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By / Telegraph India
Aligarh Muslim University has dropped books by two Islamic scholars from its syllabus after learning that certain “Right-wing ideologues” had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a ban on the duo’s books on Indian campuses, a senior academic said.
Muhammad Ismail, chair of the department of Islamic Studies at AMU, told The Telegraph the university had on its own decided to drop the books by Abul A’la al-Maududi of Pakistan and Sayyid Qutb of Egypt, because “we don’t want any controversy”.
Ismail would not reveal who the “Right-wing ideologues” were and how he had come to know about their letter, but said their allegation that these two scholars’ writings promoted “terrorism and fanaticism” was incorrect and that these books contained “nothing objectionable”.
“Both authors have described Islam in the light of democracy and advocated it in its purest form, but some countries under monarchies had banned them in the past,” he said.
“A democratic and a non-democratic country can’t treat a book in the same spirit. However, I would like to emphasise that we don’t want any controversy.”
Maududi (1903-79) was the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami, which had initially opposed the partition of India but later supported the idea of Pakistan as an Islamic state.
This story was originally published in telegraphindia.com . Read the full story here