Mohammed Farooq, a resident of Mughalpura in Baghpat, UP, had gone to visit a friend in Delhi on Thursday. Enroute, due to the intense summer heat he got his beard shaved off at a hair salon. But later than night when he returned home to Baghpat, fearing a backlash from his family & community about the missing beard, he cooked up a story about some people assaulting him on the train and shaving off his beard. He had also torn off his clothes for added effect.
His family bought the story and the news spread like wildfire in the area. Farooq’s brother tweeted a complaint to UP Police and tagged the UP CM Yogi Adityanath, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and media (Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Ravish Kumar, Aaj Tak, NDTV).
Police swung into action and SP Pratap Gopendra Yadav questioned Farooq to investigate the issue. Unable to provide any facts or narrate a coherent sequence of events, Farooq soon broke down and admitted that no one had assaulted him and that he had himself got his beard shaved off. He begged forgiveness at the police station for creating a fake story.
Why lie over a beard?
Muslim men keep long beards as an adherence to the Sunnah (path, way of life) of Islam’s prophet Muhammad. Islamic ulema (religious scholars) say that a Muslim can live a truly righteous and Islamic life only if he/she follows in Muhammad’s footsteps in each and every sphere of life.
There are hadith (collection of sayings & practises of Muhammad as reported by his close companions, which constitute the major source of guidance for Muslims apart from the Koran) such as hadith of Ibn ‘Umar as per which Muhammad said: “Be different from the mushrikeen (sinners/idolators): let your beards grow and trim your moustaches.” Other hadith too convey the same meaning, which is to leave the beard as it is and let it grow long, and to trim the moustache.
Hence, shaving the beard is haram (forbidden) for truly observant Muslim men as several hadith forbid resembling the kafir (non-believer like Hindu).
And this incident is no one-off. Several such cases have come to light in recent times where Muslims accused they were targeted because of their faith, but the truth later proved otherwise. One new twist to the victimhood template is claiming the alleged attackers forced the Muslim victim to chant ‘Jai Sri Ram’, but again the truth is that it is the Hindus chanting ‘Jai Sri Ram’ who usually end up being the victims of radical Muslim/’secular’ mobs like here & here.
Muslim societies all over the world, and particularly those living in non-Islamic countries like Bharat, suffer from a persecution complex. Their religious clergy, leaders, intelligentsia – all combine to bombard the Muslim mind 24×7 with a message that non-Muslims are their eternal enemies and are always conspiring against the pure, God-fearing Muslim qaum (community/nation). The Islamic clergy also sanctions deception directed at non-Muslims, known by the Arabic term of taqiyya.
Left-liberal intellectuals & mainstream media in Bharat exacerbates the issue. Driven by an intense hatred of all things Hindu this influential class of elites is ever ready to reinforce the myriad grievances nursed by Muslim society, just to browbeat & shame Hindus.
Hence it is no surprise that the narrative within & without Bharat right now is one of growing ‘Hindu majoritarianism/fascism’ whereas the ground reality is entirely different. It is the Hindu who is being cleansed out of mixed-population areas of Western UP, Delhi NCR, West Bengal, Kerala; who is still diffident when it comes to demanding equal rights in core areas like education, managing religious institutions etc.
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