat Hari Dharshan from Baiju Bawra, or even Sukh Ke Sab Saathi Dukh Mein Na Koi sung by Mohammad Rafi and enacted by Muhammad Yusuf Khan aka Dilip Kumar.

Those who surely enough are not aware of composite culture of this country, must know that Allama Iqbal wrote panegyric poems on Lord Krishna, Ram and Nanak.

Maulana Hasrat Mohani’s love and devotion for Lord Krishna is well known to those who know his literary work. Among other contemporary poets, Ashok Sahil’s couplet in praise of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) are quite popular among Muslims:

Ujala deti hai bujhte hue charaagon ko

Yahan-yahan bhi hadees-e-rasool jaati hai.

(They bring light to about-to-extinguish lamps,

Wherever the words of Rasool reach out).

Sample Kunwar Mahendra Singh Bedi’s couplet as well:

Ishaq ho jaaye kisi se koi chara to nahin

Sirf Muslim ka Mohammad pe ijaara to nahin.

(If one falls in love with someone, there's no cure

Only Muslims don’t have a right over Mohammad.

Recently, I paid a visit to a close relative in a village of Jammu and Kashmir, who was in coma due to brain hemorrhage. One of her family members was reciting the Gita near her. The Gita was written in Urdu and the person who was reading out the verses later told me that “the Gita written in Urdu is easy to comprehend.”

Also, when during the annual autumn festival of Navratri, Ramleela is enacted in our cities, towns and villages one can see that the dialogues are mostly spoken in Urdu by the actors on stage, mostly written by Muslims.

Says Urdu poet Anwar Jalalpuri—who wrote Urdu Shayari mein Geeta (Bhagavad Gita in Urdu poetry) three years ago, “To attain a comprehensive understanding of the book, I made some key works on the Gita as my reference. These included Khawaja Dil Mohammed’s Dil ki Geeta, Osho’s eight volumes of Gita, Mahatma Gandhi’s Bhagvad Gita According to Gandhi, Pandit Sundarlal’s The Gita and the Quran, Manmohan Lal Chhabra’s Mann ki Gita and works of Ajmal Khan and Hasanuddin Ahmed on the subject.”

Celebrating Lata Mangeshkar’s remarks that her God resides in the throat of Mehdi Hassan, a Pakistani ghazal singer, poet Nida Fazli said in a function held to commemorate the 71st birth anniversary of Jagjit Singh in Mumbai that “the voice of my Allah would echo in the throat of Jagjit Singh.”

Fazli, who passed away last year, wrote many poems which reflected his faith in the human values and in the true spirit of great tradition of Indian poetry denounced hate-mongers of all hues. Sample this couplet from one of his famous ghazals:

Ye Sheikh-o-Brahmin hume acche nahin lagte

Hum jitne hain ye itne bhi sacche nahin lagte.

We don’t like these Sheikhs and Brahmins

They are not even as truthful as we are

This article was updated at 1.15 pm on March 15 to replace Jigar Moradabadi with Maulana Hasrat Mohani