Source: huffingtonpost.com
Indian Muslims perform Yoga in Ahmadabad, India, Monday, Dec. 21, 2009. More than fifty Muslim men and women are taking part in a yoga camp conducted by Naresh Patel, a retired Police officer in Ahmadabad. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki) | ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW DELHI — With ten days left for International Yoga Day, the Modi government urged Muslims to participate in the celebrations, and suggested that they can take Allah’s name instead of chanting ‘Om’ or reciting shlokas.
Shripad Naik, the minister who is organizing the mega yoga event at the Rajpath on June 21, met with Muslim organizations on Thursday, PTI reported. Naik said:
Shlokas are not compulsory. Shlokas are merely prayers but it is not compulsory. They can even take the name of Allah instead of chanting shlokas. I request the Muslims to participate and unite the country.”
“If people do not want to chant ‘Om’, they can say ‘Allah’,” he told IANS.
On Dec. 11, 2014, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution declaring June 21 as International Yoga Day, an initiative which was spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who spoke enthusiastically about India’s tradition of exercise and meditation when he visited New York in September, last year.
Both Naik and the Muslims organizations, which he met with on Thursday, said that yoga had nothing to do with religion, PTI reported. “If people aren’t fit there won’t be any development. The protests are misleading. Muslims would be co-partners not just participants,” he said.
Maulana Syed Kaukab Mujtaba Abidi, president of Majlis Ulema -e-Hind in Uttar Pradesh, echoed his sentiments:
There’s yoga in namaaz but namaaz isn’t yoga. Those who oppose it are enemies of humanity because yoga is for the well being of humans.
Abbas Ai Bohra, representative of Daudi Bohra Community, said that out of the total of 177 countries which have given co-sponsorship for U.N. resolution celebrating International Day of Yoga, 47 were from Organisation of Islamic Countries, IANS reported.
Meanwhile, preparations are in full swing to host over 30,000 yoga enthusiasts at the Rajpath on June 21, but External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Tuesday that Modi won’t be attending the mega-event.
Swaraj described yoga as India’s “soft power.” “Through that soft power, our goal is the world attains peace also bring down violence in the world,” she said.