'Vande mataram' not un-Islamic, say two Muslim groups

It is not un-Islamic to sing "Vande mataram", two prominent Muslim groups in Madhya Pradesh said Thursday, two days after the clerics' body Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind approved an earlier fatwa against the national song.

Claiming to have translated the song into Urdu, the All India Muslim Tehwar Committee (AIMTC) and the National Secularism Front of India (NSFI) say it is simply a prayer to keep the nation safe.

"It is not against Islam or un-Islamic. This is the reason why several Muslim freedom fighters chose to lay down their lives singing 'Vande mataram'," claimed AIMTC chairman Osaf Shahmeeri Khurram.

Khurram said "Vande mataram" is not a prayer to a mother goddess. "It is a prayer to the almighty to keep the nation safe and thus there should be no problem in singing or reciting it," he told IANS.

"Even Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind chief Mehmood Madani's grandfather Maulana Hussain Ahmed Madani and his father Asad Madani who was also a Congress MP had sung 'Vande mataram' on various occasions," he claimed.

"Had 'Vande mataram' been un-Islamic then Maulana Hussain Ahmed Madani, Maulana Hasrat Mohani, Maulana Obeidullah Sindhi or martyr Ashfaqullah would not have laid down their lives singing 'Vande mataram'."

Khurram, who claims that his organisation has 350,000 members in the country and has branches in 610 districts, asserted that the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind and Darul-ul-Uloom in Deoband - which had issued the original fatwa - were ignorant of the facts.

NSFI president Irshad Ali Khan Afridi also said "Vande mataram" was not un-islamic. "The controversies arise only because people who issue such diktats have failed to understand it. They are, it seems, not aware of the facts," Afridi said.

"Why did no cleric oppose music director A.R. Rahman when he sang the song which not only became quite popular but also took him to new heights of his career?" he asked.

Last updated on Nov 5^th, 2009 at 14:25 pm IST--IANS