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Habib Siddiqui

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Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb 26

Of all the Mus­lim rulers who ruled vast ter­ri­to­ries of India from 712 to 1857 CE, prob­a­bly no one has received as much con­dem­na­tion from West­ern and Hin­du writ­ers as Aurangzeb. He has been cas­ti­gat­ed as a reli­gious Mus­lim who was anti-Hin­du, who taxed them, who tried to con­vert them, who dis­crim­i­nat­ed against them in award­ing high admin­is­tra­tive posi­tions, and who inter­fered in their reli­gious mat­ters. This view has been heav­i­ly pro­mot­ed in the gov­ern­ment approved text­books in schools and col­leges across post-par­ti­tion India (i.e., after 1947). These are fab­ri­ca­tions against one of the best rulers of India who was pious, schol­ar­ly, saint­ly, unbi­ased, lib­er­al, mag­nan­i­mous, tol­er­ant, com­pe­tent, and far-sighted.

In the post‑9/​11 era the West­ern media are at the fore­front of a high­ly orches­trat­ed assault against Islam and its peo­ple. So, I am not too sur­prised with the Times Online piece try­ing to raise storm over some 13th cen­tu­ry text that are taught at a Shi’ite reli­gious school in Lon­don. The sub­ject in ques­tion is najasa or impu­ri­ty : what makes some­thing impure accord­ing to Muhaqqiq al-Hilli, a 13th cen­tu­ry Shi’ite schol­ar. The text says, The water left over in the con­tain­er after any type of ani­mal has drunk from it is con­sid­ered clean and pure apart from the left over of a dog, a pig, and a dis­be­liev­er.” So, the Times reporter Sean O’Connell draws the con­clu­sion that Mus­lim stu­dents are being taught to despise unbe­liev­ers as filth”, which becomes the news head­ing, sure to draw much pub­lic­i­ty in UK before the elec­tion in May.