Are the DNA of Hindus and Muslims the same?

DNA While reading the novel "Doosri Jannat" written by Allahabad-born 'Nasira Sharma', I was suddenly reminded of 'Allama Iqbal', who, consumed by distress and despair in his 'Jawab-e-Shikwa', says to his fellow coreligionists— 

"Wazah mein tum ho Nasara toh tamaddun mein Hanood/ Yeh Musalmaan hain jinhein dekh ke sharmayein Yahood."

'Tamaddun' refers to tehzeeb... culture, by which the Indian Muslim, despite converting their mazhab, remains bound through DNA to this day.

In Nasira's story, it is the wedding of Dr. Zafar Abbas's son, and sketching the pre-wedding preparations, the author writes—

"Along with the suhaag geet (wedding songs), fifty-one pairs going in the bride's bari were being stitched and embellished from above. In accordance with their family's old custom, the place where Shahab and Ruksana were to sit was decorated with mango leaves, and that entire part was plastered with cow dung."

Reading this description, does it seem to you from any angle that sending shagun saris in the auspicious number of 51, decorating with mango leaves, and plastering the seating area of the bride and groom with cow dung depicts a scene inside the house of a 'Zafar Iqbal'? Are these things part of 'Arab tradition', or are they Hindu samskaras that Dr. Zafar Iqbal's family has been unable to abandon despite the change of mazhab?

Witnessing this Hindu scene at Dr. Zafar Iqbal's home, 'Sabiha' is astonished and asks what it is. In response, Shahla Begum tells her— "Actually, our family has been agrarian. Our connection with the land and animals was old. Now there is nothing like that left, but customs do not change every day, do they? Now times have changed, yet somehow our continuity persists. People often get perturbed, but if we do not perform these rituals, doubt creeps into our hearts."

DNA Shahla Begum's answer is in fact the result of that ongoing conflict which perpetually rages in her mind between "Arab culture and Hindu samskaras". She fails to comprehend how much of her Hindu samskaras to abandon and how much to bind herself to Arab culture. Plastering the seating place of the prospective bride and groom with the cow dung of that very cow amid fatwas like "beef is halal", the dilemma of stepping out of the ahadith regarding the "mumin" status of the hard and dry date palm tree to decorate the home-courtyard with mango-leaves considered sacred in Hindu dharma, and choosing the auspicious number of 51 leaving behind the number 72 is the truth of the converts of the Indian subcontinent—a truth that Shahla Begum cannot refute merely by saying that "affection for cow dung has persisted only because our family was actually agrarian and our connection with land and animals was old." 

Today or tomorrow, and tomorrow or the day after, Shahla will have to accept this truth that "change of mazhab has not altered our roots, and we have been unable to abandon our Hindu samskaras to this day." DNA

DNA If all this were so easy, 'Rahi Masoom Raza' would not have written— .....but in every vein of mine flows the water of the Ganga.... It is not so easy.... the call of blood takes you far back into the past and pulls you from there. There has been a Pakistani poet, 'Abdul Aziz' Sahib. When he went to write a 'naat' in praise of the Prophet, see what he ended up writing:

// Hai haq-e-siruh shanti Om Tatsat, ajab dilkusha baansuri ki sada hai //

(Haq-e-siruh — divine declaration of truth) Lord Krishna is still not left behind by him.

DNA Just like him, there was a Mustafa Zaidi. His heart and mind grappled all his life with the conflict between mazhab and dharma. When the Partition of India took place, his Hindu mind prevailed, so he did not go to Pakistan. He stayed right here, but then one day religious fanaticism struck hard, and the land of kafirs, India, did not appeal to him because everything here felt Hindu to him; hence, ten years after Partition, he migrated to Pakistan. Zaidi was a highly educated and capable intellectual, and on top of that, he had come after kicking 'kafir India' away, so the Pakistani rulers of the time received him with open arms. Zaidi Sahib was a veteran poet; though migration brought religious fulfillment, a cultural emptiness began to gnaw at him. He felt that something was being left behind. First, he remembered his city Allahabad, so he adopted the pen name 'Tegh Allahabadi', thinking that perhaps the void was somewhat filled, but still much remained unfilled; then, when he sat down to compose poetry, see what the Hindu samskaras dissolved in his DNA despite this cultural emptiness and his conversion made him compose. Zaidi writes—

// Lambi lambi palkein jinmein talwaron ki kaat/ Neeli-neeli aankhein jaise Jamuna ji ka ghaat//

For Zaidi Sahib, who came after kicking 'kafir India' away and resented every thing in it for being Hindu, the Yamuna was now no longer just the Yamuna, but Jamuna Ji.

Recognize the truth of your past... living a double life and living in conflict is very painful. Come out of this conflict and duality... the world will look very beautiful, because our DNA is one after all.

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