(Mohd Asim is Senior News Editor, NDTV 24x7)The Delhi High Court has set the record straight. It has declared the anointment ceremony to be held by Imam Bukhari on Saturday as illegal. Ahmed Bukhari, the self-appointed 'Shahi' Imam of the country's largest mosque - the Jama Masjid in Delhi - has declared his 19-year-old son Shaban Bukhari as his successor to the title of Shahi Imam, a delusional title in 21st-century democratic India.
The High Court has only stated the obvious. The post of an Imam (let's just junk "Shahi" as it is an archaic title that should have vanished with the kings) is not personal property that can be transferred to the next generation. In fact, all the Bukharis (at least since independence) who have been Shahi Imams on a hereditary basis held the title illegally, under both secular law and Islamic tradition. The High Court ruling only reinforces this. It sends a clear message to the country that Mr Ahmed Bukhari only parades a titular fraud as his hereditary right. It just calls Bukhari's bluff.
But what next? The court has asked the Delhi Waqf Board and the central government for explanations. The Delhi Waqf Board -which administers all religious Muslim property- has already told the court that it doesn't approve of the anointment ceremony. Any imam's appointment has to be ratified by the Waqf Board, its representatives have said.
Interestingly, the appointment of the present 'Shahi Imam' was ratified by the Delhi Waqf Board a good six years after he was declared Shahi Imam by his father. In 2000, the then 'Shahi Imam' Syed Abdullah Bukhari wrote to the Delhi Waqf Board, stating that he was resigning as 'Shahi Imam' and declaring his son Ahmed Bukhari (the present imam) as his janasheen (inheritor). This in itself was an outlandish, un-Islamic and illegal act.
The proof of the Bukharis' audacity is cast in stone at the Jama Masjid right next to Gate No 1. Titled "Elaan e Janasheeni' (the declaration of inheritance), put up by the present imam, the plaque lists all the Bukharis since 1650s. Do the Bukharis think that the grand mosque is their family property?
The Delhi Waqf Board rejected the letter sent in 2000 from Abdullah Bukhari, stating the legal position that as the Superintendent of the Jama Masjid, it was the Waqf's right to appoint a new imam and it can't be transfered to the next Bukhari in line, just because the family wishes so. The Waqf Board ratified Ahmed Bukhari's position as the imam of the Jama Masjid only in 2006. Why it did not set a historical wrong right then, I don't know. But now it should.
The court order has provided the Waqf Board with another opportunity to free this national monument from the clutches of the Bukharis. And it can easily do so. After all, a Shahi Imam is not a statutory title, nor is it the preserve of any one family. Islam abhors dynasty. This should be end of the Bukhari dynasty at the jama Masjid. To begin with, the board must right away remove that 'Elaan e Janasheeni' plaque from jama masjid. It's a national monument, not a family heirloom.
As for the Imam Bukhari's anointment ceremony , the court has not stayed it. And rightly so. After all it a family family function with no larger religious or social meaning. But it will be perfectly in order for all the political invitees to this parochial exercise to boycott it. It doesn't deserve any kind of political or social legitimacy. To a great extent, it is political patronage (and all parties are equally guilty here) that has till now fed Mr Bukharis idea of self-importance. Bukhari is nothing but a creation of dirty votebank politics that saw Muslim voters as a herd and Bukhari as its shepherd. This must end.
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