Top Islamic Scholars Must Issue Fatwas Denouncing Killers of Bhatti and Taseer

[RiazHaq]

The recent assassination of Pakistani federal minister Mr. Shahbaz Bhatti of Catholic faith is a tragic event that has been widely condemned in Pakistan and abroad.

Bhatti's is the second assassination of a prominent politician of the ruling Pakistan Peoples' Party in the relatively muted debate on anti-blasphemy law in Pakistan.

As we mourn these tragedies, it is essential that the ideology of hate that inspired these murders be countered effectively by all Pakistanis, including the government, the leading politicians, the mass media and the civil society at large.

Unfortunately, however, people like late Punjab governor Salman Taseer, late federal minister Shahbaz Bhatti and Ms. Sherry Rehman, a former minister whose life is under threat from the extremists, can not fight this war by themselves because they can easily be dismissed as secular, liberal or kafir by the violent heretics who falsely claim to be the sole thekedars of Islam.

This war will require a powerful team of established, competent and respected Islamic scholars who can make a difference by offering strong fatwas (religious edicts) denouncing as "heretics" the clerics and their misguided followers who are responsible for murder and mayhem in the name of Islam.

Along with the need to bolster security for those who speak out against hate and intimidation, this anti-hate campaign must be orchestrated by the top political leadership and the mass media acting in unison by forming religious coalitions to mobilize public opinion to isolate and marginalize those who support this carnage.

Strong and well-publicized fatwas from established Islamic scholars need to be an essential part of the mass education campaign against the violent radical minority within Islam that is causing murder and mayhem.

These killers and their supporters are heretics who must be exposed for who they are by showing that they are violating the explicit injunctions of the Quran itself.

Among the Quranic chapters and verses that can be cited in this national campaign are the following:

There is no compulsion in religion. 2:256

Killing one human being is killing humanity as a whole. 5:32

Whosoever will, let him believe, and whosoever will, let him disbelieve. 18:29

Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion. 109:6

As Pakistanis discuss the anti-blasphemy law, it is more important than ever for Muslims to make a serious effort to understand what Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) stood for and how he lived his life. The issues of education, faith, reason and compassion need to be understood in the light of the Quran, the Sunnah and the Hadith. It is this understanding that will help guide the Ummah out of the deep crisis it finds itself in.

Here is how I remember the Prophet I know from my reading about his life:

Secular Education:

The Prophet I know instructed Muslims to "go as far as China to seek knowledge". It was clear at the time that China was not a Muslim nation. It is therefore safe to conclude that the Prophet encouraged all necessary efforts to seek all knowledge including secular education.

Faith and Reason:

The Prophet I know brought the Holy Quran to humanity, the Book that repeatedly and emphatically challenges readers to "Think" and "Ponder" for themselves. This is the best proof that Islam wants Muslims to embrace and reconcile faith and reason. It was this teaching that brought greatness to Muslims in seventh through thirteenth centuries following the death of Prophet Muhammad.

Compassion:

The Prophet I know showed compassion and understanding when a Bedouin person entered the Prophet's mosque in Medina and urinated, an act that infuriated the Prophet's companions. He restrained his companions and asked them to show understanding for the ignorance of the Bedouin.

Brevity:

The Prophet I know spoke softly and briefly. His last khutbah was a mere 430 words lasting a few minutes. He did not make long, fiery speeches.

Response to provocation:

The Prophet I know responded to abuse by prayer. When the people of Taif threw rocks at him, he responded by praying to Allah to give guidance to those who abused him.

Respect for Life:

The Prophet I know brought the Holy Quran, the Book that equates " unjust killing of one person" with "the killing the entire humanity". It commands respect for life.

The need for an effective broad-based campaign to reclaim Islam from the violent heretics is extremely urgent. Failure to fight the spreading hateful ideology in Pakistan will only encourage more death and destruction by the modern version of the "Hashashin" (Assassins) who went on a killing rampage from from 1092 to 1265.

Haq's Musings: Muslim Scholars Must Fight Hate in Pakistan

 

[FreekiN]

I suggest commercials and public service messages.

 

[Humanist]

Instant Fatwas are only given to people like Veena malik who dont harm anyone..All mullas become very bold and courageous and start attacking one lone woman....But no fatwas for murderers..

 

[GUNS-N- ROSES]

has any mullah issued fatwa for murderes of late bhatti and taseer. all civil and liberal minded people need to take up this matter more strongly. extremism shouldnot be tolerated be in pakistan or india.

 

[jayron]

I suggest commercials and public service messages.

Don't you think that will be too obvious that the government is forcing it rather than the scholars are saying it themselves? I think it should be made sure it is not some commercial move but a sincere one.

 

[greatsequence]

Almost all the religious parties condemned these acts but also said that this will not be allowed to be used against the blasphemy law.

 

[desioptimist]

On one hand we oppose mullahs deciding on behalf of us and on other hand we want them to oblige us and issue fatwa which suits us. Double standard?

 

[madooxno9]

aab tho fatwe nikaalna baand karo.... jab tak log nahi .... khade hoge ... ye fatwee kuch nahi kar sakte....wo baas veena malik tak hi thik tha

 

[Leader]

ABCDs should worry about things that dont really matter to them. they should focus on getting along with their lives. we will manage ours !!

 

[Capt.Popeye]

Rather intriguing to see a proposition that Mullahs must issue 'fatwas' to negate or neutralise other Mullahs.
A nation is governed by its laws and constitution not 'fatwas'. Mullahs can neither become Policemen nor Jurists.

 

[DaRk WaVe]

so, this progressive scholar just registered himself in the 'Wajib-ul-Qatal' list

 

[RiazHaq]

If laws were enough to bring about social change, India would not be dealing with regular massacres of thousands of members of minorities and widespread discrimination against Dalits and the growing female genocide that has claimed million of little girls' lives in India.

Social change requires much more than legislation; it requires mass education campaigns to change hearts and minds of the people.

And religious leaders and scholars have considerable influence on people in deeply religious societies like India and Pakistan where polls suggest that 92% of the people say religion is very important to them. So religious leaders need to be a part of any campaign to reform society.

Haq's Musings

 

[Vinod2070]

^^ Leave this pathetic obsession with India, even when dealing with Islamic or Pakistani issues.

Focus on your Islamic ummah, the Tajiks, Kyrgyzs, Uzbeks, Arabs, Kazhaks and Persians. They are your future.

India has nothing to do with you, never had.

BTW, if I provide real statistics about massacres in Pakistan, not only of the minuscule minorities who were almost completely ethnically cleansed but also the minority Islamic sects (and Pushtuns, Shia, Ahmedi, Bengalis, Palestinians et al), you won't have a place to hide.

Pathetic obsession of a geriatric.

 

[RiazHaq]

The Monoculture Of ‘Human Rights’

By Satya Sagar

28 February, 2010
Countercurrents.org

“Democracy in India is only top-dressing on an Indian soil which isessentially undemocratic.”

—B.R. Ambedkar, in 1949, in "Thus Spoke Ambedkar, Vol. 1: A Stake in the Nation"

Over sixty years after Dr Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian Constitution, talked about the ‘essentially undemocratic’ nature of the ‘Indian soil’ his insight remains relevant to any discussion on human rights and civil liberties in the country. For, without examining closely the very foundations on which the fancy structures of Indian democracy and its political and social institutions rest, it is easy to mistake them for the real thing.

Yes, there is such a thing called democracy in India. There are regular elections and peaceful transfers of power. There is a judiciary that is relatively independent of the legislature and an executive that often operates with a mind of its own. Yes, India is also the world’s ‘largest democracy’ by the sheer size of its population. All these are fruits of many past struggles and something to be proud of as many developing countries around the world are still run by absolute dictatorships.

What Dr Ambedkar was referring to however was the quality of the democracy that ‘Indian soil’- with its caste system, vast economic inequalities, ethnic and gender discrimination is really capable of nurturing. So the question to ask is how conducive or hostile is this ‘Indian soil’ to the functioning of democracy and the flowering of democratic processes or culture? What needs to be done to improve the ‘fertility’ of this soil so that a genuine democracy can be established in this land? A true democracy in any society is after all not the same as the holding of regular elections or going through the routine motions of convening a parliament and having a separate bureaucracy and judiciary. Maybe these are the minimum institutions needed for a democracy but by no means are they enough when they are set in the deeply unjust and oppressive conditions of India society.

Though Dr B.R.Ambedkar was instrumental in the conceptualisation and writing of the Indian Constitution, he was also fully aware of the limitations of equating something as lofty as the ‘rule of law’ with the existence of a well-crafted, beautifully worded set of rules. The same written law is applied in different ways to different sections of Indian society- we all know that- I don’t really have to elaborate. This is the essential tension that exists today between the concept of ‘civil rights’ as enshrined in the Indian Constitution and what actually happens in practice.

Let us first examine whatever exists currently in the name of both the modern Indian state as well as Indian democracy. The modern Indian nation state and its administrative, economic, educational and other structures are quite new. They are after all inherited from the British colonial empire, which in its quest for territory, resources and markets forcibly brought together very diverse peoples, nationalities and cultures into one fenced off piece of private property called ‘India’.

Of course, the Indian freedom struggle against British colonialism produced a national consciousness but this was largely confined to either the urban upper-caste, middle classes or at best to certain regions of India. Even today large parts of the sub-continent refuse to see themselves as part of ‘India’, which they see as a continuation of British colonialism taken over by the ‘Brown Sahibs’.

It is not surprising that they feel this way given the vast inequalities in income, opportunities and access to resources that characterise modern India. Adding to this discontent is the subtle and not-so-subtle conflation in recent decades of the very idea of Indian nationalism with that of upper-caste Hindu domination and the move away from principles of secularism. This is also not so surprising given that the private property called ‘India’ was taken over from the British by the Indian upper-castes who still continue to dominate the country in all its aspects.

The primary institutions of Indian democracy, whether it be the parliament, the judiciary, the executive or the ‘free’ Indian media are like saplings, introduced just sixty years ago in this nation state complex. They were very lovingly planted and nurtured by the founders of modern India and by now have grown into trees of some sort- a proud achievement indeed in the context of many other developing countries around the world. And yet as many millions of our fellow citizens, particularly from the Dalit, Adivasi and Muslim communities can confirm easily, the shade from these trees of Indian democracy rarely reach them, condemned as they are to permanent suffering under the harsh sun of social, economic and political repression.

Human Rights vs. Cow Rights

What we are dealing with in this country is a situation where historically the concept of the fundamental rights of a universal, standard ‘human being’ has never existed. In fact I would argue that traditionally in India there has never been the concept of a creature called the ‘human being’.

The only two categories that have prevailed for centuries in this land- and continue to do so in many parts of the country even today- are that of the ‘devas’ and ‘asuras’. ‘Human being’ is a somewhat fancy Western category in between the ‘gods’ and the ‘demons’ that small groups of enlightened activists have been bravely propagating for many years but one which is understood by very few even in the highest echelons of power- in the Indian parliament or the Indian judiciary.

To those sections of society who rule India the Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim or the poor in general, who constitute over 75 percent of the Indian population, are not human beings at all. That is why a vast section of this oppressed population is subject to the most horrific forms of violence in the form of not just direct physical attacks from time to time but also abject poverty, forced displacement and disease. For example, there are 2.5 million children under the age of 5 who die every year due to malnutrition related diseases in this country- all avoidable with social or state intervention. A vast majority of these children are from the communities I mentioned above. If this is not a genocide I would like someone to explain what is?

Even today in many parts of the country while there is a ban on ‘cow slaughter’ that is effectively implemented there is no such privilege for people from the Dalit, Adivasi or Muslim communities. In that sense these hapless people do not even have ‘cow rights’ leave alone the more esoteric ‘human rights’.
History of the Human Rights Movement

I want to bring to your attention some of the peculiarities of the Indian civil rights movement historically. In the post-Independence period one of the first organisations born to take up the issue of civil rights of citizens explicitly was the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights or APDR, in 1972 at the height of the political repression against the Naxalite upsurge in West Bengal. The organisation is still there after all these years and some very courageous and exemplary work.

Naturally, as it was created to help people from a particular political movement facing State repression their focus for a long period was protection of rights of activists of the Naxalite movement imprisoned and tortured in complete violation of their Constitutional rights. Of course the APDR has moved on since then to take up a very wide range of civil liberty issues but in some ways their core focus still remains the issues that led to the emergence of the Naxalite movement.

The Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties or PUCL was born in the midst of the Emergency declared by Mrs Indira Gandhi and had a broader range of political trends in its midst- indeed from the Right to the Left. In the post Emergency period the PUCL, though somewhat fragmented, has evolved into the only truly national level body working on the issue of civil and human rights though the ideological spectrum of its membership has narrowed considerably. With some exceptions here and there the concerns of the PUCL today are also congruent with that of the Indian Left movement in general .

The People’s Union for Democratic Rights, which was started in New Delhi in the early eighties, is another organisation that has done excellent work on civil rights particularly during the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984. But they too have stepped beyond the narrow confines of civil rights work to take up broader social, economic and even cultural issues also from time to time.

In that sense almost all the civil and human rights organisations in India are grappling with both the problem of ensuring the implementation of those rights enshrined in the Indian Constitution as well as those that are not guaranteed by it but which they feel should be implemented.

There is in that sense an overlap of their work with that of political organisations on the Left, which have historically taken up these issues around the country. As a result there is a tendency to see the civil and human rights movement as a ‘front’ of leftist political parties of different shades.

If this were only true of public perception the problem would have been different- a better communication strategy could have cleared the misconception about what Indian human rights organisations are really all about. The unfortunate thing is that many human rights activists themselves see their role as facilitators or promoters of the Left political vision and objectives and that too in the narrow sense of being partisan towards specific leftist political parties of their choice.

A frequent question that is asked by the media and even many ordinary citizens is ‘why do human rights groups always rush to the defence of left activists attacked by the State but never criticise leftists for their violent actions’. In the context of the recent incidents of Maoist violence in West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand this question is raised repeatedly.

Of course, as human rights groups have pointed out the Indian State – run by elected representatives - has a duty to uphold the principles of the Indian Constitution and uphold the Indian law and hence they are criticised for the violations they commit. On the other hand militant or terrorist groups are non-state actors who do not believe in the Indian Constitution and as participants in an insurgency they should be judged in the light of principles of war like those enshrined in the Geneva Convention.

Yet, the truth remains that there are hardly any human rights activists who are willing to go on a fact finding mission to document the human rights violations committed by different insurgent groups- whether they be in the Indian north-east, Kashmir or in central India. This is a serious drawback of the Indian human rights movement in general as it robs it of the credibility and popular base it needs in order to be effective in checking the violations of the Indian state, which is the biggest culprit in such matters.
Political revolution and human rights

As mentioned before, among many human rights activists there seems to be a genuine confusion that they are also supposed to bring about revolutionary change in Indian society through their human rights work. Let me say clearly that in my opinion anyone who thinks that human rights work is a substitute for revolutionary political work is being very naïve or plainly dishonest. My recommendation to them is if you want to do revolution please do so but not from behind the cover of human rights or civil rights groups. One’s inability to do revolutionary work in an open manner should not result in the destruction of the credibility of human rights work and needlessly threatening the lives of those who genuinely believe in the these rights being applicable to everyone.

For the truth is that the Indian soil, that Dr Ambedkar spoke off, requires the establishment of basic principles of ‘human rights’ before it is ready for any truly revolutionary change. There are several universal standards that have evolved over the centuries about how human beings should treat each other, what are their rights with respect to the State and the principle that even the worst of criminals is given reasonable opportunity to present his defence. These standards should be observed even by non-state actors in Indian society- particularly by those that claim to be fighting for a more just and humane future.

The standards of human rights should in fact be seen as being like the ethics of the medical profession. Just as no ethical doctor can refuse to treat a patient because of his own or his patient’s personal political beliefs so is the civil or human rights activist duty bound to oppose all rights violations irrespective of who its victims are or who commits them. This is the minimum standard that has to be established- defending the fundamental human rights of even your political opponents if necessary.

By being selective in their focus they do injustice to the title ‘human rights worker’ and undermine the development of a genuine culture of human rights where everyone has the same rights and where some humans are not ‘more equal’ than others. Promoting the idea of human rights as a monoculture can only add to the barrenness of Indian democracy.

As long as a more professional attitude to human rights work is not taken such concerns will remain confined to small groups of ‘well-meaning ‘people, who keep meeting in little seminar rooms and prevent human rights from becoming a truly mass political issue in India.

An important addition I would also make to Dr Ambedkar’s observation about Indian democracy is that the threat comes not just from the soil below but also from the foraging beasts of imperialism and neo-colonialism that have the power to chew up the ‘trees’ of democratic institutions as and when they want. For global capital, dictatorship is indeed the preferred mode of operation if it is to succeed in its mission of extracting every penny from the pockets of the world’s ordinary citizens. Establishing a human rights culture in the country is therefore also a primary task in the overall battle of the Indian people against imperialist and corporate designs on the country.

The Monoculture Of ‘Human Rights’ By Satya Sagar

 

[SpArK]

The Monoculture Of ‘Human Rights’

ttle of the Indian people against imperialist and corporate designs on the country.

The Monoculture Of ‘Human Rights’ By Satya Sagar

Mr whoever. I believe you understand English. This thread is not about India.. And we are not interested in a bloggy crap, which is highly obsessed with finding faults in India and is a big laughing stock.



What an Epic Failure of time wasting.