The violent fanaticism on display in Pakistan is too close for
comfort
BY JAVED ANAND
There’s nothing a practising Muslim ever does without
the invocation: “Bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim (In the name of
Allah, the most compassionate, the most merciful)”. About Prophet
Muhammad he will tell you that Allah sent him to earth as “rahmat al
il alamin (mercy unto mankind)”. The very word Islam means peace,
you will be told. Allah, Prophet Muhammad, Islam, is all about peace,
compassion, mercy. Get it?
No doubt Mumtaz Qadri, the assassin of Punjab governor
Salmaan Taseer, believes himself to be a pious Muslim. No doubt
bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim preceded the bullets he pumped into a
person he was trained, paid and sworn to protect, risking his life if
need be. No doubt he committed cold-blooded murder in the name of
“Allah, the most compassionate, the most merciful” in defence of a
religion that means peace and in honour of the prophet (hurmat-e-rasool)
who is meant to be mercy unto all mankind. Killing for peace? I just
don’t get it.
Could it be that despite his self-perception, Qadri was
actually under Satan’s evil influence? Banish the thought. For the
“respected ulema” of Pakistan the man is a ghazi (holy warrior)
now. (In Islam, a ghazi enjoys as high a status as a shaheed, or
martyr.) If we happen to think otherwise, we too are blasphemers,
kafirs, ‘wajib-ul-qatl (fit to be killed)’.
Killing may not be your or my idea of promoting peace
but according to the “respected ulema” of Pakistan, you better believe
it, that’s Islam. Read the joint statement issued by 500 “maulanas” from
the Jamaat-e-Ahl-e-Sunnat Pakistan (JASP) which also issued a death
threat to anyone who dared lead or even participate in the
namaaz-e-janaza (funeral prayer) for Taseer: “The punishment for
blasphemy against the prophet is only death as per the holy book
[Koran], Sunnah [sayings and deeds of Prophet Muhammad], consensus of
Muslim opinion and explanations by the ulema… this brave person [Qadri]
has maintained the 1,400 years of Muslim tradition and has held the
heads of 1.5 billion Muslims of the world high with pride.” No, you
messiahs of murder, count me out.
Ironically, this very Barelvi sect from among the
subcontinent’s Muslims had thus far been seen as Pakistan’s great big
hope for peace, a counterforce waiting to be deployed against the
Deobandis, the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Ahl-e-Hadith, all of whom are
guilty of injecting intolerance, extremism and terrorism into Islam. But
a single murderous deed done by a “ghazi” has brought together
Pakistan’s mutually warring “ulema” on a common platform. Whatever their
other disagreements, they stand together in their worship of violence
and contempt of the dissenting voice.
The credit for this unprecedented unholy alliance goes
to the Jamaat-ud Dawah (JuD), another name for the terrorist outfit
Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) which among numerous other heinous acts is
responsible for the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai and India. As evident
from its very well attended rally in Lahore (on January 16 and 17) under
the banner of the Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool (Movement for the Honour of
the Prophet), the JuD, the Deobandis and the Barelvis jointly pronounced
a death sentence on anyone calling for change in Pakistan’s infamous
blasphemy laws.
Such madness in our immediate neighbourhood is in itself
sufficient cause for concern. More worrisome is the fact that the roots
and trunks of Pakistan’s major religious outfits lie in India. Deobandis
and Barelvis owe their name to Deoband and Bareilly, both of which are
towns in Uttar Pradesh. The Ahl-e-Hadith was birthed on Indian soil; so
did Maududi found his Jamaat-e-Islami in undivided India. And each one
of them today has far greater reach within the country than they had at
the time of partition.
Why is it that since the unpardonable murder of Taseer,
not one Indian leader of consequence from any of these outfits has
spoken a word against the outrage? My Urdu-speaking Muslim friends from
Mumbai tell me this is equally true of Urdu newspapers with the
honourable exception of The Sahafat Daily. This conspiracy of
silence, though shocking, is not surprising. Each one of them preaches
that the punishment for blasphemy, apostasy, heresy, is death in an
Islamic state and complete social ostracism from the entire community
where Islam is not wedded to power.
Fed such poisonous brew, the ummah may be forgiven for
missing out on finer details. In secular India some years ago, the Raza
Academy (a supposedly more tolerant Barelvi group) threatened to burn
Taslima Nasreen alive if she dared come to Mumbai. In 2008 the Urdu
press in Hyderabad poured scorn on the leaders and activists of the
Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) for their failure to kill her when
they had the chance to do so.
How do Muslims respond to the growing Islamophobia
across the globe when the entire galaxy of “ulema” proclaims murder from
the housetops? “Educated Muslims have no choice but to get out of the
clutches of the ulema,” opined a Muslim woman on a Google group last
week. “If this is Islam, count me out,” wrote a Muslim male.
So here’s the choice before educated Muslims. Opting out
of Islam altogether or discovering that an Islam other than that of the
“ulema” is possible. But to discover this other Islam, you need the
sensibilities of a Farid Esack, a South African Islamic theologian whose
moral and ethical integrity is evident from his statement: “If a choice
has to be made between violence towards the text [holy scripture] and
textual legitimisation of violence against real people then I would be
comfortable to plead guilty to charges of violence against the text…
Isn’t theology essentially about god? Yes, it is about god but my
theology is about a god that is essentially just and compassionate.”
The time has come for a fatwa against the fanatics.