The term Allah Hafiz or Khuda Hafiz are not used in Arabian peninsula. It is a pure Mughal- Indian creation. These are the most emotional parting words that were common since time immemorial in Urdu-Hindi speaking regions.
Most of the readers would recollect the famous song – ‘Guzra Hua Zamana aata naheen dubarah…Hafiz Khuda tumhara’. These were the most emotional parting words that were common since time immemorial in Urdu-Hindi speaking regions.
The first time Allah Hafiz was used in public was in 1985 by a famous TV host, a frequent sight on PTV during the Zia era.
The Wahabi schools took up the cudgels for this concept as Khuda is more a Persian word and could have some affinity to Iran which is a Shia dominated country. The invention of Allah Hafiz words has its roots in Pakistan as General Ziaul Haq, a Wahabi dictator, with the help of Gulf and American money started setting up mosque-schools in an attempt to pick the kids and softer brains to brain wash them with the heinous takfiri ideology which approves the killing of innocents in the name of Jihad.
The practice to fervently banish the words ‘Khuda Hafiz’ can be traced back to a mere six to seven years in the past. It was in 2002, when a series of banners started appearing across Sharea Faisal in Karachi, Pakistan. Each banner had two messages. The first one advised Pakistani Muslims to stop addressing God by the informal ‘Tu’ and instead address him as ‘Aap’ (the respectful way of saying ‘you’ in Urdu). The second message advised Pakistanis to replace the term Khuda Hafiz with Allah Hafiz.
The banners were produced and installed by Islamic organisations associated with a famous Wahabi mosque in Karachi.
In India, it is popularised by the Tableeghi Jamaat- Indian Muslim’s answer to RSS. This ubiqutious jamaat is the trend-settler of most of the new inwardly or outwardly changes that are easily visible in any aggressive Muslim today. These new Islamic evangelists are doing a lot of groundwork to culturally protect Muslims from a pluralistic and religiously tolerant milieu of India and leading them to their ‘correct’ version of Islam.
These Islamist culture-evangelists became more aggressive around 1990s. Drawing room and TV evangelists like Ahmed Deedat went about attempting to construct a ‘true’ Islamic society. However, I have never heard Deedat indulging in Shia-Sunni or Hindu-Muslim controversy. The new breed of Islamic evangelist as Dr Zakir Naik took up attacking all religions and one of their prescriptions was to replace the commonly used Khuda Hafiz with Allah Hafiz.
They believed that once they had convinced Muslims to follow the faith by adorning a long beard and hijab, the words Khuda Hafiz would not seem appropriate coming out from the mouths of such Islamic-looking folks. They believed that Khuda can mean any God, whereas the Muslims’ God was Allah. Some observers suggest that since many non-Muslims also use Khuda Hafiz so it is a cultural pollution.
Consequently, the sweet sound Khuda Hafiz is almost vanishing from our life!
