Al Haqeeqa
By Hasan Akram
New Delhi: Maulana Arshad Madani-led Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind (JUH) has made a tall claim that it has distributed scholarships of worth one crore rupees among 656 students from its ‘Taleemi Imdadi Fund’. It further claimed that for the first time it also given scholarship to a “large number” of non-Muslim students too.
However, after due scrutiny, the JUH’s claim seems to be partly true. Muslim Mirror made repeated attempts to independently verify the figure of recipients. It sought scholarships details from the JUH office bearers. But they failed to provide any data to this correspondent.
Muslim Mirror also contacted JUH press secretary Maulana Fazlur Rahman Qasmi and asked him to share the list of the recipient of the scholarship particularly non-Muslims. We wanted to pick some random names and have words with them to confirm whether they received a scholarship or not. Despites umpteen requests, Fazlur Rahman Qasmi did not oblige.
In a conversation with this correspondent on Saturday, he promised that he would share the list on Monday but he did not.
Jamiat Ulama (Arshad) gives 656 scholarships worth rupees one crore for higher and professional studies. Recipients include 19 non-Muslims. Scheme started in 2012. pic.twitter.com/WsHhBfCYSy
— Zafarul-Islam Khan (@khan_zafarul) March 18, 2021
This shows that the JUH does not want to allow an independent examination of their claims. One may draw the inference that there is no transparency in the scheme and something is fishy with their claim.
Jamiat’s press release was carried by some media outlets. Hence, several prominent scholars and social media influencers were misled into believing JUH’s unverified claims.
The JUH’s claims were also circulated on social media. Former Delhi Minorities Commission chief wrote a tweet alleging that JUH has given scholarships worth one crore rupees. His tweet was retweeted by 360 social media users.
In a nutshell, JUH claimed to have distributed scholarships worth one crore rupees, but it did not provide any solid evidence to support its claim. Moreover the organization is also not willing to share details about beneficiaries.
“Family controlled Muslim organizations lack transparency. They collect huge money from the community across the country in the name of welfare activities but shy to tell where the money was spent”, said a senior Urdu journalist who covers JUH from more than two decades.
