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Police denied Hindu accusations that Muslims were using romance as a means of jihad to lure Hindus into their faith. (Google) |
CAIRO – The Indian police have denied Hindu accusations that Muslims were using romance as a means of jihad to lure Hindus into their faith.
"Many Muslim organisations vehemently deny the existence of 'Love Jihad',” the police said in a report cited by the Daily News & Analysis Saturday, November 14.
“They say that if an adult Hindu girl decides to marry an adult Muslim boy, there is no provision under law to stop it.
“There is nothing new in inter-religious marriages," said the report.
A Hindu father has accused a Muslim youth of forcing his daughter into Islam on the promise of marriage.
The affair has made headlines in the Hindu-majority country, with the press coining it as “Love jihad”.
The girl, Siljaraj, has denied that she was forced by her husband to change faith.
“There is no 'love jihad',” Siljaraj told reporters as she left the Karnataka High Court Friday.
“I had gone with my boyfriend on my own.”
Indian Muslims accuse the media and authorities of boosting stereotypes about their religion.
Muslims also complain of a long history of neglect.
Official figures show Muslims, whom make up around 13 percent of India's 1.1 billion population, are lagging behind in literacy.
Muslims also complain of being discriminated against in jobs.
They account for less than seven percent of public service employees, only five percent of railways workers, around four percent of banking employees and there are only 29,000 Muslims in India's 1.3 million-strong military.
Misconceptions
Muslim leaders urged the media to avoid fuelling misconceptions about the minority.
T. Arifali, the Kerala Amir of Jamat e-Islami, said the media should avoid spreading wrong information about Indian Muslims.
He stressed that jihad is a struggle against vice and has nothing to do with romance.
“Now attempts are on to demean the word Jihad by tying it together with love (romance) which Islam has not encouraged,” he said.
“This deliberate attempt should be understood.”
Jihad is one of the most misunderstood, and abused aspects of Islam.
Muslim scholars concur that the word means "struggle" to do good and to remove injustice, oppression and evil from society.
This struggle should be spiritual as well as social, economic and political.
Karen Armstrong, a prominent and prolific British writer on all three monotheistic religions, has criticized the West's abuse of the word for certain purposes.
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