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The
decisive year
Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
Sixteen
months later, the writing on the wall clearly shows a grand failure of the
first order on all seven counts. National morale is at its lowest, federation
is under tremendous pressure as more and more voices are being heard about provincial
autonomy and Punjabi-Sindhi differences have become a rallying point in the
background of the comparisons being made about the treatment meted out to a
Sindhi and a Punjabi prime minister.
As
for the revival of economy, the proverbial common man knows more than anyone
else what that means. The recent hike in petroleum prices not withstanding, the
economy has been going down at a steady pace.
The
fourth point on the General Musharraf's agenda was
law and order and speedy justice. Even if we attribute the recent series of
bomb blasts over Eid holidays to RAW, a simple count of the number of people
killed during the last sixteen months in terrorist acts would suffice to prove
that the fabric of Pakistani society is tearing apart.
The
fifth point was depoliticisation of state
institutions. A simple glance at the appointments made during the last sixteen
months would show that this agenda item should be read as: filling of state
institutions by serving and ex-military personnel.
The
sixth point on the list was the famous devolution of power to the grassroots
level and that is where he has kept his promise. The grand plan is unfolding
right in front of our eyes and the results of the recently held elections for
the local bodies are indicative of the direction in which the country is being
pushed. Even if we disregard the pathetic voter turn out, it is obvious that no
one is buying this sham democracy. The plan is flawed to the core and all it
can do is erect cardboard caricatures in the name of grassroots
democracy--caricatures which would crumble with the first blows of a mass
reaction.
But
perhaps nothing is more telling about the state of affairs during the last
sixteen months than what has been made of the last point on the agenda: the
promise of swift and across the board accountability.
The
mockery of accountability reached its peak in the deal made by the generals
with the man who was allowed to leave the country with 22 crates of his
possessions, including the prized stuffed lions. This was the final blow to all
hopes. Those
who have been pointing out basic flaws in the accountability process all along
could have been ignored had this sham not reached its limits in that
What
is most painful in this deal is that no court of law was consulted, no moral
principles were observed. What is more, the act was "legitimised"
by the state institutions after it had been accomplished. The hand-picked
ministers put their seal of approval on this mockery and the president signed
whatever was placed before him. What was achieved was a shattering blow to the
sanctity of institutions.
In
his address to the nation about the Nawaz Sharif affair, General Musharraf
seemed to be making a claim that God has appointed him to correct
All
these events make the year 2000 a decisive year for
Without institutions in which people have faith, the only alternative is
anarchy. A rapidly deteriorating economy, lack of any institutional support for
the emergence of a civil society and rule by decrees issued by a few
individuals are the most glaring realities of contemporary
This
ploy has often been used to gain short-term personal benefits. If they were
really serious in their programmes, these parties
would have established modern religious educational institutions from where a
new generation of religious scholars would have emerged with the requisite
qualifications for implementation of Islamic code of life in the contemporary
life. Instead of taking that positive road, all that the religious leadership
has done is create fear and hence alienation.
The
image of the gun-totting bearded youth has become synonymous with
implementation of Islam. This image, a far cry from Islamic teachings, has
taken a permanent position in the overall picture of contemporary
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Friday, January 19, 2001 -- Shawal 23,1421 |
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The
battle for Islam
Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
Unless
the government enforces Islam by such and such date, we will march on to
Islamabad" is the usual rhetoric one hears in popular press these days.
But to be exact, this or similar rhetoric has been making headlines off and on
throughout Pakistan's existence as a sovereign state.
The
fact that no one takes these claims seriously is also an open secret. There is
always a last minute postponement of the march (as it happened again this past
Ramadan) and there is always a last minute reassurance by one or the other
minister which serves to save face for all concerned.
The
net result is that now no one takes these threats seriously--neither the
government, nor the masses nor those who make these claims. By now, everyone
has realised that behind these threats, there is
always another agenda. One recalls painfully the statement of retired General Naseerullah Babar, shortly after
the fall of Benazir's last government, about a
certain Maulana's visits to Islamabad. This Maulana was in the habit of making loud statements about
women's rule being against Islam. After a few public meetings, he would dash
off to Islamabad for a personal visit with BB who would pay him his price.
According to General Babar, one day he went to BB in
exasperation and told her to hand over the keys of the State Bank to the Maulana.
But
this is merely a side issue. The serious question for our deliberation is the
grand failure of Islamists in formulating a workable
plan for Islamisation of Pakistani society. In global
terms, this is a question that most Muslim countries face today. How is Islam
relevant in the contemporary world and how do we translate the vision of Islam
into a practical reality across the whole range of Muslim societies?
Let
us start with Pakistan. Historically speaking, Pakistan represents a unique
synthesis of the dynamic civilizational currents that
had flown into the subcontinent over more than a millennium. These currents
were the product of the interaction of the Islamic civilization with the local
Indian traditions. They gave birth to a new language (Urdu), transformed
existing languages such as Sindhi, Pashto and Baluchi and produced an intricate system of symbolism and
metrical rules for the expression of human emotions in these languages.
Thus
in the process of Islamisation of the subcontinent
over a long period of time, a natural process of cultural evolution produced a
new culture which was distinct from the Indian culture. This was an argument
used by Iqbal and subsequently by many other leaders for their demand of a
separated homeland for Muslims of the subcontinent.
The
ancient land routes that passed through this region served as an important
medium in the cultivation of a tradition that emerged from the rich and
enchanting world of Middle Eastern and South Asian folklore, legends, myths and
tales. This historical development is unique in many respects and can only be
understood in its proper context. Its uniqueness highlights the fact that the
cultural heritage of Pakistani people is not necessarily defined by the
geographical boundaries of the present day Pakistan.
Instead,
like the ideological basis of the state, the Pakistani culture reaches out to
its ancestral roots for its nourishment and growth. Its sources of inspiration
not only lie in the immediate surroundings but also in the geographically
remote regions from where it has incorporated a rich blend of Mesopotamian and
Mediterranean traditions.
As
the product of a dramatic encounter of major civilizations, Pakistan is a
unique experiment in world history. Its geographical setting is also as unique
as its cultural ethos: vast plains, deserts filled with glaring solitude and
snow-capped mountains enveloped with ice from the prehistoric times.
But
all of these marvelous facts about Pakistan have been overshadowed by a grand
failure which involves everyone: politicians, intellectuals, institutions and
religious groups. At the root of this grand failure lies the dilemma of
implementation of a plan that would produce that grand society which many
envisioned at the time of country's turbulent birth but which none could
translate into reality.
And
it is at this level that Pakistan's continuous struggle with the issue of Islamisation has a global element; the failure to translate
wide-spread emotional and spiritual yearnings of millions of Muslims into
viable and effective institutional structures is a dilemma faced by all
fifty-six Muslim States. There are many reasons for this. But to keep the
question in manageable proportions, let us concentrate on Pakistan for now.
Pakistan
came into existence through a movement that was dominated by personalities
rather than ideologies. This is not to belittle the fact that there were strong
ideological undercurrents in the independence movement. Iqbal had given an
eloquent expression to these underpinnings in his 1930 presidential address.
What is being said is simply this: at the time of country's independence, there
was no practical plan to translate these broad ideologies into reality.
No
one thought beyond the moment when a line would appear on the world map,
dividing India into two sovereign states. No one developed an institutional map
of the new country, no one charted the course of the new state or its polity.
Everyone involved in the Pakistan Movement was concerned with only one
question: independence. No doubt, it was a question of tremendous and fatal
proportion but had the Independence Movement been grounded in solid ideological
foundations, there would have been a group of thinkers and planners who would
have charted the course of events beyond August 14th, 1947.
In
the absence of a well thought out plan, the journey toward Pakistan became a
highly idealised and utopian journey. At the level of
masses, it was taken as a journey to the promised land. The underlying
assumption was that once we get the promised land, everything will be fine.
At
the level of political leadership, there was a similar trend and the whirlwind
of events that shook the Indian subcontinent between the end of second World
War and August 1947, totally obscured the practical realities of the
post-independence period.
As
a result, Pakistan came into existence in an atmosphere filled with utopian
hopes and idealism. But once the line had been drawn and the Indian
subcontinent had been partitioned, there arose a huge vacuum in the newly
independent state of Pakistan--a vacuum of tremendous proportions which
demanded a quick response. This was the vacuum created by the need for
establishment of state institutions which run contemporary nation states.
In
the absence of a pre-conceived and well-planned structure, this vacuum was
filled with the pre-Partition structures which quickly took over and having
re-established themselves in the new state, became the defining character of
the country whose ideological aspirations required a fundamentally different
institutional setup. This gave birth to an impasse which has not been resolved
during the last fifty-two years.
Thus,
at the heart of contemporary battle for Islam lies a historical reality which
needs to be seriously explored before any headway can be made.
But
that is only one aspect of the current dilemma. Another, and perhaps far more
serious dilemma lies in the fact that not a single religious party or group in
Pakistan has been able to present a practical plan for the establishment of an
Islamic state in the twenty-first century. This grand failure of Pakistan's
religious leadership requires a thorough analysis which will be looked into in
another article.
The
author is Regional Director for the Muslim World, CTNS and President, Centre for Islam and Science
Feb.2, 2001
Islam,
Pakistan and Muslims
Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
On
August 14, 1947, when the state of Pakistan formally came into existence, there
were no blueprints or plans for the establishment of new institutions which
would be responsible for translating the grand vision of Islam into a practical
reality. There was not even a theoretical framework for such institutions.
The
state came into existence through a chaotic process that had reached its
enormously unmanageable pace during the few months leading up to the deadline
of August 14th. As a result of riots, massacres and mass movement of
population, the government of the nascent Republic of Pakistan was immediately
inundated by a task beyond its capacity. Millions of refugees were coming, each
with his or her tale of sorrow. The immediate task required emergency measures;
no one had time for anything but to look after the basic needs of food, shelter
and other provisions.
It
was somewhere in that initial phase of Pakistan's existence, that the ideal of
an Islamic State was lost. During those initial months, in the midst of
tremendous human sacrifices, there appeared the specter of land claims,
appropriation of properties left behind by Hindus and Sikhs and the vice of
greed that would make many into instant millionaires. Perhaps it was
inevitable.
The
time between 1940 and 1947 was the most precious time for the formulation of a
cohesive plan for the establishment of Islamic institutions in the new state.
But there was neither the leadership, nor the human resources needed to spell
out a clear plan for this process. The reasons are obvious. Those who were at
the forefront of political struggle, had neither the qualifications nor the
desire to establish an Islamic state. As a result of this situation, the
borderline that appeared on the world map on the 14th of August was merely a
physical border.
Contrary
to emotionally held belief, we must ascertain that Pakistan was not an
ideological state at birth, at least not in any concrete sense; it was merely a
state carved out on the basis of a vague but popular formulation of an ideal
which was never spelled out in concrete terms. At the level of masses, there
was the desire and tremendous sacrifices were made to establish an Islamic
state, but that was all there was. The greatest failure at that decisive time
lay in the nature and quality of religious education in the subcontinent. A
close look at these foundational problems would be helpful.
Organised Islamic education system in the Indian
subcontinent was introduced at a time when the golden age of learning had
already passed. One of the most influential curricula of Islamic education, the
famous Dars-e-Nizami, was issued by Mulla Nizam al-Din (d. 1747) of
the Firangi Mahal madrassa in Lucknow. This nine to
ten year syllabus of middle to higher education included sixteen different
subjects and eighty-four works in all. This curriculum included Arabic grammar
(12 works); rhetoric (3 works); prosody (1); logic (10 works); philosophy (4
works); Arabic literature (prose and poetry, 7 works); theology (5 works);
history of Islam (3 works); medicine (4 works); astronomy (2 works); geometry
(twenty chapters of Euclid); art of disputation (1); law (8); jurisprudence
(96); law of inheritance (1); principles of Hadith
(1); Hadith (10); principles of Qur'aan
interpretation (1) and four commentaries of the Qur'aan.
The
second syllabus of religious education was the one developed by Shah Wali Allah of Delhi (d. 1762). This leaned toward
traditional Islamic studies and included law, theology and Hadith
and surprisingly, Sufism. These two syllabi form the basis of practically all madrassa syllabi until today. Of course there are various
combinations and modifications but the core has remained the same with one
notable exception: the study of Hadith in the
subcontinent had received a new impulse thanks to the works of Abd al-Haqq of Delhi, who was to
be honored with the title of Muhadith. Under the
influence of Shah Wali Allah and his sons, Hadith literature received more importance.
The
scholars who descended from the school of Shah Wali
Allah, established the famous Deoband seminary in UP
in northern India in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In marked
contrast to this school of thought, there arose another school, located in the
town of Bareli and hence generally known as Barelvi school which emphasised
popular beliefs in the power of saints and mythification
of the Prophet of Islam. A third school that emerged in time was that of Ahl-e-Hadith.
Thus
at the time of establishment of Pakistan, there existed 137 madrassas
belonging to three dominate Sunni religious schools: the Deobandi,
the Ahl-e-Hadith and the Barelavi.
In addition, there were some Shia madrassas.
This number was to increase dramatically in the following decades, but without
any serious changes to the central core of the syllabi taught, with a few
notable exceptions, mostly based in big cities. The students who come out of
these madrassas have become a symbol in the form of Taliban of Afghanistan. And those elements in Pakistan who
dread them, never tire of raising the specter of Pakistani Taliban
but no one is particularly serious about looking at the deeper roots of this
phenomenon. Neither the government, nor the religious parties.
At
the root of emergence of Taliban, lies the
educational curricula which is characteristically static. Those who suffer this
curricula for ten to fifteen years of the most formative period of their lives,
cannot be expected to behave in any other way.
The
reality is simply this: Education remains the most neglected and most abused
area of Pakistan's state policies. In the recent decades, private educational
institutions of all kinds have sprung up, in response to market demand. This
situation arose through the failure of state educational system which remained
static and neglected throughout Pakistan's history.
With
the rise of private educational institutions, education has become a big business
in which the name of the game is money. A close look at what is being taught in
schools shows that in spite of Pakistan's avowed Islamic ideology, parents and
students gravitate toward those educational institutions that are established
on the western models. With few exceptions, only those students who cannot
afford to go to these new schools go to madrassas.
Madrassa education also remains a dead end. Those who come
out of madrassas can neither speak Arabic nor
English. Their knowledge of the contemporary world and its complexities is
often rudimentary and they cannot find jobs except in mosques and madrassas. For all practical purposes, they remain a
subclass of society. Their services are utilised on
occasions of marriage or death but they do not form the mainstream of urban
society -- people who go to offices and run state institutions.
This
brief sketch leads us to pose serious questions: Do Pakistanis really aspire to
become citizens of an Islamic state? Where are the scholars and institutions
that are required to establish an Islamic state in the twenty-first century? Is
there any real and substantive foundation on which the contemporary religious
leadership can demand implementation of Islam from the government?
The
author is Regional Director for the Muslim World, CTNS and President, Centre for Islam and Science
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Friday, February 16, 2001 -- Ziqa'ad 21,1421 |
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The
custodians of power
Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
Politicians,
army, judiciary and the bureaucracy are the four custodians of power in the
Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Between them, they have appropriated the right to
rule over a population whose existence has always been in peril. But all four
institutions of state power now stand at a point where public confidence in
them is at its lowest ebb. In the absence of public trust and confidence,
institutions cannot hold any legitimate authority.
Among
the four, it is the politicians who share the burden of failure because it is
their failure that brought the other institutions into the high drama. But why
did the politicians fail and who are these people? Politics in Pakistan came
into the hands of landowners because they claimed to be the representatives of
people during the British Raj. Apart from Jinnah and a handful of his associates, the Muslim League
was nothing but nawabs and nawab
zadas. Thus, it was the zamindars
and waderas of the British Raj
who controlled the assemblies in the early years of Pakistan. They had emerged
on the power scene over centuries in a society where education was held back
from people and economic strength and brute force determined the claims to
power.
Nothing
changed with the creation of a separate state. Nothing could because soon after
the establishment of Pakistan, political leadership was involved in an
infighting which had nothing higher than petty interests at stake. After the
death of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Khwaja
Nazimuddin became the Governor General with Liaqat Ali Khan as the prime minister. But Nazimuddin could not fit the role of Jinnah,
nor could he be the ceremonial head of the state that he should have been under
the parliamentary system of government. The infighting was centered around the
game of constitution making which was basically a struggle for control. The
Objectives Resolution had led to the creation of the Basic Principles Committee
(BPC) which was supposed to draft the constitution. But it could not.
This
failure brought a new player in the game: Pakistan's elite Civil Service, the
"Black Goras". The Civil Service of
Pakistan (CSP) had been chosen from among the Indian Civil Service (ICS) and it
consisted of people who ran state institutions on a day to day basis. In the
absence of a strong political leadership, these civil servants became
increasingly more powerful and eventually they became the kingmakers. The fate
of the country was sealed in October 1951 when Liaqat
Ali Khan was assassinated while addressing a public meeting in Rawalpindi. His assassin was instantaneously killed by a
police officer who was himself murdered several years later in what remains an
enigmatic case. Scotland Yard was brought in to assist in the investigation but
nothing was ever uncovered.
The
vacuum of political leadership thus created quickly brought in the third
player: the army. After Liaqat Ali's assassination, Nazimuddin, who was considered a weak and docile man from
Bengal quickly stepped down from the Governor Generalship to become the prime
minister while the finance minister, Ghulam Muhammad,
assumed the post of Governor General. Ghulam Muhammad
had no political constituency; he was not even a Leaguer. He was sick but his
ill-health did not deter him to strike at his enemies.
But
the biggest blunder was committed by Nazimuddin
himself. While addressing a public meeting in Dhaka, he carelessly announced
the intention of his government to declare Urdu the national language of
Pakistan. This was seen as the final coup de grace by the already feverish
Bengali population. Rioting broke out all over the city and the army had to be
brought in to stifle demonstrations. This was followed by riots in Karachi
where force was again needed.
But
this was just the beginning. The 1953 rioting in the wake of the Ahmadiya movement controversy engulfed the Punjab and
within a span of a few days the whole province was ablaze. Nazimuddin
had neither the ability, nor the backing to deal with this situation; the army
was again called but just when matters seemed to be resolving, Ghulam Mohammad dispatched the government of Nazimuddin in what became the first of several civil coups
in the history of Pakistan.
But
the worst was still to come. In the first provincial elections held in East
Pakistan, the Muslim League was dealt its death knell: it won a grand total of
10 seats as opposed to 223 seats by the combined opposition parties, the United
Front. But the United Front did not prove to be united when it came to harvest
the spoils and though Fazlul Haq
formed the government, he was never a leader.
Within
months, his government proved to be totally ineffective when rioting broke out
in and around Chittagong and in the industrial areas
south of Dhaka. Several non-Bengali managers were killed and Ghulam Muhammad found it convenient to sack the government
of Fazlul Haq. This time,
the army received its first official seal of approval: Martial law was imposed
and Iskander Mirza, a
former Army officer, political agent in the Frontier Province and Pakistan's
first Defence Secretary, became the ruler of East
Pakistan.
The
fourth player in Pakistan's power politics, the judiciary, was brought in when
the other three brought the whole state to a standstill. This is how this drama
unfolded: By now, the central administration of the country had been seized by
the bureaucrats and through Ghulam Muhammad's
leadership, they had become organized to rule the country. Muhammad Ali Bogra had succeeded Nazimuddin as
Prime Minister but the real power remained in the hands of Ghulam
Muhammad and his technocrats.
A
plan was devised by the Muslim leaguers to pass a series of enactments in the
Constituents Assembly (which also substituted for the National Assembly), to
limit the powers of the Governor-General. Ghulam
Muhammad was not the one to suffer such tactics, he joined hands with General
Muhammad Ayub Khan, the commander-in-chief of the
Pakistan Army and dissolved the Constituent Assembly. It was the beginning of
the end: the country would henceforth be ruled through executive orders. This
also gave chance to the fourth player to step in. The decision was challenged
and the Supreme Court of Pakistan upheld the dissolution of the Assembly and
sealed the fate of the nascent democracy.
Then
Ghulam Muhammad had a stroke and Iskander
Mirza returned from his eastern sojourn, ready to
take charge. The die had been cast. The second Constitution Assembly was
elected, even a constitution was adopted but between 1956 and the autumn of
1958, Pakistan's state system collapsed from a decade of incessant fighting and
the grand vision of the country was pushed under the blanket of a nightmare
which imposed one man's rule over the entire populace.
In
October 1958, when General Ayub Khan brought the
curtain down on Pakistan's short-lived affair with democracy, he not only
abrogated the Constitution and banished Mirza, he
also enacted the last Act of the tragic drama in which the final words would be
spoken by one of his successors in Khaki on another October day. But between
these two Octobers, lie ashes of hopes and dreams of millions of men and women,
whose suffering and sacrifices will remain unsung.
The
author is the President of the Centre for Islam and
Science
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Friday, March 02, 2001 -- ZilHaj 06,1421 |
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The
spirit of sacrifice
Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
Once
again the pilgrims are gathering in the inviolable city of Makkah. Once again,
more than two million human beings are preparing to stand before their Lord on
the Day of Arafah in response to an invitation which
has been extended to all of us: "And proclaim unto all people, the
Pilgrimage: they will come unto thee on foot and on every (kind of) fast mount,
coming from every faraway point (on earth)."
The
Haj is the oldest continuous rite in the human
history. It celebrates the covenant which God established with his chosen
friend, Ibrahim (may Allah's blessings be upon him),
the one whom Allah honoured with intimate
communication and called him Hanif and Khalil. He commanded Ibrahim to
build a house of worship and to keep it pure for those who stand, bend and
prostrate and He told Ibrahim to proclaim Haj and told him that people will come to the house from
far and near, on foot and on lean camels so that they may benefit and remember
Allah.
Ibrahim (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him)
obeyed his Lord and built the house. Then he left his son and wife near the
house and thus prayed: "O my Lord: May this city be city of peace and
security and preserve me and my offsprings from
serving idols. My Lord, these idols have indeed led astray many among mankind.
O my Lord! I have made some of my offspring to dwell in a valley without
cultivation, by the sacred house, in order, My Lord, that they may establish
regular prayer. So fill the hearts of some among men with love towards them and
feed them with fruits so that they may give thanks."
"O
Lord, truly you know what we conceal and what we reveal for nothing is hidden
from Allah, whether on earth or in heaven. Praise be to Allah, who granted me
in old age Ismai'l and Ishaq,
truly my Lord is He, the Hearer of prayer.
"O
my Lord! make me and my offspring steadfast in prayer. O my Lord! accept my
prayer and cover me and my parents and all believers with thy forgiveness on
the Day of Reckoning."
Hundreds
of years after these events, thousands of Muslims are once again gathering in
the blessed city. They will follow the rites of Haj,
just as these have been followed for centuries. They will remember the Sa'i of Ismail's mother (may
Allah bless her) when she ran between al-Safa and al-Marwah and praise and thank Allah for Zamzam
which flew out of a barren ground.
Ibrahim (pbuh) was prepared for
the supreme test that his Lord had reserved for him so that He may leave it as
a sign and a lesson for generations to come. When he received a vision
regarding this ultimate test of his loyalty and steadfastness, he said to his
son: "O my son! I see, in a vision, that I offer thee in sacrifice. Now
see what is thy view!"
The
son said: "O my father, Do as thou art commanded, Thou will find me, if
God wills, among those who are steadfast."
When
they had both submitted their wills Ibrahim (SA) had
laid his son prostrate on his forehead, Allah called out to Ibrahim:
"O
Ibrahim! Thou has already fulfilled the vision! Thus
indeed We reward those who do right. For this was a trial and We ransomed him
with a momentous sacrifice. And We left this blessing for him among generations
to come in later times. Peace and Salutation to Ibrahim."
The
pilgrims will remember this supreme act of faith and, following the rites, will
sacrifice after the day of Arafah. They will be
joined in this action by millions of other Muslims all around the world. But
beyond these rituals, the Haj has another, much
deeper, significance. It presents a unique opportunity of an inner
transformation of the human soul, an opportunity to turn toward God, to realign
oneself and to re-establish the primordial covenant.
The
Haj also has a historical significance for it was on
the day of Arafah, that the Prophet of Islam had
delivered that historic sermon which had proclaimed that all humans are equal.
On that day, the Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) was
mounted on his camel as he proceeded to the Mount of Arafah;
he was followed by all the pilgrims. On the east side of the mountain, at a
spot called Namirah, he pitched his tent and stayed
there until the sun passed the zenith. Then he rode his camel until he reached
the valley of Uranah. There, sitting on his camel, he
had addressed his companions:
"O
people, listen well to my words for I do not know whether I shall meet you
again on such an occasion in the future. O people, your lives and your property
shall be inviolate until you meet your Lord. The safety of your lives and of
your property shall be inviolate as this holy day and holy month. Remember that
you will indeed meet your Lord, and that He will indeed reckon your deeds. Thus
do I warn you. Whoever of you is keeping a trust of someone else shall return
that trust to its rightful owner. All interest obligations shall henceforth be
waived. Your capital, however, is yours to keep. You will neither inflict nor
suffer inequity. God has judged that there shall be no interest and that all
the interest due to Abbas ibn
Abdal Muttalib shall
henceforth be waived. Every right arising out of homicide in pre-Islamic days
is henceforth waived. And the first such right that I waive is that arising from
the murder of Rabiah ibn al
Harith ibn Abd al Muttalib.
O
people, today the claims of Shaitaan for ever being
worshipped in this land of yours have been reduced to naught. Nevertheless he
is still anxious to determine the lesser of your deeds. Beware of him,
therefore, for the safety of your Din....
O
people! I have conveyed to you Allah's message. Those who are present should
convey this message to those who are not present..."
Then
the prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) asked people to bear
witness that he has indeed conveyed to them the message he received and all
through the great steppe, people said in unison: "Indeed so!" "O
Allah," said the Prophet, "be witness."
After
this historical sermon, the prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon
him) dismounted and waited until mid-afternoon, at which time he performed both
the Zohar and the Asr
prayers. He then mounted his camel and proceeded to al Sakharat
where he recited to the people the following Divine revelation which had been
just received: "Today I have completed for you your Din and granted you
the last of my blessings. Today I have chosen Islam as your Din."
The
author is the President, Centre for Islam and Science
http://www.jang-group.com/thenews/
Friday,
March 16, 2001 -- ZilHaj 20,1421 A.H
Man
in the dock
Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
Strange
things happen in our land. But none is stranger than the persistence of a
pattern that repeats itself, ruler after ruler. In a land where stability is as
scarce as water, it is indeed strange to see this pattern of delusion chasing
every ruler.
The
broad outline of this pattern can be sketched in a few words: Following a few
dramatic events, a face emerges on the national TV and solemnly announces the
grave situation which had forced him to assume powers of this unfortunate land.
He summarises the grand failures of his predecessors
along with a long list of their corruption and inefficiency. Then he goes on to
promise a miracle: he has decided to overhaul the whole system and root out
corruption. In this task, he needs all the help he can get from his nation.
This marks the first phase of a new rule.
For
a few weeks, there is the struggle of legitimising
the rule. Those who oppose it on various grounds are either silenced or their
voices are drowned in the rush of new events. The opposition, if there happens
to be any, is targeted and a number of cases are launched to keep them busy. To
be sure, there is always a court case about the new setup but none of this
bothers the new ruler because he is the ruler, ipso facto and no matter what is
said, the down to earth reality is that he is there, with all his might. He has
carved a place for himself and none can turn the clock back.
Often
the new ruler is welcomed by the nation for it had become sick and tired of its
previous ruler; everyone needs a change. But this new romance between the ruler
and the nation does not last; the spring is always short and soon the promises
of the new ruler, his grand plans and the possibility of a miraculous
transformation start to lose luster. The hard realities of water shortage,
price hikes and the daily hardships start to make their presence felt with
increasing force.
By
now the new ruler has firmly established himself. He has surrounded himself
with people who become his spokesmen. He is not alone any more. He has a score
of new ministers and advisors who become their master's voice and the initial
chorus of reform, transformation and miraculous recovery achieves a grand new
dimension: within the first six months of the new rule, an amazing number of
new reforms and new policies are announced. Each new minister comes with his
plans and promises to deliver goods that would transform Pakistan.
This
phase of the new rule ushers the ruler into a comfort zone. There are the
foreign trips, these visits bring much needed distraction and each trip adds to
the chorus of reform by promising foreign investment and successes at nebulous
international fronts. By now, some of the ministers also start to announce
their own successes in laying the foundations of a new era in the nation's life.
These are quick results that are supposed to have been achieved by them in a
short time because of their genius. These often include some real projects
which were actually started by their predecessors a few years previous to his
rule but they happen to be completed just when the new minister took over.
Hence he feels perfectly justified in taking credit.
But
generally speaking, these successes are often virtual; they only exist in some
nebulous realm of cyber space. Such successes often include hundreds of new
schools, roads, provision of electricity, virtual IT universities and the like.
Increasingly, this phase of the rule of the new ruler has attained a degree of
sophistication in credit claims. There has been a trend in the recent years to
use numbers beyond anyone's comprehension. These numbers often tell the story
of GDP growth and other economic factors that allude to the prosperity of the
nation. This phase can be called the summer of the new ruler for it is
accompanied by a lot of sound and fury and of course, sweat. The summer of the
new rule is also the time when the disillusionment of the nation starts to
become obvious. In spite of the grand chorus of success, in spite of the new
policies and new plans, the nation lives in the same old bleak and hopeless
state as before the commencement of the new rule. There is the same daily doze
of terrorist attacks, late trains, scarcity of water, daily suffering
associated with pollution, the same corruption, the same pain.
The
new ruler knows all this. But by now, he has become very confident and
invariably, a sacrosanct element is now added to his speeches: none other than
the Almighty had brought him to power and he has a mission to accomplish. Of
course there are those who do not see this Divine wisdom but he is not to be
deterred by such short-sighted people. He has convinced himself that he was,
indeed, chosen by God Almighty to take this nation out of its crisis. A few Umrah trips and a Hajj (on state expenses) further
reinforce this conviction.
But
sadly, this over confidence produces a veil of deception which removes the
ruler from everyday realities and although he increasingly talks about his
divinely ordained mission, he fails to see that the autumn of his rule has
arrived. In the autumn of his rule, the rulers complain about the press and the
daily reports; some even try to stifle the dissident voices, more benevolent
one's merely state their displeasure but they all fail to see the writing on
the wall.
This
is the most dangerous time for the ruler and history shows that none of our
rulers have been able to see their autumn. Ayub Khan
was celebrating the tenth anniversary of his rule and the green revolution when
his autumn was in full view, ZA Bhutto was oblivious
to his impending fall and the recent memory of the two rules of BB and Nawaz Sharif supply ample
evidence to their blindness to their failures. Now, the autumn of our honorable
CE has also arrived. All the signs are appearing once more. While he believes
that he has turned the tide, the print media keeps depicting another picture.
In his recent address at the 16th annual lunch of the Council of Pakistan
Newspaper Editors (CPNE), he complained about negative reporting and demoralisation. "The looking-glass that we see every
morning does not reflect the reality, and the mirror sometimes reflects uncrystalised, pessimistic and one-sided view. That is what
bothers me as a Pakistani, and not head of the government.''
Clearly,
our beloved CE does not see the reality that 156 million Pakistanis see
everyday. But never mind. The desire of the honorable CE is that henceforth the
killing of the innocent namazis should not occupy the
front pages of our print media. But he did not specify what shall be befitting
in such circumstances. Would his desire be that the print media help to cheer
up the nation by placing a picture of a smiling child beside the details of the
gory act?
In
this repetition of the scene, each autumn brings more despair. Since the
present government came to power, the law and order situation has not improved,
the disparity between the rich and the poor has been increasing and the
proverbial common man is finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. And
yet, our honorable CE would have us believe that he has turned the tide!
The
writer is the President of Center for Islam and Science (CIS)
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Friday, March 30, 2001 -- Moharram Ul Harram 04,1422 A.H |
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Need
of the hour
Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
Against
all historical evidence, let us assume that General Musharraf
really means what he has said repeatedly regarding the deadline set by the Supreme
Court for holding general elections before October 2002. What would be Pakistan
like after the elections? Would the new political set up make any difference?
Would these elections prove to be a real turning point in Pakistan's history?
Or would it be just change of faces leading to another military takeover?
It
is not hard to discern that both BB and Nawaz Sharif would not be candidates in elections to be held in
2002. Their disqualification means that their parties would be led by others.
It is also a foregone conclusion that if their parties win elections, they
would bounce back on to the national scene and all charges against them would
vanish in thin air.
But
this is unlikely to happen. General Musharraf would
need to block their way, it is essential for his own survival in the
post-election era. But how would he ensure this? He would have to come up with
some drastic changes in the constitution or modalities of elections. On this,
the government has not revealed any plans so far. But something is bound to
come up within the next few months. The main question for the government is how
to achieve this without invalidating the whole process of democratisation.
However,
more important for the future of the country is the level of preparedness of
the political parties. Unfortunately, so far not a single party has shown any
level of preparedness. This reflects the lack of grounding of the political
process in Pakistan. In true democratic systems, political parties have
standing policies on national affairs. In Pakistan, there exists neither a
political culture, nor political parties in the real sense of the words. All we
have is person-oriented politics that plays havoc with the lives of millions of
people. In order to evolve positive and sustainable political order, someone
needs to take lead and force major political parties into doing their home work
before the next elections. Media can do this in the most constructive manner.
The road map to a new political setup can also benefit from this exercise.
In
case this challenge is taken up by the media, it can become a major turning
point in Pakistan's history. What is needed is not so complex. There are very
basic and obvious national problems that can be divided into various categories
such as economy, educational system, foreign policy and the like.
What
is needed is a two step process. The first step involves formulation of basic
problems of the country in very clear terms. This formulation is needed to
present a clear picture of where we stand. Each area of national concern needs
to be studied by a team of experts in that particular area. For example, a team
of independent economists can be assembled and given the task of presenting to
the nation a true picture of Pakistan's economy. There are hundreds of Pakistanis
in and outside Pakistan who would gladly join such a team if there is a
foundation, institution or even a newspaper group that wants to initiate this
process.
Likewise,
a team of educators can come up with a white paper on the sad state of Pakistan's
educational system. But in order to build a new social and political order, the
focus of this work has to be on constructive and objective assessment of the
present situation rather than on putting blame on various institutions.
Once
a range of basic problems has been clearly defined and stated, the foundation,
institution or the newspaper group in charge of this exercise can then place
these national issues before various political parties and ask them to come up
with comprehensive strategies for solving these problems. Each party should be
required to deal with the specifics, rather than generalities of the problems.
This would achieve an immediate positive result; instead of a repetition of
previous elections based on personality cults. Elections 2002 would become an
issue oriented election in which people can vote on the basis of soundness of
the solutions presented by political parties. This is a massive exercise in
public education. This is also an approach that has the potential of
establishing a truly solid foundation for the future of Pakistan.
Once
the issues are framed, problems are stated in statistical terms, a clear
picture of Pakistani society would emerge. On the basis of familiarity with the
problems, one can easily say that these problems cannot be solved in a short
time. Hence, what would be needed is a long-term map, with a short-term
strategic plan. Each contesting party should be asked to develop these long and
short-term plans in each of the major areas.
Thus
people would know what a certain party intends to do for specific problems such
as education, health, etc. This would also force political parties to form
small teams of their own in each area of national importance and come up with
plans that can be debated and discussed within their own membership. If carried
out with the right spirit and in a proper way, this exercise would also produce
national consensus on major issues. Out of various possible solutions of each
problem, one or two would emerge as more suitable. By the tend of this process,
the nation would have achieved two things.
It
would know where it stands and where it is heading and it would know who among
the contesting parties has a road map for their future. The new government
would also benefit from this exercise. Even before coming to power, it would
have devised its policies and methodologies. This is particularly beneficial in
a society where coming to power immediately cuts connections with the
grassroots. There is not much time left. If our initial assumption is right,
and if elections to be held in year 2002 are to produce any significant change,
it is high time that such an exercise is undertaken. Are there any NGOs out
there who would like to take up this challenge? Are there any institutions
(including the print media) that is interested in this nation-building
exercise?
There
are thousands of overseas Pakistanis who would like to do something for their
country. Can they come forward and initiate the process by setting up a
Foundation for Reconstruction of Pakistan? If the government is sincere in its
plans and if there is a real will to bring about a major transformation of the
society, government can also initiate this effort by forming a national
reconstruction bureau which is totally independent and which has access to all
the information needed to lay the foundations of such an effort.
The
writer is the President of Center for Islam and Science (CIS)
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Friday, April 13, 2001 -- Moharram Ul Harram 18, 1422 A.H |
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Role
of religious parties
Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
The
late Dr MA Kazi liked to narrate episodes of his life
from the time when he was Advisor to General Ziaul Haq on science and technology. On one occasion, he told a
story that runs like this: General Ziaul Haq had a series of meetings with the religious leaders. To
each one of them, he expressed his desire to enforce Islam and asked the way to
do so. As usual, he posed himself as a very humble man who had good intentions
but who lacked the wisdom to accomplish the task.
The
venerable religious leaders were his guides and he wanted to get their guidance
in this noble task. At the end of the series of meetings, he gathered them all
and tried to evolve a working plan. The religious leaders of Pakistan could not
agree on a common plan. They could not even pray together in the presidency
behind one Imam. Each sect had their own Imam and their own plan. At the end of
the exercise, the General gathered his inner circle in one of those
post-midnight gatherings that used to keep him protected from the bouts of
insomnia. And he told them all that had happened. He laughed in a mixture of
happiness and despair. The religious leadership had no plan. They had no idea
of how to implement Islam although they had been clamouring
for it for the last forty years. Dr Kazi was part of
that inner circle and the General had developed a liking for him. On this
occasion, Dr Kazi said to the General, "Sir I
have a plan."
"What
is your plan?" asked the General. "Sir, I am a scientist. I like to
do control experiments. I suggest that before implementing Islam in the whole
country, you establish an Islamic city as a model. That would help us to
understand the practical difficulties which would arise." According to Dr Kazi, the General laughed at this idea and changed the
conversation. That was an indication for his inner circle that Dr Kazi had taken the matter too seriously and that the
General was only interested in mocking the religious elite of the country. But
lately, I have been thinking about the suggestion of late Dr MA Kazi. If one really thinks about the merits of this
suggestion, the idea is extremely valuable. If Pakistan is really interested in
becoming an Islamic country, it should first experiment with the establishment
of a truly Islamic city. The road to Islamisation of
the whole system is neither easy nor clear.
Our
economic, educational and state systems are based on secular models and without
a major revolution, there is no possibility of changing their foundational
principles. Such a revolution is not in sight. Like the mainstream political
parties, Pakistan's religious parties have no plan, no concrete methodology and
no substantial in-house study of the ways to implement Islam. Like all the
other political parties, all they want is power and assure us that once in
power, they will be able to enforce Islam. But time has run out for such empty
promises. No one believes it any more. Pakistan's religious parties are deeply
entrenched in a sectarian divide. They all have their narrow definitions of
Islam. They do not pray together; they do not agree upon a unified plan and
they are ill-equipped to deal with contemporary complex realities. Yet all of
them never tire of demanding the enforcement of Islam.
They
never tire of castigating others and passing verdicts against all who disagree
with them. Given the unifying aspects of Islam, the universality of the Qur'aan and Sunnah, it is most
surprising that the religious parties cannot form a unified stand on the
process of Islamisation. Instead of the grand vision
of Islam, they are stuck with minor details and their dogmatic positions have marginalised their own role in national affairs. If there
is going to be a major change in the country, it has to come through solid
planning and sustained efforts.
If
the religious parties wish to have any say in national affairs, they have to
first start an in-house process of building models and strategies. This
requires that teams of Islamic scholars work together on specific issues and
evolve effective methodologies that would lead to the emergence of new
institutions based on Islamic teachings. A model Islamic city can be a good
start. Such a city can come into existence by implementing the model in one of
the cities now existing or by founding a new city. Just like Islamabad was
established as a brand new city with a master plan, one can think of a new
Islamic city with a master plan. Such a city would have to be located within
the boundaries of Pakistan but it can given a special status by completing the
required legal formalities.
What
would be the essential features of an Islamic model city? What could life be
like in a city that runs on Islamic principles? Apart from its outward
manifestations, such as the abundance of mosques, what would be the major
features that would distinguish it from any other city? What would its
financial institutions be like? What would be taught in its schools? How would
the courts function in this city? What would be the role of women in this city?
Let us imagine that this idea is taken seriously and with sincerity. Would
there be peace and harmony among all sects in our model Islamic city? Would
they be willing to live and let live? Would they be able to devote their
energies toward the establishment of the Qur'aan and
the Sunnah?
These
are serious questions and challenges for the religious parties. Time has come
for them to do something more than the empty rhetoric and demands for the
enforcement of Islam. Everyone knows that there is much more to the enforcement
of Islam than mere demands. If Islam is really the ideal and the desired goal
of Pakistanis, there is a need to devise a strategic plan that would work. Such
a plan will not come from the mainstream political parties; they neither have
the desire nor the means to evolve it. It has to come from the religious
leadership. But is Pakistan's religious leadership equipped to draw up such a
plan? Are there enough religious scholars who understand the dynamics of
contemporary statecraft and who have the necessary intellectual and academic
resources to translate the vision of Islam to a twenty-first century city?
A
simple glance at the structure and working of the existing religious parties is
enough to provide a negative answer. None of the existing religious parties is
based upon a manifesto that outlines positive approach to the stated goal of Islamisation. They have never developed solid plans in any
area of national life. They do not have teams of experts who can come up with
working models of educational, economic, judicial and other institutions. The
most likely party that can make the leap required to meet the needs is Jamaat-e-Islami. But since the death of its founder, it has
not found a leader who has the vision to formulate a practical strategy. Its
politics remains that of negative reactions, demands and threats.
It
is considered to be one of the most organised parties
in the country, yet it has not used its considerable organisational
structure for the development of model institutions that can prove to the
masses that if they vote for the Jamaat, it would
deliver. The path of a constructive role for the religious parties in national
affairs remains a deserted road, the journey has not even begun.
The
writer is the President of Center for Islam and Science
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Friday, May 04, 2001-- Safar 09,1422 A.H |
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Second
wave of colonisation
Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
Out
of one billion Muslims now living on planet earth, only some 15 per cent are
Arabs. The rest do not speak Arabic, though all practicing Muslims have some
ability to read the Qur'aan in Arabic original, often
without understanding it. This simple fact can be taken as a starting point in
an understanding of dilemmas and challenges faced by contemporary Muslims.
Spread in a geographical region that is by far the most underdeveloped part of
the globe, contemporary Muslims are neither a dominant voice in the
international affairs nor an economic power, though among them are some of the
world's richest countries. In spite of this bleak picture, Islam as the fastest
growing religion in the world and Muslim presence looms large in world media.
The
challenges faced by Muslims today are unique; there has never been a time in
their history that has presented such threats. In a world that is rapidly
moving towards globalisation of economic activity,
Muslim societies are in fact faced with the threat of extinction as distinct
cultural and economic entities. For all practical purposes, these threats
constitute a second colonisation.
As
a matter of fact, this second colonisation of the
Muslim world is already well underway. From Africa to the Malayan archipelago,
Muslim cities and societies are rapidly losing that distinct characteristic
that has remained their outward mark for centuries. This characteristic mark
emerges from a grand synthesis of cultural and religious manifestations of
Islamic civilisation. It makes its presence felt at
various levels: from the sound of the call for prayer to the most mundane
affairs of everyday life. It is present in the fragrance of a freshly baked
bread in a clay oven just as it is present in the aroma of spices.
With
the spread of this second wave of colonisation,
Muslim societies are rapidly emulating western models. Their ideals are based
on a lifestyle and culture that is not their own. If the rate of new colonisation remains unchecked, these societies will soon
lose all that makes them distinct. The force that propels this new wave of colonisation is economics and technology is its vehicle and
means.
Except
for a handful of states, all Muslim countries are crippled in an economic
sense. They are heavily shackled in chains that grow thicker every day. This
debt trap (or shall we say death trap) is wrapped around their necks with the
help of corrupt rulers, direct and indirect intervention and through aid programmes that foster dependence and long-term disability
of local institutions. IMF and the World Bank remain the chief institutional
support for this new colonisation.
In
real terms, no Muslim country has actually gained independence; before leaving
physically, the colonising powers made sure that
their interests would be protected and for all practical purposes, the struggle
for independence only produced a change of rulers. The effective mechanisms
left behind by the departing colonisers worked and
ensured their continued presence, dominance and control.
But
the most distressing part of the second wave of colonisation
is the fact Muslims are embracing this second colonisation
willingly and whole-heartedly. There is hardly any resistance to this process.
In many countries, the arrival of an IMF team is welcomed in more or less the
same manner as the old viceroys were treated in the colonies. The economic
packages sought by Muslim governments are actually welcomed and considered to
be a sign of success for the government.
No
doubt these bailouts provide a short-term relief for the government in power
but in reality, they just add more weight to the chains. In the end, the
country loses its ability to make its own decisions even on matters such as gas
and electricity tariffs. This neo-colonial economic trap is now firmly wrapped
around the necks of all Muslim countries except for a handful of oil-rich
states. But those countries have shackles of a different kind.
Soon
after their independence, the oil-rich countries had to fight for their rights
to control their own mineral resources. After a decade or so of intense
struggle, when they finally won the battles, they found out that they have
neither the technological resources, nor the manpower to run the operations and
they went back to the western multinational corporations for joint drilling and
exploration agreements. In the end, they had to settle for a share rather than
the complete rights in their own God-given wealth! Hence instead of direct
control by foreign governments, revenues from the oil and gas reserves are now
being shared by the Muslim countries with western multinationals.
No
doubt, this influx of new money has created an unprecedented affluence in these
countries but just because of that sudden windfall, these societies have lost
their moorings and traditional lifestyles have disappeared within the course of
one generation. In addition to economic colonisation,
the Muslim world is rapidly coming under what may be called technological colonisation.
This
new form of colonisation knows no borders. It is
capable of penetrating the remotest corners of the globe and its reach is
eradicating traditional societies just as effectively as is being done in big
cities. I recall with painful memories the destruction of peace and tranquility
of the idyllic Kareemabad, nestled as it is among
some of the highest mountain peaks in the world. Until the late 1980s it was a
place where life came to a gradual standstill by sunset and all that remained
after dark were the silently moving stars in the stillness that reminded one of
primordial peace and calm. It was a place where a steady stream of tourists
came silently and where the spirit experienced an exaltation of the most
profound kind. But within the last decade, the place has been transformed
through technological penetration. Now this remote village is filled with dish
antennas, the harsh noise of generators, motorbikes and the activities related
to the construction of modern hotels. The silence is no more.
This
is just one example. One can cite hundreds of others, ranging from the much
advertised sun-beaches and desert resorts of UAE to the newly established
coastal resorts of Brunei, which is ironically named Dar-essalam.
All of these places have transformed through aspirations of emulating the
western lifestyle. This deep-rooted mental colonisation
not only manifests itself in the rapid destruction of traditional lifestyles;
it is also accompanied by the erosion of values, arts and crafts and hundreds
of other outward signs of Islamic cultures which evolved over a millennium.
The
fundamental unit of the traditional Muslim societies was the family. At this
level, these societies were organised in a manner
that made the process of aging a graceful realisation
of one's potentials. One moved up the scale, so to speak, as one grew older.
With age, one's social position elevated and if one happened to be a craft
person, age not only brought maturity in one's profession, it also brought honours and responsibility of passing on the trade to the
next generation. The new economic colonisation has
made all traditional crafts out of place. As a result, Muslim families which
had inherited the traditional crafts, have lost their place in the over all
scheme of things and they have either become distinct or are on their way out.
The dying of these crafts is silently eradicating a rich layer of Islamic art.
These
are some of the transforming currents of the second wave of colonisation
being faced by Muslim societies. In the next column, we will explore other
facets of this development.
May
18, 2001 ????
The
colonial cut
Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
In
the previous "Quantum Note" (The News, May 4, 2001), I had presented
the idea that the Muslim world is now under the second wave of colonisation. Mention was made of some of the transforming
currents that accompany the second wave of colonisation.
In this, I wish to explore how Muslims succumbed to this process of colonisation.
The
first thing to note is that it was during the period of the first colonisation that the West encountered Islam and Muslims in
Dar al-Islam for the first time in history in a situation in which it had an
unquestionable material superiority. This period was contemporaneous with
certain scientific and technological developments in the West which were used
to subjugate a vast territory and people who had never before lived under such
degrading conditions. But the roots of this development go back to the European
Renaissance that opened a vast, hitherto uncharted territory for the emergence
of a civilisation which was to dominate the rest of
the world in the coming centuries.
Ironically,
the last flowering of Islamic civilisation prior to colonisation overlapped with the emergence of the early
fruits of a new spirit in Europe but the two had no contact with each other
except for some isolated travel accounts which were not taken seriously in
Europe. Ibn al-Baytar (1200-1248), Nasir al-Din (1201-1274) and Roger Bacon (1214-1294) were
contemporaries, and so were Jalal al-Din Rumi (d 1273) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Hafiz
(1320-1389) was born one year before Dante Alighieri's
death and seven years before Meister Eckhart's death
in 1327. Another important aspect of the relationship between the two sides at
this time is the fact that whatever was being produced in the Muslim world was
really the dwindling melody of a music soon to fade away, whereas Europe was
awakening to embrace a revolutionary period. So while modern universities were
being founded at Pisa (1338), Grenoble (1339) and
Oxford (1340), most of the Muslim world was in the grip of a medieval madrassah system that had lost all vitality.
In
1453, when the Ottomans captured Constantinople after overpowering Emperor
Constantine XI, Johann Gutenberg (c 1396-1468) was
busy printing his 42-line (Mazarin) Bible at Mainz,
using metal plates. Although printing was introduced into the Ottoman Empire
during the reign of Bayezid II (1481-1512), its use
remained mainly in the hands of Christians and Jews and its influence on the
society was hardly worth mentioning compared to what this invention did for
Europe. Within fifty years of the invention of printing press in Europe, a full
grown book industry had emerged with three distinct professions: the type founder,
the printer and the bookseller. By 1501, more than 1,000 printing presses had
produced approximately 35,000 titles with approximately 10 million copies.
The
Mogul and Persian empires remained uninterested in this important invention for
almost four more centuries. We should also note that all important scientific
discoveries and inventions (which were to play an important role in redefining
the nature of relationship between Muslims and the West in subsequent
centuries) occurred in Europe and not in the Muslim lands in spite of the
Persian, Mogul and Ottoman Empires having control over vast lands and
resources.
Some
scholars have attributed the lack of scientific developments in the Muslim
societies to the internal wars of the ruling elite which supposedly did not
allow them to patronise discoverers and inventors.
However, a close look at the European history of this period reveals that
Europe was not free from internal strife. In 1521, Edward Stafford, Duke of
Buckingham and potential claimant to the English throne was executed by the
order of Henry VIII; three years later, the French were driven out of Italy; in
1525 German and Spanish forces joined to defeat French and Swiss at Pavia; in 1527 Rome was sacked; imperial troops pillaged
the city, killing 4,000 inhabitants; in the same year Pope Clement VII was
imprisoned in Castel Sant
Angelo. Likewise in 1531 there was war between Protestant Zurich and Catholic
Cantons; in 1536 Queen Anne Boleyn was sent to the
Tower of London and executed, and the list goes on.
Towards
the end of the fifteenth century, navigating into the uncharted seas, European travellers, supported by rulers, started to discover new
routes, lands and riches which generated the earliest impulses for colonisation. Soon missionaries were on the march,
reversing the roles between Muslims and the West. Emperor Akbar
(1542-1605) was born in the same year in which St Francis Xavier arrived at Goa as a Jesuit missionary. Akbar
lived to rule the Mogul Empire at its zenith but failed to perceive the dangers
inherent in the advances of the West.
The
period of first colonisation also coincided with an
important development within the Muslim world. The worldwide Muslim societies,
which had come into existence by the eighteenth century, were at the brink of
devastation. Surrender of Baghdad which was the capital and seat of the
Caliphate from 750 to 1258 had ended the centralised
nature of Muslim rule. Prior to 1258, Muslim societies had been built around a
central ideological framework. The concept of ummah,
the community of believers, rather than that of state, held a prime position in
this framework. The unifying factors were the common belief in the oneness of
God and common practices such as prayers, fasting and pilgrimage. Within this
framework, there was considerable divergence and a cosmopolitan society had
emerged. But the period of large empires, ruled by single families, was coming
to an end. The great imperial and state-systems, which had established
themselves in the late medieval era, were showing signs of inner weakness
though these had yet to take an outward form.
At
the dawn of the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire still controlled much of
the Balkan Peninsula, most of the Mediterranean coast of Africa and virtually
all of the Arab lands in the eastern Mediterranean basin. The Mogul empire
continued to be the largest political unit in South Asia and the Safavid Empire ruled Persia. Outside this clearly defined
state-system was a wide periphery of Muslim area. In Central Asia, there were
long established Khanates which stretched from eastern Europe to China. In
Southeast Asia, new sultanates were emerging due to the influence of Muslim
teachers and merchants. In West Africa, new states were emerging as a result of
major changes in the tribal structure and medieval empires.
At
this time, the world around these societies was also going through a major
change. In Central Asia, the Russian and the Chinese expansion was putting
pressure on the old Khanates, in Southeast Asia European commercial interests
were coming into conflict with the local societies, the Ottoman forces were
losing battles to European armies and the inner weakness of the Safavid state had reached such an extent that the empire
crumbled in 1736.
Woven
into this complex pattern of inner changes and external pressures was a
significant reformation movement, which emerged throughout the Muslim world
during the eighteenth century. In West Africa, a number of reform-renewal
movements emerged during this century out of a slow process of conversion and
brought political changes. In the second half of the eighteenth century, Sidi al-Mukhtar al-Kunti (c 1750-1811) led a reform movement in the Sahara and
its influence extended deep into West Africa as far as Kankan
on the upper Niger. The leaders of two West African movements, Uthman Dan Fodio and Shaykh Aumad of Massina were influenced by Sidi
al-Mukhtar. Shaykh Uthman b Fudi started his public
career in the 1770s as a wandering teacher and preacher in north-western Hausaland, commanding the right and forbidding the wrong
according to the Islamic law. His efforts succeeded in establishing a Muslim
community that adhered to the precepts of Islam.
This
process of inner struggle and reform was, however, cut short by the invasion
and colonisation of these societies by the European
powers. The Dutch completed the conquest of Indonesia; the Russians and the
Chinese absorbed Inner Asia; the British claimed India, Malaya, parts of the
Middle East, East Africa, Nigeria and other parts of West Africa; France seized
North Africa, much of West Africa and parts of the Middle East.
Thus
at the dawn of the twentieth century, the European powers had completed their
conquest of almost all the Muslim world; at this time independent Muslim states
existed only in Central Arabia, Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan and they too were
weak and under the influence of the European powers.
This
brief survey brings us to the threshold of the modern period. The map of the
world was redrawn by the European powers in the nineteenth century. Their
expansion and colonisation of the Muslim societies
not only cut short the process of inner evolution in these societies, but also
produced a startling transformation of the most basic institutions, completely
changing the nature of relationship between Muslims and the West. We need to
see this change clearly because therein lie the roots of the present
perceptions of Islam in the West and Muslim perceptions of the West.
(To
be concluded)
The
author is the President of Centre for Islam and
Science
Friday,
June 01, 2001-- Rabi-Ul-Awall 08,1422 A.H
Routes
of re-colonisation
Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
Nineteen
months ago, when General Musharraf proclaimed that
henceforth he would be the CE of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, he was
following a beaten track. Many a military general has done that in various
former colonies since their so-called independence. This is because army, as we
know it today, was a creation of the colonising
powers which had that ambition built into the very structure of this
institution.
Army,
the civil service and the judiciary were the three institutions used by the colonising powers to control the vast territories they had
acquired during the nineteenth century. In laying this structure of governance,
these powers ensured that their grip on these colonies would not diminish after
their physical departure. It is no wonder that all three institutions have
continued to play the role assigned to them. Almost all former colonies are
being ruled by these three institutions which draw their members from a small
segment of population.
It
is an historical irony that these three institutions are branded as the
backbone of national existence while in fact, they are the direct descendants
of the ruling structure erected during the colonial era. Those who were
inducted in the Civil Service of the former colonies were trained in the art of
administration as demi-gods who stood a step higher
than the masses. The judges were trained to follow the examples of their worthy
white colleagues and the generals were trained in the military academies of the
colonising powers or, since the second World War, to
the military academies in the land of freedom and opportunities. But in all
three cases, the common denominator is the vast gap that separates members of
these three institutions from the multitude of poorly educated masses which
they rule.
This
built-in mechanism of re-colonisation has worked
wonders. There is not a single former colony where economic conditions have not
worsened, not a single country that does not bear the shackles of poverty,
under-education, malnutrition, internal strife and a fractured national
existence. There is not a single country where the great multitude of people
has been allowed to exercise full rights as citizens and where any degree of
stability has been achieved. All former colonies have been re-colonised through routes that are amazingly similar.
The
structural foundation of re-colonisation lies in the
continuity of institutions that were set up during the colonial rule. In
addition to the three frontline institutions mentioned above, there is the
second line of institutions that provides manpower to the frontline
institutions. This second line consists of educational and research
institutions. Education in the former colonies was seen as the most effective
means of perpetuation of the European worldview. Institutions set up for
education replaced the traditional institutions and in doing so, they
effectively erased the worldview that had been cherished by millions of human
beings for centuries. Instead, they created a new vision of life whose ideals
were based on the European models.
Thus,
during the late fifties and early sixties, when all across Africa and Asia new
countries were popping up on the world map, a great undercurrent was running
through these societies which ensured that the new rulers would not upset the
institutions established by the colonising powers. In
all cases, this undercurrent succeeded in achieving a remarkable feat. All that
happened was re-christening of the old names: the Indian Civil Service (ICS),
the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and many other
institutions set up by the colonising powers just
changed names but remained the same in their vision and goals.
The
structural transformation of the colonies was not limited to these
institutions. Social fabric was also radically changed to suit the long-term
goals. In time, a new class of citizens was produced that looked up to their
colonial masters in all areas of life and tried to live a life that would be a
carbon copy of their masters'. In doing so, the colonial rulers created a local
model for the masses which acquired currency and became the chief propagating
force in the post-independence period.
A
clear sign of the success of this model building strategy can be seen in
contemporary past colonies. When a Macdonald's opens in Lahore or Karachi, it
becomes an immediate success not because it offers food that is extraordinarily
delicious or healthy but because the general public flocks to buy its burgers
to emulate their models. The same is true for the immediate popularity of a
various electronic gadgets ranging from cell phones to pocket electronic
address books. In emulating these foreign models, the masses are merely doing
what they have learned through education and social rituals. There is no
conscious effort to discern and examine these emulations.
At
another level, re-colonisation has been provided
institutional base through the establishment of certain international
institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. These institutions have
succeeded in providing a means to effectively control past colonies by creating
an economic dependence on loans. It is no wonder that when an IMF delegation
arrives in one of the former colonies, it is given a royal reception similar to
what a viceroy would have received. These new viceroys come with bailout
packages and provide cushions to the rulers. But a simple glance at what they
demand in return is enough to shatter all illusion of independence. Their demands
range from raising the postal rates to the price of natural gas and from the
imposition of general sales tax (GST) to establishment of full-scale revenue
and tax systems on the patterns that exist in the United States of America.
These demands are often met and with each new acceptance of these demands, the
suffering of general population increases, a small segment of population
becomes more privileged the country becomes more dependant on the vicious
loan-interest cycle.
A
more recent version of IMF-World Bank route is the process of globalisation. This new version of economic colonisation comes in various brands but the goal is the
same: to achieve more control of the economic and human resources of the former
colonies by means of free trade agreements that favour
the Western economies. Globalisation has several flavours that encompass a vast arena of contemporary life:
from cultural to economic globalisation.
But
in all cases, the goal is to produce societies which will look like the western
societies with a smattering of local flavouring.
These new societies will also provide huge markets to the ever-increasing range
of consumer goods which are now being mass-produced in China by all major
western companies. These new consumer markets are also effective means of
replacing all traditional lifestyles through an incisive process that will
painlessly uproot old values and worldviews and in time give birth to a global civilisation in which the dominant paradigm will be an
extraordinary attention to material wealth and physical pleasures.
The
author is the President of Centre for Islam and
Science
Friday,
June 15, 2001-- Rabi-Ul-Awall 22,1422 A.H
Roots
of violence
Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
The
author is the president of Centre for Islam and
Science (CIS).
Muzaffar@cis-ca.org.
The
latest round of violence in Karachi has once again brought home the message: no
government, not even a military government, can ensure law and order when the
fabric of civil society has fractured. Had there been a democratically elected
government, the latest round of violence in Karachi would have provided an
occasion to an adventure-seeking general for a mid-night operation.
The
details are simply horrifying: A series of bomb blasts paralyses the whole
city, takes it toll on life and property and leaves an impression that no one
is really in charge of the country. That may, in fact, be the case. An
unrepresentative government and a one-man rule without any moral legitimacy is
the ground reality that has been over-shadowed by the rush of events. But no
matter how much time lapses between that October day when one man decided to
proclaim himself king, the fact remains that the present government has no
moral right to rule.
In
the absence of a participatory and representative government, all avenues for a
healthy growth of civil society are closed and it starts to fracture at its
very core. This kind of inner breakdown is like cancer that grows silently and
then bursts out. Pakistan has had a long festering wound and over the years,
the infrastructure and institutions that hold civil society together have been
destroyed.
This
is not to justify violence. But when a series of bomb blasts rocks the city and
takes its toll on life and property of innocent citizens, it is a clear sign of
things to come. In the midst of this violence, there will be an attempt to
blame it on this or that faction but that would be a poor remedy for something
that has taken deep roots. It would solve nothing.
A
thorough analysis of the situation would not take the province-wide protest
strike following a night of bloody violence as merely an isolated incident.
True, the strike was called by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Jiye Sindh Qaumi Mahaz
(JSQM) to protest against alleged police brutality and water shortage in Sindh. It is also true that the strike was forced on people
through violence. But it is equally true that the hundreds of troops that were
deployed across the city on this occasion failed to do anything to prevent the
violence just as squads of special anti-riot police failed to prevent anarchy
Tuesday night.
The
mere facts of the situation warrant a deeper analysis and a far-reaching
solution. This is what happened: The roads of Karachi were deserted; all
markets and commercial centres remained closed, a
major portion of the public transport stayed off the roads after a night of
violence that saw at least 22 buses torched. All businesses and schools
remained closed. An ASI was killed and three police constables critically
injured when a bomb planted in a helmet went off in police mobile near the Iranian
Cultural Centre in Clifton area of the city. (The
police had discovered helmet from Two Talwar area and
had put it in their van to transport it to police station!)
In
addition, an Afghani scavenger boy was seriously injured when a bomb blasted in
garbage dump near a residential apartment in Clifton area of the city. Two
people were injured early in the morning when a bomb went off in Tower area
damaging nearby buildings and vehicles. The device was simply sitting on the
sidewalk! At least twenty-two vehicles were torched and twenty other snatched
all around the city by unknown armed and masked arsonists overnight.
These
chilling facts are a reminder to the gravity of the situation. They also show
how the law enforcing agencies have utterly failed. But what they do not say is
the writing on the wall: the cancer that has been quietly penetrating, has
burst. It would be self-defeating to blame the situation on this or that organisation, round up a few hundred people and forget
about it. It would serve no purpose; it would neither heal the wounds nor cure
the disease.
What
is needed is a major and honest effort to involve largest possible number of
Pakistanis in a constructive process of rebuilding, a process that would
restore their sense of belonging and participation in national life. At the
root of violence lies the fact that no one in Pakistan feels that he or she has
any say in national life. The politicians who came to power through popular
vote made mockery of that trust and in response to that situation, one man took
over the reigns with the help of army. This process, that has been repeated
four times, has choked the natural growth of civil society.
This
rather simplified analysis of the situation raises a number of questions: How
do we stop the vicious cycle in which misdeeds of the political leadership is
followed by military takeover that leaves the society more fractured and broken
and that builds dangerous extremist tendencies? How do we restore, rather
initiate, a process of slow but consistent participatory political and social
growth that would ensure the emergence of a healthy and stable civil society
that can withstand pressures?
The
answers to these basic problems of Pakistan that have plagued its existence
throughout the last half century are not simple; their implementation is even
more difficult. But no matter how difficult this process may be, there is no
other solution. The country's survival depends on it.
Like
all fractured societies, the rebuilding needed in Pakistan has to be a massive
process involving millions of people. It can happen either through the rise of
a charismatic leader or through a political process that would germinate over
time. The former is mere wishful thinking, though not an impossibility; the
latter is within our reach and can be achieved by a team of capable individuals
who organise themselves for this purpose.
But
how does such a group come into existence in a society that suppresses t his
possibility through various means? The answer to this question would provide
the solution to our dilemmas. For such a group to come into existence, there
has to be a visionary and dedicated core that would attract a large number of
people to it. Such a visionary and dedicated core group can only arise out of a
solid commitment to an ideology. In our particular circumstances, that ideology
can only be an ideology based on Islam. This last requirement is the one that
fosters hope because as soon as one thinks of such an ideology, one has the
resources of fourteen hundred years of Islamic history from which one can draw
certain guidelines for such a group. The most obvious are the fidelity to the Qur'aan and the Sunnah. Such a
core group also needs to be fully cognisant of the
contemporary realities and modern political, social and economic challenges.
Imagine
a dedicated team of highly determined and devoted people, a team guided by a
vision and an historical understanding of Pakistan's peculiar dilemmas. Such a
team would be able to generate enough momentum for that transforming process
which is needed to rebuild the society on firm principles. The fact that this
possibility exists provides hope for the future.
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Dr Muzaffar Iqbal |
Friday,
June 29, 2001-- Rabi-us-Sani 06,1422 A.H
Quantum
Note
The
IMF connection
The
author is the president of Centre for Islam and
Science (CIS)
Muzaffar@cis-ca.org
On
June 26, 2001, a news item in the national press said: "a three-member
team of international donor agencies (IMF, World Bank, Asian Bank) is
supervising the preparation of the new Sindh budget
in the provincial secretariat in Karachi, expected to be announced on June 29,
sources said. Sitting in the Finance Department, the team is going through each
and every part of the Sindh budget for the year
2001-02."
This
short but vital piece of information was buried under the overload of General Musharraf's recent conquest of the presidency. But
according to the news, all budget proposals were being finalised
after clearance by the team. Moreover, similar exercises were in operation in
Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta and the federal budget
was also finalised in the light of the
"advice" of the World Bank and IMF experts, on the
"pre-audit" technique, already in vogue in various government
departments all over the country.
In
any self-respecting country, this would have caused an uproar. National
autonomy, after all, is the essence of independence. But not in Pakistan; no
religious or political party paid attention to this news and soon it will be
forgotten.
But
as one starts to dig deeper, the situation becomes even more frightening and
one discovers certain strange facts. The October 1999 take over by military was
condemned by all "democracy loving" countries but it is a strange
fact that the same countries soon turned around and the financial institutions
they control started to extend all kinds of loans to Pakistan. These loans, as
everyone knows, add to the national debt that is increasing as you read these
lines.
According
to News Brief (No 00/23) of IMF, issued on April 28, 2000 (and available at
www.imf.org), "The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) reviewed today data revisions and misreporting by Pakistan, along with
the authorities' commitment to promptly repurchase SDR18.95 million in
outstanding debt to the IMF, and to voluntarily repurchase another SDR 22
million by May 31, 2000."
The
following facts can be gleaned from this official News Brief:
Fact
No 1: Military rulers tell IMF that financial discrepancies exist and the
Executive Directors express concerns over the misreporting of fiscal data to
the IMF between 1997 and 1999. Soon after the military take over, discrepancies
in the fiscal data were discovered. The military authorities informed IMF staff
and requested technical assistance to help with the data revision process. In
response, a mission from the IMF's Fiscal Affairs
Department came to Islamabad in January 2000 to assess the magnitude of the
discrepancies, and the factors responsible for the discrepancies. As a result
of subsequent data revisions, Pakistan's budget deficit for 1997/98 was revised
upward by 2 percent of GDP to 7.5 percent of GDP, and the deficit for 1998/99
was raised by 1.4 percent of GDP to 5.9 percent of GDP. The technical
assistance mission, with the full cooperation of the authorities, found that
the discrepancies had arisen principally in the domestic non-bank financing
data, where the amount of sales of National Savings Schemes (NSS) instruments
had been erroneously recorded in the fiscal reports.
Fact
No 2: IMF directors express serious concern: Here is what the news brief says:
"In their discussion of the issue, the directors expressed serious concern
that the erroneous data had misled IMF staff and the Executive Board about
economic performance; prevented the formulation and implementation of timely
corrective measures; and resulted in the design of an adjustment program that
was partly based on inaccurate information. They also noted that the provision
of inaccurate data had allowed Pakistan to make substantial purchases under the
extended arrangement and the Compensatory and Contingency Financing Facility,
and under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, that otherwise may not
have been available."
Fact
No 3: IMF commends Military rulers for providing information. The news brief
states: "Observing that the discrepancies in the fiscal data had been
discovered by the current authorities themselves and had immediately been
brought to the attention of the IMF staff, Directors commended the current
authorities for their prompt and full cooperation with the staff in the data
revision process. They noted that the misreporting of fiscal data had in part
resulted from negligence in compiling and reconciling the fiscal reports for
1997/98 and 1998/99. In addition, weaknesses in the fiscal accounting,
reporting, and audit procedures - including the absence of systematic data
reconciliation processes and a mechanism to fully involve the Accountant
General Pakistan Revenue (AGPR) in the preparation of fiscal reports -
contributed to the discrepancies in the fiscal data."
Fact
No 4: IMF welcomes steps taken by the military government. The news brief
states: "Nevertheless, directors welcomed the steps being taken by the
authorities with the help of technical assistance from the IMF to strengthen
fiscal reporting and to ensure the accurate and timely production of fiscal
reports, particularly the recent establishment of the inter-agency Fiscal
Monitoring Committee, clear delineation of data compilation and reconciliation
responsibilities, and formulation of a new reporting format and procedures.
They felt strongly that the credibility of fiscal reports would be enhanced if
the AGPR were required to verify the accuracy of the reports. They also urged
the authorities to finalise the data reconciliation
process for the years prior to 1997/98 before the next Article IV consultation,
which is tentatively scheduled for July 2000, and expeditiously to complete a
special audit consistent with international auditing standards of the
operations of the Central Directorate of National Savings, which should be
published."
Fact
No 5: IMF receives commitment "from the highest level". The news
brief describes this as follows: "Directors also welcomed the authorities'
commitment at the highest level to take additional steps over the medium term
to further strengthen data reporting and reconciliation. They urged the
authorities to accelerate the implementation of the Pakistan Improvement to
Financial Report and Audit project with the World Bank, and to rationalise and streamline government debt and aid
management operations under the newly created debt management committee. Fiscal
policy management would also be aided by the development of a medium-term
fiscal framework and by enhanced fiscal transparency..."
Fact
No 6: Military Rulers accepts demands to repurchase SDRS. The news brief
reports: "In light of the serious nature of the misreporting case, the
directors noted the authorities' indication to promptly make a repurchase
corresponding to a non-complying purchase of March 1998 that is subject to misreporting
under the General Resources Account (GRA) Guidelines, and to make a voluntarily
repurchase by May 31, 2000. In view of the authorities' expression of regret
over the misreporting episode, their full cooperation during the data revision
process, and their prompt implementation of measures to subsequently strengthen
fiscal reporting, the directors felt that the proposed repurchases constituted
remedial action that was consistent with practices on misreporting that were in
effect at the time the inaccurate fiscal data were provided. Many Directors
expressed the hope that, following these actions in response to the data
misreporting episode, the authorities could move forward with a bold and
wide-ranging reform program designed to achieve a high and sustainable growth
path that could be supported by resources from the IMF. In this connection, a
mission to Islamabad is envisaged in the near future."
The
Last Fact: Not stated by the news brief issued by the IMF External Relations
department, Washington DC: Pakistan has now become a state owned by one man and
his cronies in close cooperation with IMF.
July
13, 2001
Road
to Agra
The
writer is the president of Centre for Islam and
Science (CIS).
Muzaffar@cis-ca.org.
Gen
Pervez Musharraf seems a
remarkable person," says an unsigned editorial column in the July 10th
issue of the Times of India. "He appears neither as rigid as his old
uniform might warrant nor as diplomatic as his new position might demand. His
arguments are invariably tempered by realism rather than rhetoric." The
newspaper went on.
The
General has won applause from many for his "exceptional performance at the
National Seerat Conference held in Islamabad on June
6. His speech has been seen as a bold step "to call a spade a spade in
front of the self-appointed guardians of Islam and self-righteous defenders of
the identity of Pakistan," as the Times of India called it.
Indeed,
the time is just right for the General. He has buckled under the conditions
imposed by IMF and his trip to Agra is exactly what everyone who matters wants:
a peaceful subcontinent, free of the so-called Islamic threat and open to the
commercial needs of the booming economy of the United States of America.
General Musharraf has clearly shown that he knows
what he is doing. By stating the obvious facts in a religious gathering, he has
become a darling of those who see Talibanism of
Pakistan as the next biggest danger for their designs. His straight talk to the
maulanas has been widely reported in the West. His
questions have been repeated with triumphal notes.
Recall,
he had asked the maulanas: "What is so Islamic
about our country when Sunnis and Shias, and now Deobandis and Brelvis, are
killing each other so wantonly, when we are so devoid of a sense of brotherhood
and tolerance, when there is no justice for the poor and destitute, when our
women are relegated to second-class citizenship? Who can blame the
international community for calling us an irresponsible or failed or terrorist
state when our religious leaders are quick to hurl outlandish threats? Who will
invest in our country if it is constantly rocked by senseless religious strife
and violence? Since no nation is an island, how can Pakistan survive in
hostility to the global community?"
The
recent events have changed certain fundamental ground realities. The General is
not on a weak wicket any more. He has made room for himself and his visit to
India promises to make his position even more snug. This is so because in the
world of hard realities, those who matter think in terms of alternatives and
they see that the alternates to a budding Bonaparte are all bearded quackish men in their medieval attires. So while they
cannot publicly accept and encourage modern-day Bonapartism,
they see nothing wrong in stretching their double standards a bit more to
include Pakistan.
Hence,
while the White House publicly shows displeasure at the assumption of
Presidency, it selects a well-known admirer of generals and dictators as its
new ambassador and IMF quietly opens its coffers to make yet another
concession. The new game plan is now obvious: While the present regime is
required to control those who talk of jihad in exchange for IMF funding, it is
also expected to squeeze masses for greater revenues and pursue a goal of liberalisation of society. That this goal is couched in
sweet terms makes no difference to the actual deed and those who can discern
know the hidden connections between the general agenda and the new IT policy.
One
recalls with pain the last resounding words of ZA Bhutto
when he made a desperate dash to a popular bazaar of Rawalpindi
and warned of angels and Bonapartes descending on
Pakistan. One recalls his enigmatic statement from his death cell, which read
like the script that is being recited on stage now. These final words of a man
who stands head and shoulders above any post-independent public figure in
Pakistan warned about the nature of things to come.
But
regardless of these ground realities, there is no denying the fact that a
peaceful subcontinent is the most desirable goal for both India and Pakistan.
And permanent peace is attached with a just resolution of Kashmir dispute. But
how would a self-proclaimed president deal with an elected leader who heads the
largest democracy in the world? What are the issues and what are the solutions?
Clearly
the main issue is Kashmir. Everyone recognizes this. Whether or not one states
this publicly is merely a matter of detail. The second most important fact is
that the Indian willingness for talks is not merely an act of charity: the
armed struggle in Kashmir has made the status quo too costly for it. And this
has not been achieved over night. The armed uprising in Kashmir has been slow
but firm and steady. It has progressed to the point of evolving a visible
leadership of its own.
This
situation has dramatically altered the ground realities. Now, there is a
definite and powerful voice of the Kashmiri leadership that cannot be ignored.
This is a reality that both Pakistan and India have to take into account. The
second most important ground reality is the public support for the peace
process. Such a support is a sine qua non for any durable peace in the
subcontinent. In the case of India, there are stable political institutions
which can be used to ascertain public support for any agreement. The Pakistani
situation is very different and complex. The public opinion in Pakistan is
fractured; there are no institutions and a lot of dissenting voices ranging
from Jihadi slogans to those who propound the idea of
a confederation. And no one can be rightly called a representative of
Pakistanis. The only viable alternative for General Musharraf
would be to seek approval of the agreement through a referendum.
This
option provides a distinct possibility of peace in the subcontinent. Whatever
agreement is reached in Agra has to be very transparent and clear. Given the
gravity and long-standing nature of the dispute, both teams would need to take
their formula to their respective people for a final approval. In the case of
Pakistan, the peace formula will have to be taken to the people. The most
obvious mechanism for this would be a fair referendum that would validate and
make it binding on all successive governments.
But
the danger here is the temptation to attach the peace formula and the referendum
with a much-needed validation of the General's rule. If the regime succumbs to
this temptation, it would make the whole exercise meaningless. Once the peace
process is initiated at Agra, it needs to build momentum and gain support at
several levels. The Agra talks will not produce any magical formula; the road
to peace has to be built brick by brick, taking all sides along. Only a just
solution will be lasting.
A
just solution is the one which identifies, recognizes and incorporates the
political, military and psychological positions of all parties. The parties in
this situation are the people of Pakistan, India and Kashmir. Without giving
the people of Kashmir a seat at the negotiating table, there cannot be any
peace. Whatever peace formula emerges from Agra has to recognize these basic
facts because only on the basis of these basic facts can a solid and durable
peace be built.
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Sunday August 12, 2001-- Jamadi-Ul-Awall 21,1422 A.H |
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Are
we still independent?
Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
The writer is the president of
Centre for Islam and Science (CIS)
Muzaffar@cis-ca.org
Within
a week of Pakistan's fifty-fourth Independence Day, two events painfully
reminded the nation that the celebrations might have been more a ritual than
celebration of an actual reality. The fact that not many in Pakistan took note
of these two events does not nullify their existence.
The
first event happened on August 21, 2001. On that day, US Assistant Defence Secretary Peter W Rodman was responding to a
reporter's question about US-Pakistan-India relations during a media roundtable
at the Pentagon. Regarding the impression that US is pursuing its relationship
with India at the expense of Pakistan, he said: "And I don't think we, as
a great power, should be dispensing with allies when, you know, we think conditions
have changed. It's an Islamic country in a very complicated region of the
world. I think it is useful for the United States to have a friend in that part
of the world... the (Pakistan) military is an institution that we have had
contacts with, and it would seem useful to us to maintain a relationship."
Note
the arrogance and the outright reference to supremacy of US interests in the
statement. Rodman continued, "Well, I think this administration, from the
President on down, sees India as an opportunity. But I think it's important to characterise it in the right way. India is not going to
become an ally of the United States. I think India values its independence. It
values its non-alignment. So I don't think anyone should suspect that India is
going to become - you know, going to collude with us."
Mark
the words: "India values its independence!" Stripped of diplomatic
necessities in the comfort of Pentagon's tight security, Pakistan is seen as a
country that does not value its independence. However painful, this is not
merely perception; it is a reality that all except Pakistanis themselves know.
From the very first day of its independence, Pakistan has suffered a reverse
process that intensifies with every new aid package and with every new
bi-lateral agreement.
Two
days later, the second event that brought home the realisation
that Pakistan's independence has become more of an illusion than reality was
the visit of the Commonwealth's Secretary-General Don McKinnon to Islamabad on
August 23. McKinnon had a one-to-one meeting with General Pervez
Musharraf and met the Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar and the ARD leaders Nawabzada
Nasrullah and Javed Hashmi. McKinnon, who is New Zealand's ex-foreign minister,
known for his cordial manners, then held a press conference. He behaved like a
viceroy. Mark his words regarding the devolution plan: "the Commonwealth
will judge on deeds rather than words."
But
this was only the prelude. Like a school teacher pats the back of a student,
McKinnon said that the military general gets good marks on promises kept. Musharraf had promised to hold local elections and he has.
He promised to decentralise power and it looks like
he has done that as well. Next will be Musharraf's
progress in carrying out electoral reforms, ensuring an independent and honest
election commission to decide candidates and see the country through provincial
and federal elections scheduled for October 2002. It seems that McKinnon's
visit has confirmed for the military rulers the green signal that was issued by
Rodman two days earlier, for McKinnon said that the army-led National Security
Council, which currently is the real decision-maker in Pakistan, is certain to
become a permanent feature of Pakistani politics as per Musharraf.
However, he made it clear that the Commonwealth would want the majority of its
members to be elected officials, not appointees. He said that it also seems
clear that the military would have a supervisory role in any future set-up.
This
is a real disaster: The decisions for Pakistan are being made in Washington and
London and there is a reason for this. For the West in general, and the USA in
particular, Pakistan holds special importance due to its nuclear weapons. But
this is not because Pakistan has potential as an independent country; but
because of the US nightmare that these nuclear weapons will come into the hands
of those whom they call Islamic fundamentalists. This is their worse fear. And
they have now concluded that Pakistan's military is the institution that can
best protect their interests.
Read
what McKinnon said in the light of Rodman's frank
admission that "the (Pakistan) military is an institution that we have had
contacts with, and it would seem useful to us to maintain a relationship"
and you will immediately perceive the game plan. McKinnon left no doubt that he
had come to sanctify the military's role in Pakistan's future. In the same
press conference, he said, "The military is very much a part of Pakistani
politics. No one can deny that. Pakistan has been part of the Commonwealth for
more than 50 years and half of that has been under military rule." This is
the most blatant violation of international law and yet another example of
double standards for which the West has become notorious. The Commonwealth
Secretary-General is justifying a military coup on the strength of previous
military coups. This is like making a law that sanctifies theft on the basis
that in a given time period so many thefts have occurred, therefore it is
lawful to steal.
Pakistan's
military rulers must be pleased. But for the country, this is nothing but sheer
disaster and a roadmap to further internal disintegration. What the
Secretary-General did not see is the debris left by military rule. He did not
see the terrible price of these adventures. He did not see the flagrant
violation of all internationally accepted and morally justified foundations of
governance in his eagerness to approve the role of military in the political
life of Pakistan. He merely found it convenient to cite our history as justification.
The
absurdity of the current devolution plan is obvious. First, the plan envisions
party-based elections but the military rulers will only allow political
activity 90 days prior to the general elections. It is like growing democracy
in 90 days. Even potatoes don't grow that fast! Isn't it obvious that democracy
cannot be ordered to grow; that it is a system that takes roots in the soil of
a polity slowly and it takes generations to become rooted in the thinking of
the people?
The
second absurdity is that Pakistanis can only choose candidates of the two major
political parties of the country because no third party holds national
importance. The heads of both parties are in exile, barred from elections on
charges of corruption. Now, whichever of these two parties wins elections, it
will have to do one of two things: Either, it elects a prime minister other
than its party head, splitting party ranks, or it gets dropped all charges and
convictions and brings its party head back. In both cases, there is no moral
justification for the action. But imagine Nawaz Sharif coming back to the country because his party has a
majority in the parliament and has forgiven and forgotten all his past deeds!
Or the ever-changing Benazir-in-waiting becomes the
prime minister again on the strength of her party. What would happen to her
mantra of political freedom and democracy in a situation where the whole army
brass is sitting in the National Security Council, watching her moves?
It
seems that a Turkish-style solution has been chosen for Pakistan. The military
will be firmly placed in the saddle through dubious constitutional changes with
the clear goal of keeping the fundos out. But those
who have come up with this solution forget that Pakistan is not Turkey. Thus,
instead of a Turkish style watershed, Pakistan will resemble Algeria. In both
cases, it would have compromised the last remains of its independence.
The
News
Friday
September 28, 2001-- Rajab 10,1422 A.H
Justice
or revenge?
Dr Muzaffar Iqbal
The
writer is the president of Centre for Islam and
Science (CIS)
Muzaffar@cis-ca.org
Enough
has been said about the tragic events of September 11, 2001. This "crime
against humanity" has been universally condemned. Those who actually
committed this crime died on the spot; they cannot be punished by humans any
more. True, there must be those who helped to orchestrate this tragedy and who
are still alive. They must be punished for their part in the crime.
Thus
the task is to identify and punish the helpers. There are certain norms that
are observed in all such cases. These norms require that identification of the
culprits should be established beyond doubt and that the punishment should be
according to the crime. In other words, we are dealing with the process of
justice.
But
so far, we have not heard about justice; instead what the Bush administration
has been calling for is revenge. In order to do justice to the task, we must
understand that revenge and justice are two totally different concepts. Revenge
often gives birth to a cycle of violence, each based on revenge whereas justice
stops violence and brings peace.
If
we are serious about rooting out terrorism, we must see the September 11 events
in their proper perspective. These events are truly tragic; the scale at which
they were enacted makes them stand out in the history of terrorism. But after
granting these basic facts, let us also note that they are not the only events
of terrorism that the world has witnessed. In fact, the newspapers carry
reports of terrorism from around the world on daily basis. The difference is,
as already stated, in the scale, the number of casualties and the locale of
these events.
Thus
seen in the proper context, the tragic events of September 11 become part of
other tragedies that visit us humans every day. Those that stand out in this
series include the three-day carnage that started on September 16, 1982 in the
Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila by Israel's Phalangist
militia allies in which hundreds of women were raped and 1,800 human beings
were killed in cold blood. But this carnage was part of a bigger tragedy which
started with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon; in the course of this act of
terrorism, 17,500 Lebanese and Palestinians, almost all of them civilians, were
killed.
If
we wish to make the world safer, the problem of terrorism has to be understood
in its totality, not merely as a single act committed on September 11 by
nineteen individuals. Terrorism is an end-product of a longer process; it is
not an independent entity. It is a reaction, not an action. It is not normal
for humans to kill other innocent humans. It is an action that cannot be the
work of a healthy mind. But revenge is likewise. Revenge means violence. It is
just like terrorism but with a layer of justification imposed on the deed.
However, the initial action also has a layer of justification in the minds of
those who commit that action. In contrast, justice punishes the criminals
without any element of revenge.
The
goal of justice is to produce a better world; revenge has no goal but a blind
passion as a driving force. Justice is aimed at stopping the future occurrence
of the crime; revenge perpetuates the crime. Justice is universally accepted;
revenge splits humankind into various camps. Justice helps in the evolution of
a better society; revenge does the opposite. Justice is based on universal and
indisputable moral values; revenge is an aberration of all values.
Thus,
in spite of the gravity of the situation and its tremendous impact on us, let
us not forget that, in the final analysis, it is justice that can produce a
better society. Revenge would take us nowhere. Those who are obsessed with the
idea of revenge, are merely hurling us in a blind ally from which nothing but
more violence will emerge. It is very obvious that the United States of America
has the military might to destroy any country in the world. But it is also
obvious that this might cannot prevent future acts of violence on its own
territory. And if our concern is with safety of our children and our own
beings, then we must be concerned with the process of justice, not revenge.
The need of the time dictates that the United States of America take lead in the establishment of an International Court of Justice solely for cases of terrorism. In order to make this court globally acceptable, it must have creditable representatives from all over the world. Its logistics should include ability to quickly respond to the needs. It should be a court that can establish branches in various parts of the world by constituting mobile units. And its decisions should be binding on all nations, irrespective of their mutual alliances and interests. Anything short of total and impartial justice will be a recipe for further violence.
Quantum Note October 19, 2001
Faces of Terrorism
Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal
The Writer is
the President of Center for Islam and Science (CIS).
Email: Muzaffar@cis-ca.org.
The dreadful has already happened. As I write these words, American and US planes are flying over Pakistan on their way to Afghanistan where they are about to throw lethal weapons. These bombs thrown from high will not kill civilians, we are told. They are only meant to kill terrorists. These are in deed, smart bombs.
The steady drumbeat of the first war of the twenty-first century is now reverberating throughout the world. A new world order is in the making. The call to arms has two versions. If you hear it from Washington, it is called a crusade against terrorism; if you listen to the waves that emerge from the rocks of a ravaged land, it is called a crusade against Islam and Muslims. If you hear the battle cry knowing the historical path that has led to its emergence, you draw one conclusion; if you wish to ignore history, you reach a different assessment.
The death of 6,729 humans in New York is one face of terrorism. But this is not the only face that we see. While the political philosophers of European Union debate the dictionary definition of terrorism, let us focus on Chaman, the border town between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the immediate destination of thousands of un-welcomed Afghan men, woman and children. Here, just a few miles outside the city limits, on the threshold of the border between two Muslim countries, amidst thousands of refugees, a woman is squatting on a piece of old rug. She is about to give birth to a child. There is terror on her face, the kind which no one can ever describe.
If you wish to see another face of terror, look at the child who has been just pushed back by the guards at the border with a baton. If you could hear his scream, you will know what terror really is.
Faces of terrorism grow as we cross regions and frontiers. Within a week of the September 11 attacks, 300 cases of hate crimes were reported in America. Mosques were attacked. A child was beaten to unconsciousness in Ottawa, Canada and Molotov cocktail bombs were thrown at several Islamic centers across north America. This muffled face of terrorism is accompanied by yet another form.
I recall the face of an 11-year old boy who had asked me a question after I gave a talk about the concept of knowledge in Islam. The venue was the Iman School in the occupied Jerusalem. The question was: “When my brother’s head is crushed in front of my eyes, what is my duty? Come to school or prepare for Jihad?” By the time he finished asking his question, his voice had cracked, as if he had re-lived that moment of terror in which he saw the Israeli soldier crushing his brother’s head.
It is an irony of our times that the loudest voices in the current war-cry belong to those who have cobbled a massive destructive force in the name of combating terrorism. They wish us to believe that the death and destruction of Afghanistan is neither a crime nor a war against Islam and Muslims. Yet, their war-cry is couched in terms that evoke nothing but that: they have called it a crusade. The day they started their bombing was called “the day of reckoning”. Yet, we are not to associate this war with religion! We are supposed to forget that they have already profaned the sacredness of Islam in associating the crime of a few individuals with Islam, without showing an iota of evidence.
Another face of terrorism can be seen in the violence being committed by governments of Muslim countries against their own citizens. From Egypt to Indonesia, literally millions of human beings are living a life of fear and anguish because their governments have devised means to terrorize them on a daily basis. These governments have been directly or indirectly installed by those who never tire of singing songs of virtue of human rights, democracy and freedom of expression. They control these puppet governments through an elaborate system that involves secret agents, economic and political blackmail and outright aggression. Recall the agony and terror of millions of Iraqi children who have starved to death during the last eight years because of economic sanctions that have been the effective cause of destruction of a country with enormous oil reserves.
Hundreds of examples of this facet of terrorism can be cited. The most recent being the opening of IMF coffers to Indonesia after President Wahid’s ouster. As soon as a new puppet regime was installed, IMF quickly signed on a fresh package of “economic reform” and cleared the way to resume its $5 billion lending program to Indonesia. The same IMF had withheld under an agreed and formally sanctioned $400 million load from the previous administration of Abdurrahman Wahid. Does this not explain why Megawati Sukarnoputri, the new President of the most populated Muslim country, rushed to Washington to lend her support to the coming terror while thousands of her countrymen were protesting on the streets of Jakarta against that support.
But perhaps nothing is more despicable than the farcical self-righteousness of the perpetuators of this terrorism. The recent G-8 meeting in Genoa, Italy, was a public expression of their vulgarized stage show. Held amidst the most vicious and disgusting treatment of protesters by a violent, ill-trained and vengeful police, these leaders of the free-world congratulated themselves for their misdeeds, signed a worthless document which they could not cite minutes after signing and left after planning to meet next year in the secretive and remote recesses of Kananaskis in the Canadian rockies.
What we are about to witness in the first war of the twenty-first century is none other than a ruthless show of power, a calamity of global proportions that would leave thousands dead, millions as refugees and will securely tighten the noose around all the traditional Muslim lands. Just a simple glace at the world map would show us that after controlling the oil-rich lands of the Middle East, the only part left out of the traditional Muslim lands was that ancient home of Muslims that stretches north from Pakistan, right into the heart of Central Asia, to Samaqand where Qasm bin Abbas, the cousin of the Prophet (SAW) was martyred in 57 AH.
That serene tomb in the Shah-e Zinda complex of Samarqand is only a few miles away from the shrine of Imam Bukhari, the most revered scholars of the Prophetic tradition. And if you know that the most recent estimates of oil reserves in Central Asia far exceed those of Middle East, you will know why the wind is blowing that way.
If the new wind carries in its wake unimaginable human suffering, millions of refugees, broken families, destroyed houses, smoked and charred bodies, that is not terrorism, we are told, but a battle against it.
Quantum Note unpublished??
Combating Tony Blair
Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal
The Writer is
the President of Center for Islam and Science (CIS).
Email: Muzaffar@cis-ca.org.
Tony
Blair, the British Prime minister has emerged as the most articulate crusader
in the quickly formed Western alliance against “terrorism”. His whirlwind tours
of the Muslim countries, hard hitting words against certain individuals and his
unbound hatred for the Taliban and particularly
against Osama bin Laden are no secret. But what is
most instructive is a certain Napoleonic strand in his words and gestures which
smacks of a hypocrisy at best and willful deceit at worst.
Recall
when Napoleon arrived in Egypt at the head of a strong French army, he went to
a mosque and was ready to pronounce himself a Muslim in an effort to win the
loyalty of Egyptian masses. “I read the Qur’aan,”
Tony Blair tells us, “I find no sanction of terrorism in it.” In his recent
article in the News (October 13, 2001), he has a variation on this theme:
“Everyone I have met has told me that these attacks were contrary to all the
tenets of Islam and the teachings of the Qur’aan.
Everyone wants to see those who carried out the wholesale murder of the
innocent men, women and children, brought to justice.”
Of
course, every believing Muslim knows this. The Qur’aan
sanctifies life, not death. It provides a strong moral code for everything
ranging from the daily lives to the warfare. The life of the Prophet of Islam,
may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, exemplified this code throughout
his life, a life that remains the most documented life in history. One
incidence from this life is enough to explain what it means to be human and
gracious. During the battle of Uhud, the Prophet’s
beloved cousin Hamza (RA), was martyred. Hind, the
wife of Abu Sufyan had enticed Wahshi
to find and kill him. Wahshi did his job. Hind and
other members of her tribe then mutilated the body. After they left, the
Prophet sent Harith ibn as-Simmah (RA) to look for Hamza.
When he found him, he was so appalled at the sight that he could bring himself
to go back and report the incident to the Prophet (SAW). The Prophet (SAW) then
sent Ali (RA) and he found Harith standing aghast by
the mutilated body. They both returned to the Prophet (SAW) and took him to the
place where the body was lying. When the Prophet saw what had been done, he
said, “Never yet have I felt more anger than I feel now; and when God grants me
a victory over Quraysh, I will mutilate thirty of
their dead.”
But
soon after this, there came the revelation, “If ye inflict punishment, then
inflict only so much as ye have suffered; but if ye endure patintly,
that is better for the patient.” (Q. 16:126) And the Prophet never took his
revenge; he commanded Muslims to respect human face as being the most Godlike
part of the body. “When one of you strike a blow,” he is reported to have said,
“let him avoid striking the face… for God created Adam in His image.”
This,
then, is the message of Islam. Even in war, it restrains Muslims. It enshrines
certain rules and it asks its followers to be gracious, kind and forgiving. But
we Muslims do not need Tony Blair to teach us our Islam. Our sources are what
they have always been: the Qur’aan and Sunnah. And it is on the basis of the Qur’aan
and Sunnah that Muslims have condemned the attacks in
New York.
In
the aftermath of the tragedy in New York, what was the most rightful thing to
do was to bring the culprits to justice. But instead of following a juristic
process that the US had followed in case of the Oklahoma bombing, it
immediately pointed toward Osama bin Laden and after
a few days of furious verbal diatribe, fixed the blame squarely on him and a
little later on Taliban. At that point, the whole
world was asking the US to produce evidence. The NATO meeting in which the US
faced the strongest demand for evidence was quickly adjourned. The next day,
the US came up with “evidence”. Tony Blair took that “evidence” to various
capitals and extracted lukewarm support for it. And then came the attacks which
continue to kill innocent Afghans and devastate an already devastated land.
These
attacks have been accompanied by a media war against Islam and Muslims. Three
hundred incidents of attacks on Islamic centers and properties of Muslims have
been reported in the US alone. Not a single person was brought to court for
these crimes. Not a single person was arrested. No one came to the help of
twelve-year-old boy who was beaten to unconsciousness in Ottawa, Canada.
Instead, the whole print and electronic media of the Western world has joined
hands in a chorus against Muslims in general and Osama bin Laden and
the Taliban in particular.
The
evidence is confidential, we are told. But think about it for a moment. A man
has been charged for a crime but the evidence cannot be made public! What a
mockery of the idea of justice. A report issued by the UN, just before the New
York incidents, praised the Talibans for eradicating
the cultivation of poppy. But Tony Blair in his recent speech in the British
Parliament incites his countrymen by saying that the 90% heroine sold in the
streets of London comes from Afghanistan. In his blind hatred against the Taliban, he sees nothing but darkness. He does not have the
moral strength to stand up to the devastating bombing of innocent men, women
and children. Instead, in his article in the News, he depicts a black picture
of the state of Afghanistan.
Instead,
he claims that it is Osama who is “willing to murder
innocent women and children, including Muslims.” He warns us about the Taliban: “let us make no mistake about the sort of people
they are. Public administration is chaotic and getting worse. The country is
desperately poor and getting poorer because of the regime's policies. Teachers,
doctors and other educated Afghans have been forced to flee or live in terror.
Because the Kabul regime has so badly mismanaged the economy, the Afghan people
are starving.”
What
a vile assertion! The Afghanistan is in a mess, Mr. Blair, not because of the
misrule of the Taliban government during the last
three years; it is in this sorry state because of a devastating war followed by
a civil war that has been going on for the last twenty-two years. Please do not
distort history. Face the facts squarely. It was the cold war between the US
and the Russians that brought the first torrent of international politics and
destruction of that calm peaceful land, nestled in the beauty of an ancient
culture and civilization. It was the US war fought in that country that left it
mined to such an extent that thousands of innocent men, women and children have
lost their lives and parts of their bodies. And these mines, let us face it,
Mr. Blair, came from the ammunition factories operating in your and your
allies’ countries.
Quantum Note
Making of another Spain?
Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal
The Writer is
the President of Center for Islam and Science (CIS).
Email: Muzaffar@cis-ca.org.
Friday,
October 26, 2001 has become a historical day in the history of the United
States and Muslims living there. The fact that it has remained relatively
unnoticed by a vast majority does not reduce its importance. On that fateful
day, the United States of America embarked upon a long journey which may
eventually make it another Spain for Muslims.
The
day began like any normal day. But shortly after noon, when President Bush
signed the anti-terrorism bill H.R. 3162, he had turned the tide of history.
This bill was sponsored by Rep. Sensenbrenner, F.
James, Jr. on October 23 and it became Public Law (No. 107-56) on October 26!
Never in the history of a nation like the United States of America, any bill of
such far-reaching implications has gone through such summary hearing.
On the day it was introduced in the House, it went was simultaneously referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, as well as to the Committees on Intelligence (Permanent Select), Financial Services, International Relations, Energy and Commerce, Education and the Workforce, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Armed Services. On the same day (Oct. 23), at 7:15 pm, Mr. Sensenbrenner moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill. The bill was considered under suspension of the rules. At 8:27 pm, at the conclusion of debate, the Yeas and Nays were demanded and ordered. Pursuant to the provisions of clause 8, rule XX, the Chair announced that further proceedings on the motion would be postponed.
The next day, (Oct. 24, 2001), the bill was considered to be as unfinished business at 10:37 am but at 11:03, the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill was agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: (2/3 required) by a vote of 357 - 66 (re: roll no. 398). At 11:03, a motion to reconsider the bill laid on the table and was agreed to without objection. Then began a short hearing. On October 25, 2001, the bill had been passed by the Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 98 – 1 (US Senate Record Vote no. 313). Senator Landrieu (D-LA) did not vote and Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) voted against it. Within minutes, the bill was cleared for the White House and it was presented to President on October 26, who signed it and urged the law enforcement agencies to use it immediately. Within the next two days, many Muslims had been arrested under the new Public Law No: 107-56!
The
sole voice of reason that opposed the bill in the Senate said that “the
Administration’s proposed bill contains vast new powers for law enforcement,
some seemingly drafted in haste and others that came from the FBI’s wish list
that Congress has rejected in the past. You may remember that the Attorney
General announced his intention to introduce a bill shortly after the September
11 attacks. He provided the text of the bill the following Wednesday, and urged
Congress to enact it by the end of the week. That was plainly impossible, but
the pressure to move on this bill quickly, without deliberation and debate, has
been relentless ever since. It is one thing to shortcut the legislative process
in order to get federal financial aid to the cities hit by terrorism. We did
that, and no one complained that we moved too quickly. It is quite another to
press for the enactment of sweeping new powers for law enforcement that
directly affect the civil liberties of the American people without due
deliberation by the peoples’ elected representatives.”
However,
even this voice of reason did not address the main flaw of the bill: its
apartheid nature. The new law only applies to the residents of the US who are
not yet its citizens. For example the J-1 Visa holders, a vast majority of whom
are Muslims, the students and the immigrants with permanent status.
Senator
Russ did, however, said, that “the bill contains some very significant changes
in criminal procedure that will apply to every federal criminal investigation
in this country, not just those involving terrorism. One provision would
greatly expand the circumstances in which law enforcement agencies can search
homes and offices without notifying the owner prior to the search. The
longstanding practice under the Fourth Amendment of serving a warrant prior to
executing a search could be easily avoided in virtually every case, because the
government would simply have to show that it has reasonable cause to believe
that providing notice may seriously jeopardize an investigation." This is
a significant infringement on personal liberty.”
The
new law allows law enforcement to monitor computers, open e-mails, wiretap
telephones, it breaks down the distinction between intelligence and criminal
investigation and it permits the government under FISA to compel the production
of records from any business regarding any person, if that information is
sought in connection with an investigation of terrorism or espionage. Senator
Russ found this very troubling because, he said, that “under this bill [now
law], the government can compel the disclosure of the personal records of
anyone – perhaps someone who worked with, or lived next door to, or went to
school with, or sat on an airplane with, or has been seen in the company of, or
whose phone number was called by -- the target of the investigation…under this
provision, the government can apparently go on a fishing expedition and collect
information on virtually anyone. All it has to allege in order to get an order
for these records from the court is that the information is sought for an
investigation of international terrorism or clandestine intelligence gathering.
That’s it. On that minimal showing in an ex parte
application to a secret court, with no showing even that the information is relevant
to the investigation, the government can lawfully compel a doctor or hospital
to release medical records, or a library to release circulation records. This
is a truly breathtaking expansion of police power.”
According
to the new law, the Attorney General can detain immigrants, including legal
permanent residents, for seven days merely on the suspicion that the person is
engaged in terrorism. The bill also denies detained persons a trial or hearing
where the government would be required to prove that the person is, in fact,
engaged in terrorist activity. The bill also allows the detention and
deportation of people engaging in innocent associational activity. It would
allow for the detention and deportation of individuals who provide lawful
assistance to groups that are not even designated by the Secretary of State as
terrorist organizations, but instead have engaged in vaguely defined "terrorist
activity" sometime in the past. To avoid deportation, the immigrant is
required to prove a negative: that he or she did not know, and should not have
known, that the assistance would further terrorist activity.
Under
the new law, a lawful permanent resident who makes a controversial speech that
the government deems to be supportive of terrorism might be barred from
returning to his or her family after taking a trip abroad. Senator Russ asked
in the Senate: “Who do we think is most likely to bear the brunt of this abuse?
It won’t be immigrants from Ireland, it won’t be immigrants from El Salvador or
Nicaragua, it won’t even be immigrants from Haiti or Africa. It will be
immigrants from Arab, Muslim, and South Asian countries. In the wake of these
terrible events, our government has been given vast new powers and they may
fall most heavily on a minority of our population who already feel particularly
acutely the pain of this disaster.”
A
similar, albeit more draconian, law is under discussion in the Canadian
Parliament. It is likely to be passed with only cosmetic changes. This really
means the opening of a new chapter in the history of Muslims living in North
American. They are poorly organized. While some of them have made their
millions in the new lands, all of them remain millions without rights, without
a broad defense mechanism against state sponsored discrimination. They are also
without popular public support and now without legal protection. This is,
indeed, the beginning of the making of another Spain for them.
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Friday November 09, 2001-- Sha'baan
22,1422 A.H The News International http://www.jang-group.com/thenews/ |
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The
tightening noose The
writer is the president of Centre for Islam and
Science (CIS) Muzaffar@cis-ca.org Even
an elementary student of history knows that all that September 11 did was to
increase the rate at which the noose around the Muslim world was being
tightened. The die had already been cast. There had been loud rumblings of “madrassas breeding terrorists”. The western media had
already prepared the ground by extensive coverage of “terrorist training
camps”. The spectre of nukes going into the hands
of “Islamic fundamentalists” had been hammered into the consciousness of a
population that lives on the edge of despair; even the word bio-terrorism had
become a daily commodity much before anthrax made its appearance. September
11 hastened the unrolling of the script. It did not create the necessity of writing
new war plans; it merely advanced them in quick order. Those who are thinking
in terms of cause and effect relationships have been duped; they are ignoring
history which is never forgiven by history. Even a cursory glace at the
newspaper headlines of this past summer will be enough to see the direction
in which the wind was blowing. The
Palestinian intifada was about to mark the
completion of its first year. The pressure on Israel had become unbearable.
The Kashmir struggle was threatening Indian control with increasing force and
even the Chechen front had started to recover from the heavy losses it had
suffered in the brute massacre of the past year. At
the home front, the United States and Canada were facing a huge a bleak
winter. With the fuel prices soaring, the economy had all but fallen into
that dreadful mode: recession. Air Canada had reported losses, major US
airlines were in trouble and the increasing fuel prices had started to take
their toll on consumer spending. Everything was geared toward a mega act;
September 11 conveniently provided the opening lines of the new script; the
rest followed naturally. Now,
in the fifth week of bombing, the United States has decidedly shown its
political, military and technological might to the rest of the world. The
first war of the twenty-first century is unlike any other war humanity has
seen. It remotely resembles the Gulf War but it is being fought in a
fundamentally different way: The Gulf War had a very defined goal; it had a
visible “target” and though it carried the hidden agenda with it, that agenda
was neither so hidden nor so incisive: everyone knew that the Shaikhdom of Kuwait will remain indebted to its saviours forever and that once on the soil, the American
troops will not leave the Gulf. Defeat of Iraq but continuation of rule of
Saddam Hussein were also more or less obvious. The most painful aspect of
that war was, however, not obvious. No one expected the United States to use
depleted uranium and contaminate the soil and water of Iraq. One
recalls Collin Powel’s boastful statement after the Gulf War that in the next
war, the United States will be able to use real time, soldier-to-command
level communication. The plans for the next generation of weapons and
communication equipment were already in place. But the United States needed
to use and sell off its older hardware. The Gulf War provided that windfall
and shortly after the War reached its stalemate (it has never ended), the
United States (and UK) were able to sell most of what they wanted to sell.
The scene was now set for the next generation of weapons to go into
production. Ten
years later, the new weapons in place, the rope firmly stretched around the
Muslim world, the United States and its Western allies were eagerly looking
for an opportunity to start tightening their knots which will bind the Muslim
world into another century of economic, cultural and political colonialism.
After years of ruthless killings, Algeria had been subdued. The rest of
Africa, steeped in its terrible poverty was “polite and moderate”; the Gulf
states were happy in their new found American-style desert resorts; the
bridge from Dahran to Bahrain was seeing
bumper-to-bumper weekend traffic and the prostitute dens, casinos and bars of
Bahrain were doing roaring business. The
Indonesians and Malaysians were towing line. The only troubled spots were
Palestine, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the mild rumblings in the Central
Asia. Palestine has been considered to be a back burner; a red hot spike,
pierced right in the heart of the Muslim world, so that it to remains forever
in a state of convulsant agony. But it is also
considered to be a manageable “problem”. With the never-ending resolutions
of “O I SEE” (sic. OIC) coming forth
at rapid pace with each new gathering of the heads of states and kings and
the advanced military hardware going to Israel, all that the stone-throwing
children waging war against tanks and a few desperate suicide bombers could
hope to do was to steal the headlines once in a while. The state of Israel is
expanding slowing but surely and the economic deprivation of Palestinians was
supposed to take care of the rest. Iran
had started to come in line. There has been high level contacts. The opening
of new informal channels and the slow emergence of a “moderate” faction were
good signs. There the future did not look so bleak to actively engage in an
overt operation. But Pakistan and Afghanistan were a different story. With
the two major parties discredited, Pakistan was the number one spot on the US
map. With its huge population, somewhat advanced education (compared to other
Muslim countries) and of course, the nukes, it had become the number one
worry. And the fact that it sat right at the foot of the road that leads to
the huge oil reservoirs of Central Asia, made it even more desirable target.
But Pakistan was, at least, a place where the US could do business: there
were enough leads to pursue, enough horses to bet on and enough players to
move. Afghanistan, on the other hand, was a complete dark spot. Ever
since the Taliban takeover of Kabul, the Western
analysts had been increasing becoming aware of the emergence a new system
which was called Islamic. And unlike the Shia brand
Iranian Revolution, which could not be exported to the Sunni world, the
Afghan-style government, if successful, could become a model for a vast
majority of Muslims, most of all for Pakistanis. Thus, intense efforts were
made during the last two years to discredit Taliban. This
homework was being done systematically. The gradual increase in the media
coverage, the highly evocative commentary on the destruction of statues, the
ever-present rhetoric of drug trade, the never-ending stories of
“mistreatment of Afghan women” and the long list of other accusations would
flood the media headlines and then there would be silence. This was the slow
building up; it was the deliberate scheme which would lead to the eventual
stepping into that dark spot where one of the most wanted man could be found. And
of course, the Taliban were prone to make mistakes.
After all they are neither trained administrators, nor historians; they are
merely madrassa-trained students who are learning
everything from their own experience. But they dared to reject the aid that
came tainted with western women-lib advocates, they were “totally
unreasonable” when it came to defend their faith; the West could simply not
converse with them. They are a different breed altogether. And their worse
sin was that they were hosting a man who has made it his life mission to awaken
Muslims out of their lethargy. Such dangerous men could not be tolerated to
walk on earth. Hence, the noose had to be rapidly tightened and September 11
provided a golden opportunity which could not be lost. The News
International, Pakistan Update | Top Stories| World | Business | Karachi | Islamabad |
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Friday November 23, 2001-- Ramadan 07,1422 A.H |
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The News
International, Pakistan |
Tuesday December
11, 2001-- Ramadan 25,1422 A.H
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Dr
Muzaffar Iqbal
US
designs for the Muslim world
The
writer is a freelance journalist
Muzaffar_i@hotmail.com
The
marines have landed and we now own a piece of Afghanistan," said General
James Mattis of the US marines on November 26th. The
marines on the USS Peleliu had been well-trained for
the task. Prior to their iconic journey into the wasteland of Kandahar, they had been indoctrinated through a
meticulously planned psychological strategy that would turn any human into a
fierce beast. An Associated Press reporter on USS Peleliu
reported that they had been asked to stencil their vehicles and weapon systems
with silhouettes of the World Trade Centre and the
figures 9/11, denoting September 11. Then there were the daily lectures against
their foe and before their departure, there was a prayer, a firing practice and
a pep talk from their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Bourne. He told
them that "eleven weeks ago, our country was attacked again. They started
this fight and you are going to finish it."
Lieutenant
Bourne was merely echoing what President Bush had said in September:
"There's been a war declared. We will find who did it, we'll smoke them
out of their holes. We'll get them running and we'll bring them to
justice." And when asked if he would like to have a live or dead Osama, Donald Rumsfeld, who
behaves like a Pharaoh, said, "O my goodness gracious, I prefer the
dead."
But
the American war in Afghanistan cannot be explained away through these pale
descriptions of revenge. It is not even enough to evoke scenes of brutal
massacre at Qala Jhangi or
the elimination of entire villages by American B-52 bombers. Any fair judgment
would admit that the events of September 11 are merely miniscule in comparison
to what is happening in Afghanistan. But these gruesome acts of terrorism
cannot be viewed in isolation. The first war of the twenty-first century is
merely the first step in the larger American design for the Muslim world. While
the havoc being wrought in Afghanistan is still smouldering,
the next targets are already being placed on the drawing board. Richard Perle, the most visible and forceful advocate of action
against Iraq outside of government, believes that success in Afghanistan means
that the US can move "from one liberation to another".
This
is, indeed, going to be a long war. Americans have learned a wonderful new
technique in Afghanistan: Go find a "northern alliance", provide them
money, weapons, information and whatever else they demand, then start pounding
the entire region with 2,000 pound bombs until the surrogate soldiers are ready
to do the dirty job. In the meanwhile, prepare marines, psyche them up and then
unleash them when it is safe to do so. This will ensure that no gummy bags
arrive home. There will be a small outcry, mostly from Noam
Chomskys of a previous generation but that means
nothing; CNN and the other mainstream press will manufacture public opinion to
drown the dissident voices in its uproar.
But
this is only one aspect of the new war. The other aspect involves
"reconstruction". While the first step is designed to push certain
countries back to the Stone Age, the second step is meant to enacting a fast
forward step that will bring them back into the very heart of twenty-first
century, equipped with satellite phones. This will be accomplished in such a
masterful way that all gruesome acts will be obliterated from history. No one
will be able to remember the days when B-52 bombers rained fire, death and
destruction from the skies, obliterating whole villages. A new history will be
quickly manufactured in the new schools both at home as well as in the newly
reconstructed lands, previously owned by tribal lords.
This
new history will recall the war and all acts of brutality and terror in such
confused accounts that no one will be able to distinguish facts from fiction,
except for cases which would have been meticulously preserved: the twin towers
now etched on the very weapons which will soon be used to obliterate the
ancient bazaars of Kandahar. For example, it has been
ensured that no one should ever find out how the handcuffed prisoners were able
to start a "revolt" that would end up in a mass killing that recalls
the most savage acts of barbarism ever recorded in human history. At present,
there remains some imperfection in this mechanism of total control and hence a
few British reporters who have been able to etch a lasting image of that
carnage at Qala Jhangi in
our memory. The finale of that gruesome deed runs like this: a tank rolls-in
over the dead bodies of hundreds of "foreign Talibans",
it fires three bursts of bullets and then there is complete silence. But these
are increasingly rare and soon Robert Fisks of this
world will be an extinct species.
What
will remain will be a universal chorus repeating ad infinitum: "This
conflict is a fight to save the civilised world"
(Bush) or an attack on states that "have placed themselves outside the
family of civilised nations" (Iain Duncan Smith). This chorus attempts to make us forget
that their version of civilisation includes
carpet-bombing, destruction of whole villages, use of weapons of mass
destruction, daisy-cutters and all. But this is only detail. The grand American
plan for the Muslim world sees these terrible acts merely as a prelude. The
main act has a different script altogether: It attempts to establish a
made-in-America Islam throughout the traditional lands of Islam. The official
line that this is not a war against Islam, repeated ad nauseam, is indeed true.
Only, by Islam, they mean a made-in-America Islam which has been produced in
many versions to suit the needs of various regions. But all versions have one
thing in common: they are designed to produce a polity in which the religion
will be restricted to the personal sphere. Islam will be totally de-politicised, its pristine sources will be shorn of their
vitality and in time, a new generation of "Muslims" would be produced
that will be eager to join ranks with the secularised
Christians and Jews of the "civilised"
world.
There
is no place for words like Jihad, martyrdom and Ummah
in this made-in-America Islam. Each and every member of the community will be a
free agent, independent from the rest of believers, minding his or her own
business and often making his or her own rules. Likewise, the social aspects of
the message of the Qur'aan have no place in this new
version of Islam. It rejects the Qur'aanic call for
the existence of group of believers in each community that guides it towards
righteous deeds (amr bil maaruf) and leads it away from the apprehensive actions (nahi an'il munkar).
This American made Islam considers all such commands anachronistic. This Islam
has no room for the Qur'aanic notion that all
believers constitute a fraternity and the Prophetic declaration that likens
Muslims to a single body so that when one part hurts, the whole body suffers.
But
why? One may ask. Why does America want to enact a new version of Islam? The
answer is not oil which is now selling at its rock bottom price in decades.
What is at the heart of this new war is an American obsession to
"own" the rest of the world and to "civilise"
it. It is an obsession that is no different than its nineteenth century version
that produced British and French colonies in what was mainly the heartland of
Muslim people. And this is not something that has been dreamt up following
September 11. The new Pharaohs of this world have been at work on this project
for decades.
They
tried a test-tube version in Beirut; and it worked. Next, they tried a slightly
modified version in the Gulf states and it was enthusiastically received.
Bahrain, Qatar, Dubai Kuwait, all eagerly opted for bars, pleasure resorts,
chains of five star hotels with casinos, drinking and prostitution. Confirmed
reports from Saudi Arabia tell us of the presence of non-Muslims
in
the Haram area in complete violation of the Qur'aanic commands. Drugs and drinking have become epidemic
problems and a whole hospital in Jeddah is devoted to the treatment of drug
addicts. These are not individual aberrations; these are cases of a state
sponsored culture which has nothing Islamic about it.
Of
course, one cannot blame the United States for manufacturing this new version
of Islam. It is the acceptors of this new version who are to be blamed. The
United States can only be held responsible for brutally imposing its writ on
millions of people. From one end of the Muslim world to the other, the United
States supports puppet regimes that maim, kill and imprison their citizens.
Thus they have been able to create millions of dispossessed Muslims who are
poorly placed in life and who are struggling to survive. This subsistence level
living does not give them any opportunity to even understand the true
dimensions of this new conflict, let alone do something about it. But there is
a small minority of Muslims who can do something about this onslaught against
Islam. Their role will be discussed in the next column.
Friday December 21,
2001-- Shawaal 05,1422 A.H
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The facets of 'New War' The writer is a freelance journalist Muzaffar_i@hotmail.com At the beginning of their campaign against Afghanistan, the US leadership took a lot of trouble to claim that it is not a war against Islam. Canadian, French, German and British leaders followed suit. They went to mosques, they invited Muslim "leaders" to their offices and they trotted the globe with their new gospel of war, insisting that it was not a war against Islam. And there is some truth to this. The American attack on Afghanistan started when its rulers asked for proof against Osama bin Laden in response to the US demand for handing him over. It was a natural act for any self-respecting Pashtun; no Pashtun would hand over his guest to his enemies without any valid reason. It was their asking that infuriated the American government; the right to decide who is guilty and who is not was a propriety right of the American government and no one was supposed to question it. Hence, the Taliban demand for proof became the immediate cause of the appearance of B252 bombers over Afghan cities and towns. They came with their lethal bombs and the rest is history now. The fact that the United States has killed more than twenty-five thousand human beings in revenge of less than four thousand lives lost in New York is never going to be forgotten. Added to this is the suffering of approximately five hundred thousand refugees, devastation and complete disappearance of several villages, destruction of the pristine forests and destabilisation of mountain ranges. All of these constitute horrendous crimes against humanity which have been recorded in the tablet which no one can erase. But this was not war against Islam; only against innocent civilians who happened to be Muslims, living a helpless existence in a ravaged country. The real war against Islam is being waged elsewhere. And the arsenal of that war is not daisy cutters; it involves far more sophisticated and lethal weapons. But before we go on that aspect of the latest crusade, let us also remember the fate of thousands of protesters who had come out on the streets of Lahore, Karachi, Jakarta, Amman and other major cities of the Muslim world. They were being led by a few firebrand leaders who had appropriated the right to lead masses in the name of Islam. The governments of these countries, on the other hand, had thrown their lot with the United States of America, willingly or under pressure. This caused a split which remains an obvious reminder of a deep malaise that exists in the contemporary Muslim polity. The role played by the so-called Islamic leadership is also important to note. After initial uncertain and often violent encounters, the agitation on the streets died down. Most of the self-appointed leaders were removed from the scene through house arrests or detention. There was no second in command. This leadership had done no planning for this obvious first step by the governments. Hence those who had come out in thousands to agitate against the war were left hanging in the air, without any leadership. Hundreds of ordinary citizens were jailed. Many were killed, maimed or injured. Left leaderless, the masses convulsed in helpless agony, waiting for a messiah. This leadership is often labeled as "fundamentalist" or more recently "Jihadi". During the last fifty years, it has never been able to win enough seats in any election anywhere in the Muslim world to form a government. There is only one exception to this: Algeria. The Islamic party did win an election in Algeria but the army stepped in and denied them the opportunity to form a government. A bloody civil war followed. It took its toll and in the end, the secular minded military generals were able to dominate. The case of Turkey is more complicated, hence its population has to endure an even more torturous path. The rest of the traditional Muslim lands are now being ruled by self-appointed kings, military generals or presidents "elected by 98% votes", this last category being a most recent version of dictatorship invented by Western governments to install their Hosni Mubaraks. All of these categories of rulers have one thing in common: they are all supported by the United States. Most of them receive economic support from the new colonising institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, others are kept in power through an elaborate chain of security networks which operates with the help of arms, ammunition and technology directly supplied by the United States. This general state of the Muslim world has emerged during the post-World War II period. During this period, the United States of America has very aggressively replaced the old colonial powers. Thus it has become an heir to lands previously held by Britain and France. Note that the Soviet Union was never really a match for the United States though the specter of Cold War did hang over the world for a while. However, those who knew the internal situation of the communist regime, knew all along that it was a paper tiger. With the formal demise of the Soviet power, the sole arbitrator of world affairs would naturally find it extremely irritating to be challenged by anyone. Thus the desire to own the rest of the world and implement a grand design that would render all other civilisations obsolete is borne out of a historical process that has left no other economic or military power on the world scene. But there is one major irritant in this grand design: a bunch of "fundamentalists" who have an equally global vision of their religion. They lack the technological or economic clout but make up for this with their lives. These irritants are found everywhere and in spite of their wholesale massacres, they have not become an extinct species. Quite the contrary; they keep popping up everywhere. What is really disturbing, from the point of view of the new coloniser, is the fact that this bunch has no defined location or nationality or other defining factors. But they do have one thing in common: Islam. Hence, there is a natural reason for the perception that the current crusade is, in fact, against Islam. However, let us be very clear. The war against Islam cannot be fought with daisy cutters and tomahawk missiles. The war against Islam is being fought at other frontiers: the spiritual and the intellectual. It is this incisive war that is quietly ripping the very fabric of Muslim societies that deserve our attention. But because there is so much noise, violence and clamour at the forefront, not many Muslims are paying attention to this other front. The war at this other front has been taken up from where the orientalists of the previous two centuries had left it. Goldziher, Schacht and their twentieth century followers had not burned the midnight oil for nothing. Thus when the American evangelist Franklin Graham recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "The (Qur'aan) provides ample evidence that Islam encourages violence in order to win converts and to reach the ultimate goal of an Islamic world..." and when Rabbi Marvin Hier accused on CNN's Larry King Weekend that that the Qur'aan, Islam's revealed text, holds "extremist" views, they were not making isolated personal remarks about the Qur'aan. They were following a well-structured plan which has come to a point where it must attack the very heart of Islam: the Qur'aan. Recall, Goldziher and Schacht had restricted their attacks to the Hadith literature. They had spent all their "scholarly" abilities to demonstrate that Hadith literature is not reliable. Their work has not gone to waste. Today, one can find many Muslims who eagerly believe in their assertions. The fact that these Muslims have no idea of the tremendous scholarship that has gone into the making of this Hadith tradition, tells us where the Islamic leadership has failed. Educated in the western institutions or their local verities, these Muslims have breathed the very air in which Goldziher-type scholarship flourishes. Secularised to the very basic and fundamental patterns of thought processes, they are easy prey to the incisive tools that work silently. It is this "silent war" against Islam that is the main cause of the emergence of a schizophrenic culture in all Muslim lands. It is this underground, behind the scene, war that is of crucial importance for this century. And, unfortunately, the firebrand Muslim leadership does not understand these hidden facets of the new war. |