While our leaders and the Supreme Court keep chanting, ‘All religions are one’; while they keep recalling the Vedic pronouncement, ‘Truth is one, only the sages call it by different names’; while they keep recalling Ashoka’s rock edict, ‘One who reveres one’s own religion and disparages that of another, due to devotion to one’s own religion and to glorify it over all others, does injure one’s own religion certainly’, the ulema proclaim the very opposite set of values, the truly Islamic values to be fair to the ulema. Thus we have Maulana Ahmad Riza Khan descend as an avalanche on persons who countenance processions in which books like the Gita and Quran are carried with equal respect; he declares that for a Muslim to even say, ‘Hindus should live by the Vedas, Muslims should live by the Quran,’ is kufr; a temple is the abode of Satans, he says, a Muslim is forbidden from going into it; to describe the Holy Quran as being like the Veda is kufr; to say that Hindus should live by the Veda is to ask people to follow kufr, and to ask people to follow kufr is kufr...

‘It must be asserted firmly,’...‘no matter what the Ulema say, that he who sincerely affirms that he is a Muslim, is a Muslim; no one has the right to question his beliefs and no one has the right to excommunicate him. That dread weapon, the fatwa of takfir, is a ridiculous anachronism. It recoils on the author, without admonishing or reforming the errant soul. Belief is a matter of conscience, and this is the age which recognizes freedom of conscience in matters of faith. What may be said after proper analysis is that a certain person’s opinions are wrong, but not that “he is a Kafir.”‘

[The observance of certain Hindu customs by Muslim women filled Sirhindi with grief. He observed,] “There would hardly be any women who does not perform one or the other ceremony of Shirk (polytheism) ... Showing respect to the sacred days of Hindus and performing the ceremonies prevalent amongst them are nothing but kufr. For instance, during the Dewali of the kafirs, the ignorant ones amongst Muslims, particularly women, perform the ceremonies of kufr. They celebrate it like their own Jd and send presents to their daughters and sisters like the hafirs and Mushriks ... They attach much importance and weight to this season. All this is Shirk and kufr’.

In a word, fatwas are the shariah in action.

The fatwas reflect this belief in double standards. The differential attitude to conversion and apostasy illustrates this vividly. Islam regards it as a right and duty to convert persons from other religions. The ulema vehemently insist on it....Exactly the same position holds in regard to doing something or refraining from doing something out of regard for the other person’s religious sentiments.....An even more vivid instance is the stance in regard to the continuation of religious practices. It is the right and duty of a Muslim to carry on his religious rituals. ...Under no circumstances can the Islamic ruler give permission to kafirs to continue their religious rites, declares the Fatawa-i-Rizvia, and asks: shall he permit them to practise their kufr and thereby himself become a kafir?...It adds that there are several Hadis to the effect that no non-Muslim should remain in the Arab island...So, no non-Muslim shall be allowed to stay in the Arab island, but if a Bangladeshi who has entered India illegally is asked to leave, that is an assault on Islam!...Similarly, even today in no Islamic state can teachers in a school impart religious education of their faith to non-Muslim children...No restriction can be tolerated on teaching of the Quran and on religious instruction, declares Kifayatullah. ...And yet if we were to go by secularist discourse there is no religion which has abolished distinctions as Islam has, there is no religion which treats all equally as Islam does!

If by practicing on any form of piety, someone’s heart will be broken, then practice on the fatwa (verdict of the scholars). At such occasions, to protect one’ piety is not permissible e.g. If, in accepting any gift, there is disgrace for you and honour for your brother, then give preference to his honour over yours.

Kufr and Islam are opposed to each other. The progress of one is possible only at the expense of the other and co-existence between these two contradictory faiths is unthinkable.

‘Kafir’ is derived from the word ‘kufr’, which means to conceal or to reject. In Islamic terminology, ‘Kafir’ means one who conceals or rejects the truth of Islam and a person who rejects Islam is in English called a ‘non-Muslim’. If a ‘non-Muslim’ considers being called a ‘non-Muslim’ or ‘Kafir’, which are one and the same, an abuse, it is due to his misunderstanding about Islam. He or she needs to reach out to proper sources of understanding Islam and Islamic terminology, and not only will he not feel abused but appreciate Islam in the proper perspective.

So, who is offended? Who is humiliated by the fatwas being reproduced and analysed? It is the secularist. And the reason is manifest. He has no answer in the face of this evidence, in the face of the express and emphatic commands of the Quran and the Prophet, in the face of the repeated and absolutely explicit declarations contained in the fatwas. He has no evidence with which to counter these. But when what they say is brought out on the table, he cannot sustain his inverted ‘secularism’. As long as these things are confined to Urdu they do not inconvenience him in his circle. But the moment they are out in English he is pinned. And so he feigns offence! What is the answer? To go on setting out the facts. To go on analysing them. In the faith that abuse shall not bury evidence. In the faith that ideas are seeds, that they shall take root.

The honour of Islam lies in insulting kufr and kafirs. One who respects kafirs, dishonours the Muslims. To respect them does not merely mean honouring them and assigning them a seat of honour in any assembly, but it also implies keeping company with them or showing considerations to them. They should be kept at an arm's length like dogs.... If some worldly business cannot be performed without them, in that case only a minimum of contact should be established with them but without taking them into confidence. The highest Islamic sentiment asserts that it is better to forego that worldly business and that no relationship should be established with the kafirs.

It is not the occasion but the ulema’s assessment of women per se which is of interest, for it pervades the fatwas through and through. ‘For the Quran says,’ declare the ulema of Deoband settling a matter to which we shall soon turn, ‘the husband is the master.’ .... And among these kafirs there are gradations, Maulana Ahmad Riza Khan declares: one hard kind of basic kufr is Christianity; worse than it is Magianism; worse than that is idolatry; worse than that is Wahabiyat; and worse than all these and more wicked is Deobandiyat...

I never called for the death of Salman Rushdie; nor backed the Fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini — and still don’t. The book itself destroyed the harmony between peoples and created an unnecessary international crisis. When asked about my opinion regarding blasphemy, I could not tell a lie and confirmed that — like both the Torah and the Gospel — the Qur’an considers it, without repentance, as a capital offense. The Bible is full of similar harsh laws if you’re looking for them. However, the application of such Biblical and Qur’anic injunctions is not to be outside of due process of law, in a place or land where such law is accepted and applied by the society as a whole.

The worst of sins are Infidelity (Kufr ) and Polytheism (shirk ) which constitute rebellion against Allah, The Creator. To eradicate these, Muslims are required to wage war until there exists none of it in the world, and the only religion is that of Allah.

Jihad basically means to strive, it means to struggle and very often the critics of Islam, even the Hindu critics even Arun Shourie he writes in his book, ‘The World of Fatawa’ and he quotes Surah Tawbah verse no. 9 verse no. 5 and it says that the Qur’an mentions “Wherever you find a Kaafir, into brackets ‘Hindus’, whereever you find a Kaafir, you kill them.” And if you open the Qur’an and if you read in this Qur’an ch. no. 9 verse no. 5, it does say that wherever you find a Kaafir, you kill him but it’s a quotation out of context.