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Cow dung can render hydrogen and atom bombs “ineffective.” This implausible claim has been made in a booklet released by the Muslim Rashtriya Manch, an RSS offshoot, to persuade Indian Muslims to give up beef.

Radioactivity does not affect a place painted with cow dung or affects it only marginally, claims the booklet, ‘Cow and Islam.’

Such “scientific” claims apart, the book pushes for abstinence from beef on religious, historical and social grounds.

It claims to compile evidence from the reigns of Mughal kings, the works of prominent Muslim poets, the Koran and Hadis and foreign travellers’ accounts to say Muslims have shunned beef. Significantly, the booklet says this is the best guarantee for harmony among faiths.

The question of meat-eating has repeatedly come up in the recent months.

Many articles in the booklet say that except a few, most Muslim kings had willingly banned cow slaughter and punished violations. However, in saying this, the booklet paints a picture of an accommodative “Muslim rule” in medieval India, thus inadvertently breaking with the Hindutva narratives of state oppression.

Even the Prophet said — says senior RSS functionary and Manch mentor Indresh Kumar in the book — that Muslims should avoid consuming diseases in the form of beef. “Common Muslims will enjoy good health. Children and the aged will be saved from diseases. Strength of mind, intellect and character will increase,” says Mr. Kumar.

The booklet says Babur asked his son Humayun not to allow cow slaughter in deference to Hindus’ feelings. It then says Babur is said to have “taken over” his son’s disease before his death, and claims that some Gau Mahima (cow glory) behind this incident may have impelled him to instruct Humayun to act against cow slaughter. It adds that Akbar continued the good practice and enjoyed ghee and curd. Even the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar banned cow slaughter, it adds.

One article says Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti of Ajmer brought back to life a poor woman’s dead cow.

The writers, however, blame the British for having conducted cow slaughter with impunity and say multinational companies do the same now. Strongly disagreeing with arguments that cattle were slaughtered in ancient India, the booklet says that even if it was so, the fact that Hindus revere the cow today is a sign of their “intellectual development.”