Recommended Readings Post Lahore Terrorism

I am not going to write about Wednesday's triple Lahore blasts during the Youm-e-Ali procession. Not because they didn't affect me deeply (they did) but because there is nothing I can say about this kind of terrorism which I have not already said countless times before.

Inevitably, media attention has focused on security and organizational lapses which, had they not occurred, might have prevented such a large number of casualties. Focusing on organizational inefficiencies is fine... up to a point. I would like to steer the discussion towards another usually ignored tangential aspect of the whole issue. But instead of writing about it myself, today I am going to rely on other writers who have done an excellent job of presenting the point, even though at least one of them was not motivated by yesterday's specific incidence.

First up, do read Nadeem Farooq Paracha's very good (and thankfully, well measured) analysis of the forces that have brought Pakistan to this point and which are shaping the mindsets of the country's burgeoning youth populations even now.

Secondly, if nothing else, read the excellent op-ed piece in Dawn from one of journalism's grand old veterans, I.A. Rehman, a vanishing breed of professionally sound, thoughtful analysts whose integrity is beyond reproach. I am posting the entire article below, if only so those who have a knee-jerk response to the idea of secularism in Pakistan (some perhaps because of those who propound it as thoughtless fashion themselves) might reconsider their beliefs that it has no roots or legitimacy in the country. The points I.A. Rehman makes bear repeating because, increasingly, we are producing literate illiterates - those who can read and write (and hold forth on the media) but know nothing of our own history, culture or the philosophical debates that have shaped us.

Spectre of Secularism

By I.A. Rehman

Thursday, 02 Sep, 2010

      

The spectre of secularism is haunting the privileged elite of Pakistan, some privileged by birth or status, others by their grading in the realm of belief. Now pollsters have joined the effort to scare the people with reports that a majority of young persons prefer theocracy to secularism.

Unfortunately, huge confusion has been caused by presenting Islam and secularism as two mutually antagonistic and irreconcilable philosophies. In many cases this is done by persons who cannot, or do not wish to, analyse both Islam and secularism objectively.

The Oxford Dictionary gives many meanings and usages of the word ‘secular’, including a member of the clergy not bound by a religious rule; not belonging to or living in seclusion with a monastic or other order; belonging to the world and its affairs as distinguished from the Church and religion; civil, lay; non-religious, non-sacred; et al.

The strongest opponents of secularism always rely on its definition as “the belief that religion and religious considerations should be deliberately omitted from temporal affairs”.

However, it can be substantiated with the help of authoritative texts that Islam views secularism as a way of life that is inspired by Islam’s ethical ideal (Iqbal’s favourite expression) but in which reason is used to promote the good of humankind. That is why duties to human beings are considered more important than obligations to God.

The principle that Islamic injunctions can be amended to suit changes dictated by time and social development has been upheld by a long list of Islamic scholars, from Ibnul-Qaiyyam Jauzia and Ibn Khaldun to Allama Iqbal and that makes a strong case for Islam’s compatibility with secularism. (Falsafa Shariat-i-Islam, Majlis Taraqqi-i-Adab).

In Pakistan the advocates of secularism rely mostly on the Quaid-i-Azam’s dictum that religion has nothing to do with the business of the state. Actually, the subcontinental Muslims’ contribution to secularism has a much longer history, beginning (if not earlier) with Allauddin Khilji’s refusal to follow Qazi Mughis’s plea to convert or kill the more numerous non-Muslims. Babar advised Humayun to treat people’s religious affiliations as changing seasons and Aurangzeb scolded his teacher for making him waste his time on Arabic grammar while he should have been taught governance in a world that was larger than Shah Jahan’s kingdom. All these ideas bore the stamp of secularism.

In the modern phase of our history, Syed Ahmad Khan is considered the founder of the movement for Pakistan. He declared “the root cause of people’s misfortune lies in mixing the problems of the world with the problems of religion that are immutable…. Mixing of the affairs of the world with the affairs of religion is madness … conditions of society and civilisation change day by day, therefore, they cannot be part of religious commandments”. (Sibte Hassan in the Battle of ideas in Pakistan, Pakistan Publishing House, 1986).

Pakistan’s anti-secularism lobby has little respect for Allama Iqbal though quite a few mujavirs have won comfort by selling his name. In Iqbal’s life 1930 was a most significant year. It was the year he delivered the Madras Lectures, later on published in a book The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, and it was the year when he addressed the Allahabad session of the Muslim League.

In the lectures, Iqbal’s overriding concern was to see the unfreezing of the Islamic jurisprudence that had been frozen for 500 years and had suffered greatly under what he described as “Arab imperialism”. He began his sixth lecture, ‘The principle of movement in the structure of Islam’, by describing Islam as a “cultural movement” and holding “that all human life is spiritual in its origin”. He added that a prophetic revelation was world-life’s intuitive perception of its own needs and its choice of direction at critical moments, and that “loyalty to God virtually amounts to man’s loyalty to his own ideal nature”. He told his fellow Muslims that “a false reverence for past history and its artificial resurrection constitute no remedy for a people’s decay”.

Allama Iqbal upheld the Turkish view that “according to the spirit of Islam the caliphate or imamate can be vested in a body of persons, or an elected assembly”. He gave ijma great importance as a source of lawmaking through a modern assembly. Then he addressed the question as to how to prevent mistakes by an assembly of lay persons. He rejected the idea of a board of ulema to advise parliament and told the ulema to be part of the assemblies.

“The only effective remedy for the possibilities of erroneous interpretations is to reform the present system of legal education in Mohammadan countries, to extend its sphere, and to combine it with an intelligent study of modern jurisprudence” (emphasis added, all references from the book published by Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 2007).

In the last week of December 1930, Iqbal gave his Allahabad address. He declared that “Islam, regarded as an ethical ideal plus a certain kind of polity — by which expression I mean a social structure regulated by a legal system and animated by a specific ethical ideal — has been the chief formative factor in the life-history of the Muslims of India.” Then he added: “Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that India is perhaps the only country in the world where Islam, as a people-building force, has worked at its best.” Since no Islamic theocracy was ever established by the Muslims in India, Iqbal could only be extolling their secular traditions.

After proposing a Muslim state in the north-western part of India, Iqbal dispelled the “Hindus’ fear that the creation of autonomous Muslim states will mean the introduction of a kind of religious rule in such states”. He then approvingly referred to a newspaper comment to the effect the Indian Muslim states did not ban interest and offered it as an example of “the character of a Muslim state”. This is secularism.

One should like to suggest a fresh interpretation of the Allama’s lectures and his Allahabad address. He may well emerge as a strong Islamic defender of secularism.

While the common people of Pakistan have no reason to share the ashrafiya’s fears of secularism they have every reason to dread the anti-secularism lobby. The “principal institutions of a secular society” listed by Altaf Gauhar are: the elected legislature, the judiciary, and the press”. (Battle of Ideas)

It is quite clear that all these institutions have to bear with one another. The Supreme Court can never sack parliament or the media, nor will parliament ever be foolish or strong enough to abolish the Supreme Court or the media. But the extremist militants that are being reared by anti-secular elements, if they ever capture the state, will almost surely pack off parliament, the Supreme Court and the media into oblivion. The choice before the people of Pakistan has never been clearer.

Junaid Jamshed Needs a Commitment ...To A Mental Asylum

First of all, a big shout-out to Tazeen who wrote an excellent post on her blog about that neanderthal proto-Talib Junaid Jamshed and what he said on that charlatan Aamir Liaquat Hussain (aka 'Dr' Evil)'s show Jaahil Online... er, Aalim Online.

You really should read the post and see the video of the show yourself, available thanks to vidpk. But basically, this is what Mullah JJ had to say about the tragic incident in Karachi wherein 19 women queuing up for free food rations lost their lives in stampede:

1. Allah has created the poor (and a few rich people) and that's the way it's meant to be
2. The poor should not complain and should show patience, even if it means starving
3. These women died because they had lost their faith in God and Islam
4. The biggest problem in Pakistan is that the poor have lost their faith
5. It's better to starve to death than lose your self-dignity

Of course, Mullah JJ can say all this because the closest he's ever been to poor people is when they irritate him by knocking on his car window, as he himself admits. And of course, the call by the rich (after all Mullah JJ is rolling in millions from his Vital Signs days, his clothing line and from doing the odd endorsement of Lays chips) for the poor to not become a nuisance, to accept the social and economic status quo as God-ordained, is nothing new. The Vatican had followed the same line for centuries in support of monarchs and emperors, which is why "liberation theology" that sprang out of socially left-wing clergy in Latin America was (and is) considered almost heretical. But it's interesting to see the Tableeghi Jamaat (of which Mullah JJ is an avid proponent) come full circle from the revolutionary interventions of Muslim scholars like Ali Shariati and Mohammad Iqbal and proclaim the same hackneyed principles of economic status quo so publicly. Mullah JJ is of course no Iqbal who had proclaimed:

"Jiss khait se dehqaan ko moyassar ho na rozi

Uss khait ke har khosha-e-gundum ko jala do"

[The land that does not feed its farmer / Burn every sheaf of wheat in that land]

It's highly unlikely that Mullah JJ has even read anything other than the washing instructions on his over-priced clothes. But what is particularly galling about this insensitive, arrogant wanker (man would be too dignifying for him) is that these women were not even protesting dire economic conditions, which Mullah JJ obviously does not like (the protesting, that is, not the dire economic conditions). They were simply trying to survive as best as they can in a time of rising inflation and unemployment.

But I don't really want to repeat what Tazeen has already eloquently written about. What I wanted to point out was something else Mullah JJ said, further on in the clip, which left me even more dumbfounded and is solid proof, if any were needed, that this idiot needs to have a straitjacket slapped on him and led gently into the confines of a padded room. This bit comes in around 22:45 on the clip and I am reproducing it verbatim here:

"Mehngai insaanon ki wajah se nahin aati. Subah ke waqt aik fareshta aata hai aur aa kar ailaan karta hai, aur..aur..chawal ke danay se le kar tael ke saaray nirkh tae kar ke jaata hai. Ab laga lo jo aap ne karna hai aap ne, jitni stock marketing mein karna hai, yeh karna hai, woh karna hai, jitni aqlain lagani hain laga lo. Bula lo finance minister ko bhi aur falaanay minister ko bhi aur uss minister ko bhi. Koi kuchh nahin kar sakta. Jab loag farmabardar ho jaatay hain tau Allah ta'ala ki taraf se moafaqat ke faislay hotay hain oopar se."

[Inflation is not caused by human beings. In the morning an angel arrives and announces the rates for everything from rice to cooking oil. Now, you can do what you will, try what you will, in the stock market or wherever. You an call the finance minister, or this or that minister, nobody can do anything. It is only when people become obedient that Allah takes decisions in their favour.]

Un-effing-believable. Not only that there are people still out there who actually believe in such  dangerous hocus pocus (dangerous because it chooses to ignore the real reasons of deprivation and hunger) but that they are provided a platform on prime time television to spout their baloney. (I suppose the angel also announces the Rs. 2000 pricetag for each Mullah JJ kurta as well!) One can only marvel at Geo which obvioulsy was not content with sharing the mealy-mouthed inanities of Dr Evil with the Pakistani public but felt there was some lunacy void in the programme that needed to be filled.

On  a final note (and as an eloquent response to Mullah JJ's theories of economics) I just want to share these lines from sufi Baba Bulleh Shah that were quoted by Jang columnist Munnoo Bhai in today's column:

Dekh O Bandeya

Asmaanan te ud-day panchhi

Dekh te sahi ki karday neen

Na o karday rizq zakheera

Na o bhukkay marday neen

Kadi kissi ne pankh pakhero

Bhukkay marday dekhay neen?

Banda ee karda ai rizq zakheera

Banday ee bhukkay marday neen.

[See, O Humans]

[The birds flying high in the skies

Just see what they do

Neither do they hoard their food

Nor do they starving die

Has anyone ever seen

Birds dying of hunger?

It's humans who hoard

And humans who of hunger die.]

Perhaps Mullah JJ can be provided some music of the same in his padded cell.