With religious intolerance and hatred causing violence in Bangladesh and around the world, the government has come up with yet another initiative to uphold religious harmony and peace by spreading the true essence of Islam and its spiritual practices.
New model mosque-cum Islamic cultural centres currently being set up at district and upazila level would, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina says, show Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance while countering misinterpretations of Islam and incitements to violence.
“The model mosques and centers of excellence will create a friendly environment among Islamic scholars, imams, teachers, and guardians” at the local level, said Mizanur Rahman, a former member of parliament who is involved in the project in Khulna. “These people will be watchdogs against radicalism and terrorism.”
The government plans to build 560 such mosques and centres of excellence at the district and upazila level. Planners envision local hubs where residents can conduct research and gain religious education; where both men and women have places to pray; and where public awareness is raised against social ills like child marriage, dowry, violence against women, and drug abuse.
Bangladesh has suffered more than its share of senseless bloodshed thanks to the cynical twisting of religion.
In the most recent example, an April 9 attack carried out by self-proclaimed Hefazat-e-Islam activists at a mosque in Gaibandha’s Sundarganj left 12 men injured.
Over the years, Bangladesh has endured wanton attacks at mosques, shrines, and churches.
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There was even a suicide bombing inside a mosque of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Baghmara of Rajshahi in 2015, possibly carried out by Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh or Islamic State militants, or by members of the Wahhabi-inspired Ahl al-Hadith Andolon Bangladesh, which runs a neighbouring mosque.
Perversely, ethnic and religious minorities have been targeted in many districts, including Rangpur, Sylhet, Chittagong, and Cox’s Bazar with a local mosque’s public address system serving as the attackers’ chief organizing tool.
A November 11, 2017, assault on the Hindu community in Rangpur’s Gangachara upazila was carried out after days of incitement over rented loudspeakers and from the muezzin’s microphone at local mosques. The attackers burned thirty Hindu families out of their homes and looted what they could carry.
All this violence is the outcome of religious ignorance, the misinterpretation of Islam, and hatred toward our fellow man. It is a global phenomenon, one that Bangladesh is working to reverse.
Against this backdrop, the government has taken several initiatives, among them updating the curriculum and training of imams. A national campaign has been launched to build awareness among people and to stop violence.
The Islamic Foundation regularly organizes discussions across the country to create awareness on social issues like, dowry, child marriage, drug abuse, militancy etc. It also organizes workshops for imams on these issues, so that they can bring up the issue within their community.
The model mosque program is the latest move to this end.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has inaugurated 50 model mosques in as many upazilas, showing her strong support for the initiative.
But reaching the prime minister’s target of 560 local Islamic centres won’t be easy. Success or failure lies in the details: Of planning, personnel, and oversight.
The mosques will be operated by the government through the Islamic Foundation, which plans to recruit 7,000 people, including imams and muezzins. These staff will receive government salaries.
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A committee led by a deputy commissioner at each district model mosque or an upazila nirbahi officer at each upazila model mosque will provide supervision.
Md. Shafiqur Rahman Talukder, deputy project director of the model mosque program said, “Officials including imams and muezzins of the mosques will have a work plan to arrange different activities like seminars against terrorism or drugs, [and] training programs to sensitize imams about radicalism and extremism.”
“Islamic scholars, imams, muezzins will have many opportunities to practice and bring out the real spirit of Islam,” he told Dhaka Tribune.
Borhan Uddin Md Abu Ahsan, director of the Islamic Foundation’s Chittagong Division said “the model mosque will be a leading Islamic center of an area. The mosques would nurture all the prayer houses at those areas so that none can abuse” their authority, or promote “anti-development activities.”
Hopes are high, but tempered by experience.
Mufti Mohammad Mohiuddin, general secretary for Dhaka City at the Bangladesh Jatiya Imam Samity, said the ambitious project won’t succeed if the government fails to recruit competent and sincere imams and muezzins.
“We have frequently observed,” he said, “that the government recruited ineligible employees in the past for such sensitive tasks.”
