The Memes And The Maulana. Does Owais Qadri’s ‘Belief System’ Make Him The Meme Material In Kashmir?
Whatever his school of thought is, he is a Muslim after all and mocking a simple believer is a sin, not to talk of a man who has devoted all his life to Islam and its teachings.
Shoaib Gani
It is probably for the first time in the history of Kashmir, that a revered religious cleric with a huge following is mocked and ridiculed by making memes out of his religious speeches.
Maulana Owais Qadri, a resident of Budgam district of Jammu and Kashmir is known for his fiery speeches in which he keeps on praising and boasting about the super powers of Sufi saints who were either born in Kashmir or have migrated to this place for the purpose of spreading Islam.
His speeches about the miracles of Sufi saints doesn’t go well down the Muslim community belonging to other sects who believe that only Allah possesses the power to perform miracles and anyone in human form who doesn’t have even the capability to stop his urine cannot be the saviour or the protector of mankind.
Owais Qadri’s short clips always find their place on meme pages and with hundreds of such memes circulating across the social media platforms, questions are now being raised over the credentials of such memers who without an ioata of remorse keep on mocking this Maulana, which definitely may have repercussions in future times as our younger generations may stop respecting all the religious clerics irrespective of their sect and belief.
Be it Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, Owais Qadri’s clips are used for communicating humorous material with people loving it the way they love the memes of Fayaz Scorpio and Babbar Sher, hence reducing him to a level which he never deserved.
Whatever his school of thought is, he is a Muslim after all and mocking a simple believer is a sin, not to talk of a man who has devoted all his life to Islam and its teachings.
“ZAEN SHAH- Badshah “[Zain-ud-in Wali is the King] is the slogan, Owais Qadri starts and ends his speeches with. He, in his entire lecture keeps on narrating mystical stories and dramatizes the miracles performed by the Sufis, with a very recent one, in which he mentioned about a Sufi who ‘stopped bullets by using only his hands’ somewhere in Srinagar and according to Owais, the Sufi later used his divine power to throw those bullets back. This lecture turned out to be a meme fest for the memers who used various movie clips showing the actors stopping bullets by their hands with Owais Qadri’s voice reverberating in the background.
Another, clipping from one of his lectures turned out to be a battle ground for memer’s, when Owais requested his followers to find a Tiger for him, as he was feeling alone and needed a Tiger to talk to. He even offered money in lakhs and a reward to the one who finds a Tiger for him.
Not only Memer’s but the scholars and clerics belonging to other sects too have started devoting their lectures on Owaisi, warning the younger generation against the teachings of Owais, as according to them, whatever Owais Qadri says and believes in, is against the commandments of Islam.
Though Owaisi has never clearly declared, what sect out of four mandatory sects of Islam he belongs to, but his lectures and emotions depict that he belongs to the Barelvi Movement – also known as Ahl al-Sunnah wa’l-Jamaah (People of the Prophet’s Way and the Community.
A Sunni revivalist movement following the Hanafi and Shafi’i schools of jurisprudence, with strong Sufi influences and with over hundreds of millions of followers in South Asia and also in parts of Europe, America and Africa.
It is a broad Sufi-oriented movement that encompasses a variety of Sufi orders, including the Chistis, Qadiris, Soharwardis and Naqshbandis. They consider themselves to be the continuation of Sunni Islam before the rise of Salafism and Deobandi Movement.
Whatever the case may be, Owais falls in the category of Muslim Scholars, respected and admired by his followers or the followers of the sect he belongs to. No one is authorised to mock him or hurt him or demean him, simply because the person who mocks him does not subscribe to what Owais believes in.
The Message:
Insulting a believer in any manner is Haram whether it is in jest or by way of abuse or criticism, or in relation with his defects; or by scolding or reprimanding him or considering him lowly and debasing him, denouncing him, taunting him or hurting his feelings in any way.
