HYDERABAD: Muhammad Tahir-ul Qadri, the cleric who has been creating waves in Pakistan by challenging the government with his 'long march', has a love-hate relation with Hyderabadis with followers who swear by him as a 'reformer' and others who bitterly criticise him for allegedly siding with BJP's Narendra Modi, the Gujarat chief minister.
Qadri last year said Muslims in Gujarat should 'forget the past', but experts here say the cleric is no stranger to controversy. Analysts say that it wasn't just his 'brash' comments on Gujarat which invited the ire of Hyderabadi professionals and scholars but also a video which went viral on Youtube which seemingly showed him speaking to a freshly buried person instructing the deceased to read the kalimah (declaration of faith).
"How can people follow a man who is seen speaking to a corpse six feet under? Hundreds of thousands in Pakistan have rallied behind him which is puzzling," Zaheer Saleem (name changed) a BPO employee said. Noted Islamic scholar Maulana Omar Abidin too echoed similar views.
Significantly, Jamia Nizamia, perhaps the most important seminary from the city extended no invitation to Qadri. According to Mufti Ziauddin Naqshbandi, "We neither welcomed him nor unwelcomed him. He has his own organisation which propagates his ideas."
Wajeeh Ahmed, a software professional working in Hitec City, criticised Qadri for his belief in the existence of Indian companion of Prophet Muhammad by the name Baba Ratan Hindi who lived for 700 years. "On one hand Qadri says he is modern, on the other he speaks regressive beliefs such as this. Qadri loves courting controversies to make himself popular," he said.
But Qadri's popularity in the city has surged after his visits to Hyderabad in 2004 and 2012. Though his first visit was in 1997, last year, Qadri delivered lectures in the city from February 29 to March 4 at various venues, which made him very popular.
Observers pegged his popularity to the hundreds of videos of his lectures on a gamut of topics from etiquette in Islam to science on Youtube and Facebook. Minhaj-ul-Quran (MUQ), the cleric's organisation headquartered in Purani HaveliHaveli in the Old City, is engaged in education, charity and other community welfare activities. MUQ officials pointed out the cleric's family too had a strong Hyderabadi connection.
Syed Habeeb Ahmed Qadri, member of the board of directors of MUQ said "Qadri's father, Dr Fareeduddin Qadri, studied in the Government Nizamia Tibbi College in Charminar for two years before he moved to Lucknow." MUQ runs an English medium high school with 800 students studying there. It also manages five seminaries, three for girls and two for boys, which has over 600 students.
According to MUQ state chairman Syed Hayatullah Qadri, the organisation is slowly expanding its base to other districts of the state.
Nizamuddin Siddiqui, a law student, said: "His modern approach and book Fatwa Against Terrorism and Suicide Bombing has made me gravitate towards him. He is a brilliant orator and is fluent in English."
Qadri draws mixed reactions from Hyderabad
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Qadri draws mixed reactions from Hyderabad
