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comment: Between violent and silent jihad Suroosh Irfani
Lashkar-e Tayyabas emergence as perhaps the best organised jihadi outfit committed to violent global jihad on the one hand, and Pakistans role as the kingpin in international counter-terrorism on the other, are two sides of the same coin: betrayal of Jinnahs Pakistan
From a promising developing state in the 1960s, Pakistans descent into swamps of terrorism has been phenomenal. Pakistan is grouped with some of the most unstable countries in the world today: Somalia, Niger and Mali, besides Afghanistan and Iraq.
However, even if Pakistans dream to be in league with model developing economies has run aground, it is the centrepiece of the United States and Britains new counter-terrorism strategies unveiled last month.
Such dubious distinction, however, is not without some irony. A breeder of violent jihadi groups for almost a generation, Pakistans fight against terrorism today is more about its own survival than international security.
The question, however, is whether Pakistan has the political will and vision to pull off this fight: the conviction the war it is fighting is her own war, and that the vision underpinning Pakistans creation has gone awry and must be reclaimed.
At the heart of Pakistans crisis lies the infusion of radical Islamic conservatism into state and society over the last three decades, ever since General Zia-ul Haq staked Pakistans future on the jihadi politics of Afghanistan and Kashmir. At the same time, with the virtual collapse of state education, religious schools linked with jihadi outfits rapidly expanded as breeders of violent jihadi culture. This altered the ethos of public education in Pakistan, and radically transformed the historical nexus of education and politics that underpinned Pakistans genesis.
Such linkage of education and politics goes back to 19th century India, when a silent jihad for educational reform led by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (d.1898) began transforming the Muslim consciousness. While Sir Syeds movement founded new schools, colleges, scientific journals and a university, its centrepiece was Madrsatul Ulum Musalmanan, better known as the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College.
Founded at Aligarh in 1875, the college aspired to raise a new generation of Muslims that could fuse religious concerns and modern knowledge with the Muslim struggle for a place in the sun. As historian David Lelyveld notes in Aligarhs First Generation (Oxford, 1996), Aligarh students had no special advantage over other English-educated Indians, but what made them special was a quest for moral and intellectual regeneration that also implied creative engagement with others.
At the same time, Sir Syed founded the first national network of Indian Muslims, the Muhammadan Educational Conference. The Educational Conference took a political turn in 1906: it founded the Muslim League, the first political party of Muslims in India. The Aligarh spirit and League politics, exemplified by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, spurred the movement leading to Pakistans creation in 1947.
In fact, it can be argued that if by the 1960s Pakistan had achieved a modicum of social development and economic stability, this was partly because Jinnahs ethos (the Aligarh-League nexus) was still alive and kicking. However, as Pakistan staked its future on jihadi politics and abdicated responsibility for public education, the creative nexus of education and politics that spurred the Pakistan movement was turned into an instrument of destruction and regression.
A recent example of this inversion is the systematic destruction of schools in Swat as politics of the Tehreek-e Taliban Movement of Students seeking Religious Knowledge. The destruction of schools/education gave the Taliban control of Swat. If Sir Syed empowered Muslims in India by constructing schools, the Taliban empowered themselves in Swat by destroying them. Conceptually, this marked displacement of the Aligarh-League dynamic by a nexus of violent jihadi culture and jihadi outfits.
However, in mainstream Pakistan, a compelling example of the displacement of Jinnahs ethos is reflected by the nexus of the Markaz Dawa Wal Irshad (Centre for Preaching and Guidance) and its armed wing, the Lashkar-e Tayyaba.
Founded in 1987 by Pakistanis who studied in Saudi Arabia, Markaz is a self-contained model town in Muridke, built on 190 acres donated by General Zias military regime. The town includes an educational complex, farms, a clothing factory and numerous residential and community facilities for creating a purely Islamic environment wholly removed from the authority of the Pakistani state. Funded mainly by Saudi and Pakistani donors from around the world, the network of some 200 Markaz schools teaches a Wahhabi version of Islam as distinct from popular Pakistani Islam, where the importance of jihad against Hindus and Jews is emphasised. (Mariam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy, Islamist networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection; C Hurst, 2004. Pp 32-36).
On its part, the Laskhar is committed to global conquest with the goal of restoring the Caliphate, even as it views Kashmir as no more than a gateway to India...for liberation of 200 million Indian Muslims. Zahab and Roy further note that school texts promoting jihad for jihads sake include the last testaments of mujahideen about to go into battle, often on the Kashmir battlefront.
At the same time, Markaz schools are way ahead of traditional madrassas: they offer education that provides employment skills, besides religion. However, rather than factories producing jihadis, Markaz schools are producing a triumphalist jihadi culture a potentially violent culture absorbed by various segments of society, especially students and dropouts of government schools who have little prospects for the future.
Indeed, as Zahab and Roy note, majority of the Lashkars mujahideen come from the Urdu-language system of public education, while only 10 percent come from madrassas. Markaz schools were spreading rapidly throughout Pakistan and especially in Sindh due to the weakness of state education.
Such weakness of government schools is supported by a recent survey in Sindh. The survey reveals that 500 primary schools were non-functional in Dadu district alone. Many schools were dysfunctional because they were used as guest houses and cattle pens by feudal lords and influential persons. Furthermore, several schools that never got started when the buildings were completed were shown to be functional in official records, so that teachers got salaries while sitting at their homes. (Dawn, March 13, 2009).
The above is just the tip of an iceberg of cultural regression, where the virtual collapse of public education has made jihadi schools an attractive alternative, and violent jihad a desired pathway for instant empowerment in the here, and paradise in the hereafter.
As for the Lashkar-e Tayyaba, although banned in 2002, the organisation continued to thrive under different names, and is believed to have carried out the Mumbai attacks of November 2008. A briefing to the United States Senate Armed Services Committee on March 11, 2009, noted that given its organisation and cadres commitment, the Lashkar may well replace Al Qaeda as the vanguard of violent global jihad in the future.
Rising from the heart of Pakistans violent jihadi culture, Lashkar-e Tayyabas reportedly 300,000 trained cadres are, however, not up in arms against Pakistan. Their sphere of violent jihad is outside Pakistan.
Even so, the Lashkars emergence as perhaps the best organised jihadi outfit committed to violent global jihad on the one hand, and Pakistans role as the kingpin in international counter-terrorism on the other, are two sides of the same coin: betrayal of Jinnahs Pakistan.
Clearly, in its battle for survival, Pakistan is at the mercy of an internal mortal threat, as British Foreign Secretary David Miliband recently warned. However, Pakistans battle will remain elusive, unless it sheds the jihadi violence it has spawned, and reclaims the silent jihad that gave it birth.
Suroosh Irfani is an educationist and writer
based in Lahore
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
Lashkar-e Tayyabas emergence as perhaps the best organised jihadi outfit committed to violent global jihad on the one hand, and Pakistans role as the kingpin in international counter-terrorism on the other, are two sides of the same coin: betrayal of Jinnahs Pakistan
From a promising developing state in the 1960s, Pakistans descent into swamps of terrorism has been phenomenal. Pakistan is grouped with some of the most unstable countries in the world today: Somalia, Niger and Mali, besides Afghanistan and Iraq.
However, even if Pakistans dream to be in league with model developing economies has run aground, it is the centrepiece of the United States and Britains new counter-terrorism strategies unveiled last month.
Such dubious distinction, however, is not without some irony. A breeder of violent jihadi groups for almost a generation, Pakistans fight against terrorism today is more about its own survival than international security.
The question, however, is whether Pakistan has the political will and vision to pull off this fight: the conviction the war it is fighting is her own war, and that the vision underpinning Pakistans creation has gone awry and must be reclaimed.
At the heart of Pakistans crisis lies the infusion of radical Islamic conservatism into state and society over the last three decades, ever since General Zia-ul Haq staked Pakistans future on the jihadi politics of Afghanistan and Kashmir. At the same time, with the virtual collapse of state education, religious schools linked with jihadi outfits rapidly expanded as breeders of violent jihadi culture. This altered the ethos of public education in Pakistan, and radically transformed the historical nexus of education and politics that underpinned Pakistans genesis.
Such linkage of education and politics goes back to 19th century India, when a silent jihad for educational reform led by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (d.1898) began transforming the Muslim consciousness. While Sir Syeds movement founded new schools, colleges, scientific journals and a university, its centrepiece was Madrsatul Ulum Musalmanan, better known as the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College.
Founded at Aligarh in 1875, the college aspired to raise a new generation of Muslims that could fuse religious concerns and modern knowledge with the Muslim struggle for a place in the sun. As historian David Lelyveld notes in Aligarhs First Generation (Oxford, 1996), Aligarh students had no special advantage over other English-educated Indians, but what made them special was a quest for moral and intellectual regeneration that also implied creative engagement with others.
At the same time, Sir Syed founded the first national network of Indian Muslims, the Muhammadan Educational Conference. The Educational Conference took a political turn in 1906: it founded the Muslim League, the first political party of Muslims in India. The Aligarh spirit and League politics, exemplified by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, spurred the movement leading to Pakistans creation in 1947.
In fact, it can be argued that if by the 1960s Pakistan had achieved a modicum of social development and economic stability, this was partly because Jinnahs ethos (the Aligarh-League nexus) was still alive and kicking. However, as Pakistan staked its future on jihadi politics and abdicated responsibility for public education, the creative nexus of education and politics that spurred the Pakistan movement was turned into an instrument of destruction and regression.
A recent example of this inversion is the systematic destruction of schools in Swat as politics of the Tehreek-e Taliban Movement of Students seeking Religious Knowledge. The destruction of schools/education gave the Taliban control of Swat. If Sir Syed empowered Muslims in India by constructing schools, the Taliban empowered themselves in Swat by destroying them. Conceptually, this marked displacement of the Aligarh-League dynamic by a nexus of violent jihadi culture and jihadi outfits.
However, in mainstream Pakistan, a compelling example of the displacement of Jinnahs ethos is reflected by the nexus of the Markaz Dawa Wal Irshad (Centre for Preaching and Guidance) and its armed wing, the Lashkar-e Tayyaba.
Founded in 1987 by Pakistanis who studied in Saudi Arabia, Markaz is a self-contained model town in Muridke, built on 190 acres donated by General Zias military regime. The town includes an educational complex, farms, a clothing factory and numerous residential and community facilities for creating a purely Islamic environment wholly removed from the authority of the Pakistani state. Funded mainly by Saudi and Pakistani donors from around the world, the network of some 200 Markaz schools teaches a Wahhabi version of Islam as distinct from popular Pakistani Islam, where the importance of jihad against Hindus and Jews is emphasised. (Mariam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy, Islamist networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection; C Hurst, 2004. Pp 32-36).
On its part, the Laskhar is committed to global conquest with the goal of restoring the Caliphate, even as it views Kashmir as no more than a gateway to India...for liberation of 200 million Indian Muslims. Zahab and Roy further note that school texts promoting jihad for jihads sake include the last testaments of mujahideen about to go into battle, often on the Kashmir battlefront.
At the same time, Markaz schools are way ahead of traditional madrassas: they offer education that provides employment skills, besides religion. However, rather than factories producing jihadis, Markaz schools are producing a triumphalist jihadi culture a potentially violent culture absorbed by various segments of society, especially students and dropouts of government schools who have little prospects for the future.
Indeed, as Zahab and Roy note, majority of the Lashkars mujahideen come from the Urdu-language system of public education, while only 10 percent come from madrassas. Markaz schools were spreading rapidly throughout Pakistan and especially in Sindh due to the weakness of state education.
Such weakness of government schools is supported by a recent survey in Sindh. The survey reveals that 500 primary schools were non-functional in Dadu district alone. Many schools were dysfunctional because they were used as guest houses and cattle pens by feudal lords and influential persons. Furthermore, several schools that never got started when the buildings were completed were shown to be functional in official records, so that teachers got salaries while sitting at their homes. (Dawn, March 13, 2009).
The above is just the tip of an iceberg of cultural regression, where the virtual collapse of public education has made jihadi schools an attractive alternative, and violent jihad a desired pathway for instant empowerment in the here, and paradise in the hereafter.
As for the Lashkar-e Tayyaba, although banned in 2002, the organisation continued to thrive under different names, and is believed to have carried out the Mumbai attacks of November 2008. A briefing to the United States Senate Armed Services Committee on March 11, 2009, noted that given its organisation and cadres commitment, the Lashkar may well replace Al Qaeda as the vanguard of violent global jihad in the future.
Rising from the heart of Pakistans violent jihadi culture, Lashkar-e Tayyabas reportedly 300,000 trained cadres are, however, not up in arms against Pakistan. Their sphere of violent jihad is outside Pakistan.
Even so, the Lashkars emergence as perhaps the best organised jihadi outfit committed to violent global jihad on the one hand, and Pakistans role as the kingpin in international counter-terrorism on the other, are two sides of the same coin: betrayal of Jinnahs Pakistan.
Clearly, in its battle for survival, Pakistan is at the mercy of an internal mortal threat, as British Foreign Secretary David Miliband recently warned. However, Pakistans battle will remain elusive, unless it sheds the jihadi violence it has spawned, and reclaims the silent jihad that gave it birth.
Suroosh Irfani is an educationist and writer
based in Lahore
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
