If the best vehicle for educating a Muslim population about Aids is one that carries authority, enjoys mass reach and possesses the power to convince, who better than the person who leads prayers at a mosque? Particularly in a predominantly Muslim region such as the Kashmir Valley?
That, at least, is the thinking behind the latest campaign to stop Aids spreading in this part of India. Imams are being enlisted because every Friday they preach to a captive audience of receptive Muslim males. Before prayers they deliver the khutba, or sermon, during which, in addition to religious topics, they may choose to educate their congregations on education, civic sense, hygiene or health.
“When a polio vaccination programme is going on, for example, imams often use the khutba to remind people to get their children vaccinated,” says Kamal Faruqi of the Muslim Personal Law Board in New Delhi. “The turnout is higher than it would be otherwise. If this platform is used for spreading Aids information, it could be really effective.”
Aids campaigners in Kashmir are hoping that imams preaching the need for sexual restraint and the use of condoms will be more effective than leafleting or radio and television campaigns have been so far in Kashmir’s deeply conservative society.
Although the Kashmir Valley has one of the lowest rates of Aids in India, the latest figures from the National Aids Control Organisation show the number of HIV-positive cases has increased by 66% in the past four years. A United Nations Aids report puts India’s HIV population at 4,1-million, the largest in the world after South Africa. Experts believe that the epidemic could shatter the country. But so far the government has been in denial, with some officials claiming that the UN figures are “part of a Western conspiracy to trap India into dependence on multinationals for anti-Aids drugs”.
What frightens Aids campaigners is the widespread ignorance, a fact that emerged during the first “orientation” workshop held last month in Srinagar for 25 imams chosen to lead the project. “The aim of the workshop was to raise their level of knowledge about the virus, ethical issues and the impact it is having on human lives,” says Ashok Parmar, the project director at the Jammu and Kashmir Aids Control Society. “Many of them were shocked at the tragedies unfolding every day here. The whole thing was a kind of wake-up call for them.”
The plan to enlist imams has been inspired by a hugely successful experiment in Africa. It involved motivating and training imams in Uganda, Senegal and Ghana, who then went to their mosques and told people how to avoid getting Aids; in Uganda it was called the “Jihad against Aids”. The model, hailed by the UN, is now inspiring other countries with large Muslim populations to devise a specifically Islamic approach to Aids prevention that combines health information with Qur’anic teachings proscribing adultery and premarital sex.
The first training workshop for Kashmiri imams will be held next month. “There is really so much in the Qur’an that imams could use to buttress the whole Aids message,” says Sayeeda Hameed of the Muslim Women’s Forum. “The only drawback is that it leaves out women, who are not allowed to pray in mosques, but they can be reached in other ways. And if men become aware, that’s half the problem solved anyway.”
But by far the most contentious issue, both in Africa and in Kashmir, is the use of condoms. Imams fear that recommending them could promote sex outside marriage. It took Aids project leaders in Africa a year to convince imams that the condom was only being promoted after the failure of the first two lines of protection — abstaining from sex and having sex only within marriage.
Then campaigners tried another tactic, pointing out that knowledge of condoms did not imply that they would be used irresponsibly. After all, they argued, Muslims know all about alcohol, but it doesn’t mean they run around guzzling the stuff. This seemed to do the trick. After much theological angst, Islamic leaders consented to let imams promote condom use. In Kashmir, meanwhile, Parmar and his colleagues will have to wait to see what stand the imams take.
Dr Mohammed Shaukat, who works with the National Aids Control Organisation, foresees no major problem although he acknowledges that Islamic thought on condoms varies considerably. “It will look very odd if someone who has been thundering against the use of condoms, even for family planning, suddenly says that the Aids threat makes using them all right, so the imams will have to take the masses with them gradually.”