The hysteria over Waqf reforms reflects a deeper, chronic aversion to change. It’s time for the Muslim leadership to stop playing the victim and start leading with vision.
The enduring image from the stormy Lok Sabha debate on Waqf reforms wasn’t the bill’s passage or the government’s rationale. It was the theatrical moment when AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi tore a copy of the bill in protest. With booming rhetoric and dramatic flair, he declared it an “attack on Muslims,” warning that “mosques, dargahs, and madrasas are on target.” The performance was not just cringe-inducing it was emblematic of a troubling pattern within large sections of Muslim leadership: a reflexive, almost knee-jerk tendency to resist change by crying persecution.
Owaisi is no intellectual lightweight. A seasoned parliamentarian, a skilled orator, and one of the most visible Muslim politicians in the country, he had the opportunity to rise above theatrics and guide his community into a constructive debate on reform. Instead, he chose to play the perennial victim card, reinforcing the tired narrative of “Islam in danger.” It is not just disappointing it’s damaging.
But he is hardly alone. From the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) to former lawmakers and religious bodies, the chorus has been loud, familiar, and tragically predictable. The same voices that vowed to fight until the end on issues like the Babri Masjid, triple talaq, and the Citizenship Amendment Act are now declaring war on the Waqf reform bill. These are not mere disagreements on policy they are being framed as existential threats, attacks on Islam itself.
AIMPLB’s track record, in particular, deserves scrutiny. For an organization claiming to safeguard Muslim identity and interests, it has presided over a series of humiliating defeats, from the Shah Bano case to triple talaq. Now, it threatens a nationwide agitation against what it calls a “black law.” One of its members, Mohammad Adeeb, even described the day of the bill’s passage as “the worst day for Muslims.” Really? Worse than the riots, lynchings, or the trauma of partition? Such hyperbole only weakens legitimate concerns by cloaking them in melodrama.
The Urdu press has followed suit, with editorials warning of a supposed apocalypse. According to Roznama, the bill threatens the “soul” of the Muslim community. Mosques, madrasas, and orphanages are, it claims, under siege. Such language serves only to inflame, not inform. It deliberately confuses the issue at hand a matter of governance and transparency in Waqf properties with a spiritual assault on the faith. Meanwhile, Inquilab, once a bastion of progressive Muslim thought, has remained conspicuously silent. Whether due to internal editorial caution or external pressure, this silence speaks volumes.
What’s actually on the table? A set of reforms intended to clean up and regulate the management of Waqf property’s charitable endowments meant for the welfare of the community. Waqf, derived from an Arabic word meaning “to tie up,” is a form of philanthropy, not a divine institution. It is not sacrosanct in theology. Even Prophet Muhammad’s charitable actions, while inspiring, were not meant to freeze institutional practices in time.
Legal scholar Faizan Mustafa has rightly noted that the Quran urges charity and public good in over 20 verses. Yet nowhere is the term “Waqf” mentioned explicitly. This should make it clear: reforms in Waqf law do not amount to tampering with religious tenets. They are, at best, overdue mechanisms to tackle inefficiency, misuse, and opacity in the administration of Waqf assets, which comprise vast tracts of land and property across India.
The Muslim community, like all others, should welcome a cleanup of corrupt and inefficient systems especially when they impact public welfare institutions like orphanages, educational bodies, and hospitals. Instead, we witness yet again a collective instinct to retreat behind walls of grievance, suspicion, and imagined persecution.
This resistance is not new. It’s part of a larger, global pattern within many Muslim societies a neurotic defensiveness against reform, often wrapped in the garb of preserving religious identity. Be it education, women’s rights, or institutional transparency, the instinct is often to resist first and reason later. A misplaced sense of theological sanctity gets attached to cultural and administrative practices that, frankly, have no divine endorsement.
The hijab, for instance so often paraded as a religious obligation is more a cultural tradition than a religious necessity, yet any conversation around it quickly escalates into a full-blown controversy. This rigidity, this fear of reform, has boxed Muslim societies into an intellectual ghetto, making genuine progress difficult.
Of course, the blame doesn’t lie solely with Muslim leaders. The government particularly one led by the BJP has a credibility problem with the community. Statements like UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s branding of the Waqf Board as a “land mafia board” don’t help. Even if corruption exists within Waqf bodies, such inflammatory language only deepens distrust and alienates moderate voices. It gives demagogues like Owaisi the perfect backdrop to posture as defenders of a besieged faith.
In this charged environment, the ruling party must adopt a tone of inclusivity, not triumphalism. Governance is not a war. It is, or should be, a patient exercise in bridge-building. If BJP leaders genuinely want Waqf reforms to be seen as administrative not ideological they must consult widely, communicate openly, and avoid dog-whistling.
At the same time, the Muslim intelligentsia must rise above self-pity and lead the community with courage and foresight. The goal should be integration, not isolation. Progress, not paranoia.
What’s needed is a new kind of Muslim leadership one that doesn’t see every reform as a threat, every policy as a plot, and every law as a line in the sand. Leaders who are not stuck in a time warp, but who understand that safeguarding religious identity does not mean opposing all change. Leaders who can distinguish between what is essential to faith and what is merely an accident of history.
India’s Muslims deserve better than the charade that unfolded in Parliament last week. They deserve real leadership. And that begins with rejecting fear, embracing reform, and having the courage to ask: not what is being done to us, but what we can do for ourselves.
