Watching Hanuman Ansh was deeply moving, especially the film’s songs. The Hanuman Chalisa’s strength and beauty as a kavach made me think about what other faiths turned to as a protective shield. I remembered what a Muslim professor from Jamia Millia Islamia told me back in 2008. I’d shared with him that several lines from across the Quran seemed to ‘speak’ to me, among them Ayat 18 from Surah 2 ‘Al Baqarah’. The words are “Summun bukmun umyun fahum layarjiun”, whose meaning in Quranic Arabic is, “Deaf, dumb and blind, they will not return (to the path)”. It referred, I found, to the munafiqin, or ‘hypocrites’ who outwardly pretended to align with the Prophet but in fact were opposed to him.
I further read that “In Islamic exegesis or tafsir, meaning ‘interpretation’, this describes ‘the spiritual state of hypocrites or those who refused to accept the new faith after it was explained to them, thus rendering them unable to perceive or benefit from it.’” Summun (deaf), meaning that they were unwilling to hear and accept the Prophet’s credo. Bukmun (dumb or mute), meaning they were unwilling to speak the tenets required by that credo. Umyun (blind), meaning they were unable or unwilling to fall in line with the new religion the Prophet propounded. Fahum layarjiun (so they will not return), meaning that they wouldn’t come back on the Prophet’s track.
The professor was surprised. “Verses from this surah are said before sleep. They are said like the Hanuman Chalisa is, as a kavach,” he disclosed spontaneously. “As in Bhooth-pisaach nikat nahi aave Mahavir jab naam sunave?” I asked, intrigued. “Yes,” the professor said, and it stayed with me.
Al Baqarah is the longest surah of the Quran, with 286 verses. Verse 255, Ayat al Kursi, or the Throne Verse, hangs in many Muslim homes above doorways as a blessing. In the opening ayats of Al Baqarah, the Quran categorises three groups: the believers (Al-Muttaqun, verses 2-5), the disbelievers (Al-Kafirun, verses 6-7) and the hypocrites (Al-Munafiqun, verses 8-20). The large focus on the hypocrites, 13 verses compared to just two for open disbelievers, was held to emphasise the danger of insider hostility to the new community.
The etymology of the word munafiqin was interesting to discover. The Arabic root word for hypocrisy, nifaq, refers to a desert mouse's burrow that has two openings; if an enemy enters one side, the mouse escapes through the other. The term's political background reflected the power shift in the new religion. In the initial Meccan phase, Islamic history says that opponents had no reason to hide their animosity and openly persecuted and boycotted Muslims.
The political landscape changed dramatically after the Prophet’s Hijrah, or migration to Yathrib (Medina) in 622 CE, and he established a powerful city-State there. This geographic move transformed Islam from a shunned religious minority into the ruling political authority. Thus, in the Medinan phase, opponents found it socially, financially and politically unfavourable to oppose Islam openly.
Before the Prophet arrived, the two warring tribes of Medina—the Aws and Khazraj—had agreed to end their civil wars by crowning Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul as the absolute king of Medina. The coronation materials were being prepared. However, when these Medinan clans accepted Islam and collectively became Al-Ansar, meaning ‘helpers’ of the Muhajir or Meccan Muslim migrants, Ibn Ubayy's political ambitions turned to dust.
Fueled by resentment over his lost kingship, but knowing he could not fight the overwhelming Muslim majority, Ibn Ubayy and his close inner circle chose to wear a mask of loyalty. They became ‘the hypocrites’, who falsely swore oaths to the new Medinan constitution, Sahifat-al-Madina, to protect their status, while actively plotting to sabotage the Muslim community from within.
Further reading offered fascinating parallels to incidents and strategies seen in modern times. I read that “the internal sabotage tactics used by the Munafiqun in Medina were highly sophisticated examples of fifth-column warfare” (a term coined in 1936 in the Spanish Civil War). “Because they could not defeat the Muslim community from the outside, they attempted to fracture it from the inside through psychological, economic and institutional manipulation.”
For instance, they took the Prophet’s permission to build a mosque for the needy. But it was really their ideological think-tank and intelligence outpost, to which they recruited opponents of the Muslims. They used it as a tool to demoralise and split the ranks of the Muslims, luring people away from the nearby Masjid Quba in South Medina. It became a safe space to mock and preach doubt and rebellion against the majority faith. The building also served as an espionage hub and a safe house for foreign agents plotting invasion. Further, the opposition let down the Muslims in critical battles like Uhud in 625 CE and ‘the Trench’ in 627 CE.
Most acutely, this opposition mosque was foreign-funded, being secretly backed by Abu Amir al-Rahib, a powerful Christian monk who fled to Syria and allied with the Roman (Byzantine) Empire to overthrow the Prophet.
But two things happened. The opposition underestimated the strength and unity of the majority’s faith. And, discovering that this opposition haven was an active threat to State security, the Prophet sent some of his companions to demolish and burn it. There is reportedly no trace of it left in Medina.
This layered, interesting history brought home the context of this strong ayat for me, and left me thinking long after.
Renuka Narayanan | FAITHLINE | Senior journalist
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)
