Hyderabad: The Id Milap function in the city saw Hyderabadis remember the times when festivals were unanimously celebrated and tags of Hindu, Muslim or Christian were not used to denote them.
The milap function was jointly organized on Friday by Chief Minister’s adviser A.K. Khan, scholar Moulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani, Mr G. Sudhir, Mr Amir Ullah Khan, Mr S.A. Huda, Mr Arshad Ayub, Ms Aparna Reddy, Mr M. Azam Khan, and Mr Syed Amjad to promote amity between the people of different groups.
Moualna Rahmani said Prophet Mohammed in his farewell sermon on the occasion of Haj gave a powerful message which was a reminder to his followers, but also an important admonition. Prophet Mohammed had clarified that all mankind was from Adam and Eve.
An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab; a White has no superiority over a Black, nor does a Black have any superiority over a White. No-one has superiority over another, except by piety and good action.
He said even in the present era, people were being discriminated based on their caste in India. Ethnic racism has not ended in Europe and America, while Islam eliminated the discrimination of people based on their race and caste.
He said, “To strengthen mutual coexistence, we have to respect others even though we do not accept their ideology. Tolerance signifies the concept to bear others without admitting and following their views and faith.”
Ms Laxmi Devi Raj said, “In our childhood we had celebrated festivals without discrimination that Eid belonged to the Muslims and Dasehra belonged to the Hindus. Our parents introduced their friends as our uncle and aunties and we had to respect them as our elders. In that era, even in weddings many customs were common. In many Hindu families, wedding cards were printed in Urdu also.”
She said today Urdu had become a language of Muslims. “Who is Munshi Premchand, is he a Muslim?,” she said, referring to his writing in Urdu.
Ms Raj implored parents to teach their children their mother tongue. “Our mother tongues have their own culture which is missing in the new generation. This culture of differentiating people on their religion, which has set in is not in the right direction and causes more separation rather than bonding.”
Eminent scholar Amir Ullah Khan said the aim of this project was to connect and engage Muslims with other Indian communities so that all continued contributing towards nation building together.
“Id Milap is an initiative under this project and a sequel to the previous gifting of a Sunnah initiative, where we had distributed 6,000 packs of sweet to celebrate Id. The Reconnect Project is a Muslim community initiative and is not associated with any particular sect, NGO, political party or religious group,” he said.
