On a day when a Ranchi court ordered a Hindu girl to distribute 5 Qurans as a condition for her bail who was arrested for a Facebook comment, the activities of an organisation engaged in conversion to Islam in courts and other government organisations in Karnataka have come to light.

The state of Karnataka is home to Salaam Centre, an Islamic organization that engages in ‘Dawah’ or the Islamic practice of converting non-Muslims to Muslim. As per its website, it “is engaged in presenting the Quran, among non-Muslim brothers and sisters. It has introduced the teachings of Islam, the Quran and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to thousands of people.”

The website states further, “Its campaign ‘Quran for All’ was hugely successful in conveying the Quranic message to professionals such as doctors, police officials, teachers, advocates, judges, academicians, intellectuals, I.T. professionals and students.”

Its founder, Syed Hamid Mohsin, has even engaged in Dawah at the Karnataka High Court and has distributed copies of the Quran to the judges and advocates of the Court. He says on the website, “Soon after the successful programme of introduction and distribution of The Quran in the conference hall of the Karnataka High Court I thought, why not personally present The Quran to the Judges and advocates by visiting their offices. When I discussed this with a few Muslim advocates, they opined, it is perhaps not an easy task to visit the Judges’ chambers to present them with the copies of The Quran. I said; let us give it a try. This is the Word of God, and Allah will surely help us in this work.”

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Mohsin further states that meeting with the Judges continued for 12 days. He writes further, “The honourable Judges welcomed us warmly, on seeing the Quran in our hands they stood up respectfully. We presented to them The Quran, a book on The Life of Prophet Muhammad (s), Basic Islamic literature, and DVD of The Quran. They offered us seating next to them. They opened our gift box with utmost care and respect, and immediately started reading The Quran. Then they would start a discussion on The Quran, Prophet Muhammad (s), Islam, and Muslims.”

The Quran was also given to the libraries of the Court which didn’t have it until then according to Mohsin. It was also distributed to numerous advocates and other officers who work at the Court.

An advocate was quoted by Mohsin as saying, “I had received The Quran from you five days back and have read it. I did not find anything against Hindus in it. Whereas we were told that The Quran only contains poison against Hindus. We were also told that The Quran exhorts for Jihad against Hindus. But nothing of such sort is there in The Quran. After reading it my misunderstandings have been eliminated. Now I will study The Quran seriously and would try to dispel the misunderstanding in others.”

Mohsin has also studiously documented on his website numerous things about the Quran which non-Muslim judges of the Karnataka High Court have apparently told him. One of them supposedly said, “Yes, I would like to study The Quran to know what Message Allah has given foe all humanity. If the Quran contains Message for all human beigns then why have you kept this away from the humanity till now?”

Another apparently told him, “I have been observing from the past ten years that there has been gigantic level of atrocities on Islam and Muslims. Now as a remedial measure for these atrocities, you have to popularize The Quran for the next ten years. This has to be done on a bigger scale continuously. Otherwise things may turn worse for Muslims.”

It appears rather intriguing that the Karnataka High Court allowed itself to be turned into a ground for Islamic proselytizing given the fact that the Indian Judiciary continuously harps on and on about the secular nature of our Constitution.

Mohsin claims to have engaged in Dawah even at the Karnataka Legislative Council and can be seen presenting a Quran to the former Chief Minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah in a photo that was posted on its website.

The Salaam Centre claims to have engaged in Dawah at Police departments as well. In one post, it says, “The Salaam Centre has added one more feather to its cap by taking the message of the Holy Quran to the personnel of the Karnataka State Police. The initiative is likely to have very positive outcome. Insha Allah!” Not merely Police departments, the organization had distributed the Quran at the Head Quarters of Karnataka State Internal Security Intelligence as well.

The website says Mohsin is “a man with a mission, a mission to educate Muslims and millions of people so that the walls of ignorance are demolished.” It says further, “Mr. Mohsin conducted historic programmes for Introduction and distribution of Quran among the legal fraternity in the High Court of Karnataka, various district courts in the State, Police Headquarters and CID Head Quarters, State Intelligence Headquarters and various Government offices. The Institute of Management-Bangalore and the Cochin University are among the various educational institutions where such programmes were also held.”

While Mohsin’s actions are not illegal under the current statutes, it is indeed a matter of concern that arms of the supposedly secular state machinery are being targeted for proselytizing. Furthermore, an unstable demography is a recipe for chaos. Under such circumstances, Hindus are being targeted for conversion not only by Christians but by Muslims as well.

As a pagan faith that does not have an institutional concept of conversions, Hinduism is at a distinct disadvantage in this aspect. Therefore, for the explicit purpose of preserving the secular ethos of the country and to prevent demography for destabilizing further, a national law against proselytizing ought to be considered.