Age of madness

[Developereo]

The sharing of Wahabiist values is what unites al Qaeda, the Taliban, Jamat-ud-Dawa, Lashkar-i-Tayyaba, Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz and Tehreek-i-Insaaf. This is the reason why in DG Khan Jamaat-ud-Dawa is working together with the Jamaat-i-Islami in providing relief. This is the reason why on the floor of the house, a member of the PML-N, Shakil Rohail Asghar, snubs Marvi Memon when she implored that Aafia should not be called the ‘daughter of the nation’, as the allegations against her are not clear. Shakil Rohail Asghar of the PML-N declared: “Do not undermine the dignity of the nation. Aafia Siddiqi will be sitting in this house in your place after some time.” The question that begs to be answered: is the PML-N going to be awarding a party ticket to her?

This part perfectly illustrates the reason for the fundamental paralysis of our society in dealing with the scourge of radicalism.

I was 100% with the writer until I got to this part. She has taken a perfectly legitimate issue (eliminating radicalism) which would find widespread support amongst most Pakistanis and turned it into a pathetic party political rant.

Supporting Imran Khan and his many good ideas does not make one a radical. Insisting that an 86 year old grandmother accused of unpremeditated attempted murder be shown leniency does not make one a radical. Supporting the right of women to wear the burqa does not make one a radical.

The writer has decided to play political football with an important issue that is central to the country's future.

 

[RabzonKhan]

EDITORIAL: Attacking the Ghazi of Karachi

Dailytimes
October 09, 2010

On Thursday, two suicide bombers killed 10 and injured 70 people at the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi, the patron saint of Karachi. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for this horrendous attack. The attack is significant because the Taliban wanted to cause the maximum damage, given that it was the busiest day of the week at the shrine. Abdullah Shah Ghazi, a Sufi saint, has been revered as the saviour of Karachi from tropical storms for over a thousand years. This attack by the TTP is not just an attack on his shrine but also his teachings and beliefs.

In the recent past, we have seen a new pattern emerging. The TTP has started attacking shrines of Sufi saints all across the country. The Taliban before this attack have targeted a mosque and shrine in the Khyber Agency’s Landi Kotal tehsil, a Sufi saint’s shrine in Gandhawa in the district of Jhal Magsi, the shrine of Rahman Baba and Mian Umar Baba in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The TTP also initially claimed responsibility for the triple suicide attack on Data Darbar in Lahore but later backtracked and denied involvement. This begs the question: why attack Sufi shrines? Sufism is the single greatest threat to the Taliban and their ideology of violence and coercion. Sufism teaches tolerance and humanism, it is non-dogmatic, accommodative of all sects and religions and non-violent. The Sufis’ message of love transcends the material world and embraces universal brotherhood. In stark contrast, the Taliban use violence as the principal means to their goals and want to impose their strict interpretation of Islam on everyone by force and compulsion. The Taliban consider it un-Islamic to pay homage at Sufi shrines and cite it as shirk (associating partners with God) and bidat (innovation in religion). Knowing their open hostility towards Sufism, one expected the government to have done some homework.

The statement “there was a security lapse” by Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza is bewildering. The first suicide bomber struck at the main gate check post, while the second struck at the next check post. The attackers could have wreaked much more havoc had they managed to cross the security check posts. In a way, Dr Mirza is admitting his department’s failure to check the attacks in the first place. Suicide attacks are very difficult to prevent once the attacker is on his way; it is coordinated intelligence and police work that can help pre-empt the threat.

Contrary to popular perception, the large majority of Pakistanis adhere to Sufi beliefs rather than the hardline views espoused by the Taliban. The TTP feels threatened by their dwindling support and have tried to create a sectarian divide time and again. This initially found some success with attacks on religious minorities and places of worship. It was an attack on the shrine of a Sunni saint Hazrat Data Ganj Bakhsh in Lahore, whom all major sects of Islam in the subcontinent revere, which ended up uniting the different sects. The shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi is of similar significance to the people of Karachi as is Data Darbar to the people of Lahore. This atrocious attack will, in all probability, once again unite the people of Pakistan against the Taliban ideology of terror.

 

[Chogy]

Thanks for the interesting posts.

Did "Taliban" ideology harden or become more strict with the addition of foreign fighters within their ranks in the 1990's? Is Wahhabism to blame? Where did the hyper-fundamentalism come from, or was it always there under the surface, simply not organized?

 

[SQ8]

Thanks for the interesting posts.

Did "Taliban" ideology harden or become more strict with the addition of foreign fighters within their ranks in the 1990's? Is Wahhabism to blame? Where did the hyper-fundamentalism come from, or was it always there under the surface, simply not organized?

Religious extremism existed in some form or the other since the inception of Pakistan. ironically it was these elements the leaders of which had opposed the creation of Pakistan in the first place.
In the early 50's Shariah was declared from a mosque in Lahore..
and any attempt by local law enforcement was met with brutality.
The government at the time instead of taking a hardline against such antics decided to use negotiation to defuse the situation. Thus began the practice of appeasing the Mullah in pakistan instead of breaking his back. The Problem lies not with how much intensity these elements acquire.. the Problem lies with the sheer blindness by which Pakistani's(and many Muslims) will follow these so called religious reformists simply because they themselves lack the will to understand their religion. So any man with a long flowing beard and good pronunciation of Arabic is considered to be the ideal Muslim and therefore unquestionable on matters of religion. Those that do are dealt with severely by the goons of these Mullahs(taliban etc) to set fear of heavenly retribution for these "Kafirs" that question god will.

These elements however did not breach into the governance of Pakistan till Zia Ul Haq's tenure. Before that Pakistan was a free country.. where you could have a drink at a bar near the beach, go to a disco.. listen to bands belt out Jimmy page and the eagles(Peshawar had a nightclub and several bars).
The Islamist parties which were supposedly the downfall of Mr Bhutto would not have gained such power had it not been for Zia's blessings.
Since Pakistan's general society was still a lot more balanced back then. Zia literally opened the door for these radical elements to (in my view).. desecrate the constitution of Pakistan and forever instill religious immorality into our society..He gave legal protection to crimes committed in the name of religion. The Afghan Jihad was another catalyst to these Islamists since at that time the ISI was concerned about the Soviets running us over. Therefore cells of these "Jihadists" were hastily created alongside those used to train Afghans..these men were later sent into Kashmir and formed the nexus of the thorn in India's side throughout the 90's. What the ISI has not counted on was this "Jihadist" mentality taking a life of its own.. the amalgamation of which is the TTP.

The foreign fighters you mention joined during the Afghan war.. staring with Arabs.. then during the Taliban rule many of these men went to Chechnya to fight.. some to Bosnia..
Some came to Afghanistan for refuge... Al Qaeda's call for Jihad collected all these groups into one place.the rest is history.
Pakistani society in general isnt prone to extremism.. but wont stand up against it since the debate on Islam vs the West isnt one many want to dip their hands in.
Wahabissm is a growing element in society but most Pakistani's aren't prone to it since pure Wahabissm degrades the position of the Prophet and that is something unacceptable to us.
You will see a greater emotional response from the Pakistani populace if there was a preacher who insults the prophet than one who burns the Quran.

In a nutshell.. These elements existed even before the partition of British India.. They opposed Pakistan but then chose to exploit it. Pakistani society was religious but tolerant till the intelligence establishment sought to use these elements for inciting political change. Zia's tenure gave them power,credibility and purpose but no direction.. the result was they turned on the very people they were supposed to be used to protect.
94% of Pakistani's are not extremist.. but only 4% will oppose any action the extremists do.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Identity and violence

Ghazi Salahuddin
October 10, 2010

Again and again, terrorist attacks by religious militants, mostly to be identified as the Taliban and their fellow travellers, underline the limitations of Pakistan's identity as an Islamic state. Instead of binding the nation together, it is religion that seems to divide us. We have had so many bomb blasts in mosques and imambargahs.

Three months ago, two suicide bombings killed a large number of devotees in Lahore's Data Darbar, the most venerated Sufi shrine in the country. It was an exceptionally traumatic encounter for the nation with the barbaric impulse of the jihadist elements who seek to enforce their own vision of Islam. It also signified an alarming new phase in the terrorists' strategy. After the Shias and the security personnel, they are now going after Sunnis of the Barelvi persuation and Data Darbar is the very pinnacle of this school of thought.

We were so shaken by it that we thought it would be a turning point in our struggle against terrorism. There were expectations that the authorities would go after the culprits with full force and devise concerted plans to suppress groups known to be indulging in such activities. The Data Darbar attack was tantamount to the crossing of a line, signifying a serious threat to the very survival of the country.

But the evil brigades have continued to advance. On Thursday, they sent suicide bombers to the mausoleum of Karachi's patron-saint, Abdullah Shah Ghazi. Thursdays are revered days at shrines when larger crowds gather to meditate and pray for spiritual redemption and deliverance from pain and distress in their lives. Data Darbar was also attacked on a Thursday. This manifestation of the Sufi tradition in Islam is believed by many to be an antidote to the violent and intolerant jihadist mindset.

The point here is not to argue how our religion should be interpreted and practised. Nor has the assertion that Pakistan is an Islamic state set any definite path towards salvation or universally agreed principles to order our individual or collective conduct. If an agreement were possible over what our religion prescribes for us in its details, we would at least not have so many religious parties and so many deadly divides over matters of theology.

The crucial issue, then, is whether Pakistan is safe for Muslims who do not subscribe to the radical vision proclaimed by the likes of the Taliban. The disciples of our saints are mostly very God-fearing, simple and peaceable people. We had a large enough population of Muslims in South Asia to make Pakistan possible only because of the message that was delivered by Sufi saints like Data Ganj Baksh Hajveri and Abdullah Shah Ghazi. This means that attacks on the Data Darbar and the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi constitute a defiance of the very idea of Pakistan.

Ah, but what really was the idea -- ideology, if you please -- of Pakistan? One question that we should be courageous enough to pose at this time, though it has always been relevant, is whether Pakistan can actually survive as a modern, democratic country of Muslims without separating religion from the state. Had we not been told at the very outset that religion is not the business of the state?

I realise that a meaningful and rational debate on this issue is not possible in the present conflict-ridden and somewhat anarchic situation. It also seems pointless to refer to the life and pronouncements of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the man who founded this country. Nor does it matter that while the communists had supported the demand for Pakistan, the religious parties, precursors of the parties who now insist on defining our national sense of direction, were bitterly opposed to Jinnah's mission.

We now have a ruling establishment that has fostered an environment in which religious militancy has prospered. Consequently, the entire social, cultural and spiritual edifice of our society is beginning to crack up. Our situation is further complicated by the fact that it is not just the monster of terrorism that stalks this land. We are suffering from many other, apparently malignant, infections. Violence has become the currency of our social interaction. Intolerance is pervasive in the exercise of power and authority at all levels.

If we are so obsessed with religion, why has it not blessed our moral and institutional behaviour? Why are we not able to promote integrity and justice in a collective sense? It should be instructive to try to understand if our belligerently expressed religiosity has any bearing upon our conduct as citizens. We should take stock of what we are as a people and as a society.

As an aside, I was amused by a statement made by Federal Minister for Railways Ghulam Ahmad Bilour in the National Assembly on Thursday. He said: "I don't say that there is no corruption in my ministry, but the question is where it is not". So, if there is corruption all around, one has an excuse for not striving hard to deal with it in your own sphere of activity.

One way of looking at it is to compare Pakistan with Bangladesh, a country that was part of Pakistan and had shared the initial movement for what came into existence on August 14, 1947. It is, of course, a Muslim-majority country and portrays the dominant features of the Muslim communities of South Asia. We may also recall that when Bangladesh was founded in the wake of a terribly vicious civil war, it was seen as a 'basket case'.

Now, in many ways, it is doing better than Pakistan. Its social indicators, particularly in the domains of population growth, education and status of women, are very impressive. But the point I wish to underline is that in July of this year, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh struck down a constitutional amendment to restore the founding status of the country as a secular republic. It is politically secular at the same that it is religiously of a Muslim majority and culturally Bengali.
We have more compelling reasons to follow this example because we are more varied in our cultural, ethnic, linguistic and regional identities. Even when all citizens of a country profess the same religion -- and we have our religious minorities -- it is bound to be plural in many ways. People will have their own sectarian and doctrinal differences and will belong to contending political parties. They can live together only in a democratic dispensation that allows freedom of religion and faith.

As I said, a debate on this issue does not seem possible until the government is able to effectively control religious militancy and enforce rule of law to establish peace and security for all citizens of the country.

The writer is a staff member.

 

[RabzonKhan]

VIEW: Identity confusion: who are we?

Lubna Ramay
October 11, 2010

“A national culture, if it is to flourish, should be a constellation of cultures, the constituents of which, benefiting each other, benefit the whole.” — T S Eliot.

A culture, according to Eliot, requires unity and diversity with respect to regions, religious sects, and social classes. By this he probably means that there should be a constellation of cultures sharing a common core as, let us say, South Asia (read India or Pakistan), but with enough diversity to provide stimulation for each other.

Pakistan may be 63 years old but the history of this land itself dates back to the Indus Valley civilisation, which is 5,000 years old. It is a country where people are living in many centuries at the same time. As you drive down the various roads and streets of its cities, you see donkey-driven carts alongside Mercedes Benz cars and Range Rovers. In shops you may encounter veiled ladies as sales persons dealing with jeans-clad girls. The European style coffee shops that have recently cropped up in the upscale areas of the big cities have not been able to discard the chai khanas (tea shops) downtown in these same cities. It is all very fascinating. This is what makes Pakistan so interesting and diverse. The question arises: why is the tourism industry totally non-existent here but booming in India, despite having the same cultural flare and hues? Why is Pakistan stereotypically viewed as a fundamentalist state and not a country with diversified cultural traditions?

The answer to these questions is simple on the surface but complex deep down. In a vicious struggle for power, the rulers of this country have tried to give their own shape and meaning to culture. When Ziaul Haq tried to limit culture to the Islam of the 14th century whereby women were told to stay within the four walls and dress in a particular way, the culture of this land became the biggest casualty. All of us who were raw during this time became confused. I often asked if culture meant wearing chaadars and not pursuing careers and if entertainment meant listening to just naats and qawalis — undoubtedly beautiful but limited within the vast realm of music. Was culture essentially cruel to women? Whatever happened to the music and dance that originated from the dancing girl of Mohenjo-daro? Who are we, and what is our identity?

Millions like me were confused — and still are — as we have been brought up to believe that religion and culture are one and the same. While culture is the key to one’s identity, religion is one of the important components of it. Culture means sharing common values, religion, attitudes, language, dress, food, etc. Is culture static or forever changing? In order to understand culture and define our true identities, we also need to have a better sense of history.

It is diversity that makes culture interesting. Our land — the land of Moenjo-daro’s ‘dancing girls’ — has embraced different cultures over centuries, starting from Genghis Khan to the Mughals, the British, and finally the West (read the US). It is a mixture of all these cultures that makes Pakistan so rich and diverse. It is unfair to wrap it up or freeze it in one particular time just because it suits those who rule us.

The connection to Genghis Khan goes back centuries. When he came to the Persian Empire, Genghis Khan assimilated its culture and enriched the Persian language, which at that time was dwindling. He brought with him the martial and administrative skills that the Mughals adopted later when they came to India in the 16th century. The court language of the Mughals also remained Persian. Ghalib’s Persian poetry is considered his greatest, while we can see a glimpse of Rumi in Faiz Ahmad Faiz. Urdu, for that matter, is itself a mixture of so many languages — Turkish, Hindi, Persian and Arabic, with its base being Sanskrit. Hence the journey of another culture started in this land (then India), and till today is visible in our food, music, poetry, architecture and dress.

Though we negate western culture vehemently, we cannot deny that the British left a great mark on our land as well. While the Mughals brought sophistication through poetry and music, the British brought a semblance of systems and discipline. Our bureaucracy still runs on the rules laid down by them (corruption and lethargy excluded). Look at our infrastructure, the roads, the Malls and the railways — all built by the British. The British system of education is still considered the best here, and the need of the hour in these competitive times is to know the English language.

Coming now to recent times, the pop culture of the US is equally visible here, especially among the younger generation. Despite condemnation from certain quarters, it is here to stay. While my children listen to western rock music as opposed to my taste for classical eastern music and ghazals, we have no conflict. Music is also an important part of culture and thus cannot remain frozen in one particular genre. Culture has its own way, I suppose, of filtering out the unwanted. There should be no confusion between fads and culture. What remains — the residue — is what matters.

No matter how strongly we try to preserve our ‘own’ culture, it finds ways to diversify itself. For example, when the USSR tried to keep its people “behind the iron curtain” and resisted any outside influence, it disintegrated. I have come to the conclusion that we cannot define who we are in black and white. It is simply not possible. Our system of governance is also imported from the west. Democracy first originated in Greece and was later adopted by other western countries. Therefore, nothing belongs to any one region, country or continent. Arts, crafts, skills, food, dress, political systems and war strategies are all age-old but constantly evolving and spreading from one corner of the world to another.

Pakistani culture is an accretion of so many different influences — ethnic, linguistic, artistic — an amalgam of centuries-old values and ways of life. Let us not create any hindrance in its development. The development of a culture comes from change, and it is by embracing the flavours of other cultures that we can really diversify and enrich our identities and begin to know who we really are.

Lubna Ramay is a freelance columnist.

 

[Luftwaffe]

karo kari reminds me of KLINGONS LAWS of the Star Trek.

 

[RabzonKhan]

VIEW: Another anti-Taliban voice silenced

Daud Khattak
October 13, 2010


The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province witnessed another high-profile murder on October 2, 2010, while most other parts of the country are still reeling from acts of violence on a scale never witnessed before in recent history.

Renowned scholar and an ardent supporter of non-violent Islam, Dr Muhammad Farooq Khan is the latest victim of the terror wave let loose by armed men posing as the Taliban. The cold-blooded murder of the soft-spoken Dr Farooq Khan is believed to be part of the wicked agenda being pursued in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other parts of Pakistan to inculcate fear in the hearts and minds of the people and suppress their voices against the barbaric practices of the militants.

A psychiatrist by profession, Dr Farooq was supportive of enlightened Islam, stressing non-violence and urging living in peace with the followers of other religions, be they Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jews or different sects of Muslims including Shias, Sunnis, Barelvis, Deobandis, Ahmedis or Ismailis.

Besides his opposition to other medieval practices of the ‘insurmountable’ Taliban and their ‘elusive’ leadership, the slain doctor strongly opposed suicide bomb blasts and the killing of people in the name of religion in his television talk shows, columns, books and interviews.

It was the use of the word haram, or un-Islamic, for the suicide attacks – the most lethal weapon employed by al Qaeda and its Taliban protégés in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the rest of the world – that cost the life of another highly revered religious scholar, Maulana Hassan Jan three years ago. In a similar bid, a high profile religious scholar Dr Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi was assassinated in a suicide attack on June 12, 2009. Dr Naeemi’s mosque was hit by a suicide bomber less than a month after he addressed a mammoth gathering of religious scholars in Islamabad and declared suicide attacks as being out of the ambit of Islam.

Earlier, the militants had killed one of the vanguards of the anti-terror war, Safwat Ghayyur, Commandant of the Frontier Constabulary, on August 4, 2010. Less than two weeks ahead of Ghayyur’s killing, the emboldened militants shot dead the only son of the outspoken Information Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mian Iftikhar Hussain (on July 24, 2010), while a suicide bomber exploded himself outside the minister’s house when people were arriving to offer their condolences the next day.

Before gripping the cities and towns of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, al Qaeda and the Taliban terror had already taken its toll in the tribal areas, killing over 700 maliks and thus shattering the centuries-old socio-political fabric of Pashtun society. This resulted in a leadership vacuum that was easily filled by the militants belonging to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

The killing of key leaders, intellectuals, officials and social figures indicates that the militants and their supporters are using the same tactics in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that worked well in the tribal belt since 2001 and in parts of Afghanistan long before. The same happened in the tribal areas, where key leaders were targeted and those left alive were forced to toe the Taliban line or leave the area.

The daring Taliban attacks not only inculcate fear in the hearts of the common people, they also erode the masses’ trust in the state and its security agencies. And they are justified because, despite everyday reports of Taliban killings in military operations, they are emerging more powerful and lethal with each passing day. One strong perception being developed in a section of the Pakhtun intelligentsia and analysts is that the Taliban are being propped up by some unseen hands to rein in secular leaders who are raising voices against them from time to time.

At the same time, this threat to their lives is forcing the secular leadership to keep away from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, thus paving the way for the religious parties, rejected by the masses during the 2008 general elections.

At a time when the international community is in a hurry to withdraw from Afghanistan, the tribal areas of Pakistan are almost no-go areas for the people opposing the Taliban agenda. Secular elements are on the back foot in the face of increasing Taliban violence. The recent demonstrations against Dr Aafia’s sentencing by a US court show that the religious parties once again want to deceive the people in the name of anti-Americanism. But any opportunity for the religious parties in the conflict-ridden Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province paves the way for the formation of another Islamic emirates of the Taliban on this side of the Durand Line.

 

[RabzonKhan]

COMMENT: Takfir: the ideology of hate

Dr Mohammad Taqi
October 14, 2010

“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that is pretty important” — Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

While some in the Pakistani media seem to have bought into Pervez Musharraf’s Facebook flight of fantasy and were focused on his ‘Desperate Housewives’-style, primetime soap performances, the peddlers of the ideology of hate struck again.

There were two major attacks: one against yet another symbol of South Asian religious diversity — the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine in Karachi — and the other before that, which killed the Islamic scholar and practising psychiatrist, Dr Farooq Khan. The assassination of Dr Khan is, by far, the more significant and more ominous of the two because he was a person who had dedicated his life to preserve and promote pluralist thought, which shrines like Shah Ghazi’s have epitomised for centuries.

However, the news media, especially the television networks, covered these two stories for just about 24 hours and after that moved on with the preferred national pastime of Zardari-bashing and betting on his exit date. But, given the open jihadist tirades of certain anchors, anti-Ahmediyya vitriol of a particular televangelist and outlets that air the interviews of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, this is hardly a surprise.

Last week, Ms Gulmina Bilal Ahmad, in her article ‘Historical distortions’ (Daily Times, October 8, 2010), has written eloquently about Dr Farooq, his thoughts and work and has alluded to those who are out to counter this thought. I did not know Dr Farooq except from a conversation we had at the humble yet dignified guest room of the late Professor Saeedullah Qazi, the then Dean of Sheikh Zayed Islamic Centre, Peshawar. His words are rather vague in my mind, but it is hard to forget his soft-spoken mannerism. What Farooq has done in his death — and Ms Ahmad has taken up in her column — is to open the debate about a virulent ideology hell-bent on eliminating anyone who does not conform to it.

In recent times, the biggest manifestation of this ideology has been the suicide bombings or the so-called ‘martyrdom missions’. While we focus on suicide bombings as the dastardly acts that have killed thousands, we have been somewhat remiss in assessing the role of the doctrine providing the religious-political and psycho-social ‘rationale’ of this foremost tactic in the global Salafi jihad.

The Salafi jihadists form an extreme fringe, even of the Wahhabiist-Salafist spectrum itself. An ordinary Salafi may believe in the non-violent call to convert to their version of Islam, but the Salafi jihadists are proponents of violent jihad. The doctrinal differences that set the jihadist group apart include practising takfir, i.e. labelling other Muslims as infidels or apostates (kafir) and concluding, therefore, that violence against the latter is permissible (halal or mubaah), condoning acts of violence against civilians and the use of suicide missions. Violent jihad is held at par with the basic tenets of Islam by the Salafi jihadists. The most explicit endorsement of killing Muslim civilians came from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who said in a 2005 audiotape message: “The killing of a number of Muslims whom it is forbidden to kill is a grave evil. However, it is permissible to commit this evil — indeed, it is even required — in order to ward off a greater evil, the evil of suspending jihad.”

Dr Farooq was not the first Islamic scholar to have differed with the hateful ideology of takfir and to have paid with his life for this dissent. Ironically, the grandfather of al Qaeda, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, was killed on November 24, 1989 in Peshawar, in a bomb attack by his own cohorts, for opposing takfir.

The late chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Syed Maududi, had also written against invoking takfir in religio-political polemics. I was told that one cannot find his books in Saudi Arabia and I did find this to be true, as far as the shops around the Holy Ka’aba and the Masjid-e-Nabvi go. This, perhaps, has something to do with his very favourable opinion of Imam Abu Hanifah in doctrinal matters, a tolerant view of the Shiite and a general condemnation of takfir.

Indeed, the key pan-Islamists such as Muhammad Abduhu and Rashid Rida — like Maududi — had tried a selective application of takfir against the relatively newer sects in Islam. They feared that indiscriminate use of the label would lead to endless strife (fitna) within the larger Muslim community and advised their followers that wrongly accusing another Muslim of being an infidel is a major sin in Islam.

However, even this self-serving and rather meek condemnation of takfir is not acceptable to the ardent takfiris who are quick to condemn even Maududi as a kafir. The jihadists and their apologists remain blind to the fact that these attacks, ostensibly against foreign occupiers, have killed more Muslims than any other group, have divided the country deeply and have reinforced the belief that the jihadists consider common Muslims as expendable. Moreover, suicide attacks — though not as common — did take place in Egypt, Algeria and Afghanistan even when there was no foreign occupier.

This suggests that, while challenging the appeal of the takfiri ideology is a crucial component of the counter-terrorism strategy, a scholarly discourse by itself is an insufficient antidote. What is needed is a holistic, multi-pronged approach to stymie the takfiri groups. Civilian law-enforcement officers have made great strides in understanding takfiri terrorism in Pakistan and have apprehended many of its leaders. However, no high profile leader has ever been put on trial or any madrassah shut down — let alone levelled — limiting the deterrence value of counter-terrorism operations.

The trial of the far-right extremist, anti-Islam Dutch parliamentarian, Geert Wilders, resumed yesterday in Amsterdam. He is facing charges of inciting hatred against Muslims. This has some of his friends on the US side of the pond, up in arms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali went on bewailing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the Netherlands, a 21st century democracy, has put free speech on trial. What has actually been put on trial, however, is hate speech.

The Dutch law may not make Geert Wilders love Muslims, but chances are that it will prevent him from inciting hate and potential hate crimes. One may woefully concede that for something like this to happen in Pakistan, many Dr Farooq Khans may be lynched first.

The writer teaches and practices medicine at the University of Florida and contributes to the think-tanks PoliTact Official Home - Geopolitical Situation: Alert, Prepare, Avoid and Aryana Institute.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Smokers’ Corner: Why attack the shrines?

By Nadeem F. Paracha
Sunday, 17 Oct, 2010

A spate of terrorist attacks by puritan extremists on a number of famous Sufi shrines in Pakistan has brought into focus the shrine-going culture and its opponents. This is an important development, especially considering the negligible knowledge today’s young, educated urbanites have of this popular culture even though shrines continue to play an important spiritual and economic role in the lives of a majority of Pakistanis.

The shrine culture of devotional, recreational and professional activity around the shrines of Muslim saints has been present in the subcontinent for over a thousand years. It is largely associated with activity around the shrines of Sufi saints who started arriving from Iraq, Iran and Central Asia with various waves of Muslim imperialists from 8th century onwards.

These men (and some women) allowed for fusing Muslim esotericism, as it had developed in their home countries over the years, with the cultural rituals of Indian non-Muslim communities — all were welcome to the presence of the Muslim divine. More than the ulema, it was the Sufi saints whose all-inclusive approach helped spread Islam in this region.

Over time, a permissive culture of devotional music, indigenous rituals and assorted intoxicants (said to be used to induce trance-like state) started taking shape around the shrines. The shrine culture was patronised by various Muslim dynasties that ruled the subcontinent, and by the 19th century, it had become a vital part of the belief and ritual system of a vast majority of Muslims.

This system has remained intact despite the many puritan movements that attempted to expunge what they alleged were innovations that Muslims of India had adopted from Hinduism. However, around late 1960s urban middle-class Pakistan had left this culture to the largely uneducated and the superstitious lot or the feudal lords who presided over them.

But just like middle-class hippies in the West in the 1960s, who had chosen various esoteric eastern spiritual beliefs to demonstrate their disapproval of the ‘soullessness’ of the western culture, many young, middle-class Pakistanis in the 1970s, began looking to the shrine culture as a way to make a social and political connect with the dispossessed masses. Thus urban middle-class youth came into contact with rural peasants, petty traders and the urban working classes who thronged the shrines.

Middle-class Pakistani youth began to frequent shrines, especially on Thursday nights when a number of shrines hold nights dedicated to the traditional Sufi devotional music. The popular genre of qawali has been sung in the region for over seven hundred years. Now it has become a commercially lucrative art form, but at its pristine best it remains an impassionate fixture at shrines on Thursday nights.

The shrine culture is strongly owned by the Barelvi, mainstream Sunnis. They celebrate the ritual and social outcome of Sufism’s historical engagement with other faiths. This acceptance inherent in the popular belief system historically worked well to harmonise relations between Muslims and the Hindu majority of India. Pakistan’s military as well as civilian ruling elites did not meddle with the shrine culture. In fact, the Z.A. Bhutto regime (1972-77) actually patronised (and utilised) it as an expression of populism.

According to a report published in 1979, more Pakistanis visited shrines than they did mosques. Though some scorn at this, there are many who would say that the level of violence, crime and corruption in society was much lower than what it climbed up to from 1980s onwards. The Ziaul Haq dictatorship (1977-88) was inspired by the more puritan strains of the faith, and found it hard to introduce certain harsh Islamic laws in a social scene that was steeped in centuries-old traditions of tolerant shrine-going Muslim creed.

This popular religious culture was not attuned to a puritan interpretation of jihad, which constituted a problem for the Zia regime. He had to propagate the importance of ‘jihad against the infidels’ in the wake of Pakistan’s frontline status in the CIA-backed guerrilla war against Soviet occupation forces present in Afghanistan. The dictatorship went about building a number of puritan mosques and madressahs, mostly funded by donations from the Gulf states. Zia also began partronising certain spiritual leaders (pirs) around some shrines.

This was also done because many shrines (especially in Sindh) had become the centre of activity of various anti-Zia political forces. The tactic of hijacking the shrines by the Zia regime was successful in diminishing the participation of the middle-class in the shrine culture, but the culture’s core participants (the masses) remained intact. The status quo in this regard remained unchanged, and many shrines faced neglect and growth of crime around them.

The state’s interest in reinvigorating the all-encompassing shrine culture was revived after the tragic 9/11 episode. Governments under Musharraf (and the current PPP-led coalition) put in efforts to upgrade various shrines in an attempt to arrest the growth of extremism which has also found an appeal among the urban middle-class. This is why puritan terror outfits like the Taliban have begun targeting the shrines.

 

[RabzonKhan]

VIEW: Rationalising the Islamiat courses

I —Elf Habib
October 18, 2010

The growing intolerance, extremism, and irrationality which, to a large extent, have triggered the tempest of the Taliban, al Qaeda and kindred terrorist organisations, have inevitably necessitated revamping of the Islamiat courses and the tenor of their instruction. Indeed, a real and lasting success against terrorism, as agreed by almost all enlightened analysts and strategists, can only be secured by moulding the youth’s mind and aspirations. Most of these bloodthirsty organisations, devastating the lives, property and the prospects of peace, progress and a symbiotic interaction in essentially unavoidable pluralistic polities, claim to be crusading for the imposition of a weird obscurantist version of Islam. So the futility, irrelevance and the disastrous impact of this mindset have to be exposed and remedied through interesting, inspiring and mature media movement and infusing a realistic, futuristic insight by altering the curricula, courses and the mode of instruction for the younger learners. The mission has become even more pressing, as Pakistan, unfortunately, is not only bracing the blitz of this violent mindset but is also being blamed for incubation, breeding, harbouring and exporting some of its most monstrous and mutated brands. Elimination of this mindset is even more imperative as this curse, unleashed by the unethical, expedient, and selfish motives of General Ziaul Haq, the country’s most diabolical dictator, has foisted an authoritarian and obscurantist thought process and intensified the asphyxiating and manipulative grip of the establishment on the national resources and institutions. It has thwarted some extremely essential democratic priorities like civilian supremacy and a fairer distribution of the resources for popular welfare and development.

Zia, in fact, followed an inherently futile fundamentalist notion that a cloying lip service to Islam with a lot of reading, reciting and learning of scriptures would regenerate an era of piety, plenty and progress and the fabled Muslim splendour. Quranic verses, as a result, were introduced even into mathematics and natural sciences and Islamic studies was mandated for the graduate and professional levels. But the promised outpouring of piety, progress and bounty somehow became even more elusive and the country instead slid into a vicious spiral of sectarian and ethnic strife. Islamiat courses became even more copious and cumbersome during the Nawaz days. Nudged, reportedly, to a large extent by his Abba ji, extensive segments of scriptures were introduced and children were required to translate these verses and furnish and explicate the meaning of every word in them. Nawaz, in his zeal to bolster Zia’s policies, pursued a quixotic path to turn every school kid into an intellectual giant, proficient in classic Arabic to translate the Holy Quran, to memorise its substantial parts and study, simultaneously, several other subjects as well. The learning of Islamiat was thus bracketed with the learning of classic Arabic and a massive memory work. Reaction of the teenagers to this behemoth burden was quite obvious, as there were reports that the students in some schools had collectively prayed for their deliverance from Nawaz and the ordeal he had subjected them to. We would never know how far the supplications by these tender souls spurred his ouster, but the burden of Islamiat courses has never since been rationalised.

General Musharraf, the fourth dictator, after about seven years of incubation, fielded another set of curricula which characteristically failed in vision, perspective, content and direction. Musharraf, ironically, like a fatuous farmer, anxious to pick sweet water melons from the bitter gourds (toombas) sown by him, wanted the emergence of enlightened moderation from his dictatorship. Most of his pronouncements for moderation, however, were made during his marathon international trips and meant more to melt the western donors. Practically, General Qazi, his agent on education, created several chaotic situations, igniting even angry protests by some of his arbitrary edicts about the introduction of prayer procedures. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa declined to follow these changes and Balochistan also balked at their adoption. Actually, only a genuine democratic dispensation devoted to the mantra of dialogue, debate and consensus-building can foster an effective policy to promote the quintessential concepts of tolerance, care and love for humanity, contributing to a cordial coexistence of disparate cultures. The basic objectives and principles for formulating these courses, the themes and treatment in the text books to be based on them as well as the material and the guidance to be included in the instructor’s manuals and co-curricular aids thus must be settled at the national level. Some rudimentary proposals in this context are being ventured here.

The studies must strive to groom the students with the spirit and ideals of Islam and a harmonious and peaceful life, interaction and cooperation in a rapidly evolving and an inevitably unavoidable pluralistic world. For this, a mindset to appreciate and respect the diversity of faith, culture and customs has to be subtly and imperceptibly imbibed. All Islamic primers, thus must, at the very outset, set a sort of preamble or introduction, narrating the appearance of various religions including the evolution of Islam. It must also succinctly and lucidly emphasise the steadfast devotion of the devout followers of different religions to their belief, rituals and practices, their passion for its sanctity, superiority and dominance and the zeal to fight and sacrifice their lives and assets for its defence, glory and dominance. It should reveal how religious intolerance and wars ravaged life, humanity, civilisations and cultures. However, exasperated with this spiral of death, devastation and turbulence, the world gradually realised the futility of fighting for religious differences or dissent and the beauty and bliss of mutual respect and coexistence. The world now has over 20 major religions. Islam is one of the five principal religions, followed by about one-fifth of the world and 97 percent of the population in Pakistan. The narrative, then, inspiring the need to learn about the belief and principles of Islam should smoothly canter down to them.

(To be continued)

The writer is an academic and freelance columnist.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Shrines under attack

Farooq Sulehria
October 21, 2010

The Oct 7 attack on the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi in Karachi, which left ten people dead, was yet another deadly episode driven by fanatical hatred. By desecrating saintly shrines considered holy by millions of Pakistanis, a certain variety of puritans want to end the "heretic" practice of what they consider "shrine worship." Last summer, Lahore's most revered shrine, that of Data Shahib, was targeted.

The first bloody attack on a Sufi shrine, in 2005, which drew a great deal of attention in Pakistan, was a suicide assault on Bari Imam, a revered mausoleum atop a lush green hill overlooking Islamabad. Bari Imam, like any Sufi shrine, attracts devotees across the sectarian divide. However, since one particular sect has special veneration for Bari Imam, the incident arguably falls in the sectarian category.

Sufi shrines began to draw puritan wrath in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Much of the media chose to ignore the phenomenon. The reasons might be threats from the Taliban, sympathy for them and a tendency to hush up uneasy questions related to sectarian strife in the country. Another reason why the media ignored the phenomenon might be that almost the entire province is part of Pakistan's "periphery" for many people, so what happens there does not matter very much to them. Hence, there was hardly any debate when terrorists exploded bombs at the shrine of Abdul Shakoor Malang Baba in Peshawar on Dec 18, 2007. The shrine is situated at the GT Road. No causalities were reported, though.
The second attack on March 3, 2008, at the 400-year-old shrine of Abu Saeed Baba in Bara Tehsil claimed at least 10 lives. The shrine itself was set on fire. The shrine of Ashaab Baba on the outskirts of Peshawar was desecrated in 2008 through detonation of explosives in it. But the police in Buner foiled a bid to demolish the shrine of Hazrat Pir Baba in December 2008.

It was the attack on the legendary Sufi poet Rehman Baba in March 2009 that finally made headlines in a large number of newspapers. The attack on Rehman Baba's mazar could not be ignored.

According to a newspaper report, the shrine's watchman had received a threat from suspected militants on his cell phone three days before the attack. He told police that the attack was meant to discourage the tradition of women making pilgrimages to the grave of Rehman Baba, a 17th century poet revered for his message of love and peace. The high-intensity device almost destroyed the grave of Rehman Baba and the gates of a mosque, a canteen and a conference hall situated in the spacious shrine complex. Police said the bombers had tied explosives around the pillars of the tombs to bring down the mausoleum.

A day after the attack on Rehman Baba's shrine, the shrine of Bahadur Baba in Nowshera was desecrated. In May 2009, Sheikh Omar Baba's shrine in Peshawar was reduced to rubble. Eyewitnesses said the militants moved religious books and copies of the Quran from the shrine to a nearby mosque before the explosion.

To contextualise the attacks on the saintly shrines, one must bear in mind the Taliban's drive in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to rid Pakistani society of "moral ills." The victims of such puritanical campaigns have been "prostitutes," faith-healers (pirs) and musicians. Several leading actors and singers have given up their professions under the pressure of moral policing by the militants, and female dancers were forced to flee Swat district in droves. It was not merely coincidental that the first beheading which occurred in Peshawar was that of a faith healer, Pir Rafiullah, after his kidnapping from Nowshera.

A flurry of attacks on saintly shrines signifies the shift in the character of the sectarian strife in Pakistan. In the 1980s, a conflict between two Muslim sects began to take shape owing to a number of factors: the Afghan war, the arrival of petrodollars in Pakistan and the revolution in Iran. Now two sub-sects of the same faith are on a collision course. Paradoxically, in this war between sub-sects, it is the majority faction that is under attack.

Besides the symbolic shrine attacks in this fight, there have been incidents of outright hostility. On April 9, 2006, a bloody bomb attack on Sunni Tehrik's public meeting held at Karachi's Nishtar Park eliminated the entire ST leadership. Though the blame was conveniently pinned on a Karachi-based party, fingers were also pointed towards a sectarian outfit. A year before, sectarian incidents had left over two dozen people dead in Khyber Agency. This fight between Pir Saif and Mufti Shakir began on the airwaves through FM radios in December 2005. On March 25, 2006, 19 followers of Pir Saif were killed. More lives were lost in revenge killings.

As all these acts of mindless terror motivated by fanatical hatred go on unabated, Pakistan's Deobandi leadership conveniently blames the "foreign hand" (read India) for all these attacks. A section of the media further peddles this conspiracy theory. Thus, as with many other issues, we go into a mode of self-denial. That prevents a debate on a problem going out of control.

The writer is a freelance contributor.

 

[RabzonKhan]

EDITORIAL: Barbaric attack on Sufism

Daily Times
October 27, 2010

A bomb blast at the shrine of Hazrat Baba Farid Ganj Shakar in Pakpattan has left seven people dead and 14 injured. Two unidentified men left a motorcycle carrying milk canisters outside the gate of the shrine while devotees were offering Fajr prayers, which then exploded. Hazrat Baba Farid Ganj Shakar, more commonly referred to as Baba Farid by his devotees, was a Sufi saint from the subcontinent. He is recognised as one of the first major poets of the Punjabi language. One of Baba Farid’s greatest contributions to Punjabi literature was the development of the language for literary purposes.

The attack on the shrine of Baba Farid once again speaks volumes about the shortcomings of our security apparatus. As Daily Times reported on October 25, there were intelligence reports that shrines across Punjab were at risk of terrorist attacks and lacked adequate security arrangements. There are two police pickets along the market on either side of the road leading up to Baba Farid’s shrine. How two men on a motorcycle carrying canisters made it to the main gate of the shrine and then left the motorcycle primed to explode is beyond comprehension. The declaration by district police officer (DPO) Pakpattan Muhammad Kashif that 30 policemen had been deputed at the shrine only makes matters worse. The icing on the cake is the 14 newly installed CCTV cameras at the shrine, which according to media reports are non-operational. Police officials across Pakistan tend to ‘beef up’ security arrangements at all shrines after a terrorist attack but fail to take pre-emptive action on intelligence reports.

Although no group has taken responsibility, judging by the recent pattern of bomb blasts at Sufi shrines, the responsibility for the attack on Baba Farid’s shrine will not land too far away from the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP’s) door. Previously, the TTP has attacked shrines all across Pakistan. Before this attack the TTP targeted a mosque and shrine in Landi Kotal tehsil, a Sufi saint’s shrine in Jhal Magsi district, and Rehman Baba and Mian Umar Baba’s shrines in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The TTP also claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on Data Darbar in Lahore, but retracted this claim later.

Just 20 days ago the TTP, in a twin suicide attack, killed 10 and injured 70 people at the shrine of Sufi saint Abdullah Shah Ghazi in Karachi. This begs the question: why attack Sufi shrines? Sufism is the single greatest threat to the Taliban and their hardline ideology of jihad. It teaches love and tolerance. It is inclusive by nature and welcomes all, irrespective of religion, caste or creed. In the subcontinent, Sufism is credited with spreading the message of Islam, i.e. love and interfaith tolerance. Baba Farid was a pillar of Sufism in the subcontinent. He is revered by not just Muslims and Hindus but also by Sikhs. He is considered to be one of the 15 Sikh Bhagats within Sikhism and parts of his work can be found in the sacred Sikh scripture, Guru Granth Sahib. In contrast, the Taliban use violence to impose their strict jihadist views on everyone.

Given that the vast majority of people in the region adhere to Sufism and not the hardline views espoused by the Taliban, these attempts by terrorists to create a sectarian divide by attacking Sufi shrines will only unite the sects and masses further. In the words of Baba Farid, “Farîdâ bhumi rangâvalî manjhi visûlâ bâg” (Farid, this world is beautiful, but there is a thorny garden within it). The love of Sufism will eventually overcome the hate of terrorism.

 

[Chogy]

Thanks again for these informative articles.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Thanks again for these informative articles.

Glad you like them. Thanks for reading.