Quaid’s effort to Islamise society was thwarted
ISLAMABAD: Uncovering the mother of all conspiracies to detach Pakistan from its Islamic ideology, the Archives Department of Punjab has revealed how the Department of Islamic Reconstruction (DIR) created by the Father of the Nation to Islamise the society as per the ideology of the country was wound up and its record destroyed soon after the death of Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Secretary Archives Punjab told The News here on Thursday that soon after the creation of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in one of his first executive moves had ordered the setting up of the Department of Islamic Reconstruction with the ultimate objective “to help our community to reconstruct its life on Islamic lines” but it was all undone soon after his demise.
Secretary Oriya Maqbool Jan said he would soon officially inform the top leadership of Punjab of this serious conspiracy against Pakistan.
According to the aims and objectives of the department as reflected in the official document, Islamic education system, Islamic law and social reorganisation, Islamic law and economics, and civic morale were the four areas of focus determined to create an Islamic society based on the teachings of Quran and Sunnah.
The secretary archives said Allama Muhammad Asad was made the head of the DIR but after the death of Quaid-i-Azam the then foreign minister Zafarullah Khan (who was a Qadyani) got the Allama transferred by assigning him a foreign affairs job.
After Allama Asad’s departure, the secretary Archives said, the department was abolished as well. Later a mysterious fire broke out in 1948 and the entire record of the department was destroyed.
“It was a conspiracy to obstruct Pakistan from Quaid’s vision of making it an Islamic welfare state,” Orya said, adding that in his biography “European Bedouin”, Muhammad Asad also wrote of how he was abruptly transferred from the job. Allama Asad also talked of the conspiracy.
According to the aims and objectives of the DIR as explained in the document, shared with The News by the secretary Punjab, after the creation of Pakistan braving great sacrifices and extraordinary difficulties, the Quaid wanted to run the country in Islamic way and did not see the creation of Pakistan as the end of the journey.
The document instead stated, “For, though Pakistan has become an established fact which no power on earth can undo, a tremendous effort is still needed on our part to ward off the perils that beset us from all sides and to achieve, in the words of the Quaid-i-Azam, ‘a state of our own concept’ that is to say, a state which would fully satisfy our desire to have a polity built on the principles of Islam. It is no easy task to achieve a truly Islamic polity after all those long centuries of debasement and slavery which have sapped a good deal of our strength and undermined our social morale.”
The document added, “As everyone knows, our struggle for the attainment of Pakistan has been fought on an ideological platform. We have maintained, and we do maintain today, that we Muslims are a nation by virtue of our adherence to Islam. To us, religion is not merely a set of beliefs and moral rules but a code of practical behaviour as well. Contrary to almost all other religions, Islam does not content itself with influencing the life of the spirit alone but aims also at shaping all the physical aspects of our life in accordance with the Islamic world-view. In the grand scheme propounded to us in the Quran and in the life-example of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), all the various aspects of human existence - moral and physical, spiritual and intellectual, individual and communal - have been taken into consideration as parts of the indivisible whole which we call ‘human life’. It follows, therefore, that we cannot live a truly Islamic life by merely holding Islamic beliefs. We must do far more than that. If Islam is not to remain an empty word, we must also coordinate our outward behaviour, individually and socially, with the beliefs we profess to hold.”
The DIR documents also talked of the possible impediments in the way of making Pakistan a true Islamic welfare state and warned, “Indeed, in a world ruled by concepts of nationalism on racial or purely cultural lines, the concept of an ideological state is so unique, so out of all proportion with what the rest of the world regards as ‘modern’ and desirable, that we were bound to encounter the most formidable opposition.”
It added, “For, most of the people in our time have grown accustomed to look upon racial affinities and historical traditions as the only legitimate basis of nationhood: while we, on the other hand, regard an ideological community - a community of people having definite outlook on life and a definite scale of moral values in common - as the highest form of nationhood to which man could aspire. We make this claim not only because we are convinced that out particular ideology, Islam, is a Message from God Himself but also because our reason tells us that a community based on ideas held in common is a far more advanced manifestation of human life than a community resulting from accidents of race or language or geographical location.”
It further stated, “And our nation cannot become really united, and cannot achieve that singleness of purpose so essential for a Muslim Millat, unless and until we overcome that shameful confusion and demoralisation, that loss of faith and of social integrity, that moral corruption which seems to have become portion during the recent weeks and months. And this is where the new Department of Islamic Reconstruction comes in.”Then the document presents the outline of the programme to be pursued by the DIR.
SOURCE:
THE NEWS INTERNATIONAL
Quaid’s effort to Islamise society was thwarted - thenews.com.pk
