Zakir Naik - Criticism

Criticism

In The Wall Street Journal, Sadanand Dhume criticized Naik for recommending the death penalty for homosexuals and for apostasy from the faith. He also criticized him for calling for India to be ruled by Shariah law. He added that, according to Naik, Jews "control America" and are the "strongest in enmity to Muslims." He maintained that Naik supports a ban on the construction of non-Muslim places of worship in Muslim lands as well as the Taliban's bombing of the Bamiyan Buddhas. Dhume argues that people reportedly drawn to Naik's message include Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan-American arrested for planning suicide attacks on the New York subway; Rahil Sheikh, accused of involvement in a series of train bombings in Bombay in 2006; and Kafeel Ahmed, the Bangalore man fatally injured in a failed suicide attack on Glasgow airport in 2007. He concluded that unless Indians find the ability to criticize such a radical Islamic preacher as robustly as they would a Hindu equivalent, the idea of Indian secularism would remain deeply flawed.

The Times of India published a profile of Naik entitled "The controversial preacher" after he was banned from the United Kingdom. According to The Times, "the fact is that barring the band of Muslims whose bruised egos Naik suitably massages through his Islam supremacist talks, most rational Muslims and non-Muslims find his brand of Islam a travesty of the faith". The Times also claimed that "the Wahabi-Salafist brand of Islam, bankrolled by petro-rich Saudi Arabia and propagated by preachers like Naik, does not appreciate the idea of pluralism."

The article quotes Muslim scholar Wahiduddin Khan: "Dawah, which Naik also claims to be engaged in, is to make people aware of the creation plan of God, not to peddle some provocative, dubious ideas as Naik does". He adds: "The wave of Islamophobia in the aftermath of 9/11 and the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan have only added to the Muslims’ sense of injury. In such a situation, when a debater like Zakir Naik, in eloquent English, takes on preachers of other faiths and defeats them during debates, the Muslims’ chests puff with pride. A community nursing a huge sense of betrayal and injustice naturally lionises anyone who gives it a sense of pride. Never mind if it’s false pride".

Indian journalist Khushwant Singh says he "disagree with almost everything has to say about misconceptions about Islam". Singh argues that Naik's pronouncements are "juvenile", and said "they seldom rise above the level of undergraduate college debates, where contestants vie with each other to score brownie points". Singh also says Naik's audiences "listen to him with rapt attention and often explode in enthusiastic applause when he rubbishes other religious texts".

Yoginder Sikand wrote in 2011 that influential sections of the Deobandi community in India were beginning to hold a negative view of Naik. They said he was not abiding by ijma (Islamic consensus) and qiyas (analogical deduction of the Quran and Hadith), and therefore, in Sikand's view, was undermining their authority.

Torkel Brekke, a professor of religious history in Norway, calls Naik a "very controversial figure" because of his rhetorical attack on other religions and other varieties of Islam. He writes that Naik is "strongly disliked" by many members of the Indian ulema for ignoring their authority and stating that anybody can interpret the Quran. Conservative Deobandi mullahs have accused Naik of "destroying Islam" by driving Muslims away from the correct religious authorities.

While being lauded by some of his Muslim contemporaries for his dawah work and for the fact he has brought people to Islam, he has been criticised for his opposition to taqlid; that is, the following of one of the four accepted madhabs, or schools, of Islam. Taqlid is one of the established principles of Islam, so fundamental in fact that some have accused those who reject it of "deviancy", a much weightier claim than the word might otherwise indicate. However, Naik's claims have been repeatedly challenged.

Khaled Ahmed criticised Naik for "indirectly support" Al-Qaeda by referring to Osama bin Laden as a "soldier of Islam". In 2008 an Islamic scholar in Lucknow, shahar qazi Mufti Abul Irfan Mian Firangi Mahali, issued a fatwa against Naik, saying that he supported Osama bin Laden, and that his teachings were un-Islamic.

Praveen Swami considers Naik to be a part of the ideological infrastructure created to feed "Tempered Jihad", which he defines as Jihad calibrated to advance Islamist political objectives. Swami argued that some of Naik’s teachings are similar to those of organizations advocating violence, although Naik himself emphatically rejects terrorism. According to Swami, Naik's IRF has proved to be a "magnet" for figures linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, while his message has mesmerised violent Islamists, and his works "help make sense of the motivations of Indian recruits to the jihad."