Hakeem Faizy back at CIC helm as Samastha guns fall silent

The Coordination of Islamic Colleges (CIC), an umbrella body of 60-odd colleges offering Wafi and Wafiya courses by blending religious and Islamic education, has re-elected its controversial founder Abdul Hameem Faizy Adrisseri as secretary and Syed Sadikali Shihab Thangal as president. Ali Faizy Thootha is the new treasurer.

The re-election of Hakeem Faizy as secretary marks the reassertion of the CIC’s stand towards the Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama, the biggest body of Islamic clerics in the State that had severed its ties with the CIC over Faizy’s leadership. The Samastha had slapped on the CIC allegations of ideological deviation, a charge the CIC rejected last year.

For about a year, the CIC lay low following the Samastha action against it. About a dozen colleges broke away from the CIC following the Samastha diktat. But the CIC general body meeting held on August 26 this year on Wafa Campus at Pang near Kottakkal unanimously re-elected Sadikali Thangal and Hakeem Faizy to its leadership.

However, the general body had decided to keep the election in abeyance for one month. “We suspended the election until September 26 in order to have a dialogue with the Samastha and to give it a chance for rapprochement; but no dialogue happened,” said a CIC official, pointing out that the new committee came into being on September 26.

CIC officials said that they would now go ahead with the updated Wafi and Wafiya programmes, and would hold a ‘no-love no-hatred’ relation with all bodies. “The CIC is primarily an education body,” said the official.

Several members of the Panakkad Shihab Thangal family, including Sadikali Shihab, Syed Abbasali Shihab, Syed Munawwarali Shihab, and Syed Rasheedali Shihab, are in the CIC governing body. When Rasheedali is the vice president, Munawwarali is academic council director.

The presence of Panakkad Thangals in the leadership of the CIC had caused much angst for the Samastha, which was dead against Hakeem Faizy. “Our founder, Hakeem Faizy, has been the Samastha’s target. But he could not be removed in accordance with the Samastha’s fancy,” said a former Wafy student.

Following an ultimatum by the Samastha last year, Hakeem Faizy had quit his position as CIC secretary. But the Samastha continued its battery against the CIC and made a public call to boycott its institutions and programmes. But the CIC, led by the Panakkad Syed Shihab family, challenged the Samastha by going ahead with its academic programmes with an updated curriculum.

Now that the Samastha guns are silent, the CIC said it would intensify its educational programmes with the objective of uplifting the traditional Muslim community.

Published - September 28, 2024 08:35 pm IST