“We’ll show them someday soon, the evidence of truth we are all over the world and to themselves, until light to them, that the Qur’aan is the truth. It not enough that thy Lord is witness over all things. “(Surah Fushshilat: 53).
Dear Prime Minister of Turkey,
I prayed to a Hindu God today in a Mosque – the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.
I prayed for the children of Syria, your neighbour, being murdered and slaughtered and exterminated and eradicated by your Muslim brother Assad. Prove me seditious for praying to another God on behalf of the children of your faith, because their God has deserted them.
I prayed, that your God, who my faith teaches me is my God too, listens to me in your Mosque, because He does not listen to His own children in their mosques – because surely as they are being murdered their parents pray for salvation – and none comes.
I prayed to Shiv, the destroyer, in your Mosque, that He may become death and the destroyer of worlds…the world’s of Assad.
(Forgive my impertinence, I confess, my God also fails to listen to the cries of His children in His mandirs.)
I prayed my God gives you courage to act against Syria. I landed just as Syria shot down an American-supplied Turkish fighter jet using Russian-supplied anti-aircraft guns; Boris and Jack meet again. I prayed that your blood boils with anger and the wrath of the Lord flow through your veins and you strike down with a mighty vengeance those who harm your children. And should you need friends to stand by you, you can invoke Chapter V of the Nato Treaty, which makes an attack on one Nato member on Nato soil, an attack on all Nato members. Tonight I prayed you realise that Assad has declared war on not just his weak and innocent children, but on the United States of America, the strongest military power in history and that that divine providence gives you strength to act.
What relevance that I am Indian? More Muslims reside in these two secular countries, India and Turkey, than any other secular State – so it is that India and Turkey have a responsibility to the world’s Muslims to show them secular liberal democracies will be their defender. It is a duty and opportunity both countries have yet to grasp. China has more Muslims than Syria, yet China fails to protect Syrian Muslim children. Russia has more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined – yet Russia too fails to protect Syrian Muslim children. So it is surely left to India and Turkey.
Prove me seditious for praying to another God on behalf of the children of your faith, because their God has deserted them. Prove me your bloodline from Turk to Ottomon.
So show us non-believers, ‘the evidence of truth, that you are all over the world and that it is not enough thy Lord is witness over all thing’s – but that you will save the children of a greater God.
When Pope Benedict visited this same Mosque he said, ‘May all believers identify themselves with the one God and bear witness to true brotherhood.’ Tonight I bore witness as a believer in God, make me a believer in Islamic brotherhood.
Prime Minister – you are your brother’s keeper. A Catholic has told you – a Pope no less, a Hindu commoner has told you – both from inside your own Mosque – when will the Muslim brotherhood tell you?
Alpesh Patel
Political Animal 