The Post-Modern Dialectics of Belief

I have been musing a little bit about belief, especially after a couple of outraged comments on the previous post about the absurdity of the moon-sighting charade that occurs ever few months. We get similar comments every time we post something about the irrationality that seems to pervade the thinking of literalist followers of religion. There really is no way to argue against belief. If someone actually believes with all their heart that white is actually black or that the placement of Venus relative to Mars will affect your chances of finding true love, how do you argue against it? A belief, by definition, resists interrogation. A good part of religion involves blind trust - that a beneficient god (or gods) exists, that everything that occurs has a hidden, deeper meaning, that there is a goal to strive towards, and that the path to that goal as defined by the religion is the best route to achieve it.

I should point out that I have no issues with people's personal spiritual beliefs (it's their own space after all and human history shows us that everyone requires some sort of belief system to survive) and I do think that on the whole all major religions (all the ones I know of in any case) share a desire to create a better, more just society (even if their followers' interpretations can tend to lead one to conclude differently). The desire to believe in a power greater than ourselves, to bring meaning to apparent anarchic chaos, is deeply ingrained in the human psyche, and I am not one of those whose mission in life is to go around attacking religion in toto.

But problems do arise when personal belief systems are either imposed on other people who wish to have a different belief system or, as in this case, when belief is substituted for an argument even in the face of tangible evidence to the contrary. If someone really believes that God intended for us to order our lives only by looking upon the moon with a naked eye (as the maulvis of Pakistan seem to believe), there is little that logic can do. They will throw hadees (or hadith to you Arabophiles) at you as if that in and of itself constitutes any rational argument (and I'm not even getting into the theological issues of which hadees is credible and which suspect, that different schools of jurisprudence have different opinions on). Such is the power of irrational dogma that even recalling the fact that the Quran itself encourages, at numerous points, people to use their minds (i.e. logic, rationality) is brushed aside as irreligious.

I am not advocating that science has all the answers to everything - it doesn't, and the realm of the spiritual is not the domain of science in any case. But yes, science is a process through which we have come to understand more and more about the physical world around us and it posits theories based on evidence, not on mere belief. These theories, which may be overturned by new evidence, are the most plausible explanations at the time of how or why things are the way they are. You can well argue against a theory using evidence that contradicts it. But you cannot, repeat cannot, argue against it just on the basis that you believe something is different.

And this is my problem with the bizarre new post-modern dialectic that seems to pervade the world these days and which is evidenced in some of the comments we get on this blog. Everything is not equally valid, especially if it originates from different planes of thought like religion and science. (Personally, I don't even see the contradiction between being a Muslim and accepting the principles of science, and it seems to me a selective reading in any case, since mullahs use all sorts of products based on scientific principles when it suits them.) This is the new cop-out: claiming you can base analyses on nothing more than your feelings. A sort of 'I feel it therefore it's true.' But you just cannot pit your cherished belief as a valid counter to empirical evidence or reasoned logic. Or rather, you can if you want, but we will make fun of it.

Just in case you thought the irrationality of religious belief  is limited only to places like Pakistan's Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, here's a handy reminder of how the whole world suffers from it. First see the following spoof video below and then follow it up with the real video that it satirizes...

Spoof:




Real:




Maybe somebody should enter Mufti Muneeb et al into the Miss USA pageant, based obviously merely on their rejection of logic.

The Mooning of Pakistan

Stung by intense criticism of the cretinism of Pakistan's maulvis and their perennial inability to reconcile even the basic concepts of natural science with their warped ideas of religion, the Ruet-e-Hilal (Moon-Sighting) Committee has this year attempted to allay some of the concerns by going out of their way to address them...

Here's Mufti "I Love Muftas" Muneebur Rehman, head of the central Ruet Committee attempting to sight the moon...

Meanwhile, here's Peshawar mosque Qasim Jan's Mufti Shahabuddin Popalzai, head of his own Ruet Committee attempting to do a moon landing in his own inimitable style...

First of Ramzan mubarak. Or Second of Ramzan. Or whatever. And don't miss the full moon on the 12th of Ramzan.

The Point Being?

Some of you may have seen the following ad, which featured prominently in the pages of The Daily Times' Sunday magazine and the Express Tribune Magazine today...

It sort of reminded me of this by-now famous photograph that did the rounds a couple of years ago...

In both cases, I have only one comment to make: 'Why?'

Blood Money

By the way, just in case you would like to see copies of the court documents from the 'Raymond Davis' case, attesting to the relatives of the deceased accepting diyat (blood money) and allowing the court to acquit the accused, here are some of them. I can't put all of them up (there are too many) but here's a representative sample of relatives' documents of one of the two men killed by 'Davis', Faizan Haider.

Here's the main prayer to the court setting out that the persons named have no objection to 'Raymond Davis' being acquitted by the court since they had accepted compensation and reached agreement to settle the matter.

Here's the individual affidavit of the mother of Faizan Haider, attesting that she has reached an agreement with her son's killer of her "free will, without any fear or pressure, without any enticement, and in her full senses." She further testifies that she has not been subjected to any injustice and has received a sum of Rs. 33,333,333/- from the accused and has no objection at present (nor will she in the future) to the accused being set free.

Here's a similar one from Faizan Haider's wife, acknowledging receipt of Rs. 25,000,000/-.

The rest are pretty much the same. The operative part in each is the share of the blood money received, divided according to shariah rules. The following is the detail of the diyat received by Faizan Haider's family:

Faizan Haider's Mother: Rs. 33,333,333/-
Faizan Haider's Wife: Rs.25,000,000/-
Faizan Haider's Brother No.1: Rs. 7,575,758/-
Faizan Haider's Brother No.2: Rs. 7,575,758/-
Faizan Haider's Brother No.3: Rs. 7,575,758/-
Faizan Haider's Sister No.1: Rs. 3,787,879/-
Faizan Haider's Sister No.2: Rs. 3,787,879/-
Faizan Haider's Sister No.3: Rs. 3,787,879/-
Faizan Haider's Sister No. 4: Rs. 3,787,879/-
Faizan Haider's Sister No. 5: Rs. 3,787,879/-

Total Diyat paid to Faizan Haider's relatives: Rs.100,000,002/- which translates into US$1,166,744/- at the current rate of exchange.

The relatives of the second man killed, Mohammad Faheem, received similar compensation.

Of course, there has long been an argument that the provision of paying diyat or blood money, while sanctified under Islamic law, leads to abuse of justice in an unequal society, since it more often than not allows the rich and influential to literally get away with murder. Nevertheless, this is very much a part of Pakistani law and in fact apparently used in a majority of murder cases according to lawyers. Those protesting against 'Davis' buying his way to freedom might want to question the Qissas and Diyat Laws in a more structural manner.

Please do note that I am not making any judgement about whether these affidavits were actually obtained without any pressure on the relatives. That is something for the court to decide and seemingly it seems to have decided to accept their authenticity. The case of the third man killed (by being run over) during that incident, Ibadur Rehman, has yet to be resolved.


Tailpiece: The editor of The News Islamabad, Mohammad Mallick claimed in a programme on Geo, that what this case has proved is that accused was tried by our courts and that local law takes precedence over the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Immunity. That is pure hogwash of course. It does nothing of the sort. For one, the trial never proceeded beyond indictment because of the 'out of court' settlement and so the accused was neither tried nor convicted. Secondly, the issue of diplomatic immunity never entered into the equation in this case since the Pakistan Foreign Office had stated (somewhat ambiguously) that in its opinion 'Raymond Davis' did not have documentation to support his plea for diplomatic immunity. So the issue of local laws taking precedence over the Vienna Conventions does not arise at all. For an editor of a major paper, Mr Mallick sure plays fast and loose with facts.

List Please

Ansar Abbasi triumphantly points out on the front page of The News today that what is "generally ignored in the ongoing discussions in the media" is that the mandatory death punishment for blasphemy "applies to all the prophets" as per the 1991 ruling of the Federal Shariat Court (FSC). He writes:

"The selected portions of the FSC judgment are: "It is also to be noted that Allah Almighty creates no distinction or inequality in the status of the Prophets though. He did bestow on some of them more gifts than others." While quoting different verses of the Holy Quran, the judgment said, "Practically, all the jurisconsults and scholars agreed that in view of the above verses and the equal status of all the Prophets as such, the penalty of death as determined above shall apply, in case any one utters contemptuous remarks or offers insult, in any way, to any one of them.""

Explaining how the FSC judgement becomes the law de facto, he says:

"Ismail Qureshi, senior advocate of the Supreme Court, religious scholar and the man who fought a long legal battle to get death sentence for blasphemers in the Pakistani statute, told The News that the Federal Shariat Court's decision got finality after the then government had withdrawn its appeal from the Supreme Court. In talk shows and discussions even some prominent lawyers were heard saying that the Section 295-C is flawed as it does not cover all the prophets. Qureshi explained that after the FSC's judgment, the Section 295-C would be read in the light of the Shariat Court's decision. Former Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice (retd) Saeeduzzaman Siddiqi, when approached, endorsed Qureshi's viewpoint and said that after a superior court's ruling gets finality, it becomes law no matter whether the concerned law is amended by the government or not."

Forget for a moment that this is Mr Abbasi's version of justice: in effect, his argument - like that of many other  blinkered defenders of the warped laws - is that those campaigning against them, which includes scholars of Islam, are mistaken because they are allegedly non-discriminatory. (Incidentally, typically, Abbasi picks on the argument of one marginal group of people who do not even represent the view of most of those who hold these man-made laws problematic. Nevertheless, if there were ever a decree to put to death all those with beards, I assume Abbasi would also defend it as non-discriminatory and commit hara-kiri.)

But I want to go on a different tangent.

Now, the Holy Quran actually names only 25 prophets. But it also says in Surah-e-Nahl that Divine Messengers were sent to every community (through history) and Allah also points out in Surah-e-Nisa:

“We have told you the story of some Messengers and of others We have not …”

So the Quran never tells us the exact numbers. However, according to Hadith No. 21257 from Musnad Ibn-e-Hanbal, the number of prophets is 124,000. Some scholars contest the veracity of this particular saying of the Prophet. Ibn-e-Saad claims the number is actually 1,000 while others say the number of prophets is as high as 224,000.

What I would like Abbasi and others of his ilk (including the mullahs of the FSC) to do is to provide us a verified list of ALL the prophets covered by this 'law', preferably all possible 224,000, but even 1,000 will do. Because, you know, we don't want to even inadvertently blaspheme against any of them by throwing someone's business card into the waste-paper basket.

Fatwa Back At You (Corrected)

Further evidence of the depths to which some in Pakistan have sunk. This is a short video of the Murtid Qadri being presented in court yesterday, charged with the murder of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, where he was lauded by some lunatic lawyers, showered with rose petals, garlanded and even kissed. (Link courtesy Shahid Saeed.)





This is an account of his presentation in court today from the Express Tribune, where the lunatics once again greeted him. In addition to the lunatic lawyers, most religious fitna parties have refused to condemn Taseer's murder, with many going out of their way to praise the "valour" of the deranged criminal. They include the so-called "sufism-inspired", "moderate" Barelvi parties (Qadri is from the Barelvi sect) who in fact have been at the forefront of defending the murder.

Many in the media seem also to be hemming and hawing, refusing even to attach the word "shaheed" [martyr] to Taseer (whereas they think nothing of attaching it to people dying in accidents and even the Lal Masjid terrorists), apparently buckling to open threats hurled at media houses and anchors by extremists. The height of hypocrisy has come from anchors and talk-show participants, pretending to treat the issue "objectively" by debating the straw-man polarization of the country into 'left' and 'right' extremists. Actually, as Kaalakawaa has pointed out in his excellent post, all they are doing is equating murder with a voicing of opinion and demonstrating their blinkered cowardice. (There have been a few notable exceptions to the general cowardice on the electronic media in this case and it is only fair to also point these out: Iftikhar Ahmed (Geo's Jawabdeyh host as a panelist on Dunya TV), Kamran Khan (on Geo), Mosharraf Zaidi (as an independent analyst on Dunya), Moeed Pirzada (on Dunya), Najam Sethi (on Dunya), Arshad Sharif (on Dawn News), Rauf Klasra (as a panelist on Dawn News) and Sana Bucha (on Geo) - of the ones I watched - did not try to hedge their bets.)

But perhaps worst of all, most mainstream 'secular' political parties, including the Taseer's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), have been at best mealy-mouthed about their condemnations. In fact, the PPP has shown remarkable pusillanimity and short-sightedness by refusing to take on the issue of religious extremism head-on and instead claiming a political conspiracy behind Taseer's murder, basically attemting point-scoring against the PML(N) Punjab government. The PML(N) government does indeed have a lot to answer for (since Qadri's Elite Force came under its jurisdiction) but surely the greater issue is of the mindset that has been allowed to be cultivated in this country. The party's official stance - as articulated by the closet rightist law minister Babar Awan and the blundering interior minister Rehman Malik (who boasted he would shoot a blasphemer himself as if to prove his piety credentials) - has been nothing short of abominable. This at a time when even conservatives such as Pakistan Muslim League (Q)'s Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain are willing to concede - in the face of growing civil society outrage - that steps do need to be taken to stop the misuse of religion by the lunatics.

The Let Us Build Pakistan blog has published a fatwa (religious decree) by Mufti Idris Usmani against not only Qadri but also those who support him in word or deed. Normally, I would never post a fatwa on here because I believe them to be largely irrelevant to today's world and usually absurd. But as I pointed out in an earlier post, it's about time these lunatics got a taste of their own medicine.

"Shaykh-ul-Islam Hazrat Mufti Muhammad Idris Usmani of Jamia Islamia has issued the following fatwa about the killer of Governor Punjab (Pakistan) Salman Taseer and about those who are praising and justifying his murder.

Question:

What do the Ulema say about the murder of Governor of Punjab (Pakistan) Salman Taseer who was killed by his own security guard. The guard claimed that he killed Salman Taseer because he was blasphemous to the Prophet (peace by upon him). However, there is no evidence of Salman Taseer’s blasphemy to the Prophet (pbuh). What do the Ulema say about many people who are praising Salman Taseer’s killer?

Answer:

“In the Name of the Merciful and Compassionate Allah, Dar al-Fatwa. Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Universe; blessings and peace be upon our Master Muhammad, the Apostle of Allah, and upon his Family, his Companions, his Followers and those who have found the way through him.

I have carefully read the whole issue and also read various news reports and articles related to this (issue). I have also spoken to the jayyad ulema (eminent scholars) in Pakistan and India.

In the light of the available evidence, I state the following:

1. Malik Mumtaz Qadri has committed gunah-e-azeem (great sin) by killing an innocent soul. By taking law into his own hand, by killing an innocent man, and by bringing disgrace to the name of Islam, Malik Mumtaz Qadri has created fasad fil arz (mischief on earth) and committed tauheen-e-risalat (blasphemy to the Prophet). Same applies to those who are creating further mischief (fasad) by praising or justifying this heinous crime in the name of Islam. The killer of Salman Taseer is a real blasphemer to Islam and the holy Prophet (peace be upon him).

2. Those individuals and groups including the ignorant ulema, misguided journalists, politicians, lawyers wa deegar (etc), who are celebrating or justifying in any manner this heinous crime must be treated as accomplice in this crime. Those who endorsed a fatwa of Salman Taseer’s murder too must be treated as mufsid fil arz and must be punished according to the Shariah.

3. While the state of Pakistan will pursue a legal case against the killer and his abettors according to their national laws, the following verses from the Quran clearly specify the punishment for Malik Mumtaz Qadri and his supporters and cheerers.

This is a case of fasad fil arz. The perpetrators of such acts should be punished as provided in Sura Maida of the Quran (Ayah 32 and 33).

32. We ordained for the Children of Israel that if anyone slew a person―unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land― it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if anyone saved a life it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our Messengers with clear Signs, yet even after that many of them continued to commit excesses in the land.

33. The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter.

According to Islamic Shariah, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, any one supporting or praising his act must be executed by law or crucified or their hands and feet cut off from opposite side. Exile is not needed in the present case as the State can exercise Shariah authority on its citizens and subjects.

Those who are praising a killer and a mufsid want to go to Hell of their own accord.

For others, we can only pray for their path of righteousness.

In the light of religious commands, in the light of religious rules known to us, I think that these people should renew their faith and renew their marriages. But no one can remove anyone’s obstinacy. I pray to Allah to enable all Muslims, through His Prophet, pbuh, to be steadfast to His religion, Islam. Ameen!

Muhammad Idris , Mufti, Darul Ifta, Jamia Islamia

29 Muharram-ul-Haram 1432 AH"

There's also a list of people on the LUBP blog of who they think fall under the ambit of this fatwa.

Here's an idea. Register blasphemy cases against all these fitna leaders and lawyers. Clog up the courts with blasphemy cases and let's see how the pious Federal Shariat Court and the enlightened Supreme Court deal with it.


: : : UPDATE / CORRECTION : : :

We have been made aware that the above mentioned alleged fatwa posted on the LUBP blog is fake. And while I personally may still subscribe to the notion that religious lunatics need to be dealt with strongly, as a blog we cannot allow fabricated propaganda to damage our credibility. We really should have been more skeptical of the source and while we did link to the original, we should have qualified ourselves better. The inclusion of the made-up fatwa also marginalizes the rest of the post, by which we stand. Apologies to all our readers. A separate clarification will also be posted. Needless to say, we will look upon any future information posted by the LUBP blog with a far more skeptical eye.

Where Sensitivity Is Needed and Where It Isn't

The gang-rape case in Karachi's upmarket Defence area - where two women were driven off the road by men in another car and one of them was abducted and then raped - has already received plenty of media and blog attention, unfortunately for all the wrong reasons.

In particular, some parts of the media and the Sindh government adviser Sharmila Farooqui have been quite rightly castigated by many for their criminally cavalier attitude in commenting on the serious crime. It seems there is still a long way to go for some to understand that nothing, and we mean nothing, justifies rape: not the 'character' of a woman, not the clothes she wears, not her past, not her 'activities', not anything she says or does, not anything. A lit bit of sensitivity to the trauma of a rape survivor may be too much to ask from some people but what is shocking is that parts of the media - which had voluntarily stopped naming victims many years ago in a positive move - seem to have unlearnt years of gender sensitization and reverted to their callous previous ways.

The best commentary on the whole issue so far has been provided by Pakistan Media Watch. I would urge you all to read it. There is nothing more that I wish to add.

. . .

In other news, I wanted to share the following recent story from Australia, which reader Umar Anjum shared with us. It raises some rather interesting questions about multiculturalism to say the least, but also about the knee-jerk way religion (or rather, a warped concept of religion) and cultural sensitivity have come to be used to justify the worst excesses.

I am thankful to @MyPplWannaJump for finding me an embeddable video. It is not of the highest quality however. If you wish to see a better quality version of the same clip, you can go here.





Regardless of the undoubted Islamophobic bigotry that sometimes accompanies the paranoia about the veil in the 'West', one must acknowledge the serious issues of security and recognizability that it gives rise to. In fact, this issue of the niqab (note, not the burqa) is hardly an issue limited only to the 'West.' This is increasingly an issue in Pakistan that impinges on security as well, let alone what it indicates about social dynamics over the last 30-odd years. I also know of a very well-respected university professor in Karachi who refuses to teach students wearing a face veil in his class. His contention is that he can neither tell, through visual clues, if the students are understanding what he is saying, nor can he be sure that the veiled students are in fact his students at all. I have to say, I completely sympathize with him.

The ABC of BBC

Last month newspapers across the world carried stories about Lauren Booth’s conversion to Islam. For anyone who isn’t British and doesn’t really care, Ms. Booth is a broadcast journalist and half sister to Cheri Blair, wife of former British PM Tony Blair, whose contribution to the world as we know it can be aptly summarized by his role in this George Michael video.

Had it not been for that connection, it is doubtful the story would have received as much attention as it did and continues to do. So somebody converted to Islam. Big deal. But in a Star Wars universe, a considerable proportion of the western press seems to think, this would be the equivalent of Chewie’s mate’s brother from another mother becoming a Stormtrooper.

But Lauren Booth is not a Wookiee, and Islam is not the evil Empire. Someone at the BBC might wish to make a note of that before sharing gems like the following with us, in which Ms. Booth and three presenters – two of whom are huddled together at one end of a sofa wearing expressions I recognize from the wrong end of a parent teacher meeting and who apparently only have one name between them - spend five minutes discussing all the really important things about conversion and Islam, like whether wearing a hijab will help women make men take them more or less seriously.

The video opens with her walking around a bookstore in a farangi city talking to the camera, thereby alienating all the kuffar bibliophiles in range (for God’s sake BBC, have you no respect for sacred spaces?) and telling the world she converted after a spiritual experience in the Iranian city of Qom. “I now wear the scarf”, she says, "to remind me of the path I’m on." This is really excellent logic, I think, and a much better idea than tying a knot around her finger, leaving yellow Post-it notes around the house (Whoosa liddle Muslim now then? Who? Who? Me!) or getting a tattoo of a crescent and sickle on her forehead. But on to the video.





In fairness to the BBC, it is Ms. Booth who chooses to take the conversation down the hackneyed ‘women in Islam’ line, thus ensuring any subsequent debate would be hijacked by the inevitable ‘rights (or not) of women in contemporary Muslim societies’ angle. Of course it probably seemed a safer road to take than that offered by the anchor's first two questions ('were people shocked', 'some say this is a publicity stunt'), which told us all we need to know about how open his mind is to the notion of someone finding spiritual resonance in a religion that has over a billion followers. Almost up there with McDonald’s and football, that is.

She doesn’t endear herself to millions of non-hijab wearing Muslim women either, by subtly, ceaselessly implying all of them wear one, or to any woman really, by saying at one point that most women don’t spend enough time thinking about "their spirituality, their lives or their children." No wonder she works for an Iranian news agency. Cue the intelligent question about her experience of the difference between being a journalist in a notoriously censored society and being a journalist in a hideously market-led one…

Nope, lets just talk about women in Muslim societies some more.

In criticism of the BBC, this kind of pointless, superficial, gossipy, playing to the gallery discourse doesn’t do anything other than suggest Islamophobia remains an acceptable lifestyle choice, and the conversion of a minor celebrity is just another excuse to indulge it. If, tomorrow, Laura Bush’s first cousin decides she is actually a garden gnome, will the world be subjected to five minutes of insightless prattling about the pros and cons of wearing of a little red conical hat? Will it be considered appropriate to quiz her, in private or public conversations, about her position on the element of genital mutilation inherent in the practice of sculpting boy garden gnome penis fountains?

Addendum: Ms. Booth's personal take on Islamophobia, published today, can be read here.

"It's Not The Fact That They Are Muslims That Makes Them Terrorists, It's The Fact That They Are Terrorists That Makes Them Terrorists"

About bloody time somebody said this in the US media!

The programme is Morning Joe on MSNBC. The rant is by MSNBC staffer Dylan Ratigan.

Pakistani Protesters, Raise Your Game?

Some of you might already have seen this but, for me, the protest of the day award goes to…The NiqaBitches, two French students whose take on France’s decision to ban the burqa was unveiled in this story in The Telegraph.



What I liked about this provocative piece of visual drama is the fact that, unlike most protests, it made me think. My thoughts were, in chronological order, I’d really like to tan their hides (no seriously, these ladies need some sun) and those are SO the wrong shoes.

Lunar Lunacy, Once Again

I tell you, thank God for Aisam-ul-Haq! Because even though he lost the mixed doubles finals at the US Open today, there was far more grace in his losing than in anything else that has been going on in Pakistan.

Another Eid, another moon-sighting controversy and another bunch of lunatic maulvis. I refer you to my post last year on the same issue, aptly titled "The Rot That is the Ruet." But while that particular post was about the sheer idiocy of the whole moon-sighting exercise - which continues unabated - today we have sunk to even further depths.

In case you were rightly and fortunately more engrossed in the tennis, here is the situation so far:

The Central Ruet-e-Hilal (Moon Sighting) Committee, tasked with looking for the moon in the sky throughout Pakistan, announced that the new moon had not been sighted anywhere in the country. Therefore Eid would take place day after, i.e. Saturday (incidentally, on 9/11), in Pakistan. Fair enough, though Saudi Arabia and a bunch of other countries will of course be celebrating it tomorrow (Friday) 'cause their 30 rozas are already up. This was pretty much in line with what the Met Office had already predicted, that it would be almost impossible to see the very, very faint new moon anywhere in Pakistan with the naked eye, particularly with its transient 'rising' and 'setting' times, except perhaps in the far reaches of Balochistan. But since nobody sighted it in Balochistan either, it was decided that the new moon was not visible.

Popalzai Live: eagle-eyed

Enter Masjid Qasim Khan in Peshawar and its rebel mullah Shahabuddin Popalzai. Like last year, he announces two or three hours after any scientific possibility of anyone seeing the moon, that the moon has been sighted all over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province and therefore Eid would take place tomorrow. Also like last year, the KP senior minister Batshit Bashir Bilour (supposedly representing the secular ANP), then jumps into the fray to give his support to Shahabuddin and to announce that the province would officially observe Eid tomorrow. He justifies this bizarre announcement, which basically once again means that KP will officially celebrate Eid a day before the rest of Pakistan, under the excuse of provincial autonomy and that the provincial government must respect its own clerics. You know the 18th Amendment has got sidetracked when you hear such logic. WTF?

Of course this is not the first time people in KP seem to be on their own timeline. For some odd reason, the moon is far more visible in KP and Peshawar than anywhere to the west or east of them. But it doesn't end here. Baba Haider Zaman, the septuagenarian head of the Sooba Hazara Tehrik, which has been demanding that the Hazara region be separated from KP and made into a separate province, then decides to add his two bits and announces that the entire Hazara region in KP will not follow the provincial announcement and observe Eid according to the Central Ruet diktat.

So you now have one date (1st Shawwal) in all of KP tomorrow except for the Hazara region, while the rest of Pakistan will be on a different date (30th Ramzan) along with the Hazara region which incidentally is still part of KP. I was getting infuriated with the sheer lunacy of all this until it struck me that, in fact, this is a brilliant, brilliant turn of events. After all if every area, nay every mosque, can decide the date for itself, the logical progression has to be that every individual can decide the date as well. I think next year I will declare Eid whenever I think I've had enough of fasters' bad manners. It's every man (and woman) for themselves and after this precedent, who can challenge me?

On a more serious note, however, doesn't this lunacy perfectly encapsulate the total breakdown of state power and governance in Pakistan? Here we ponder how the state can extract more taxes from an intransigent elite, ensure provincial harmony or clamp down on terrorists, but really, the state cannot even find a consensus on a date.

As I said, thank God for Aisam. Maybe he should just moon these mullahs.

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.

CNN Tells the Truth, Inadvertently

Thanks to Ali K. Chishti for sending us this...

The Original Sin - II

Is this what is known as farce? The unbelievably twisted mindset of some people in Pakistan? Or is it simply the callous sprinkling of salt on wounds?

According to BBC Urdu, Pakistan's rightists have announced that the attack on Ahmadi mosques on May 28 in Lahore was actually a conspiracy (by who?) to repeal the discriminatory laws against Ahmadis. Here's how Dawn translates the BBC report:

‘Attack on Ahmedis conspiracy to repeal laws against them’

Wednesday, 09 Jun, 2010

"LAHORE: A gathering of the leaders of 13 religious and political parties in Lahore claimed that the attack on Ahmedis on May 28 was part of a conspiracy to repeal the laws against them, BBCUrdu reported.

The meeting was held in an office of the Majlis Ahrar Islam in Lahore's Muslim Town. The parties concluded that a conspiracy was in place to debate the laws against Ahmedis, the report said.

Maulana Zahidul Rashdi, who is a founding member of the Muttahida Tehrik-i-Khatm-i-Nabuwat and also the Secretary-General of the Pakistan Shariat Council, read the joint statement at the meeting’s conclusion: The attack on Ahmedis is being used as an excuse to generate suspicions regarding the concept of khatm-i-nabuwat. 

The gathering was attended by leaders of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Jamiat-i-ulema-i-Islam Fazlur Rahman group, Jamaatud Dawa and Markazi Jamaat-i-Ahl-i-Sunnat among others.

During the meeting, Maulana Ilyas Chinioti, a member of the PML-N and the Punjab provincial assembly, condemned Nawaz Sharif's statement in which he had sympathised with the Ahmedis and called them his brothers.

The meeting's participants demanded that Nawaz Sharif immediately withdraw his statement."  

So, if we understand these hyper-hyper-moron mullahs correctly, either the Ahmadis perpetrated a massacre in their own community to force people to question the laws against them (yeah, that really got Pakistani opinion in an uproar didn't it?), OR the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) mercenaries who have been identified as the terrorists are actually pro-Ahmadi, liberal activists.

Wow. How much bhang do you think these guys consumed at this meeting? I think we deserve to know.

Fountainhead

Just in case you were in any doubt about the wellsprings of anti-Ahmadi hate that fueled last Friday's terrorist attacks, here are a couple of pieces of evidence posted by people on Facebook and Twitpic.

This one is of a banner from Mall Road outside the Lahore High Court and reads "Yahoodi Eesai Mirzai Islam Ke Dushman Hain" (Jews, Christians, Ahmadis Are Enemies of Islam).

(Source: Isa Daudpota / TwitPic)

And this following one is of a billboard, also in Lahore, sponsored by the Government of the Punjab for the Aalmi Majlis Tahaffuz-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwat (World Conference for the Protection of the Finality of the Prophethood). I believe this is from 2009. It carries a quote (bottom right) that reads "Mirzaion Se Dosti Huzoor Sallallaho Alehe Wasallam Se Baghawat Hai" (Friendship with Ahmadis is Rebellion Against the Prophet Peace Be Upon Him).

(Source: Khuda Bux Abro / Facebook)

And officials still have the temerity to talk about international conspiracies to defame Islam and Pakistan.

The Original Sin

A policeman carries a wounded victim in Garhi Shahu Lahore (source: AFP)

I have to admit that all I really wanted to say or post today was vile swearing. At the pea-brained 'jihadis' with their pubic hair beards, at their bastard 'teachers' and Wahabbi funders, at the ass-wipe Pakistani establishment nee military that nurtured both of them, at the narrow-minded fat-assed bigoted mullahs who protect them and the moronic and blind politicians and bureaucrats that continue to mollycoddle them. There are really no civilized words to react to what has happened today in Lahore. 80+ innocent people, children included, gunned down while praying in their 'places of worship', places we are not even allowed to call mosques! And for what? Because 'they' don't fit in with 'our' puritannical idea of 'our' religion.

I keep coming back to the 'original sin' that did not begin this whole process of demonizing other sects and religions, but certainly sanctified it: the 1974 act of a democratic parliament, led by the secular and socialist Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, that declared Ahmadis as non-Muslims. Of course there had been anti-Ahmadi rabble rousing from much earlier - remember that the anti-Ahmadi Khatm-e-Nabuwat movement began in the early 1950s - but never before had the state officially sided with the mob. This act laid the basis, in my opinion, for the officially sanctified bigotry, persecution and oppression that followed under Mardood-e-Momin Ziaul Haq and continued under others, including the pointless declaration we must all append our names to, to get ID cards or passports. This original sin was not by the mullahs who had been braying for such a declaration for long and rioting in support of it, but by  Pakistan's democrats, secularists, intelligentsia, leftists, liberals and other minorities such as the Shia who acquiesced to it. Truly, if ever there was short-sightedness among Pakistan's establishment (and there are plenty of examples of it) this was it. Hereafter, a seed had been sown in the collective psyche, that not only was it okay to declare as heretics others who did not adhere to one's version of religion, but that violence and mob rule could be used to achieve your goals. The nurturing of extremist thought during Ziaul Haq's (mis)rule and its repercussions in the shape of today's barbaric attacks (and earlier targeting of Shias, Hindus and Christians) are a logical continuation of the original sin.

I know what the critical reaction to my statement is going to be. From the right, it will almost surely consist of theological arguments against the Ahmadis. From the left, some may argue about whether the original sin may, in fact, be the 1949 Objectives Resolution - which brought Islam into the constitution contrary to everything Jinnah stood for and would have thought proper - or even the concept of a state founded in the name of religion. I really have no desire to enter into a pointless theological debate with the right, other than to question whether they consider themselves bigger arbiters than Allah Himself. As far as I am concerned, heresy is between the Creator and the subject, who am I to make judgements about others' religious convictions? The argument on the left as far as the Objectives Resolution is concerned may have merit. (I don't subscribe to the negation of the idea of Pakistan as a whole simply because even states not founded on the basis of religion, such as India e.g. have seen horrific episodes of violence based on religion.) However, in my humble opinion, whereas the misguided Objectives Resolution did not actively profess prejudice and discrimination (in fact, believed it was standing against it), the anti-Ahmadi act of 1974 actively enshrined prejudice and discrimination.

Oh, but look at what some of our moronic opinion-makers say in response to today's carnage. There's Brigadier Imtiaz Billa on Business Plus suggesting an American conspiracy to force the Pakistan army to conduct an operation in North Waziristan and Southern Punjab and to malign Islam and Pakistan. Here's Lahore Commissioner Khusro Pervaiz immediately pointing to Indian involvement because "the operation was conducted on the anniversary of Pakistan's nuclear tests." There's some other maulvi on Geo's Pachas Minute claiming that Ahmadis have never been targeted "like this" before in Pakistan and that this shows that this is "not sectarian violence but just terrorism." And of course there is the usual chorus, of "these are not Muslims since Muslims could never do something so heinous." Will Pakistanis ever learn to look inward? Or understand cause and effect?

Thankfully, here's the moronic Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah (half-heartedly) admitting the linkage between the attackers and some madrassahs and even the Tableeghi Jamaat at Raiwind. And here's a shaken Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif finally realizing that these extremists are not potential voters that deserve covert support, but barbarians who need to be eliminated. Ah, but isn't he saying the same thing as his arch-nemesis Musharraf now? And does he have the balls to do what really needs to be done: a repeal of all discriminatory laws and practices that promote the mentality he finds so abhorrent now?

Wake Up, Stand Up, Stand Up For Your Fights

A hilarious post on "Sexy Islamism" by ex-DawnNews journalist Khawer Khan pointed me in the direction of this clip of designer Maria B. being interviewed on Samaa TV's Nai Rahain programme with host Nadia Jamil. You must watch too for a good time.





Here are some gems from Maria B.'s mouth:


On Why She Supports the lunatic Zaid Hamid (at 1:05):

"Because he doesn't stop you from anything!"

On Deciding Why She Won't Do Revealing Clothes Anymore (at 1:29):

"It's part of what my evolution is becoming [sic]."

On "Hate-Mongering" Critics of Zaid Hamid (at 2:19)

"He is a fakir, who teaches love"

(You can see some of that love on a previous post here btw)


On What 'Wake Up Pakistan' supremo Zaid Hamid's Ranting Is All About (at 2:52):

"This is a movement about tolerance, it's about love, about protectioning [sic] the minority."

Here's the sufi in his own words (do see the whole clip):





On How She Thinks Muslims Should Behave Towards Non-Muslims (at 6:32):

"Some people think that being religious and Islamic means ke you just going to... [treat non-Muslims with derision].. No! Those.. that Hindu can be a better person than you and higher in the scale of Allah [sic] than any one of those Muslims going around beating people up. So ye bilkul bhi mujhe koi na kahe (don't anyone say this to me).. just because you are Muslims you think you are superior, nobody is."

Aah, noble thoughts indeed. But then what do we make of this bit of humility from your mentor, wherein he claims 50 crore Indian Hindus are just itching to convert to Islam and that the next time Pakistan goes to war with India, Indian Hindus should be prepared to be massacred ("This time we will take no prisoners")?:





On How 'Wake Up Pakistan' Movement Is All About Diversity and Tolerance (at 7:45):

"Hum jab meeting kar rahe hotay hain, aik larki baithi hoti hai hijab mein, aik niqab mein, aik main baithi hoti hoon, aik Feeha Jamshed baithi hoti hai.. (When we have our meetings, there is one girl sitting in hijab, one in a niqab, I am sitting there and [TeeJays' designer] Feeha Jamshed is sitting there)... and we respect each other."

Like duh. So it is all about fashion statements, isn't it? By the way, what, no Ali Azmat at the meetings?



I don't know about you but I want to set up the "Wake Up Maria" movement.

Some Thoughts On Karachi's Bomb Attacks

Some people have asked us why he have not "covered" the bomb attacks in Karachi yesterday.

This is meant simply to be a brief explanation of why we did not blog about the carnage that engulfed Karachi yesterday or have not blogged about earlier such incidents. It's not that terrorist strikes do not affect us or that we live in some sort of cocoon far removed from the reality of present-day Pakistan. They certainly affect us very personally - emotionally if not physically - and, in fact, we know many people who have lost friends and relatives in the bloodshed or seen them injured. Many of our colleagues in the media have also suffered.

No. The reason for not blogging about it has more to do with seeing no need to replicate the wall to wall coverage that is already present in the media, and with a reluctance to speculate on something about which the facts are often still murky, at least to us. Yes, we know that there have been terrorist strikes in Karachi on Ashura and Chehlum, for example, but can we really say with 100% surety who was behind them? Can we add anything to the discussion that has not already been said? All too often people are willing to jump in with prescriptive opinions on the basis of silly assumptions, hearsay and wrong data.

Let's take the Ashura bombing and subsequent "rioting" that followed. The original claim of a suicide attack on the procession was eventually officially struck down (after a week!) and it was pretty apparent right at the beginning that the burning of Boulton Market et al was hardly an act of 'spontaneous rioting by enraged people in the targeted procession.' (Processionists at such religious congregations do not generally carry with them chain-cutters, gloves and inflammatory chemical material, all of which were used to break into shops and burn them, as we saw on the closed circuit camera footage.) Now, had there actually been a suicide bomber, the probability of jihadists being behind the bombing would have been quite high - if there's one thing paid mercenaries are unlikely to do, it is to sacrifice themselves for a 'cause'. But since there was apparently none, the possibilities of who could be behind the bombing multiply. This does not mean that jihadists (and I will come back to them later) could not be behind the attack (in fact, at least one spokesman for them claimed it). Just that the pool of possible perpetrators increase.

Depending on your point of view, it could be Al-Qaeda aligned jihadists (Pakistani Taliban or Lashkar-e-Jhangvi types), foreign agents (out to sow chaos in Pakistan and depending on your point of view, this could mean Indian, Afghani, American), local shadow government agents (out to derail the government), or even ruthless political players (out to score petty local gains). The only thing we know for certain, at this time, is that whoever it was, falls squarely into the definition of "terrorist", i.e. they want to achieve some political aim through an act of violence that is designed to create a scare among ordinary folk.

Let's look also at the allegations hurled about after the arson that followed the Ashura blast. The MQM immediately blamed the 'Taliban' (in their mind often a shorthand for Pashtuns from the north who have active support from the Pashtuns in Karachi), while others immediately blamed the MQM, ostensibly because the City Government (CDGK) it controls wanted to shift / demolish some shops in the area earlier and, sotto voce, because it allegedly wants to drive the Pashtuns out of the city by initiating a backlash. Neither side has been able to provide conclusive proof so far.

The problem with the MQM allegations is not that the jihadists could not be responsible, it is that its knee-jerk pinning the blame for every such act of violence on the Taliban / tribal Pashtuns reeks not a little bit of political opportunism and racism. Is it too much to ask to wait for an investigation to uncover some facts?

On the other hand, the Jamaat-e-Islami led allegations against the MQM, in this case at least, have not yet been backed up by real proof. Not only has the supposed CDGK plan to evict shopkeepers whose shops were actually burnt not been backed up by any concrete proof, it boggles the mind that, with such a dastardly plan in place, the MQM would go out of its way to capture footage of the arsonists and provide it to the police and the media.

What we do know is this: since the calculated act of arson could not have been carried out without the cover of the blast, it would be reasonable to connect the two. So, those who planned the arson would, in all probability, have had to know at least that there would be a situation created wherein their activity was possible. There is no point in speculating beyond that.

However, a final word about jihadists, a term I am using simply as a shorthand for a certain mindset. There is a section of opinion that has got so carried away with its anti-American and anti-establishment rhetoric that it paints the Taliban and its allies as some sort of romantic resistance movement against neocolonialism. And I don't mean just Imran Khan or our shadow warriors like Colonel Imam and Hameed Gul. I have heard even some otherwise reasonable leftists spout similar rhetoric. Let's get one thing straight: they may be anti-American (right now) but the Taliban are no resistance movement against neocolonialism. They and their allies are among the most ideologically regressive bunch of people to walk this earth who would be all too willing to be in bed with Unocal once again if they were in power.

But one of the other most irritating things to hear in the media is the claim that such acts of murder could never be committed by Muslims. That of course not only blithely ignores the whole history of internecine Muslim violence over 1400 years, but also deliberately ignores the commonality between the Taliban and their jihadist allies: their Wahhabist aversion to Shia Islam. Al Qaeda, The Taliban, the Mehsud-led Tehrik-e-Taliban, the Sipahe Sahaba, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Jaish-e-Mohammad, the Lashkar-e-Taiba et al, they are all part of a continuum that sees Shias as innovators in religion (and thus worthy of condemnation) or outright heretics (and thus worthy of being killed). And this mindset has been tolerated at one point or another (or continues to be tolerated in the case of some) by not only their military handlers but also by the majority of Pakistanis sold on the idea of romantic resistance.

So let's not kid ourselves. The jihadists may not have been behind the bomb attacks in Karachi on Ashura and Chehlum. But not because they could not intrinsically do this sort of thing.

Surreal Pic of the Day

No one, and by that I mean NO ONE, beats Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi in surreal wackiness.

Don't believe me? Have a look at this photo (courtesy The Independent):

These are hundreds of Italian 'escorts' from Rome. Those are apparently copies of the Quran in their arms. They are coming from the Libyan ambassador's house.

For the rest of the story, read here.