Headlines:
- Govt clears Law to recognize Qawmi Madrasa Degrees as equivalent to Masters’ Degrees
- Dhaka ranked as the Second Least Livable City in the World
Govt clears Law to recognize Qawmi Madrasa Degrees as equivalent to Masters’ Degrees
On August 13, 2018, Bangladeshi cabinet approved a draft law framed to recognize the certificate of top Qawmi degree Dawra-e-Hadith under Qawmi Madrasah Education Boards as equivalent to certificate of master’s in Islamic studies and Arabic.
It is obvious that the decision to recognize certificates of Dawra-e-Hadith as equivalent to Masters’ Degree in Islamic Studies and Arabic is a black-hearted tactic by Awami League (AL) government to bring Hefazat-e-Islam under its fold ahead of the next national polls. Government realized that their brutal crackdown against Hefazat protestors at Shapla Sqaure on 5th May, 2013 made them extremely unpopular and detached from the mass. So, soon after the massacre government came up with many wicked idea to appease and woo Hefazat, which has huge vote bank across the country. Thus, it accepted the demand of Qawmi madrasa authorities to recognize Dawra-e-Hadith certificate first to help madrasa students get jobs. Hefazat activists should realize that this decision was entirely a political one devoid of any academic significance whatsoever that might help their people in the job market. When under this secular system Qawmi madrasah-based education itself is not recognized, how come this recognition of certificates can secure jobs for qawmi students!
Secular politicians under democracy always demand that religion has to be separated from politics. But it is an undeniable fact that crooked secular politicians have always used religion and prevailing Islamic emotion of the Ummah to get into power. That is why every time we see that both AL and BNP start their election campaign by visiting the shrines of Hazrat Shahjalal and Hazrat Shah Poran in Sylhet. We even saw leftist leaders like Workers Party President and Minister Menon, and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JaSaD) President and Information Minister Inu went on Hajj in 2014 to tap into people’s Islamic sentiment. Recognizing Dawra-e-hadith as a mainstream education is also tied with this same Machiavellian politics of the seculars to achieve their political goals, that is, to eradicate the concept of ‘normative political Islam’ from Bangladesh by having Islamic parties integrated with secular democracy. But our Ulema in Hefazat must not fall into the trap of the government and understand that this secular regime will never allow Islamic education to flourish within this kufr system; they are simply using Hefazat to secure votes in upcoming elections. Our Ulema rather should stand for the vital issue of Khilafah (Caliphate) and create a public opinion for this work to build a comprehensive understanding of Islam as a complete ideology where Khilafah will be the solutions to all our life’s problems. In this time when the Hasina government continuously bombarding the Muslims with their Kufr culture, effectively executing ‘separation of the Deen from the Dunya’ in its mainstream education, and calling for modernisation of Islam by using their agents, Hefazat should not limit itself into issues like recognition of Qawmi certificates only, rather should respond by refuting the Kufr concepts such as Democracy, Freedom, Secularism, and Nationalism which have become the new gods today instead of Laat, Manaat and Uzza.
Muhammad ﷺ also said, إِنَّهَا «سَتَكُونُ بَعْدِي أُمَرَاءُ يَكْذِبُونَ وَيَظْلِمُونَ، فَمَنْ دَخَلَ عَلَيْهِمْ، فَصَدَّقَهُمْ بِكِذْبِهِمْ، وَأَعَانَهُمْ عَلَى ظُلْمِهِمْ، فَلَيْسَ مِنِّي وَلَسْتُ مِنْهُ، وَلَيْسَ بِوَارِدٍ عَلَيَّ الْحَوْضَ» “There will be unjust rulers who cause hardship to their people. Whoever went along with their lies and helped them with their injustice, he is not from me nor am I from him, and he will not drink from the Al-Hawd (pond)” (Ahmad, An-Nisa’ii, At-Tirmithi).
Dhaka ranked as the Second Least Livable City in the World
Bangladesh capital Dhaka has been ranked second least livable city in the world according to the Economist Intelligence Unit annual global survey. The worldwide league table ranks 140 cities on a range of factors including political and social stability, crime, infrastructures, education and access to healthcare. Dhaka scores an overall of 38 out of a possible score of 100.
Though anyone living in Dhaka knows about the terrible situation of this city won’t be surprised by the survey report, the news was shocking for many because it came in the midst of buzz about development by the government – ‘Bangladesh has risen to middle income country’, ‘Bangladesh is the role model of development’, Bangladesh is emerging tiger in Asia’ ‘Bangladesh on the Super-Highway of Development’, ‘Vision 2021’, ‘millennium development goal’ etc. In reality – we still find ourselves in the same old mess. Dhaka ranked second least livable city in 2015 and we couldn’t improve the situation at all. This mismatch between rhetoric and action reflects a simple fact that current secular democratic regime is deceiving us and it has miserably failed to improve our quality of living. Apparently, we see many development projects and programs are haphazardly undertaken by the govt. But these are least productive in improving the situation and in some cases counterproductive, for example, the government built some flyover spending millions of Taka to ease the traffic jam which are, in reality, least effective; these arbitrary flyovers are now obstacle for much-hyped Bus Rapid Transit route from Airport to Keranigonj (“A flyover becomes a thorn for BRT”, August 14, 2018, The Daily Star). It would be wrong to look at the issue as merely a mismanagement and lack of administrative competency. Deep thinking would reveal that the issue is intrinsically connected with the ruling system of the country. Under the current democratic system ruling leaders are not accountable in the true sense neither to people nor to Allah (swt). They only worried about getting elected somehow. Development is therefore nothing more than showing off to attain cheap popularity. They don’t have the long-term vision and comprehensive planning because they are only concerned with next election for 5 years’ term. Their politics is election-centric and in order to win the election, democratic political parties need money and muscle power. Moreover, Most of the development projects are undertaken with the view either to support party thugs through so called ‘tender business’ or to facilitate party donors to make illegal money through corruption.
For long term vision, comprehensive planning and sustainable development we must replace this corrupt and unstable democratic system with a just and stable Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) system. Only the Khilafah can bring about real development in our country because there will be no unnecessary 5 years-term election pressure as long as the Khalifah (Caliph) implements Islam and also because the Khalifah is accountable to Ummah and Allah (swt).