t is not the
tragic story of just one man; it is the tale of an entire nation’s
powerlessness.
Mufti Sahib broke into tears as he was telling me his story but
I couldn’t even rise from my chair and offer him some solace. His head bowed,
Mufti Sahib kept crying, unable to stop. Finally, he looked up, grief darkening
his face, and said: "I don’t know whom I should go to. Who is there to hear my
cry and give me justice, for the justice I seek is not for myself but for
hundreds of thousands of my daughters? They are crying out but no one is
listening."
Mufti Sahib comes from Swat where for the past 18 years he had
worked at a Muslim religious school in Mingora. Recently, a woman had come to
him, hoping he would find some solution to the problem she faced. She belonged
to the town of Kuza Bandai situated on the banks of the river Swat. Her
husband had died in an accident some years before. Since the lady already had an
FA certificate she found work at a private school in nearby Mingora and could
thus support herself and her three children while continuing to live in Kuza
Bandai. Eventually, she also got a BEd degree. Due to the uncertain law and
order situation in the Swat valley during the last 12 months or so most of the
educational institutions in Swat were closed. But the schools in Mingora stayed
open and the lady continued to work.
Then a few days back, after she returned home from Mingora one
evening, a neighbour came to see her. The woman told her that now Shariah had
been imposed and women were prohibited from leaving their homes without reason
so she wouldn’t be allowed to go to work the next morning. The lady said to her
neighbour: "Look, you know very well why I work. Every morning I take my
children with me to Mingora, drop them off at their school and then go to my job
at another school. At the end of the day’s work I return home with the children.
They will starve to death if I stop working." The neighbour replied: "We will
not let your children die of hunger but you must stop going out." The
self-respecting lady did not wish to live like a beggar and so the same night
she took her children and returned to Mingora, to her sister’s house, and
continued to work. The people hounding her then went to the principal of her
school and demanded that he should either close down his school or fire the
‘impudent’ lady from her job.
Scared and worried to death, the lady somehow learnt that there
were in that group of militants some young men who had studied with Mufti Sahib;
she hoped that he might be able to dissuade them. Mufti Sahib contacted one of
his former students, a man from Khwazakhela who had joined the local militants
when, a year earlier, his younger brother was killed in a security forces
operation. The former student talked to his fellow militants but the latter were
unyielding. They decided they would lose their awe and authority in the locality
if they let the woman work outside her home.
Mufti Sahib then went to talk to the militants in person. During
the conversation he remarked that it was not jihad when a Muslim fought another
Muslim. The commander of the militants flared up and said: "We commemorate the
martyrs of Karbala on the 10th day of Muharram. Was not the jihad of those
martyrs against a government that called itself Islamic?"
Mufti Sahib then explained to him the full context of the events
at Karbala and said: "History received the great story of the sacrifices of the
Karbala martyrs through Hazrat Zainab, daughter of Hazrat Ali. As a child,
Zainab was a great favourite of the Prophet Muhammad. She had become, even
during the life of her father, Hazrat Ali, a learned speaker and used to expound
on the Koran before women. At Karbala she saw all the male members of her
family killed before her eyes. And when she was taken as prisoner to Ubaidallah
bin Ziyad, the ruler of Kufah, she boldly confronted him with words of truth.
"Then, after an arduous journey, she was brought before Yazid in
Damascus. There too she stood boldly and refused to acknowledge him as the
caliph. The thundering voice of Hazrat Ali’s daughter frightened Yazid so much
that he had her taken back to Medina together with the remaining members of the
revered family. Were it not for Zainab, the world would still be unaware of the
heights of glory attained by the martyrs of Karbala."
Mufti Sahib further said to the commander: "The history of Islam
is filled with stories of other bold and courageous women besides Zainab. Had
these women not stepped out of their homes, Islam might not have spread so
swiftly." Mufti Sahib told the commander the story of Hazrat Safiya who was the
prophet’s aunt and a sister of Hazrat Hamza. During the battle with the Jewish
tribe, Banu Qurayza, she attacked an enemy scout, cut off his head and threw
it toward the enemy’s ranks. Then there was Hazrat Umm-e Ammarah who wielded her
sword alongside the prophet in the battle of Uhud. And when a stone struck the
prophet and shattered two of his teeth, it was Umm-e Ammarah who then protected
the prophet from an enemy attack.
As Mufti Sahib was narrating these incidents to the commander,
the latter declared that Mufti Sahib was an agent of the security forces and had
him arrested. Eventually, at the behest of his former students, Mufti Sahib
regained freedom but the very next day he was relieved of his duties at the
madrassa. What is more, Mufti Sahib was also ordered to leave Swat altogether
within two days. His efforts to obtain justice on behalf of an oppressed woman
ended up making him homeless.
But his tears before me were not on account of his own loss –
three days earlier the lady who had struggled so hard to take care of her three
fatherless children was first declared a prostitute by the militants and then
killed. According to Mufti Sahib, Swat was totally peaceful until two years ago.
Then the government of Pervez Musharraf, in order to collect dollars from
America, destroyed its peace. They spilt the blood of innocent people and now
the same innocent people had become the greatest oppressors. What a great irony
that the dictator who loudly proclaimed his ‘enlightened moderation’ cast Swat
into the clutches of religious extremism! And now he would go around the world,
lecturing on peace!
Mufti Sahib told me: "In Swat, the state and non-state elements
vie in oppression. They do not differ when it comes to tyranny. Our ulema will
have to show the same boldness and courage that Hazrat Husain showed, for Swat
has become another Karbala. The ulema will have to stand up on behalf of those
countless women who are being made prisoners in their own homes in the name of
Islam and for whom all doors of education are being closed. If the ulema did not
raise a united voice on behalf of their sisters and daughters now, who would
they find to listen to their stories of Hazrat Safiya, Hazrat Umm-e Ammarah and
Hazrat Zainab in the years to come?"