Fighting the right battle the wrong way

Submitted by Prashant (United States), May 3, 2022 at 13:08

Dear Dr Pipes, I will begin with the good news and then report the bad one. The good news is that India's nationalistic governments (in the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and UP, in particular) are attacking Islamism head on. In the last few months over 60,000 loudspeakers have been removed from the Mosques in these states. And, noise pollution due to Islamic prayers 24x7x365 has become a matter of national discussion in India currently.

I am not against Islam or Muslims. I only oppose Islamic and Muslim impudence and stupidities. So, this trend opposing loudspeakers on Mosques is good in my opinion. But, for each good battle there are tens of bad ways to fight it. This is what is happening in India. That brings me to the bad news.

The answer to Islamic stupidity is not Hindu/Christian/Jewish/Buddhist/whatever stupidity. The answer to Islamic stupidity and impudence is grace of any kind.

Some Hindus of India are telling people to match the loud-speaker adhans with Hindu prayers on loudspeakers. That, if done, will cause a lot of morning cacophony. The opposite of Islamic prayers is not Hindu prayers. There is no need to desecrate Hindu prayers to fight this battle. Perhaps, when a mosque does loudspeaker adhans, good people may show their opposition by playing loud music of some kind. That will still be a kind of cacophony but won't desecrate anything.

As loud-speaker adhan's reach as deep as Germany, we need to do something. Some intelligent tit-for-tat is not a bad idea.

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