Muslim double-bind

January 31, 2002

All Muslim states are unstable either because they have enforced the shariah and are unhappy with it, like Pakistan, or have not enforced it and are unhappy that it has not been enforced

On 5 January 2002, the Concerned Citizens Forum held a seminar in Lahore’s Al-Hamra hall on the topic What kind of Pakistan do we want? The main speaker was ex-foreign secretary Mr Iqbal Akhund. One thought that the subject was not open for discussion, unless you take the title of the seminar to mean improvements in the running of the various state institutions. What kind of state do we want? can be answered by: ideological; and what kind of ideology? can be answered by Islamic; and what kind of Islamic state do we want? can be answered by: that which enforces the shariah.

I thought all these answers were in the Constitution and no one demanded anything else in Pakistan. Nor could anyone want it because there is a section in the Penal Code punishing anyone who speaks against the ideology of Pakistan with a long sentence behind the bars. That’s probably why at least one Urdu newspaper condemned what was said at the seminar.

Can you improve upon ideology? Yes, but not by watering it down, but by making it more hard–line and stringent. When Gorbachev wanted to make communism ‘loose’ (glasnost) and ‘reconstructed’ (perestroika), there was a coup against him. The communist state had to collapse and make way for Yeltsin’s capitalist order. Ideology brooks no revisionism.

In Pakistan too, every time it is felt that the ideology is not delivering there are prescriptions for further strengthening of the shariah. Therefore, it is no use recommending that we want a Pakistan where the ideology is either not there or is watered down.

Needless to say, anyone recommending that the ideological state be undone is committing heresy and could be punished under law. On the other hand, there are many institutions and personalities in Pakistan who answer the question What kind Pakistan do we want? by putting forth concrete steps to harden the ideology.

Hardening as answer to demands of reform:

The clergy is constantly demanding the enforcement of the shariah in answer to the question that the seminar asked. The Council for Islamic Ideology (CII) is busy on a daily basis to put forth its proposals for the conversion of the Pakistani state into a utopia of Islamic dreams.

Can we want a Pakistan different from the one we have? The answer is no.

The Ministry for Religious Affairs has already sent to the cabinet of General Musharraf a full–fledged programme for converting Pakistan into an ideal state. (The proposal has been shelved by a scared government). We have reached this stage in a gradual fashion, where these state institutions have become directly responsible for encouraging extremism even as President Musharraf takes steps to rein in the extremists.

In 1947, just before Pakistan came into being, the founder of the state, the Quaid–e–Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, made a formal statement which answered the question What kind of Pakistan do we want? He told his countrymen that he wanted a secular state. If earlier he had made ambivalent Islamic statements to woo the Muslim community, he now wanted to put them on notice that Pakistan would not be religious state.

(As the seminar of the Concerned Citizens opened, Pakistan’s well-known nationalist historian Safdar Mahmood had finished his four–part journalistic assault on those who thought that Jinnah was secular.)

In 1948, Pakistan signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after joining the United Nations. The Declaration contains articles ensuring freedom of religious worship. Therefore in 1949 when Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan and his cabinet decided to table the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly, they were self–conscious about not infringing the rights of the non-Muslims in Pakistan.

This was Pakistan’s second answer to the question What kind of Pakistan do we want? It said that Pakistan would be an Islamic state where sovereignty will belong to God Almighty (later changed to Allah) but that all non–Muslims would be allowed to practise their religion freely.

The Hindu members of the Constituent Assembly from East Pakistan (25 percent of the delegation) objected because they did not want the kind of Pakistan envisaged in the Objectives Resolution. They were told by Muslim clerics outside the Assembly that an Islamic state treated its non–Muslims as zimmis and did not give them equal rights.

Inside the Assembly, Liaquat Ali Khan swore that non–Muslims would be treated equally, and Zafrullah Khan (sic!) told them what an excellent and progressive thing the Objectives Resolution was while Nishtar explained to them in a threatening tone the real meaning of jihad. (It is unclear why he should have spoken of jihad when trying to answer the question What kind of Pakistan do we want?)

Objectives Resolution as answer: To make sure that the ‘objective’ is not forgotten, the Objectives Resolution was appended to the Constitution as its Preamble. But then on a couple of occasions the Supreme Court had to accept the argument that a Preamble was not the actual body of the Constitution.

It was therefore taken upon himself by General Zia to insert the Preamble into the Constitution through an amendment. But, conscious of the fact that shariah ordained zimmi-hood, he removed the word freely from the text where the non–Muslims were promised freedom of worship in consonance with the Universal Declaration. The sneaky thing he did was that he did not notify the deletion of the word, freely.

That brought in the unspoken zimmi concept, in line with the fulfilment of the condition implied in What kind of Pakistan do we want? This ideal was reached by General Zia when he added separate electorates to the Constitution through his 8th Amendment. No non–Muslims could vote together with Muslims and were to be treated like a zimmi although the Constitution still did not contain the word.

General Zia asked the question very directly and answered it in great detail. His answer is now the grundnorm of our consciousness. If you deviate an iota from his shibboleths the orthodoxy of Pakistan, both political and religious, will have you by the throat. Zia asked Maulana Zafar Ahmad Ansari to report on what kind of state Pakistan should be in the light of the Islamic practice. The Ansari Report said an Islamic state cannot have political parties and cannot have a parliament with an opposition sitting in it. Hence the 1985 ‘partyless’ elections.

Iran got there first under the Ayatollahs by having a parliament without an opposition and no political parties. Afghanistan was even ‘purer’, it had an amirul momineen on the Medinate model, which caused many visiting Pakistani ulema, including Dr Israr Ahmad, to exclaim that he had created an ambience in Kandahar ‘just like the Prophet PBUH’.

General Zia’s answer was therefore not complete. His Federal Shariat Court was based on the ‘inclusive’ principle, meaning that anything not repugnant to Islam would be considered Islamic. While the democrats in Pakistan thought the Federal Shariat Court was incorrectly legislating instead of parliament, the ulema thought it fell far short of recreating the utopia of Madina. Major–General Abbasi, who staged his unsuccessful Islamic coup in the army in 1995, was to declare himself an amirul momineen according to the text of the speech that was found in his office.

No revisionism under ideology: Zakat and ushr were the first to be enforced to make Pakistan the kind of state we liked. Zakat, since its inception, has been regularly embezzled. Because of the malpractice in its distribution, it has not been distributed for a number of years. Its collection was always a problem because the Shia community never accepted and was allowed exemption.

The welfare state envisaged in this collection was never realised. After the Sunni community began ducking zakat by declaring themselves Shia, the Supreme Court granted the Sunnis the same exemption as to the Shias. Now as our religion minister Dr. Ghazi wants to provide loans to the unemployed out of the Zakat collection, he is supposed to have violated the law which says it can only be given as alms, and a notice to this effect has been issued by the CII.

American researcher Grace Clark, in Pakistan 2000 (Lexington Books, 2000) discloses that a federal officer had absconded to London with a billion rupees of Zakat money! On the other hand, ushr, not mentioned in the Quran, has been levied without reinterpretation: 10 percent taxation on rain–fed farms while the irrigated ones pay only 5 percent! The state we want cannot revise out–dated provisions even if the laws are not Quranic! Needless to say, the collection of ushr in Pakistan has failed.

About reinterpretation, the state we want has a clear stand. General Zia rejected Allama Iqbal when he was told in 1986 by Justice Javid Iqbal that his father did not think that hudood could be imposed in modern times and had said so in his famous Sixth Lecture. Today, we have the cutting of hands in the statute book but have not cut any hands so far.

One argument is that in ancient times hands were cut for theft because there were no prisons in Arabia. As if to answer this rationalisation, the CII has recently declared that Islam disallows prisons and therefore all prisons in Pakistan (the one we really want) should be dismantled! Another law relating to diyat (blood money) is often abused and has not been enforced with regard to a murder where the killer has not been found and the locality where the body is found has to collectively pay the blood money.

Needless to say, in the state we want, no one can reinterpret ancient jurisprudence when it doesn’t work. Banking has to be abolished because the money–lender’s riba has been equated with interest, just as rape has been equated with fornication and the raped woman is in fact punished if she cannot produce eye-witnesses who saw her being raped.

Can we want a Pakistan different from the one we have? The answer is no. The difficulty lies in the inability of the Muslims to mould their original revealed message to modern times by applying logic and rationality to the ancient case law. There was a time when this was done but the era of taqleed (imitation) has been upon us since the medieval period. Under colonial rule, many Muslims thought of introducing reason in the science of understanding the Holy Writ, but today no one in the Islamic world tolerates any deviation from taqleed even when this taqleed varies in practice from state to state.

All Muslim states are unstable either because they have enforced the shariah and are unhappy with it, like Pakistan, or have not enforced it and are unhappy that it has not been enforced. For Muslims the question What kind of state do we want? is a rhetorical one because for them it has already been answered.

(Courtesy: The Friday Times, Pakistan)

Archived from Communalism Combat, January-February 2002 Year 8 No. 75-76, Cover Story 4

‘Action against jihadis was essential for Musharraf’s own survival’

January 31, 2002

IA REHMAN
Director, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan & core member, Pak–India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy

The factors contributing to General Musharraf’s Jan. 12 declarations need to be understood. Pakistani civil society has been for long pointing out that militant groups operating under the
garb of religion were functioning like a state within a state and, therefore, it was imperative to disband them. The army top brass realised this but could not proceed against these militias for two reasons.

First, it was believed that the militants were too powerful to be disciplined, partly because of their own accumulated power and partly because of their sympathisers within the armed forces. Secondly, since the militants were being used by a defence agency in Afghanistan and elsewhere, action against them was considered contrary to the strategy the regime had inherited from Zia–ul–Haq and which it had accepted without questioning.

The US operations against Taliban brought home to General Musharraf the futility of and dangers in employing the militants anywhere. Action against them became necessary not only in the interest of Pakistan’s integrity but also for guaranteeing the survival of the Musharraf regime itself.

A more significant factor was the Pakistani people’s rejection of the Taliban and their supporters in the country. Except for small groups of people in Peshawar and Quetta who were directly associated with the Taliban, there were no demonstrations in the latter’s support elsewhere in the country.

The message from Pakistani civil society was clear — it considered the militants a grave threat to the political, social and economic interests of the population. This gave General Musharraf the confidence, as he subsequently admitted, to deal and deal directly with the militants.

Hence the Jan. 12 address. The general has followed it up with measures to placate the non-Muslim population, women activists and a section of liberal opinion through electoral reform proposals. This has far–reaching implications as it means reducing the clerics’ role in domestic politics.

Since these measures are necessary in the interest of the survival of his regime, General Musharraf’s change of course is credible to a considerable extent. But the sincerity and adequacy of these measures over a long period remains to be tested.

Urban–educated professionals, businesspersons and women’s organisations are sections from civil society who have vocally welcomed the steps against the fanatical forces. The rural masses have no way of articulating their views.

What is significant is that the religious parties have not been able to throw a public challenge to the steps that Musharraf has announced and even taken. Two of their prominent leaders — Qazi Husain Ahmad, head of Jamaat–e–Islami, and Maulana Fazlur Rahman, head of Jamiat Ulema–e–Islam, have been detained. But their parties have failed to organise any significant demand for their release.

Eventually, the success of the regime’s new look strategy will depend on the revival of the economy, increase in employment and the administration’s ability to gain public trust in its efficiency and integrity and degree of its respect for the under–privileged.

Archived from Communalism Combat, January-February 2002 Year 8 No. 75-76, Cover Story 5

‘For the first time in several Years, Pakistan’s youth freely celebrated the New Year’

January 31, 2002

BM KUTTY

Trade Unionist

I personally feel that President Musharraf ‘s comments, telecast in his TV address on January 12, on the religious extremist and jihadi groups in Pakistan were seriously meant as were the steps he announced to curb their activities.

Times have changed and, under pressure or by conviction, no matter which, Musharraf’s speech and subsequent statements, I believe, reflect the thinking of the majority of the people of Pakistan who are good Muslims but not fundamentalists.

Broadly speaking, the Pakistani people have supported the steps announced by Musharraf. The liberal, secular, politically active ones have welcomed the steps; some whole–heartedly, others on condition that Musharraf should also take firm steps to restore the democratic order.

For the first time in several years, Pakistan’s youth celebrated the New Year in a free and peaceful environment, without being subjected to violence by armed mullahs and the police. A clear sign of the sea change on the ground. So, the youth too is backing the change.

There are also some interesting and noteworthy examples of conservatives behaving moderately in the present context. For example, Allama professor Tahirul Qadri of Pakistan Awami Tehreek, is a genuine Islamic scholar running a huge madrassa with a whole complex of computers and other gadgets of modern information technology. He has come out in full public support of Musharraf’s measures.

The whole range of Muslim Leaguers — old and new — fully support Musharraf’s measures. Today, all except the Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif are supporting Musharraf’s anti–fundamentalist measures. So is Imran Khan of Pakistan Tehreek–i–Insaf, former Pakistan President Farooq Leghari of Millat Party, Malik Meraj Khalid, former Prime Minister, Mustafa Jatoi, former Prime Minister and a host of others who are good practising Muslims but totally opposed to fundamentalism and hence supportive of Musharraf’s measures.

Even maulanas like Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani of Jamiat–ul–Ulema, Pakistan (Barelvi Group), though making loud noises, are simply not willing to come into the streets to support the jihadis of the Deoband school. So, in the ultimate analysis, only the different factions of the Deoband School are on one side and the rest of the Muslims on the other.

As matters stand today, Musharraf is going ahead with his government’s New Agenda, no matter what the sceptics in India, especially the ‘experts’ of the electronic media, have to say. Their counterparts on the Pakistani side, too, have been expressing reservations but have no alternatives to offer.

Archived from Communalism Combat, January-February 2002 Year 8 No. 75-76, Cover Story

Where are the liberal, peace-loving Indians?

January 31, 2002

ANEES HAROON

Feminist, peace activist

The present scenario has strengthened the position of liberals in Pakistani society. During the Afghan war, jihadi groups were dominant on the scene. There were large demonstrations in all the major and smaller cities of Pakistan and they were able to bring thousands of people on to the roads. They could paralyse any city; law and order could be disrupted anywhere.

The liberals too organised anti–war demos but only in few hundreds. Karachi and Islamabad had the biggest congregation of peace activists, but even these were not more than a thousand to five thousand people. But after the defeat of the Taliban the jihadis have collapsed like a house of cards. Every time we had general elections, no Islamist party was voted in. But we all agreed that they had street power. Some of us viewed them as pigmies and never ever felt threatened but for most there was the real fear of Talibanisation of Pakistan. But once protection from the establishment (one or the other agency) was withdrawn and financial channels were cut they really fizzled out.

This is the time for liberals to strike back and re-claim their space. It is possible only if there is peace. Any war with India will again snatch the initiative away from their hands. War-machinery and jihad go together.

Here no one wants war with India. It is not in the interests of the people. The fear of nuclear warfare between India and Pakistan is threatening the region. If we can somehow break the cycle of hatred and war, we may be able to build an environment of peace, enlightened and liberal politics.

We the people of India and Pakistan need to do that: Reaffirm our faith in peace and democracy and pressurise our governments to refrain from war mongering. In Pakistan, liberals have always been vocal against establishment policies. But it is a general feeling that we do not get the same response from Indian activists. They somehow defend their government and do not see the authoritarian and hegemonic trends. Well, there are exceptions but the voice has to come through loud and clear.

In Pakistan these days, there are frequent anti-extremist and anti–war demos. Indians, too, need to put more pressure on the BJP government to withdraw all anti–people actions such as the termination of means of communication between the two countries. And how about banning extremist, militant Hindu groups like the RSS, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal in India?

Archived from Communalism Combat, January-February 2002 Year 8 No. 75-76, Cover Story

‘Liberals in India must raise their voice against war’

January 31, 2002

DR MUBARAK ALI

Pakistani historian

President Musharraf indicated his intention to introduce liberal reforms just after he took power but refrained from doing so because of threats from the right–wing opposition. In the Pakistani army, there was and still is, a strong group that wants Pakistan to become a full–fledged theocratic state. The Agra summit gave Musharraf legitimacy. He was supported in that endeavour by all religious parties. The situation changed only after September 11 when he got both support as well as severe pressure from the United States to rein in the jihadis.

Following this, he first removed ultras from important posts and he is now trying to exert control on the extremists. These steps culminated in his January 12 address to Pakistan and the world, including our neighbours.

Liberal groups in Pakistan are vocal but very weak. Many have no roots among the people. Hence this section is silently supporting Musharraf, hoping that he may complete their agenda.

Two mass-based political parties, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) have no clear agenda, apart from being opportunist rivals; hence they are silent. They are neither supporting nor opposing the present government in the radical steps that it has initiated. Both parties do in fact hope that they can strike some deal with the army and thereby come to power later this year.

Equally, despite their aggressive rhetoric, religious parties in Pakistan too have no mass support, and hence have retreated since Musharraf’s aggressive stance. Until now, the jihadis have depended on the financial support of the Arab shaikhs and active help of supporting local agencies. Bereft of financial support and patronage from these sources, they are expected to simply crumble. They do not enjoy any public sympathy as most of them have deteriorated into armed criminal gangs misusing the name of faith.

However, the rank hostility displayed by the Indian leadership combined with the extremely shrill demands being made by it may generate an unfavourable atmosphere and resentment since the Pakistani people would not like to see their government being brought under undue Indian pressure. Within Pakistan, there is a general feeling that this is the time for liberal groups in India to raise their voice against war and demand that their government re-open all routes and avenues of people–to–people access.

Archived from Communalism Combat, January-February 2002 Year 8 No. 75-76, Cover Story

‘No one in Pakistan wants a war’

January 31, 2002

PROF. S HAROON AHMED

Founder member of the international group, Physicians for Nuclear Disarmament

In Pakistan, where none of the religio–political parties were able to win even a single seat in the assemblies, jihadis and fundamentalists were still very powerful. They were patronised by one or the other power base — now popularly referred to as ‘agencies’, or funded from abroad.

According to a recent estimate, we may have 80 plus religious parties in Pakistan. In 1947, there were 245 madrassas, which increased to 2,861 in 1988 and 6,761 by the year 2000. The people of Pakistan had no say, nor liked the armed presence of such parties within civil society.

Then came Sept. 11 and in it’s search for Osama bin Laden, the US attacked Afghanistan. Pakistan was inducted into the alliance and bases were provided. In the early stages of American bombing on Afghanistan there was considerable confusion. "The bombing in Afghanistan will usher civil war in Pakistan" was one very strong view. However, the collapse of the Taliban as easily as it came, blew the air out of the vociferous outpourings of religious parties.

In the atmosphere post–Sept. 11, the terrorist attack on the Parliament in New Delhi on December 13 was a rude shock. It was the very last thing that any government or citizen in Pakistan would have expected. Temperatures within India have been raised to near uncontrollable levels. Memories of Kargil are still fresh. In Pakistan there is a strange quiet and detachment — neither the government nor the public expects a war!

However, the posture that India has taken is very threatening for all of South Asia. The hot pursuit, limited war, war with conventional weapons, or all out nuclear Holocaust are stages which can quickly follow each other if skirmish is sparked off accidentally or stupidly. And then there will be no going back.

Many among the liberal intelligentsia would like to see in the present circumstances a unique opportunity to resolve the issue of ‘cross border’ interference. It is in this context that President Musharraf’s address of Jan. 12 must be seen.

Even if his stance has been forced, it is a serious development. The establishment may or may not like it but the common man in Pakistan wants Musharraf to pursue his earlier and recent pronouncements against jihadis, madrassas, ritualistic mullahs and their so-called religious–cum–political parties. He has said that the jihadi outfits have brought Islam a bad name and killed more people than reformed them. It is in the interest of the silent majority in Pakistan and in South Asia that the road map towards a democratic process within Pakistan charted by this government is not abandoned or diverted.

Archived from Communalism Combat, January-February 2002 Year 8 No. 75-76, Cover Story 5

Islam : Moment of truth

September 30, 2001

Samuel Huntington’sevil desire for a clash between civilizations may well come true after the September 11 terror attacks. The crack that divided Muslims everywhere from the rest of the world is no longer a crack. It is a gulf that, if not bridged, will surely destroy both.

For much of the world, it was the indescribable savagery of seeing jet-loads of innocent human beings piloted into buildings filled with other innocent human beings. It was the sheer horror of watching people jump from the 80th floor of the collapsing World Trade Centre rather than be consumed by the inferno inside. Yes, it is true that many Muslims also saw it exactly this way, and felt the searing agony no less sharply. The heads of state of Muslim countries, Saddam Hussein excepted, condemned the attacks. Leaders of Muslim communities in the US, Canada, Britain, Europe, and Australia have made impassioned denunciations and pleaded for the need to distinguish between ordinary Muslims and extremists.

But the pretence that reality goes no further must be abandoned because this merely obfuscates facts and slows down the search for solutions. One would like to dismiss televised images showing Palestinian expressions of joy as unrepresentative, reflective only of the crass political immaturity of a handful. But this may be wishful thinking.

Similarly, Pakistan Television, operating under strict control of the government, is attempting to portray a nation united in condemnation of the attack. Here too, the truth lies elsewhere, as I learn from students at my university here in Islamabad, from conversations with people in the streets, and from the Urdu press. A friend tells me that crowds gathered around public TV sets at Islamabad airport had cheered as the WTC came crashing down. It makes one feel sick from inside.

A bizarre new world awaits us, where old rules of social and political behaviour have broken down and new ones are yet to be defined. Catapulted into a situation of darkness and horror by the extraordinary force of events, as rational human beings we must urgently formulate a response that is moral, and not based upon considerations of power and practicality. This requires beginning with a clearly defined moral supposition — the fundamental equality of all human beings. It also requires that we must proceed according to a definite sequence of steps, the order of which is not interchangeable.

Before all else, Black Tuesday’s mass murder must be condemned in the harshest possible terms without qualification or condition, without seeking causes or reasons that may even remotely be used to justify it, and without regard for the national identity of the victims or the perpetrators. The demented, suicidal, fury of the attackers led to heinous acts of indiscriminate and wholesale murder that have changed the world for the worse. A moral position must begin with unequivocal condemnation, the absence of which could eliminate even the language by which people can communicate.

Analysis comes second, but it is just as essential. No "terrorist" gene is known to exist or is likely to be found. Therefore, surely the attackers, and their supporters, who were all presumably born normal, were afflicted by something that caused their metamorphosis from normal human beings capable of gentleness and affection into desperate, maddened fiends with nothing but murder in their hearts and minds. What was that?

Tragically, CNN and the US media have so far made little attempt to understand this affliction. The cost for this omission, if it is to stay this way, cannot be anything but terrible. What we have seen is probably the first of similar tragedies that may come to define the 21st century as the century of terror. There is much claptrap about "fighting terrorism" and billions are likely to be poured into surveillance, fortifications, and emergency plans, not to mention the ridiculous idea of missile defence systems.

But, as a handful of suicide bombers armed with no more than knives and box–cutters have shown with such devastating effectiveness, all this means precisely nothing. Modern nations are far too vulnerable to be protected — a suitcase nuclear device could flatten not just a building or two, but all of Manhattan. Therefore, the simple logic of survival says that the chances of survival are best if one goes to the roots of terror.

Only a fool can believe that the services of a suicidal terrorist can be purchased, or that they can be bred at will anywhere. Instead, their breeding grounds are in refugee camps and in other rubbish dumps of humanity, abandoned by civilization and left to rot. A global superpower, indifferent to their plight, and manifestly on the side of their tormentors, has bred boundless hatred for its policies. In supreme arrogance, indifferent to world opinion, the US openly sanctions daily dispossession and torture of the Palestinians by Israeli occupation forces. The deafening silence over the massacres in Qana, Sabra, and Shatila refugee camps, and the video-gamed slaughter by the Pentagon of 70,000 people in Iraq, has brought out the worst that humans are capable of. In the words of Robert Fisk, "those who claim to represent a crushed, humiliated population struck back with the wickedness and awesome cruelty of a doomed people".

It is stupid and cruel to derive satisfaction from such revenge, or from the indisputable fact that Osama and his kind are the blowback of the CIA’s misadventures in Afghanistan. Instead, the real question is: where do we, the inhabitants of this planet, go from here? What is the lesson to be learnt from the still smouldering ruins of the World Trade Centre?

If the lesson is that America needs to assert its military might, then the future will be as grim as can be. Indeed, secretary Colin Powell has promised "more than a single reprisal raid". But against whom? And to what end? No one doubts that it is ridiculously easy for the US to unleash carnage. But the bodies of a few thousand dead Afghans will not bring peace, or reduce by one bit the chances of a still worse terrorist attack.

This is not an argument for inaction: Osama and his gang, as well as other such gangs, if they can be found, must be brought to justice. But indiscriminate slaughter can do nothing except add fuel to existing hatreds. Today, the US is the victim but the carpet-bombing of Afghanistan will cause it to squander the huge swell of sympathy in its favour the world over. Instead, it will create nothing but revulsion and promote never–ending tit–for–tat killings.

Ultimately, the security of the United States lies in its re-engaging with the people of the world, especially with those that it has grievously harmed. As a great country, possessing an admirable constitution that protects the life and liberty of its citizens, it must extend its definition of humanity to cover all peoples of the world. It must respect international treaties such as those on greenhouse gases and biological weapons, stop trying to force a new Cold War by pushing through NMD, pay its UN dues, and cease the aggrandizement of wealth in the name of globalisation.

But it is not only the US that needs to learn new modes of behaviour. There are important lessons for Muslims too, particularly those living in the US, Canada, and Europe. Last year I heard the arch–conservative head of Pakistan’s Jamaat–i–Islami, Qazi Husain Ahmad, begin his lecture before an American audience in Washington with high praise for a "pluralist society where I can wear the clothes I like, pray at a mosque, and preach my religion". Certainly, such freedoms do not exist for religious minorities in Pakistan, or in most Muslim countries.

One hopes that the misplaced anger against innocent Muslims dissipates soon and such freedoms are not curtailed significantly. Nevertheless, there is a serious question as to whether this pluralism can persist forever, and if it does not, whose responsibility it will be. The problem is that immigrant Muslim communities have, by and large, chosen isolation over integration. In the long run this is a fundamentally unhealthy situation because it creates suspicion and friction, and makes living together ever so much harder. It also raises serious ethical questions about drawing upon the resources of what is perceived to be another society, for which one has hostile feelings.

This is not an argument for doing away with one’s Muslim identity. But, without closer interaction with the mainstream, pluralism will be threatened. Above all, survival of the community depends upon strongly emphasizing the difference between extremists and ordinary Muslims, and on purging from within jihadist elements committed to violence. Any member of the Muslim community who thinks that ordinary people in the US are fair game because of bad US government policies has no business being there.

To echo George W. Bush, "let there be no mistake". But here the mistake will be to let the heart rule the head in the aftermath of utter horror, to bomb a helpless Afghan people into an even earlier period of the Stone Age, or to take similar actions that originate from the spine. Instead, in deference to a billion years of patient evolution, we need to hand over charge to the cerebellum. Else, survival of this particular species is far from guaranteed.

Archived from Communalism Combat, October 2001 Year 8 No. 72, Cover Story 1

My fatwa on the fanatics

September 30, 2001

Illustration: Amili Setalvad

The magnitude of the terrorist attack on America has forced Muslims to take a critical look at themselves. Why have we repeatedly turned a blind eye to the evil within our societies? Why have we allowed the sacred terms of Islam, such as fatwa and jihad, to be hijacked by obscurantist, fanatic extremists?

Muslims are quick to note the double standards of America — its support for despotic regimes, its partiality towards Israel, and the covert operations that have undermined democratic movements in the Muslim world. But we seldom question our own double standards. For example, Muslims are proud that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the West. Evangelical Muslims, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, happily spread their constricted interpretations of Islam. But Christian missionaries in Muslim countries are another matter. They have to be banned or imprisoned. Those who burn effigies of President Bush will be first in the queue for an American visa.

The psychotic young men, members of such extremist organisations as Al-Muhajiroun and ‘Supporters of Sharia’, shouting fascist obscenities outside the Pakistan embassy, are enjoying the fruits of Western freedom of expression. Their declared aim is to establish ‘Islamic states’. But in any self–proclaimed Islamic state, they would be ruthlessly silenced.

This is not the first time concerned Muslims have raised such questions. But we have been forced to ignore them for two main reasons. In a world where it is always open season for prejudice and discrimination against Muslims and Islam, our main task has seemed to be to defend Islam.

The other reason concerns ummah, the global Muslim community. We have to highlight, the argument goes, the despair and suffering of the Muslim people — their poverty and plight as refugees and the horror of war–torn societies.

So, all good and concerned Muslims are implicated in the unchecked rise of fanaticism in Muslim societies. We have given free reign to fascism within our midst, and failed to denounce fanatics who distort the most sacred concepts of our faith. We have been silent as they proclaim themselves martyrs, mangling beyond recognition the most sacred meaning of what it is to be a Muslim.

But the events of September 11 have freed us from any further obligation to this misapplied conscience. The insistence by the Muslim Council of Britain that the Islamic cause is best served by the Taliban handing over Osama bin Laden, is indicative of this shift.

The devotion with which so many Muslims, young and old, in Europe and America, are organising meetings and conferences to discuss how to unleash the best intentions, the essential values of Islam, from the rhetoric of jihad, hatred and insularity, is another.

But we have to go further. Muslims are in the best position to take the lead in the common cause against terrorism. The terrorists are among us, the Muslim communities of the world. They are part of our body politic. And it is our duty to stand up against them.

We must also reclaim a more balanced view of Islamic terms like fatwa. A fatwa is simply a legal opinion based on religious reasoning. It is the opinion of one individual and is binding on only the person who gives it. But, since the Rushdie affair, it has come to be associated in the West solely with a death sentence. Now that Islam has become beset with the fatwa culture, it becomes necessary for moderate voices to issue their own fatwas.

So, let me take the first step. To Muslims everywhere I issue this fatwa: any Muslim involved in the planning, financing, training, recruiting, support or harbouring of those who commit acts of indiscriminate violence against persons or the apparatus or infrastructure of states is guilty of terror and no part of the ummah. It is the duty of every Muslim to spare no effort in hunting down, apprehending and bringing such criminals to justice.

If you see something reprehensible, said the Prophet Muhammad, then change it with your hand; if you are not capable of that then use your tongue (speak out against it); and if you are not capable of that then detest it in your heart.

The silent Muslim majority must now become vocal. The rest of the world could help by adopting a more balanced tone. The rhetoric that paints America as a personification of innocence and goodness, a god–like power that can do no wrong, not only undermines the new shift but threatens to foreclose all our futures.

Archived from Communalism Combat, October 2001 Year 8 No. 72, Cover Story 2

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Muslim double-bind

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‘For the first time in several Years, Pakistan’s youth freely celebrated the New Year’

Where are the liberal, peace-loving Indians?

‘Liberals in India must raise their voice against war’

‘No one in Pakistan wants a war’

Islam : Moment of truth

My fatwa on the fanatics

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