I read Saleena Kareem's book and her argument against the Justice Munir's book. She is definitely aware of the Munir report and that is partly her starting point of the whole argument. The debate seems to revolve around that if Jinnah had the notion of 'modern democratic state' in mind for the state of Pakistan. I posted on it in a thread before so ill just copy paste few excerpts from it. Starting with the main thread post
What I am saying is , Saleena (most probably) had no idea about the true value of Munir Report as a historic document that describes in detail the dirty role played by Mullahs during Pakistan Movement and their attempts to destabilize Pakistan with the help of few politicians , once it was created , .........
Jinnah wanted democracy , Jinnah wanted Pakistan to be a modern state , and Jinnah wanted a liberal constitution for Pakistan ... One doesn`t have to rely on Justice Munir`s statement for that ...... There are a lot of other sources which confirm this , including Fatima Jinnah`s "My Brother" and statements made by Iskander Mirza ......
This sentiment was repeated even after the creation of Pakistan. In October, 1947 he said,
“It is my belief that our salvation lies in following the golden rules of conduct set for us by our great law-giver, the Prophet of Islam. Let us lay the foundations of our democracy on the basis of true Islamic ideals and principles”
and similarly in an interview reported in the Press on 25th January 1948 Mr. Jinnah said that he could not understand a section of people who deliberately wanted to create mischief and made propaganda that the Constitution of Pakistan would not be made on the basis of Shariat.
This cannot be better seen than in his address at the Opening Ceremony of State Bank of Pakistan. Jinnah categorically refuted the notion of adopting the ‘economic system of the west’ which ‘created insoluble problems for humanity’ and propagated for ‘evolving banking practices compatible with Islamic ideas of social and economic life.’
It will be unfair to suggest that he did not want Islam to reflect itself in all the socio-economic and political spheres of the state. What can be more anti-secular than this?
Coming to Iqbal, it cannot be less emphasised that any inspiration both Iqbal and Jinnah took from either the west or the east was conditional upon its consistency with Islamic fundamentals. In fact both of them attributed these aspect to Islam rather than to the west or the east. If you look at Jinnah's words where he talks about democracy, he does not tire himself with repeating how it was Islam which taught democracy while at the same time rejecting the 'modern democratic state' of majoritarianism void of islamic fundamentals. Similarly, despite admiring socialism, Iqbal did not tire himself with qualifying pure 'socialism' with the adjective 'atheistic.' The work of Marx had a very specific socio-economic context especially at the time of the industrial revolution. And there is no doubt that any islamic scholar who will read it will find it very attractive relative to the trickle down economics of western capitalism which was prevalent at the time of Iqbal and Jinnah. But i wont get into it for my fear of digressing away from the thread title.
Iqbal and Jinnah both believed that a secular democracy was compatible with Islam ... On the contrary , Mullahs and religious scholars believed that Caliphate was an essential part of Islam .. Maulanas went on to say that caliphate , just like Quran and Sunnah , was inseparable from Islam and any other form of government was Haram ....
Dr. Mohammad Iqbal was an admirer of the Turkish experience. In his well-known lectures on Reconstruction of Religious Thoughts in Islam, Dr. Iqbal says :
"If the Renaissance of Islam is a fact, and I believe it is a fact, we too one day, like Turks, will have to re-evaluate our intellectual inheritance."
It is clear from Iqbal's letters to Jinnah that in the proposed Muslim state, he wanted to see the establishment of such a social democracy which had the approval of the Islamic Shariah. But he had pleaded
for the reinterpretation of the Shariah law through Ijtihad to suit the modern needs and requirements of the Muslim community, and was of the view that if such a reinterpretation was possible, the Muslims could benefit from the material blessings of Islam.
Jinnah was inspired by the Holy Quran and considered the Messenger of Allah as the perfect man, but he never even once in his life time, referred Sunnah as a source of law. Iqbal too believed that following Hadith is not mandatory for Muslims ..
Jinnah believed that the Islamic laws, which he described as precedences, could be amended or even ignored to meet the requirement of times. His speech on the Special Marriage Bill in the Imperial Legislative Council reflects his conviction that Islam is not the name of any static mode or pattern of life. It is a spirit and not body ....
And the rest of your post in fact endorses what I said in my previous post ...
