asifshiraz
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Zaid Hamids personality is somewhat like Maula Alis (kw) in how his followers go to one extreme in his love while others leave no stone unturned in his opposition. In fact, such vociferous is his dislike that this very statement of comparing his polarizing effect to Bu Turab could generate a sting of backlash from the liberals except that most liberals wouldnt even be familiar with the title Bu Turab!
And that is where the true appeal of Zaid Hamid lies: carrying the Bu Turabi elixir in a crucible that speaks in the idiom of the day. He stands at the confluence of two traditions, the silent religious conservative majority that wants to hold on to the pristine Islamic principles, and the western-educated intelligentsia that asks for effective tools and techniques that are in stride with the modern world.
This crisis of Islam and Modernity is well known. Political downfall of the caliphate resulted in intellectual stagnation, leaving a wide gap between the demands of modern world and the solutions that Muslim scholarship had devised in its heyday. It caused conservatives to get frozen in past centuries, and liberals to adopt western institutions that at least exist and work, as opposed to the fantasy land of the Mullah. It caused the rest of us to scramble for quick fix solutions, resulting in oxymorons like Islamic Banks. By and large, it divided us, in appearance at least, into the convervatives and the modernists. Yet, the Pakistani conservative aspires for modernity, and the modern intellectual is still deeply religious. Part of this is evident in the mutual respect, and indeed a rudimentary political alliance between the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Tehreek-e-Insaf. But in the larger soceity the two streams continue to appear as if in conflict.
Zaid Hamid, in this context, brings two things that were absent from the mix: First, as a well-educated researcher, he is able to effectively discuss and dissect the economic and geo-strategic issues of today and critique western institutions to generate a serious dialog on how these can be replaced with patently Islamic alternatives. Secondly, with a magetic charm, he romantically inspires the western educated youth to realize the value of our legacy, and to re-own and re-adopt it as a fundamental reference point for all intellectual endeavours.
His is a niche market, though vast in numbers. His follower is both a modernist and a conservative, who may or may not have a beard, but whose Ajami Khum will always contain an Hijazi Maye. This is a band of people who are patriotic, motivated and capable of doing great things. And it is this band of people that I want to address in this letter, the subject being: Should I vote for Imran Khan or not?
Zaid has already answered this clearly: He does not support democracy, and does not believe in voting. Although I favor the democratic ideal of participatory politics, From the qualified perspective from which this is usually said, I agree with this stance of Zaid Hamid. But still, Im a card carrying member of PTI, and am definitely going to vote. And if you read what I have to say, Im sure in the end you will too.
But how can I respect Zaids view, ask his followers to believe in it, and still advise them to go out and vote? Actually, when leaders take an action, it has very deep and far reaching implications, which severely limits their locus of operation. If Zaid asks you, or even allows you to vote, it will conflict with his principled stand against the negative elements of modern electoral process. But if you, as his followers individually choose to vote, it will not compromise the long term aim of BrassTacks to usher in an Islamic system of government structurally different from what we have today. And still, you would be doing a great service to the nation. Here are just a few reasons why you should:
BrassTacks Objections to Voting for Imran Khan
Here are some of the reasons being forwarded for not voting for Imran Khan:
1. Islam is against democracy so we will not participate in this system of Kufr
2. Elections will result in incapable, and worse, puppets of foreign powers, to be elected which will further aggravate our situation
3. Imran Khans party has secular manifesto and does not propose to bring Islamic System
4. Imran Khan is himself inexperienced and surrounded by bad advisers, which will further weaken Pakistan
Now let us look at them one by one. But first, lets start by a simple analogy.
Analogy of Thief
Imagine that a thief steals your mobile phone. Will you go after him and get it back, or report him to the police? Or will you say, because Im living in a system of Kufr, let me wait until the Caliphate is restituted and then I will take my case to the Qadi. Obviously you will do the former. This does not prevent you from working towards establishment of the caliphate, because it is not a mutually exclusive choice of being able to do only one thing.
If someone breaks into your house at night, you call the same police which reports to these corrupt politicians. When BrassTacks filed cases against Najam Sethi and Safma, the case was filed in the same judicial system which governs by western law and has been repeatedly attacked by BrassTacks. The reason is that there is no contradiction in making use of what is available in the short term, and still working towards replacing it in the long run.
Abu Bakr Siddique (rz) emancipated Bilal (rz) by purchasing him with his private money. But imagine if a local law existed where all he had to do was to report the torture being meted out to Bilal, and he would automatically have been emancipated. Would Abu Bakr have refrained from invoking the law simply because it equates to employing the Kufr system?
Imagine Zardaris and Sharifs as thieves, coming in our houses and stealing our money. And imagine a just and honest person who is almost within reach to stop this theft. True, that he may not be the epitome of all that you stand for and desire in a Khalifah-e-Rashid, but does it make sense not to avail this opportunity to stop the theft of the whole nation?
The corruption of the system is not an excuse to postpone or renounce taking those actions which can bring nothing but short term good. Even the opponents of Imran Khan admit that he is not corrupt, and will try his best to do bring about a positive change. Mahathir Muhammad was equally secular and western in his outlook. He was no Caliph. But he changed Malaysia. He may not have made it into a Rashidoon Caliphate, but he definitely brought it into a state where it is now an even better place to launch pan-Islamic programs for the restoration of the Ummah. That is exactly why the Gold Dinar movement, advocated by Zaid Hamid himself in his Economic Terrorism series, was started off in Malaysia, because it is one of the most economically strong and stable Muslim countries.
If you do not see in Imran Khan the Umar Bin AbdulAziz that you desire, at least acknowledge that he can be a good and honest gatekeeper, to keep the Zardaris and Sharifs out!
Electoral System is un-Islamic so must be boycotted
The next point commonly made is that electoral democracy is un-Islamic and so we should not vote. While I personally disagree with this as explained here, it remains to be a highly contentious point. But we cannot overlook that our founding fathers, Allama Iqbal and Qaid-e-Azam participated in the electoral process and party politics. However, even if we concede the point that the many flaws in this election process makes it un-Islamic, there is another issue we have to contend with.
If the Caliphate is the only Islamic system of government, then any other system must be wrong, and should be opposed. Why single out democracy? All governments including civil or military dictatorships are also as un-Islamic as parliamentary democracies. However, when deemed useful for the country, Zaid Hamid himself participated in serving these un-Islamic governments, e.g. his recent statement on facebook that I worked closely with Musharraf as an unofficial adviser and Security Analys. If caliphate is the only recognized system, why work for a dictatorship? The answer is simple: Zaids service to Musharraf was only meant to strengthen Pakistan in a tactical manner, without compromising on the broader aim of continuing to educate people and bring them back to Caliphate.
And exactly the same point can be made for Imran Khan too: Vote now for tactical support to strengthen Pakistan with an honest stewardship, and in the long run, continue to read your sabaq for adalat, sadaqat and shujahat to ultimately replace the whole thing.
Elections will result in anarchy, just like 1971
This is again a point against elections in general, and not against Imran Khan himself.
To avoid this eventuality, BrassTacks can try to postpone the elections, or convince the army to take over. If that happens, well and good, because the question of voting for Imran Khan or not will never arise. But as long as elections are still scheduled to be held, and if the predicted anarchy will inevitably esnue after them, then obviously we need someone who can minimize its effect. I am sure nobody is suggesting that anarchy will only spread if Imran Khan wins, and not if Zardari or Nawaz win? So Imran is still our best bet in this situation, and if elections are held, then not voting for him will not help reduce the damaging effects to any extent.
Imran Khans party has secular manifesto
True. However, Imran Khans party represents the youth and people of Pakistan. It is not Imran Khan who decides the manifesto. He only made his decisions when the party started. The party is merely a platform. People came forward and replaced founding members like Arif Alvi. Similarly, people can come forward and replace the manifesto also with Islamic principles. I myself proposed to the party to adopt the Gold Dinar and it was seriously deliberated upon, even if not accepted.
The problem of secularism is not a political problem, but an educational and social one. The Ulema, Mushaikh, and indeed BrassTacks itself is working towards changing the peoples mindsets to demand Islamic institutions and systems. When your work is adequately done, it will start reflecting itself in the political parties also. This is not a reason to reject PTI. The contribution of Imran Khan is that he has mobilized the honest and educated people of country, and given them grassroots power to assert their own power in front of the established elites. That this empowered, honest and patriotic group of people has not been adequately educated to demand Islamic systems is not PTI or Imran Khans failing. Let us come together and change this. If all the 120,000 facebook fans of Zaid Hamids official page were all in PTI, they would surely have had the muscle to change its manifesto!
Again, this is no reason to leave Imran Khan high and dry in his lonely battle against the looters. He still needs our support. Every Qaid-e-Azam needs an Allama Iqbal to support him. Im sure if BrassTacks can come forward with strong and working solutions, the religious patriots in PTI will definitely adopt such proposals.
It is easy to criticize PTI for having the same economic agenda as other parties. However, why has BrassTacks not done a single program on economic policies after the Economic Terrorism series 5 long years ago? Just like BrassTacks chose to focus its efforts on geo-political matters instead of the Gold Dinar, similarly, PTI is primarily focused right now on governance, corruption and ridding us from the War on Terror. Secularism of its manifesto is not an excuse at critical juncture to nullify all the other services of Imran Khan and PTI.
Imran Khan is himself inexperienced and surrounded by bad advisers
Lets face it: All leaders have strong personalities, often resulting in a clash. An fine example is that of Syedna Umar (rz) and Hz. Khalif bin Walid, although there are many more that can be quoted. Imran Khan and Zaid Hamid are two strong leaders, and I do not expect one to submit to the other. If Zaid complains that Imran does not heed to his advise, I can tell you of countless examples of when Zaid himself did not heed to other peoples advise, resulting in the unfortunate sabotage of his campaign many years back. This is the stuff leaders are made of. They make their own mistakes and then face and rectify the effects of their own decisions.
Imran Khan has a much, much better team of people than any other political party in this country, including any technocrat, patriotic caretaker or military setup. And he does has the ability to make teams, starting from cricket, to the other wonderful group of people who are now entirely managing his hospital, Namal college and even the second largest political party in the world, all without depending on him. Trust this man to do a better job for Pakistan than anyone else, irrespective of the difficulties that we may face in the future. And even if such difficulties come, we are all still here. Betting on Imran does not mean leaving everyone else out. It just means undertaking this journey together, PTI, and BrassTacks and all patriotic people in this country. All togehter.
Do not cause division or confusion at this stage. Stand together, and Vote for Imran Khan.
And that is where the true appeal of Zaid Hamid lies: carrying the Bu Turabi elixir in a crucible that speaks in the idiom of the day. He stands at the confluence of two traditions, the silent religious conservative majority that wants to hold on to the pristine Islamic principles, and the western-educated intelligentsia that asks for effective tools and techniques that are in stride with the modern world.
This crisis of Islam and Modernity is well known. Political downfall of the caliphate resulted in intellectual stagnation, leaving a wide gap between the demands of modern world and the solutions that Muslim scholarship had devised in its heyday. It caused conservatives to get frozen in past centuries, and liberals to adopt western institutions that at least exist and work, as opposed to the fantasy land of the Mullah. It caused the rest of us to scramble for quick fix solutions, resulting in oxymorons like Islamic Banks. By and large, it divided us, in appearance at least, into the convervatives and the modernists. Yet, the Pakistani conservative aspires for modernity, and the modern intellectual is still deeply religious. Part of this is evident in the mutual respect, and indeed a rudimentary political alliance between the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Tehreek-e-Insaf. But in the larger soceity the two streams continue to appear as if in conflict.
Zaid Hamid, in this context, brings two things that were absent from the mix: First, as a well-educated researcher, he is able to effectively discuss and dissect the economic and geo-strategic issues of today and critique western institutions to generate a serious dialog on how these can be replaced with patently Islamic alternatives. Secondly, with a magetic charm, he romantically inspires the western educated youth to realize the value of our legacy, and to re-own and re-adopt it as a fundamental reference point for all intellectual endeavours.
His is a niche market, though vast in numbers. His follower is both a modernist and a conservative, who may or may not have a beard, but whose Ajami Khum will always contain an Hijazi Maye. This is a band of people who are patriotic, motivated and capable of doing great things. And it is this band of people that I want to address in this letter, the subject being: Should I vote for Imran Khan or not?
Zaid has already answered this clearly: He does not support democracy, and does not believe in voting. Although I favor the democratic ideal of participatory politics, From the qualified perspective from which this is usually said, I agree with this stance of Zaid Hamid. But still, Im a card carrying member of PTI, and am definitely going to vote. And if you read what I have to say, Im sure in the end you will too.
But how can I respect Zaids view, ask his followers to believe in it, and still advise them to go out and vote? Actually, when leaders take an action, it has very deep and far reaching implications, which severely limits their locus of operation. If Zaid asks you, or even allows you to vote, it will conflict with his principled stand against the negative elements of modern electoral process. But if you, as his followers individually choose to vote, it will not compromise the long term aim of BrassTacks to usher in an Islamic system of government structurally different from what we have today. And still, you would be doing a great service to the nation. Here are just a few reasons why you should:
BrassTacks Objections to Voting for Imran Khan
Here are some of the reasons being forwarded for not voting for Imran Khan:
1. Islam is against democracy so we will not participate in this system of Kufr
2. Elections will result in incapable, and worse, puppets of foreign powers, to be elected which will further aggravate our situation
3. Imran Khans party has secular manifesto and does not propose to bring Islamic System
4. Imran Khan is himself inexperienced and surrounded by bad advisers, which will further weaken Pakistan
Now let us look at them one by one. But first, lets start by a simple analogy.
Analogy of Thief
Imagine that a thief steals your mobile phone. Will you go after him and get it back, or report him to the police? Or will you say, because Im living in a system of Kufr, let me wait until the Caliphate is restituted and then I will take my case to the Qadi. Obviously you will do the former. This does not prevent you from working towards establishment of the caliphate, because it is not a mutually exclusive choice of being able to do only one thing.
If someone breaks into your house at night, you call the same police which reports to these corrupt politicians. When BrassTacks filed cases against Najam Sethi and Safma, the case was filed in the same judicial system which governs by western law and has been repeatedly attacked by BrassTacks. The reason is that there is no contradiction in making use of what is available in the short term, and still working towards replacing it in the long run.
Abu Bakr Siddique (rz) emancipated Bilal (rz) by purchasing him with his private money. But imagine if a local law existed where all he had to do was to report the torture being meted out to Bilal, and he would automatically have been emancipated. Would Abu Bakr have refrained from invoking the law simply because it equates to employing the Kufr system?
Imagine Zardaris and Sharifs as thieves, coming in our houses and stealing our money. And imagine a just and honest person who is almost within reach to stop this theft. True, that he may not be the epitome of all that you stand for and desire in a Khalifah-e-Rashid, but does it make sense not to avail this opportunity to stop the theft of the whole nation?
The corruption of the system is not an excuse to postpone or renounce taking those actions which can bring nothing but short term good. Even the opponents of Imran Khan admit that he is not corrupt, and will try his best to do bring about a positive change. Mahathir Muhammad was equally secular and western in his outlook. He was no Caliph. But he changed Malaysia. He may not have made it into a Rashidoon Caliphate, but he definitely brought it into a state where it is now an even better place to launch pan-Islamic programs for the restoration of the Ummah. That is exactly why the Gold Dinar movement, advocated by Zaid Hamid himself in his Economic Terrorism series, was started off in Malaysia, because it is one of the most economically strong and stable Muslim countries.
If you do not see in Imran Khan the Umar Bin AbdulAziz that you desire, at least acknowledge that he can be a good and honest gatekeeper, to keep the Zardaris and Sharifs out!
Electoral System is un-Islamic so must be boycotted
The next point commonly made is that electoral democracy is un-Islamic and so we should not vote. While I personally disagree with this as explained here, it remains to be a highly contentious point. But we cannot overlook that our founding fathers, Allama Iqbal and Qaid-e-Azam participated in the electoral process and party politics. However, even if we concede the point that the many flaws in this election process makes it un-Islamic, there is another issue we have to contend with.
If the Caliphate is the only Islamic system of government, then any other system must be wrong, and should be opposed. Why single out democracy? All governments including civil or military dictatorships are also as un-Islamic as parliamentary democracies. However, when deemed useful for the country, Zaid Hamid himself participated in serving these un-Islamic governments, e.g. his recent statement on facebook that I worked closely with Musharraf as an unofficial adviser and Security Analys. If caliphate is the only recognized system, why work for a dictatorship? The answer is simple: Zaids service to Musharraf was only meant to strengthen Pakistan in a tactical manner, without compromising on the broader aim of continuing to educate people and bring them back to Caliphate.
And exactly the same point can be made for Imran Khan too: Vote now for tactical support to strengthen Pakistan with an honest stewardship, and in the long run, continue to read your sabaq for adalat, sadaqat and shujahat to ultimately replace the whole thing.
Elections will result in anarchy, just like 1971
This is again a point against elections in general, and not against Imran Khan himself.
To avoid this eventuality, BrassTacks can try to postpone the elections, or convince the army to take over. If that happens, well and good, because the question of voting for Imran Khan or not will never arise. But as long as elections are still scheduled to be held, and if the predicted anarchy will inevitably esnue after them, then obviously we need someone who can minimize its effect. I am sure nobody is suggesting that anarchy will only spread if Imran Khan wins, and not if Zardari or Nawaz win? So Imran is still our best bet in this situation, and if elections are held, then not voting for him will not help reduce the damaging effects to any extent.
Imran Khans party has secular manifesto
True. However, Imran Khans party represents the youth and people of Pakistan. It is not Imran Khan who decides the manifesto. He only made his decisions when the party started. The party is merely a platform. People came forward and replaced founding members like Arif Alvi. Similarly, people can come forward and replace the manifesto also with Islamic principles. I myself proposed to the party to adopt the Gold Dinar and it was seriously deliberated upon, even if not accepted.
The problem of secularism is not a political problem, but an educational and social one. The Ulema, Mushaikh, and indeed BrassTacks itself is working towards changing the peoples mindsets to demand Islamic institutions and systems. When your work is adequately done, it will start reflecting itself in the political parties also. This is not a reason to reject PTI. The contribution of Imran Khan is that he has mobilized the honest and educated people of country, and given them grassroots power to assert their own power in front of the established elites. That this empowered, honest and patriotic group of people has not been adequately educated to demand Islamic systems is not PTI or Imran Khans failing. Let us come together and change this. If all the 120,000 facebook fans of Zaid Hamids official page were all in PTI, they would surely have had the muscle to change its manifesto!
Again, this is no reason to leave Imran Khan high and dry in his lonely battle against the looters. He still needs our support. Every Qaid-e-Azam needs an Allama Iqbal to support him. Im sure if BrassTacks can come forward with strong and working solutions, the religious patriots in PTI will definitely adopt such proposals.
It is easy to criticize PTI for having the same economic agenda as other parties. However, why has BrassTacks not done a single program on economic policies after the Economic Terrorism series 5 long years ago? Just like BrassTacks chose to focus its efforts on geo-political matters instead of the Gold Dinar, similarly, PTI is primarily focused right now on governance, corruption and ridding us from the War on Terror. Secularism of its manifesto is not an excuse at critical juncture to nullify all the other services of Imran Khan and PTI.
Imran Khan is himself inexperienced and surrounded by bad advisers
Lets face it: All leaders have strong personalities, often resulting in a clash. An fine example is that of Syedna Umar (rz) and Hz. Khalif bin Walid, although there are many more that can be quoted. Imran Khan and Zaid Hamid are two strong leaders, and I do not expect one to submit to the other. If Zaid complains that Imran does not heed to his advise, I can tell you of countless examples of when Zaid himself did not heed to other peoples advise, resulting in the unfortunate sabotage of his campaign many years back. This is the stuff leaders are made of. They make their own mistakes and then face and rectify the effects of their own decisions.
Imran Khan has a much, much better team of people than any other political party in this country, including any technocrat, patriotic caretaker or military setup. And he does has the ability to make teams, starting from cricket, to the other wonderful group of people who are now entirely managing his hospital, Namal college and even the second largest political party in the world, all without depending on him. Trust this man to do a better job for Pakistan than anyone else, irrespective of the difficulties that we may face in the future. And even if such difficulties come, we are all still here. Betting on Imran does not mean leaving everyone else out. It just means undertaking this journey together, PTI, and BrassTacks and all patriotic people in this country. All togehter.
Do not cause division or confusion at this stage. Stand together, and Vote for Imran Khan.
