The Radicalization of Muslims – A White Paper
Arif Humayun
ABSTRACT
Nearly all terrorist acts throughout the world are routinely ascribed to Muslims – by
default. This abrupt deduction is not without cause since radical ideologies amongst
Muslim societies provide ample support for such an inference. Sadly, insufficient
attention – especially within Muslim communities – has been focused on the root cause
of politically motivated ideologies that drive Islamic radicalism, impedes development
within their societies and threatens world peace. In fact, instead of encouraging
intellectual discourse to deflate these ideologies, the Organization of Islamic Countries
(OIC) is actually attempting to stifle debate on these topics.
This White Paper aims to encourage introspection among Muslims to understand how
their religion of peace is being manipulated by radicals; the chasm between the Islam of
Allah (God) 1 and that of the mullah, 2 is highlighted. The origins of the politically
inspired doctrines of jihad, apostasy, blasphemy, sharia, 3 etc., which form the basis of
the radicals’ agenda, the unsuitability of the traditional educational system that graduates
passive and receptive minds, and the separation of religion and politics, are discussed and
some specific consequences highlighted. Through this analysis, Muslims are encouraged
to seek modern secular education, reject faulty doctrines, better understand their faith
through critical intellectual discourse, and divorce politics from religion. Additionally,
this analysis will enable social scientists to strategize and develop policies for eliminating
radicalism. Finally, the analysis can assist law enforcement identify leading indicators
and prevent the spreading of radicalism.
Introduction
Islam’s growth, since its beginning in 610 4 CE (current era) from the deserts of Arabia to
most of the then known world and its subsequent decline, can be broadly classified into
five periods:
1. The beginnings (570 - 661 representing the Prophet Mohammad’ssa5 lifetime
(570 - 632 CE) and the subsequent period of the four elected caliphs 6 (632 - 661
CE).
2. Development (661 - 935 CE when the Caliphate became hereditary running the
affairs of the State in Muslim controlled territories).
3. Culmination of all encompassing Caliphate (935 - 1500 CE when independent
political units emerged within the Muslim territories and Caliphate retained a
1
As detailed in the Qur’an, (includes the five pillars and articles of faith)
As preached by the politicized clergy and practiced in several Muslim countries
3
Islamic Law
4
The year of the first revelation to the Prophet Mohammadsa
5
Customary salutation meaning “peace be on him”
6
Prophet’s successor or leader of the Muslim community
2
1
symbolic religious function. This period includes the Crusades, expansion of the
Muslim empire, and the Mongol invasion).
4. Triumphant Islam (1500 - 1700 CE when the Safavid (in Persia), Ottoman (in
Turkey) and Mughal (in India) Empires ruled vast areas of the world as
independent political entities. The Caliphate existed solely for religious functions
and was part of the Ottoman Empire).
5. Decline (1700 - present time, with the rise of the Western Powers due to the
industrial revolution and the defeat of the three Muslim Empires).
Karen Armstrong 7 records the history of each period and documents that Islam’s rapid
growth was based on its message of peace, equality, and justice. In the global agrarian
economy that existed at that time, this efficient system flourished and allowed Islam to
spread to distant lands. The transformation of the caliphate from an elected office based
on piety during the first period, to a hereditary position running the affairs of the state
during the second period, and its subsequent modification to a symbolic religious
function when independent political entities emerged within the Muslim held territories is
significant and demonstrates the evolution within the Islamic caliphate system. A nonpolitical caliphate is perhaps strongly required today to spiritually unite Muslims by
rejecting the flawed concepts and enabling them to follow the Qur’anic teachings as
interpreted under the current situation.
This Paper focuses on the growth of Islamic radicalism during the “Decline” period of the
Muslim Empire (1700 to present) and describes how the radicals’ concepts have become
accepted by the mainstream during this turbulent period. With the primary purpose of
encouraging introspection among Muslims, this paper presents an overview of Islamic
teachings, excerpted from the Qur’an – its undisputed source – and contrasts them with
radical ideologies that propagate violence highlighting the gulf between them. Using
specific, documented examples from Pakistan, the absurdity of radical ideologies of
politicized clergy will be highlighted along with consequences of their application on the
global scene. Directed towards a broad audience – Muslims and non-Muslims – this
paper will inevitably include details that may appear trivial or unnecessary to particular
groups; nevertheless, to show the complete picture – origins and ‘cause and effect’
phenomena – that is unavoidable.
A, reverse chronological order – from contemporary to historic – is used in this paper to
review current issues and supporting them with the relevant history. A brief overview of
Islam and its recent history during the Decline Period is followed by the historical
background covering the periods titled Beginning, Development, Culmination of
Caliphate and Triumphant Islam. Misrepresented concepts fueling Islamic radicalization,
their documentation by an investigative commission headed by Pakistan’s Chief Justice
in 1954, the radical’s victory and its consequences will follow. Concluding comments
and recommendations will close this paper.
7
Karen Armstrong, “Islam: A Short History”
2
Islam – An Overview
A monotheistic, Abrahamic religion, Islam means "submission", to the will of God. An
adherent of Islam, a Muslim, means "one who submits to the will of God". The Qur’an,
addressed to all humankind, was revealed to prophet Mohammadsa through the angel
Gabriel between 610 and 632 CE. 8 Muslims consider the Qur’an to be the undisputed
scripture, the Word of God, and Prophet Mohammadsa as the final law bearing prophet.
Retained in its original form and without variants, the Qur’an confirms that prophets have
been sent to all people throughout the world to sustain humanity in all ages. The Qur’an
describes God as the Lord and Sustainer of the worlds, Prophet Mohammadsa as “the
messenger for mankind”, 9 refers to itself as the “message for the world” 10 and Muslims
as people “...raised for the good of mankind”.11
The Prophet’s functions are described as the creation and strengthening of faith through
drawing attention to Divine Signs, the moral and physical uplift of the people, teaching
them the Law, furnishing them with guidance, and expounding the philosophy underlying
the Law and the guidance. 12 Without claiming monopoly over truth, it acknowledges all
prophets, 13 including earlier Judeo-Christian prophets, and scriptures and confirms that
the teachings originally revealed to the earlier prophets are included within its message.
Islamic teachings are encapsulated in the articles of faith, 14 acts of worship, 15 codes for
social and moral behavior, 16 and the philosophy of life. 17 This framework of beliefs,
duties, obligations, exhortations and sanctions seeks to stimulate and deepen human
consciousness by emphasizing duties and obligations to safeguard freedom, justice and
equality for all and promote and foster human welfare and prosperity in all spheres —
social, economic, moral and spiritual. The Teachings seek to establish a pattern of
society, which, in all the changing and developing circumstances of a dynamic world,
would maintain its character of beneficence in individual, domestic, national and
international affairs. The Qur’an prescribes only essential details and leaves considerable
8
The revelation was memorized and recited in daily prayers. The revelation was recorded by designated
scribes during the Prophet’s life. It was assembled in one volume by the first caliph Abu Bakr (632-634
CE), immediately after the prophet’s death and later standardized by the third caliph Uthman (644-656 CE).
A team of people who had memorized the Quran verified the authenticity of the text which is the only
version available.
9
Ch 7, verse 159
10
Ch 81, verse 28
11
You are the best people raised for the good of mankind; you enjoin what is good and forbid evil and
believe in Allah. And if the People of the Book had believed, it would have surely been better for them.
Some of them are believers, but most of them are disobedient (Ch 3, verse 111)
12
Ch 62, verse 3
13
Muslims believe that God sent more than 124,000 (or innumerable) prophets, beginning with Adam
14
Belief in God, angels, all prophets, revealed books, Divine Decree, and Day of Judgment
15
Declaration of God’s unity and acknowledgement that Mohammadsa is God’s prophet, five obligatory
prayers, fasting during the designated month, charity, and pilgrimage
16
Honesty, justice, kindness, helping the needy, laws about marriage, divorce, inheritance, war and peace,
human and animal rights, environment, prohibition of social vices, etc., and elevation from instinctive to
moral and spiritual behavior
17
Purpose of existence, God’s worship, transitioning from instinctive to moral to spiritual behavior, service
to humanity, and ‘finding’ God
3
room for development and to safeguard against restrictive rigidity. Indeed, it
expressively commands against seeking to regulate everything since that might render the
framework rigid and inelastic and, therefore, burdensome. 18 That which Allah has “left
out” is meant to be devised, in accord with the prescribed principles through mutual
consultation, always bearing in mind the overall standard of fostering equity (ma’roof),
and eschewing iniquity (munkar). 19
Prophet Mohammadsa summarized the message of Islam during the Farewell address to
Muslims in 632 CE during his last pilgrimage (Hajj). Declaring all humans as equals, he
urged spouses to respect each other, treat Muslims as brothers, safeguard their interests,
honor trusts, support orphans, proper treatment for the poor, forgive people’s
shortcomings, shun tribal or cultural practices, forgive vendetta, act with justice, promote
mutual respect, and be united. Cancelling any outstanding usury and blood reparations,
he exhorted Muslims to obey those in authority, adopt Islamic teachings and practices,
and personal accountability to God for all actions. He further asked that his message be
conveyed to those who were not present that day. Upon completing this address, he
received the last revelation. 20
Fragmentation amongst Muslims is high; by some counts, six dozen sects exist amongst
Muslims. Sects are based on conceptual differences and form when alternate ideas are
presented to resolve issues; a new sect is formed when adherents rally around that
concept or the leader. Muslims can and should reconcile their differences through
intellectual discourse by referring to the Qur’an which is unanimously accepted as its
undisputed source. Unfortunately, the sects have grown in isolation and in their attempts
to retain power and control, have often declared the others Muslim sects non-Muslim;
ironically, such divisions are contrary to Qur’anic teachings.
Islam supports the concept of religious revival in the latter days through a divinely guided
messenger. While the Qur’an clearly alludes to that possibility, 21 the Prophet’s
exhortations 22 23 (ahadith) confirm and provide additional details, even identifying the
promised reformer(s) as the guide (Mahdi) and the Messiah (referred to as the Second
Coming of Jesus, son of Mary). While some sects may interpret the Qur’anic verse
differently, most Muslims, including Sunni sects, believe in the advent of the Messiah
(physical descent of Jesus from heavens) and the Mahdi. This unresolved topic needs
detailed discussions but most Sunni Muslims have shut the door on this topic.
18
Ch 5, verse 102-3
Ch 3, verse 100; Ch 42, verse 39
20
“This day have I perfected for you your religion and completed upon you my favor and have chosen for
you Islam as Religion” (Ch 5, verse 4)
21
He it is Who has raised among the Unlettered people a Messenger from among themselves who recites
unto them His Signs, and purifies them, and teaches them the Book and wisdom, although they had been,
before, in manifest misguidance; And among others from among them who have not yet joined them.
He is the Mighty, the Wise. That is Allah’s grace; He bestows it on whom He pleases; and Allah is the
Master of immense grace. (Ch 62, verses 3-5; emphasis added)
22
How would it be with you when the son of Mary will descend among you and you will have a leader
raised from among you?( Bukhari, "Kitabul Anbiya" Chapter: Nazul Isa bin Maryam)
23
"The Umma can never die which has met me at one end, and the Messiah, son of Mary, at the other." (Kitab
ibn Majah, Babul Etisam bil Sunnat)
19
4
Recent History
Islam’s unifying message – one God, one Qur’an, and one Prophet Mohammadsa – and its
teachings – non-discrimination, equality for all human beings, social justice, and direct
and individual link with God – created a system that was far superior to that which was in
existence in 7th century Arabia. Consequently, early Muslims successfully developed and
sustained a far superior, agrarian-based economic system, where people cared for their
kindred, helped the poor and each other, solely to please God by obeying his commands.
This system enabled Muslim societies to develop from one of the most backward to the
most advanced in economics, sciences, literature and arts. This meteoric rise was
exemplified by the advent of the three Muslim Empires, Ottoman (Turkey), Persian (Iran)
and Moghul (India), culminated with the downfall of the Ottomans and decayed as the
Empires disintegrated and the emerging Western powers colonized Muslim lands.
Muslims have not adjusted to the changed global environment and, in their frustration,
are pushing themselves deeper into the proverbial hole.
Muslim societies developed around a traditional education system but, despite their initial
successes, failed to transform to a secular system when the global economy transitioned
from an agrarian to an industrial base. Contrasting the traditional and modern systems, P.
Hoodbhoy 24 argues that the basis for a traditional educational system in Muslim societies
was that knowledge was revealed 25 and could not be challenged; it had to be acquired as
a result of divine command. This authoritarian style discouraged questioning of precepts
and assumptions with rote memorization of crucial concepts being critical; the curricula
remained largely unchanged. The modern educational system, by comparison, promoted
the development of individuality, encouraged empirical and deductive processes,
questioned precepts and assumptions, encouraged student participation, and emphasized
concepts which could be developed further. Under this system, knowledge was required
to solve problems and curricula and changed in response to changing needs. He further
argues that the traditional educational system promotes an attitude where the “mind is
passive and receptive” whereas the modern educational system develops “creative and
inquisitive” minds.
The evolution of the two systems can be traced back to their respective societal
conditions but the continuation of the traditional educational system in contemporary
Muslims societies, in hindsight, is very unfortunate. It simply confirms the failure of
several Muslim governments to understand the long-term implications of education on
societies’ development. Equally unpardonable is the Pakistan government’s failure to
provide modern education along with their defense of madrassas 26 that mushroomed
during the 70s and 80s as a means of mass education and subsequent attempts to
24
Pervez Hoodbhoy, “Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality”, ZED Books
As Maurice Bucaille subsequently observed in “The Bible, The Qur’an and Science (translated from La
Bible, le Coran et la Science), where using his scientific knowledge, he corroborated Qur’anic affirmations
about scientific verifiable facts. Discussed later in this paper.
26
Religious school or seminary traditionally used for religious and secular education but recently morphed
to provide religions education
25
5
modernize them. The term “modern madrassas” is an oxymoron; they are not the
panacea to a modern educational system because that system will continue to produce
generations of passive and receptive minds. No wonder madrassas continue to churn out
jihadis and suicide bombers in Pakistan and the Muslim world. A modern, secular
educational system, that produces creative and inquisitive minds, is a prerequisite to
modernization and development in the Muslim world.
An educational system is the vehicle for comprehending, creating, and disseminating
knowledge; an effective system required to fulfill the Qur’anic exhortation to seek
knowledge which, according to the Qur’an, is inexhaustible.27 Emphasizing the
importance of acquiring knowledge from all sources, the Prophet urged Muslims to seek
it even if that required travel to China. Contemporary Muslims have certainly failed to
follow the Qur’an’s and the Prophet’s direction in this regard. The first Muslim Nobel
Prize winner in Physics, Abdus Salam from Pakistan, would stress that one-eighth of the
Qur’an urges Muslims to seek Allah’s signs in the universe and hence science is a
spiritual as well as a temporal duty for Muslims. 28 Questioned about the fundamental
contradictions between any religion that refers to one immutable text and the spirit of
science, Salam responded that “Science and religion refer to two different worlds;
religion to the inner world of the human mind and science to the outer world of matter.
To explore the inner world of “soul” and “Allah”, one needs faith and to explore the outer
world of matter, reason.” 29
P. Hoodbhoy 30 asserts that “Islam’s magnificent Golden Age (9th to 13th centuries)
brought forth major advances in mathematics, science, and medicine. The Arabic
language held sway in an age that created algebra, elucidated principles of optics,
established the body’s circulation of
blood, named stars, and created
universities. Science in the Islamic
world essentially collapsed with the
end of the Golden Age with no major
invention or discovery emerging from
the Muslim world for over seven
centuries. That arrested scientific
development is one important
element—although by no means the
only one—that contributes to the
present marginalization of Muslims
and a growing sense of injustice and
victimhood.” Attempting to define what it would require to return science to the Muslim
world, Hoodbhoy quantifies the current state of scientific progress in the seven most
developed economies amongst the Organization of Islamic countries (OIC). The Figure,
27
And if all the trees that are in the earth were pens, and the ocean were ink, with seven oceans swelling it
thereafter, the words of Allah would not be exhausted. Surely, Allah is Mighty, Wise.(Ch 31, verse 28)
28
Pervez Hoodbhoy, “Science and the Islamic World – The quest for rapprochement”, Physics Today, p 50,
Aug 2007
29
Manchester Guardian, 15 Dec 1989 cited by Jagjit Singh, Abdus Salam: A Biography, p 157
30
Ibid, p 49
6
generated from Hoodbhoy’s article (Appendix 2), compares the scientific publications
and citations from the seven most advanced Islamic countries and contrasts that with
emerging economies from the non-Muslim world; their current pathetic state of scientific
research is obvious. The article further shows that the Muslim world’s spending on
science and technology is far below global standards when it should be significantly
higher to enable them to catch up. Read together, Appendices 1 and 2 paint a dismal
picture for the Muslim world which should serve as a wake-up call for immediate action.
Maurice Bucaille, a French doctor specializing in gastroenterology practiced medicine
from 1945 to 1982, was appointed family physician to King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s family in 1973. He published a book, “The Bible, The
Qur'an and Science” in 1976 that highlighted scientific facts contained in the Qur’an,
which were subsequently discovered by scientists. Bucaille states: “…Qur’an, while
inviting us to cultivate science, itself contains many observations on natural phenomena
and includes explanatory details which are seen to be in total agreement with modern
scientific data.” 31 “…I could not find a single error in the Qur’an.” 32 Bucaille realized
that “…the majority of scientific facts which are either suggested or very clearly recorded
in the Qur’an have only been confirmed in modem times….for centuries commentators
on the Qur’an have inevitably made errors of interpretation in the case of certain verses
whose exact meaning could not possibly have been grasped” and concluded “that a
thorough linguistic knowledge is not in itself sufficient to understand these verses from
the Qur’an. What is needed along with this is a highly diversified knowledge of
science.” 33
Actually, the reference to the Muslim world as one entity, as distinct from the nonMuslim world, should be critically analyzed. What difference does it make for a country
with a Muslim majority or a government designated with an Islamic prefix? Each
country faces a unique set of issues, based on the state of their economy, geography and
the policies necessary for their survival; the only common denominator between
countries are people who fundamentally have the same basic needs and aspirations. They
all need food, education, basic necessities to survive, security, safety, employment and
growth opportunities, etc. Each country has its own tradition and culture. Because of its
universal appeal, Islam cannot be bound within the confines of the Islamic World or the
OIC countries and no country or group can claim monopoly over Islam or its teachings.
The myth that faith alone can bond people together was shattered in 1971 with the
creation of Bangladesh – the former East Pakistan – where faith was considered to be the
uniting force for two separate parts of a country, each with its unique culture and
geography. This realization will help Muslims appreciate that countries have excelled
not due to faith alone but due to their accomplishments in diverse fields through secular
education. This formula was successfully employed by Muslims during the early days of
their ascendancy and the subsequent deviation from this path resulted in their decline.
31
Maurice Bucaille, The Bible, Qur'an and Science, p 116 (translated from La Bible, le Coran et la
Science”
32
Ibid, pg 120
33
Ibid 121
7
Applying the four fundamental roots of the Islamic legal system – the Qur’an, the
Prophet’s actions and exhortations, consensus, and analogical reasoning – as described
later under Historical Background, to science and other educational disciplines highlights
the importance of independent thinking, reasoning, empirical and deductive processes,
questioning precepts and assumptions, developing concepts – in short requires creative
and inquisitive people – for which the modern secular educational system is required.
Interestingly, the failure of Muslims to transition to the modern educational system is unIslamic. Pakistan, again, is a good example where the clergy is resisting the
government’s half-hearted efforts to promote modern and higher education. Destruction
of educational institutions, especially girls’ schools, and preventing them from seeking a
college education is a common tactic of the radicals in Pakistan and other Muslim
countries. P. Hoodbhoy 34 cites a chilling threat to his university students, broadcast
through an FM radio transmission by the government-funded, mosque-cum-seminary
(Red Mosque) in Islamabad – the country’s capital – on 12 April 2007:
“The government should abolish co-education. Quaid-i-Azam University has become a
brothel. Its female professors and students roam in objectionable dresses….
Sportswomen are spreading nudity. I warn the sportswomen of Islamabad to stop
participating in sports…Our female students have not issued the threat of throwing acid
on the uncovered faces of women. However, such a threat could be used for creating the
fear of Islam among sinful women. There is no harm in it. There are far more horrible
punishments in the hereafter for such women.” 35
Rather than keep pace with modern education – science, mathematics, economics,
financing, legal, and other social sciences – Muslims have allowed their limitations in
understanding the intricacies of Qur’anic teachings to influence scientific research, as
demonstrated by Maurice Bucaille. This discussion highlights the need for a complete
transition from the traditional to a modern, secular educational system in Pakistan and
other Muslim countries as the first step in effectively eradicating radicalism and is in total
accord with Qur’anic teachings.
Historical Background
The common perception amongst Muslims of a monolithic early Islamic system is not
supported by evidence. Civil wars, political movements, jostling for power and systems
of governance, and expanding empire shaped the Islamic system from its earliest days.
Several religious movements emerged to resolve these differences during the
Development Period that resulted in the genesis of the Shia-Sunni divide, the recording of
the Prophet’s practices (sunnah), exhortations (hadith), and jurisprudence. This became
necessary because the Qur’an – the primary source of Islam – contains very little
legislation but defines broad principles for resolving specific matters through consensus.
The foundation for developing the Qur’an compliant system of governance evolved
during this period.
34
35
Ibid, p52
The News, Islamabad, 24 April 2007, available at http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=52663.
8
Early scholars developed additional sources for guidance, based on Qur’anic principles to
meet the growing requirements of the Muslim state. The sunnah and hadith were
painstakingly compiled by scholars through the collection and collation of verbal
accounts from people who had personally, or through their ancestors, heard the Prophet’s
exhortations or actions, and cross checking their authenticity through the person’s piety
and family linage. These two databases serve to compliment Qur’anic teachings. Six
such books 36 were completed between 194 and 273 AH, 37 about two hundred years after
the Prophet’s death. As a general principle, these compilations are subservient to the
Qur’an and, if contrary to its teachings, must be rejected.
Independent Judgment (Ijtihad) is the third source of Islamic law. The Prophet’s
appointment of Mau’z as the Judge (Qazi) of Yemen illustrates this point:
The Prophet asked Mu’az about his decision making process in that position.
Mu’az said he would look for the rule in the Book of Allah. “And if you do not find
the answer in the Book?” queried the Prophet. “I shall seek for it in the example of
the Prophet.” “And if you still lack an answer?” “I shall exercise my own
judgment.” “That is the right way,” he was assured by the Prophet. 38
The application of the broad laws varies in practice; Islamic scholars have elaborated
systems of law on the basis of these rules and their interpretations. The vast and
elaborate system of Muslim jurisprudence (Fiq’ah or knowledge of the practical rules of
Islam) was developed through several schools of jurisprudence that flourished
simultaneously within the rapidly widening Islamic State; four 39 of which – all of Sunni
persuasion developed from 699 and 855 CE – are still used as reference. In their attempts
to widen the horizon of jurisprudence, some scholars even ventured into hypothetical
situations thereby freezing further development of jurisprudence, which over a long
period thereafter became more speculative than constructive. 40
According to Islamic legal theory, law has four fundamental roots, the hierarchy of which
is the Qur’an, the Prophet’s actions and exhortations (sunnah and hadith respectively),
consensus of the Muslim jurists (ijma), and analogical reasoning (qiyas). The theoretical
basis for Islamic law was proposed by Al-Shafii in the 9th century. Thus, Islamic laws
are designed so as to be interpreted by people based on principles of peace, equality, and
justice, using additional resources as the prophet’s exhortations and practices,
independent reasoning, and jurisprudence. They must keep pace with changes in the
36
Sahih Bokhari (194-256 AH); Sahih Muslim (204-261 AH); Jamia Tirmazi ((209-279 AH); Sunan Abu
Daud (202-275 AH), Sunan Nasai (215-306 AH) and Sunan ibn Majah (209-273 AH).
37
AH (Anno Hegirae) or 622 CE marks the formal beginning of the Muslim calendar. Based on lunar
calendar, with nineteen ordinary years of 354 days and eleven leap years of 355 days in a thirty-year cycle,
Islamic dates cannot be converted to CE/CE dates simply by adding 622 years; allowance must be made for
the fact that each Hijri century corresponds to only 97 years in the Christian calendar. The year 1428 AH
coincides almost completely with 2007 CE
38
Tirmadhi I, Section: Judgments, Ch: Problems facing a Judge, etc.
39
Hanafi (699-767 CE); Maliki (d 795 CE); Shafei (d 820 CE); Hanbali (d 855 CE)
40
Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, Islam and Human Rights, p16
9
environment through constant review. Difference of opinion is allowed in laws based on
logic and consensus. The broad principles enunciated in the Qur’an conform to human
conscience and several secular laws currently used in the West.
Having pursued knowledge, as mandated in the Qur’an, 41 Muslims excelled in
commerce, sciences, mathematics and arts, and laying the foundation for future
developments, their agrarian-based economy of an expanding empire ran out of
resources. In the meantime, Western European countries had begun a process of major
transformation towards industrialization that would enable the West to dominate the
world. The industrial revolution 42 unfolded in Western Europe after a long (300 to 400year) preparatory period (also known as Renaissance Period) which began from the mid
1400 CE and focused on education, technological developments, financial systems,
industrialization, and a myriad of associated fields. This transformation created a new
economic system and enabled the European nations to defeat Islamic governments,
colonize their lands, and assume global ascendancy. The Muslims required a similar
transformation to recreate a new social structure – economic, educational, religious,
spiritual, political, and intellectual – within their societies to become integrated and
succeed in the industrialized environment. Their refusal to accept the changes or to
assimilate in the new economic system isolated them and caused them to be left behind
while the Western countries widened their technological and social lead. The clergy
attributed the Muslims’ failure to their lack of piety and exhorted them to revert to the
true Islam when Muslims were successful. In their attempts to emulate past practices,
Muslims lost the soul of Islam but held on to the rituals! Muslims have been on the
downward slide ever since.
Thus the root cause for the Muslims’ failure to reverse their downward slide, compared to
the West, was their refusal or inability to transform from an agrarian to an industrial
economy and also to transform their educational system along modern lines. Unlike the
agrarian system which can outrun its resources, the industrial system can generate new
resources through technological innovations. Muslims have still not embarked on that
track and, as 25% of the global population and its fastest growing segment, their
frustration is understandable.
Currently living in isolated communities, under authoritarian governments where rule of
law, human rights and freedoms are brutally suppressed – all un-Islamic practices – does
not present an encouraging picture for the Muslims’ development in their own countries.
Widespread corruption, lack of social and economic development programs, absence of
quality health care and basic necessities (clean water and sanitation), coupled with poor
educational standards and a lack of industrial and economic growth keeps them from
breaking out of this vicious circle.
41
“Convey thou in the name of thy Lord Who created, Created man from a clot of blood. Convey! And thy
Lord is Most Generous, Who taught man by the pen, Taught man what he knew not. ” (Ch 96, verses 2-6)
“And surely We have brought them a Book which We have expounded with knowledge, a guidance and a
mercy for a people who believe.” (Ch 7, verse 53)
42
1750 is considered the “official” beginning of the industrial revolution in Europe. The carbon emission
tabulations begin from that year.
10
Any association of Islam with violence is unfortunate as violent ideologies expressly
contradict Qur’anic teachings. Islam teaches respect for all religions, highlights
commonality with other faiths, emphasizes service to humanity, and preaches relativity
by not monopolizing truth, acknowledging Divine origins of earlier religions and
scriptures. Further evidence of relativity is the Qur’anic permission for Muslims to even
marry “People of the Book” conventionally understood to mean Jews and Christians.
Like a majority of Muslim scholars, Karen Armstrong also confirms this view:
“…Islamic law forbids Muslims to declare war against a country in which Muslims are
allowed to practice their religion freely, and it strongly prohibits the killing of innocent
people.” 43 Upholding the sanctity of human life and condemning killings, the Qur’an
likens the senseless killing of one person as being akin to killing all mankind and the
saving of one life as saving all mankind. 44
Ironically, growing cadres of politicized clergy now propagate politically expedient
approaches as a means to seek control and re-establish the Muslims’ glorious past! Some
have established militias to justify violence, based on flawed interpretations, as part of
Islam by exploiting the widespread frustration among the Muslim youth who are prone to
accepting destructive approaches to “serve their faith”. The ensuing turf wars among
such factions have led to increasing violence and more radicalization. Frustrations caused
by global political events that subjugate Muslims serves to further catalyze radicalization.
Strong evidence of continued political patronage in Muslim countries has emboldened the
radicals and thus enabled them to hijack Islam. A once dynamic religion has thus been
reduced to its dead shell.
While the vast majority of Muslims decry terrorist acts, they have not been able to stop
the growth of Islamic radical groups. Initially, these senseless actions, supposedly
perpetrated under the banner of Islam, were directed against non-Muslims – as defined by
radicals. More recently, terrorism has also targeted other Muslim sects whom that
particular group has judged to be non-Muslim. Bewildered and in group denial, some
Muslims even allege that non-Muslims conspire to defame Islam through terrorist acts.
Either way, they fail to realize that the flawed interpretations, which justify any form of
violence, provides the weak underbelly that exposes Islam to exploitation by both
adherents and opponents. That weakness urgently needs to be corrected by elaborating
and practicing the correct Qur’anic teachings.
Throughout the last 100-150 years, some mainstream Islamist political parties have
actively supported violent jihad. Apart from the Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt,
Maulana Maudoodi, founder of the Jama’at-i-Islami was the leading proponent of violent
jihad in the Indian sub-continent. He wrote that the Prophet, after failing to persuade
people to accept Islam, forcefully converted them by threat of force (sword). 45 His party
wields considerable influence amongst Muslims and is closely associated with radical
43
Karen Armstrong: Islam: A Short History, p 190
“…whosoever killed a person—unless it be for killing a person or for creating disorder in the land—it
shall be as if he had killed all mankind; and whoso gave life to one, it shall be as if he had given life to all
mankind. And Our Messengers came to them with clear Signs, yet even after that, many of them commit
excesses in the land (Ch 5, verse 33).
45
Al-Jihad fil Islam, 137-8.
44
11
groups around the world, particularly in Afghanistan. Pakistan has used these flawed
ideologies to further its domestic and foreign policies as documented elsewhere. 46
Additionally, for the past several decades, Saudi Arabia has been at the forefront of
establishing mosques and publishing and distributing the Wahabi literature throughout
the world; that has shaped the views of many immigrants and students from Muslim
countries, who, having grown up in isolated societies, feel the need to learn about Islam
when intellectually challenged in the West. In 2005, Freedom House published its
findings of a survey of more than a dozen Saudi Arabian funded mosques across the US,
collecting some 200 publications during November and December 2003. 47 The report
documents finding hate ideologies in the Saudi literature. For example, declaring nonWahabi Muslims as apostates and infidels, violent jihad, suppression of women,
prohibiting Muslims from befriending non-Muslims, infidel conspiracies, etc. The same
sentiment is also prevalent in several Muslim countries where Saudi funds were invested
in establishing mosques and madrassas.
A recent Times of India article (Appendix 3) documents the divergence between Muslim
groups in the Indian subcontinent – one for retaining the traditional model of education
and the other for adopting a modern and secular approach. The traditionalists morphed
towards violence and laid the foundation of the modern day terrorists. In their efforts to
monopolize Islam, radicals have often tried to define “Muslim” by using deviant
definitions of concepts. These will be detailed later in this paper. The authoritative
documentation of the radicals’ initial attempts at monopolizing Islam in Pakistan, 48 a
country with high illiteracy and poverty that has also become the epicenter of Islamic
radicalization, offers a good reference for understanding their strategy. The fact that
every terrorist act has a direct or indirect link with Pakistan is not coincidental. The next
sections will focus closely on the development and propagation of Islamic radicalism in
Pakistan which has also found roots in other Muslim countries.
The propagation of Islamic radicalism is predictable; it follows a defined pattern.
Initially the politicized clergy creates turmoil by claiming threats to Islam from nonMuslims, denouncing western influences and demands the implementation of sharia.
Using distorted concepts of blasphemy, apostasy, sharia, etc., they create civil unrest to
demonstrate their potential to disrupt civil society and then blackmail and coerce the
government or the targeted group. The demands for protecting Islam, implementing
sharia and disruptive acts against blasphemy and apostasy, should serve as leading
indicators for the national security organizations to identify and stem the growth of
radicalism within their borders. Moreover, it should enable governments to implement
policies for eliminating radicalism.
Discussion of Misrepresented Concepts – the Radical’s Weapon
46
Shuja Nawaz, “Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army and the Wars Within” Oxford University Press
Freedom House, Center for Religious Freedom, Washington, DC “Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology
Invade American Mosques” (www.freedomhouse.org/religion)
48
Report of the Court of Inquiry Constituted Under Punjab Act II of 1954 to Enquire into the Punjab
disturbances of 1953, commonly referred to as the Munir Commission Report
47
12
This section will contrast the actual Qur’anic teachings with the misrepresented concepts
and summarize the conclusions of an authoritative investigative report by Pakistan’s
Supreme Court in 1954. Excerpts of direct testimony from politicized clergy (‘scholars’),
deposed by the Commission, will show the contradiction between the Qur’anic teachings
and their politically inspired versions and their use by radicals and terrorists. For brevity,
only the critical misrepresented concepts, commonly used by terrorists, are present in this
paper.
Jihad:
Any misconception that jihad promotes violence or a holy war needs to be rejected
absolutely; violence or war can never be holy and political wars cannot be jihad. Jihad
means “striving in the cause of Allah” and the Qur’an defines several possible forms of
jihad 49 which do not refer to violence or war. First and foremost, jihad is the struggle to
overcome personal egos and arrogance. It also refers to peaceful struggles within
societies to eliminate exploitation and persecution; to intellectual discourses for the
establishment of peace, social justice, and equality, and a defensive war, to prevent
religious persecution.
Terrorist propaganda arguments that the Qur’an sanctions violence or the senseless
killings of non-believers are specious. Selectively misquoting Qur’anic verses does not
modify the factual position that Islam rejects violence. Appendix 4 is an overview of
how violence was first interjected into jihad and how that flawed concept has been
revived recently.
Apostasy:
The Qur’an specifies no punishment to be administered by Muslims to apostates – those
who first accept Islam and then turn away from it in disbelief. Affirming that apostates
can not cause any damage to Allah’s religion 50 the Qur’an repeats Allah’s promise to
guide a large number of people to replace an apostate. 51 52 Further clarifying this matter,
the Qur’an expressly affirms that there is no compulsion in religion and that right has
been made distinct from wrong. 53 Moreover, the Prophet’s role is defined as a Warner
and not a Magistrate over people. 54
The Qur’an is most emphatic on freedom of conscience. Faith is a matter of conscience
and conscience cannot be compelled. A person may be forced or coerced into saying they
believe or disbelieve, but they cannot be forced to accept it. Such an effort is futile and
self-defeating. 55
49
Covered in Quran Ch 22, verse 79; Ch 25, verse 53; Ch 8, verse 73; Ch 2, verse 122; Ch 4, verse 75; Ch
4, verse 85.
50
Quran Ch. 3, verse 145
51
Quran Ch 5, verse 55
52
Quran Ch 2, verse 218; Ch 3, verses 87-91; Ch 3, verse 145; Ch 4, verse 138; Ch 5, verse 55; Ch 16,
verse 107.
53
Quran Ch 2, verse 257
54
Qur’an Ch 4, verse 81
55
Quran Ch 18, verse 30; Ch 10, verses 100-10
13
Blasphemy:
Islam does not prescribe any physical punishment for blasphemy by humans, despite the
commonly held view to the contrary. Qur’an mentions blasphemy five times 56 57 58 59 60
and condemns it only on moral and ethical grounds, advising Muslims to temporarily
disassociate from gatherings that mock and ridicule religious values. Muslims are
prohibited from blaspheming idols and objects of worship by non-Muslims because that
might encourage blasphemy against God. Above all, the Qur’an cites Jews for
blaspheming against Mary and Jesus by declaring her unchaste and alleging Jesus’ birth
as questionable but does not authorize humans to punish them.
The Qur’an records an instance of blasphemy 61 where the Prophet forgave the
blasphemer in spite of the Muslims demanding that he be punished. The Prophet even
led the blasphemer’s funeral prayer despite opposition from some Muslims. 62
Sharia:
Sharia is probably the most discussed and feared Islamic Law which was developed
under the Abbasid Caliphates 63 of al-Mahdi (775-785 CE) and Harun al-Rashid (786809) by two noted scholars Malik ibn Anas and al-Shafii, who were earlier imprisoned
for participation in the Shia uprising by early Abbasid caliphs. Sharia literally means
“the path leading to the watering place” and is considered to be the expression of divine
will. It constitutes a system of duties incumbent upon all Muslims by virtue of their
religious beliefs and is based on traditional Islamic scholarship covering all aspects of life
including laws of inheritance, marriage, and restitution for injuries and murder, rules for
fasting, charity, and prayer to matters of state, like governance and foreign relations.
Sharia was designed to create a uniform legal system for implementation throughout the
56
He has already revealed to you in the Book that, when you hear the Signs of Allah being denied and
mocked at, sit not with them until they engage in a talk other than that; for in that case you would be like
them. Surely, Allah will assemble the hypocrites and the “disbelievers in Hell all together. (Qur’an Ch 4,
verse 141)
57
When thou sees those who engage in vain discourse concerning Our Signs, then turn thou away from
them until they engage in a discourse other than that. And if Satan cause thee to forget, then sit not after
recollection, with the unjust people. (Ch. 6, verse 69)
58
Revile not those whom they call upon beside Allah, lest they, out of spite, revile Allah in their ignorance.
Thus unto every people have We caused their doing seem fair. Then unto their Lord is their return; and He
will inform them what they used to do. (Ch 6, verse 109)
59
For their disbelief and for their uttering against Mary a grievous calumny. (Ch 4, verse 157)
60
No knowledge have they thereof nor had their fathers. Monstrous is the word that comes out of their
mouths. They speak naught but a lie. (Ch 18, verse 6)
61
They say, ‘If we return to Madinah, the most exalted will, surely, drive out there from the most mean,
while true honor belongs to Allah and to His Messenger and the believers; but the hypocrites know not. (Ch
63, verse 9)
62
Bukhari al Kitab Al-Janaiz p. 121, and ibid Bab-al-Kafn pp. 96-97
63
The Islamic caliphate was formed after the Prophet’s death to lead the community. The first four caliphs
(Abu Bakr, Umar, Utman, and Ali), elected based on piety and are known as the “rightly guided caliphs”.
Internal dissent resulted in the assassination of the last three caliphs and a civil war broke out after Ali’s
murder. The winner, a provincial governor Mu’awiyah, formed the Umayyad dynasty and claimed the
caliphate in 661. The Umayyad Dynasty was defeated by the descendants of Muhammad'ssa uncle Abbas
ibn Abd al-Muttalib who formed the Abbasid dynasty in 750 CE and also claimed the caliphate.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam)
14
Muslim (Abbasid) empire. These Abbasid Caliphs encouraged the emergence of a
distinct class of scholars for this purpose. Sharia’s ethos, like that of the Qur’an, was
egalitarian. Special provisions were included to protect the weak, and no institution, such
as the caliphate or the court, had any power to interfere with the personal decisions and
beliefs of the individual. Each Muslim has always had a unique responsibility to obey
God’s commands, and no religious authority, institution, or a specialized group of
“clergy” could intercede between God and the individuals who were all considered
equals. Sharia was thus an attempt to rebuild society on criteria that were entirely
different from those of the emperor’s court.
Radicals around the Muslim world now demand the implementation of sharia and some
countries, Afghanistan under al-Qaida and the Taliban, Saudi Arabia, and parts of Sudan
and Nigeria, etc., have enforced their respective brand of sharia. Those versions are
devoid of the Qur’anic principles and have failed in providing justice, equality and
uplifting the people. Sharia should be dynamic, as discussed in an earlier section;
Appendices 5 and 6 further illustrate this issue. Maybe, it is time to properly understand
and implement the true spirit of sharia; people may be surprised to note its close
similarity to Western laws than to those of Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia.
The Munir Commission and its Findings— an Important Milestone in the
Politicization of Islamic Teachings
Formally known as The Court of Inquiry Constituted Under The Punjab Act II of 1954 to
Enquire into the Punjab Disturbances of 1953, comprising Mr. Justice M. Munir, Chief
Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court as president and Mr. Justice M. R. Kayani as a
member, this commission investigated the causes of the 1953 rioting in the Punjab
province of Pakistan. The civil administration failed to control the rioting, the army had
to be called out and the city of Lahore was placed under martial law. While this report
discusses a specific incident, its findings illustrate how the radicals’ exploit the flawed
concepts for political purposes. This cause and effect relationship should serve as an eye
opener for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Sadly, this topic is considered taboo in
Pakistan and several Muslim countries.
Of the seven parties included in this inquiry, the main instigators were the politicized
religious parties (Majlis-i-Ahrar or Society of Ahrar in Islam, Majlis-i-Thaffuz-i-Khatmi-Nubuwwat or Society for protection of finality of Prophet hood, and Jama’at-i-Islami or
Islamic Group), who had protested against the beliefs of another Muslim group,
Ahmadiya Movement in Islam, and demanded that it be declared non-Muslim.
A brief background about the parties to the dispute is relevant to this discussion. The
Ahrar, seceded from the Indian Congress Party and formed Majlis-i-Ahrar-i-Islam in May
1931 — prior to the 1947 partition of the sub-continent into India and Pakistan — when
their leader Mazhar Ali Azhar led one hundred volunteers to Jammu (the disputed
Himalayan region of Kashmir) in sympathy for the Muslims’ oppression by the Hindu
ruler . They initially denounced demands for the creation of Pakistan and after it was
formed, became “disillusioned” and “bewildered” and considered retiring from politics
altogether. Following unsuccessful business ventures, they formed the All-Pakistan
Majlis-i-Ahrar in December 1947. Finding a cause to reestablish themselves, they
15
demanded Ahmadi Muslims be declared non-Muslims in May and June 1948. The
Majlis-i-Thaffuz-i-Khatm-i-Nubuwwat was a conglomeration of several other Islamist
political parties and together they wanted to safeguard the finality of Prophet
Mohammadsa. The Jama’at-i-Islami was formed by Maulana Maudoodi, a journalist
turned scholar, to safeguard the Muslims’ cause. 64
The Ahmadiya Movement in Islam was founded in 1901 in Qadian, a small village in
Indian Punjab. Its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, wrote a famous four-volume book
‘Buraheen-i-Ahmadiya’ between 1880 and 1884 to respond to “acute religious
controversies … repeated attacks on Islam, not only by Christian missionaries but also by
preachers of Arya Samaj, a liberal Hindu movement which was becoming very popular.”
Claiming to be a recipient of Divine revelations, he announced that Jesus of Nazareth did
not die on the Cross, nor was he physically raised up to the Heavens [as most Muslims
and Christians believe] but that he was removed from the Cross in a wounded condition
and his disciples cured his wounds. After recovering, he travelled to Kashmir [to preach
to the ten lost tribes of Israel] where he died a natural death. Ahmad rejected the
commonly held belief that Jesus would physically descend from heavens and explained
that the Second Coming meant another person with the qualities of Jesus will appear to
guide the Muslims. He proclaimed himself to be the spiritual Second Coming of Jesus,
the promised Mahdi [and the Second Coming of all religious founders to unite humanity].
Claiming to be a subordinate prophet [of Mohammadsa], he rejected “jihad with the
sword” and proclaimed “jihad with the pen” to convince people [about Islam’s
truthfulness] through logical arguments. He explained that the doctrine of khatm-inubuwwat [finality of prophet hood] means that after the death of the Holy Prophet of
Islam no nabi [prophet] would appear with a new shari’at [law] but that the appearance
of a new prophet without a shar’a [law] was not contrary to that doctrine. 65 The role of
the subordinate prophet would be to reinterpret the Qur’anic teachings and provide
spiritual guidance in the current times. His teachings went against the conventional
understanding of Muslims and caused much interest within religious and intellectual
circles. Appendix 7, excerpted from the Munir Commission Report, provides additional
details about the controversy and the parties involved.
Comical as it may sound, the commission failed to get a common definition of “Muslim”
from more than a dozen ‘scholars’; that definition was a prerequisite for declaring
someone non-Muslim. The commission thus concluded: “Keeping in view the several
definitions given by the ulama (scholar), need we make any comment except that no two
learned divines are agreed on this fundamental. If we attempt our own definition as each
learned divine has done and that definition differs from that given by all others, we
unanimously go out of the fold of Islam. And if we adopt the definition given by any one
of the ulama, we remain Muslims according to the view of that alim (scholar) but kafirs
(non-believer) according to the definition of everyone else.” 66
64
Report of the Court of Inquiry constituted under Punjab Act II 0f 1954 to enquire into the Punjab
Disturbances of 1953. Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1954, excerpted from
pgs 12-13 (see Appendix 6 for details)
65
ibid, excerpted from pg 9-10 (see Appendix 7 of this White Paper for details)
66
ibid, pg 218
16
Jihad, apostasy, blasphemy, sharia, and similar religious concepts formed the core of the
Islamist political parties’ demands and were investigated during this inquiry. When the
politicized clergy were unable to logically defend their position justifying killing of
innocent people in jihad, they took an indefensible position admitting that the particular
Qur’anic verse that expressly prohibits killing innocent people has been abrogated. The
Commission thus summarized this point: “The generally accepted view [of the scholars]
is that the fifth verse to Sura-i-Tauba (Sura IX) abrogated the earlier verses revealed in
Mecca which permitted the killing of kuffar [non believers] only in self-defense. As
against this, the Ahmadis believe that no verse in the Qur’an was abrogated by another
verse and that both sets of verses, namely, the Meccan verses and the relative verses in
Sura-i-Tauba have different scopes and can stand together. This introduces the difficult
controversy of nasikh [current] and mansukh [abrogated], with all its implications.” 67
The finality of prophet hood after Muhammad,sa Jesus’ physical ascent and subsequent
descent and the events leading to the Day of Resurrection, raise fundamental questions
about Jesus’ status on returning to earth: Would he descend as a Judeo-Christian prophet
or a Muslim prophet? This and other issues were also examined by the Commission.
Interestingly, Jesus himself rejected the concept of physical descent from heavens and
supported the concept of spiritual second coming. Elijah’s descent, according to the
Bible, was to herald the Messiah’s (Jesus’) advent. 68 When questioned about Elijah’s
second coming, Jesus identified John, The Baptist, as Elijah’s spiritual Second Coming
and thus the fulfillment of that prophecy.
For illustration, a sampling of responses by the leaders of politicized religious parties to
the Commission’s questions is attached as Appendix 8. The irrationality and absurdity of
their responses exposes their absolute lack of understanding of international relations and
are devoid of fundamental Islamic principles of equality, justice and peace. Rather they
used tribal and un-Islamic concepts to justify their untenable positions. The absolute lack
of foresight and their interest in the welfare of Muslims, especially those living overseas
today, needs no comment. They proposed discrimination against minorities – not giving
them any rights to make or administer law, hold public office, or employment in the
armed forces, judiciary, or a cabinet position in the government. In their view, the Law
of War in Islam was fundamentally different from the International Law of War; they
justified slavery for prisoners of war who could not pay ransom for their release. They
supported the theory that a Muslim State is perpetually at war with neighboring nonMuslim states, and in case of a war between the two states, Muslim citizens of non
Muslim states should relocate to the Muslim state. They disagreed that a Muslim could
be a faithful citizen of a non-Muslim state and expressed opinions that in case of war with
India, any Indian Muslim soldiers were obligated to desert the Indian army and fight for
Pakistan. They readily accepted the proposition that if their version of Islam could be
implemented in Pakistan and India retaliated by implementing the Hindu Law (caste
system), they would have no objections to Muslims in India being treated as
untouchables.
67
68
Ibid, pg 223
Matt 17:10-13; Luke 1:17
17
Religion and politics are totally incompatible – religion is a personal matter and aims to
attaining spirituality and closeness to God while politics is party-based and designed to
manipulate facts for attaining power. The successful example of separating religion and
politics can be seen in the US and Europe today. US President Barak Obama,
championing the separation of religion and politics, forcefully makes the point: “…the
separation of church and state protects the church as well as the state.” 69 Unfortunately,
the Muslim clergy and the radicals portray Muslims as a community (ummat) as a
politically unified entity, a utopia for which they are striving hard. That goal is misplaced
and highly unlikely. Unfortunately, Pakistan and some other Muslim countries have
combined government and religion, crafted legislation based on flawed interpretations,
and spoiled both the state and Islam; examples of which are widespread in their societies.
It is unfortunate that the clergy has gotten away with such travesty. The majority’s
failure to understand and refute the clergy’s absurd responses may be due to the passive
and receptive minds generated by the traditional educational system.
Radicals’ Victories in Pakistan
The radicals’ first major victory was in 1974 when, in the aftermath of elections, alleged
to be widely rigged, Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, succumbed to their
demands to realize the clergy’s support: he fulfilled their long-awaited demand and
declared the Ahmadi Muslims to be non-Muslims through a constitutional amendment
(Appendix 9). Gen Zia-ul-Haq, himself a radical Muslim, launched an Islamization drive
and built on Bhutto’s constitutional amendment through a Martial law Ordinance that
criminalized the Ahmadi Muslim’s practicing of their faith (Appendix 10) and prescribed
mandatory jail sentences and even capital punishment for their religious activities
(Appendix 11). Ahmadi Muslims’ use of the traditional greeting of peace and affirming
the Unity of God and Mohammadsa as His prophet was also criminalized. The courts
sentenced several Ahmadi Muslims for these “crimes”. On appealing these draconian
rulings, the Supreme Court of Pakistan, in 1993, upheld them citing the US and UK’s
Company and Trademark Laws. 70 The Pakistani court not only confirmed the
government’s and thus the politicized clergy’s ownership of Islam, they also debased
religion as a commercial article, conveniently forgetting that proprietary rights for
religion cannot be held by humans and that prior registration of company name and
trademark is required for the cited law to apply. No one has yet registered religion as a
company, or trademark; nor does anyone have the right to do so!
Consequences:
First and foremost, the rise in radicalism and terrorism under the guise of Islam has
reached intolerable proportions. It is now threatening even the governments that helped
create them – Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan, the country that first encouraged and
officially sanctioned the politicization of Islam, is now in the radical’s crosshairs; radicals
69
Barak Obama, “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Proclaiming the American Dream”; p 37
Enforced Apostasy: Zaheeruddin v. State And the Official Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in
Pakistan, Law & Inequality; Vol XIV, Dec 1995, No. 1, p 277
70
18
are threatening its very existence as a modern state and battling its army along its western
borders and also in several towns and villages. Suicide bombings and attacks on
government and private institutions occur regularly. The military action in the Red
Mosque, in the middle of capital Islamabad, is a grim reminder of the proximity of such
radical bases to the seat of power.
Zahid Hussain 71 documented how successive Pakistani governments since the 1950s
have patronized the fledging religious political parties for favors which enabled them to
gain influence. He states: “Fundamentalist parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami and some
factions of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam who could never have made it to the corridors of
power through elections, were only too willing to provide Gen Zia the political backing
that he desperately needed. They accepted cabinet posts in the military government,
which gave them the opportunity to set foot in the establishment.” Several well-armed,
organized and highly motivated militias exist in Pakistan and are either directly or
indirectly affiliated with each religious political party. Lashkar-e-Tayaiba, Jaish-eMohammad, Lashkar-e-Jahangvi are some of the well known militias; a few of which
have formally been classified as terrorist organizations by the United Nations. Steve
Coll 72 has documented how the US and its Middle-Eastern allies funded the madrassas,
trained and armed the jihadis in Pakistan with the latest weapons to fight the Soviets and
then deserted them after accomplishing their objectives. Kathy Gannon 73 records the US
support for developing a jihadi curriculum for madrassa students as young as 4-5 year
old. No wonder, the traditional, madrassa-based educational system helped win the war
through its early crop of jihadis who were trained to be passive and receptive for the
subsequent indoctrination. Documenting the impunity with which terrorists’ operate
inside Pakistan to suppress free thinkers, Hussain states: “The increasing incidents of
public persecution of intellectuals by religious zealots, the ever worsening sectarian strife
and the persistent attempts to establish a myopic theocratic dispensation are all
symptomatic of a society held hostage by religious obscurantists.”
Islamic terrorists today are active in several countries and use the same tactics to spread
their influence throughout the world – terror bombings in London, Spain, India, and
African countries, are just a few examples. Their daring hijacking and negotiated release
of their leaders from Indian jails, the audacious attacks on the Indian parliament and the
recent attacks in Mumbai where they withstood the Indian Army for almost three days
shows their growing sophistication and organizational skills.
The second major adverse consequence was a colossal setback in the scientific and
technical development of Pakistan and other Muslim countries due to religious
discrimination against the brightest Muslim scientist, Abdus Salam, because of his
beliefs. Jagjit Singh 74 documents this discrimination from 1951 when Salam returned
from Cambridge. His return coincided with the civil unrest of 1952-53, which has
71
Newsline, May 1992, “Pakistan: Hostage to the Mullah”, Feature Article, pg 22-32
Steve Coll, “Ghost Wars: The secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet
invasion to September 11, 2001”.
73
Kathy Gannon. : “I is for Infidel: From the holy war to holy terror in Afghanistan”
74
Jagjit Singh, Abdus Salam – A Biography, p 26-37, Viking Books, India
72
19
already been described. Discrimination due to his Ahmadi Muslim beliefs and petty
politics forced him to return to Cambridge as Lecturer in 1954 after which he was
appointed a Professor at the Imperial College in London. He assisted the Pakistani
government to boost science and technology from 1958-1974, resulting in the
establishment of Pakistan’s premier research laboratories (Pakistan Institute of Nuclear
Science and Technology, PINSTECH, Space and Upper Atmosphere Research
Committee, SUPARCO, Wheat, Rice Research Institute, etc.). When Bhutto accepted
the radicals’ demand to declare Ahmadi Muslims a non-Muslim minority through a
constitutional amendment, Abdus Salam resigned in protest.” Pakistan thus lost a great
scientist and its early lead in science and technology because of the bigotry of the
politicized clergy and the government’s acceptance of their illogical demands. Earlier, he
had also proposed the establishment of advanced scientific research laboratories to
several Muslim countries.
Some recent consequences of implementing the flawed interpretations of Islam are listed
for illustration.
The Pakistan Supreme Court has established precedence for criminalizing individuals for
committing otherwise pious acts. Contrary to secular law, some ‘pious acts’ are now
selectively defined as crimes and specific individuals perpetuating those pious acts as
‘criminals’; that is, the Pakistani law criminalizes people for pious acts which the
majority performs as part of their religious practices. Thus Pakistan’s Islamic laws are
‘people specific’ and not ‘act specific’. Their law upholds the monopolization of religion
by the government and relegates religion under the Company and Trademark Law, thus
equating Islam with articles of commerce.
A New York Time Op Ed opined that President Obama, being born a Muslim and now a
Christian is an apostate and would be liable to be killed by Muslims for apostasy. 75 Thus
it would be unsafe for him to travel to Muslim countries. This is a preposterous
suggestion where the malice is obvious. Sadly, this is in line with the radicals’ view.
The reversal of judgments made under the sharia laws in Saudi Arabia 76 and Pakistan 77
for rape victims presents an interesting situation. Although subsequently overturned due
to global condemnation, the decisions clearly show their hypocrisy. Either the initial
rulings were flawed, or the proper rules where the onerous burden of proof is on the
prosecution was not followed, or their sharia laws were flawed, or their sharia allows
government the discretion to overrule the law, needs to be determined. Several similar
crimes – like the stoning to death 78 and honor killings – go unreported or the perpetrators
get away – in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and African countries; these crimes have now also
been reported in Europe! Such misapplication of tribal and barbaric justice under the
guise of sharia, needs to be reviewed by Muslim governments.
75
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/opinion/12luttwak.html?scp=1&sq=Luttwak+&st=nyt
76
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/19/saudi.rape.victim/index.html
77
http://www.dawn.com/2002/06/05/fea.htm#1 , http://www.dawn.com/2004/10/15/ed.htm#1
78
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/review/archive/031016/review7.htm;
http://www.dawn.com/2002/07/06/top10.htm
20
Several cases where the death penalty was awarded to alleged blasphemers in Pakistan
have been reported. 79 In most cases, the alleged culprits were innocent and fabricated
charges, based on personal vendetta, were filed.
The controversies over Salman Rushdie’s book and the Danish cartoons resulted in
widespread disturbances and loss of life and property in Muslim countries.
The Saudi-sponsored UN Interfaith Conference in November 2008 was probably an
effort to conceal their embarrassment after pushing resolutions through the UN General
Assembly and the Human Rights Council “seeking a review of Articles 19 and 20 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 80 and requesting tighter
restrictions on Freedom of Expression in the aftermath of 9/11 which, they argued, has
created an entirely new set of circumstances.” International Humanist and Ethical Union
(IHEU) representative Roy Brown, commented: “It is outrageous that many of those
States pushing for changes in international law are among the worst offenders themselves
when it comes to protecting the rights of minorities.” The US Permanent Representative
to the United Nations in Geneva April 2007, Ambassador Warren W. Tichenor stated:
“The resolution adopted attempts to legitimize the criminalization of expression. In
effect, it seeks to delineate restrictions on individuals rather than to emphasize the duty
and responsibility of governments to guarantee, uphold, promote and protect human
rights. Make no mistake; these amendments would support the criminalization of free
expression, or the possession of opinions contrary to those of a state, plain and simple. It
is a sad day when the Human Rights Council turns from protecting rights to eroding
them.”
Muslim countries themselves have the worst record of interfaith harmony and freedom of
speech, as correctly highlighted by the IHEU and the US representatives. They have
denied those rights within their borders and are now trying to restrict the freedom of
expression internationally. Their hypocrisy is evident by their denial of religious
freedoms, in spite of being signatories to the various UN conventions on Human Rights
and religious freedom, and then hosting interfaith discussions. The UN and the US State
Department (International Religious Freedoms) document and publish the denial of
religious freedom in all countries. 81
The best way for Muslim countries to promote interfaith harmony is to renounce their
draconian laws against religious freedom; forcefully condemn hate ideologies, reject the
politically inspired concepts, and allow equal rights to every individual to practice their
religion in safety and peace. Similarly, freedom of expression will promote intellectual
discourse that will correct the distorted views that Muslims have begun to accept as part
of their faith. The overlap between religion and culture needs to be defined and
separated. Religion and faith should return to the personal domain; faith and morality are
generated within the person and cannot be regulated or legislated.
79
http://www.dawn.com/2002/08/18/top14.htm , http://www.dawn.com/2005/11/12/nat29.htm
ICCPR is monitored by the Human Rights Committee (a separate body to the Human Rights Council
which replaced the Commission on Human Rights under the UN Charter in 2006
80
81
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2008/
21
Human Decision Making Biases and Importance of Correct Information
Many heuristic biases (skewed modes of thinking or learning) affect the human decision
making process. These biases operate even in the presence of correct data (information,
knowledge) but incorrect data will certainly ensure crooked results. Traditional stories,
folklore and myths, passed down through generations have affected our ability to accept
change. Well recognized and documented cognitive traps, that affect decision making,
are: ‘Availability bias’, which causes us to base decisions on information that is more
readily available in our memories, rather than the data we really need; ‘Hindsight bias’,
which causes us to attach higher probabilities to events after they have occurred than we
did before they happened; ‘The problem of induction’, which leads us to formulate
general rules on the basis of insufficient information; ‘The fallacy of conjunction (or
disjunction)’, which means we tend to overestimate the probability that seven events of
90 per cent probability will all occur, while underestimating the probability that at least
one of seven events of 10 per cent probability will occur; ‘Confirmation bias’, which
inclines us to look for confirming evidence of an initial hypothesis, rather than contrary
evidence that would disprove it; ‘Contamination effects’, whereby we allow irrelevant
but proximate information to influence a decision; ‘The affect heuristic’, whereby
preconceived value-judgments interfere with our assessment of costs and benefits;
‘Scope neglect’, which prevents us from proportionately adjusting what we should be
willing to sacrifice to avoid harms of different orders of magnitude; ‘Overconfidence in
calibration’, which leads us to underestimate the confidence intervals within which our
estimates will be robust (e.g. to conflate the ‘best case’ scenario with the ‘most
probable’); and ‘Bystander apathy’, which inclines us to abdicate individual
responsibility when in a crowd. 82
Each of these cognitive traps appears to be at play in portraying the distorted picture of
Islam to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Data (correct information) and critical,
unbiased analyses are essential prerequisites to reach correct conclusions. Given
individual biases, peer review and open discussion is essential. The same rigor is
required for proper decision making in science, business, finance, etc. Why can it not be
applied to religion? As discussed above, the predominant Muslim thought is shaped by
centuries old data through the complex prism of the above heuristic biases. It is,
therefore, no wonder that such concepts as jihad, sharia, apostasy, blasphemy, and a
whole host of others are so disconnected with the contemporary world.
These flawed concepts continue to negatively influence the younger generations. A
January 2007 newspaper report 83 from the Policy Exchange Survey compared the trends
among young (16-24 year old) Muslims born in the UK with those of the older generation
(55+ years) immigrants, showed evidence of ‘growing religiosity’ among younger
Muslims. A moderate majority accepted the norms of British democracy while a growing
82
Liezer Yudkowsky, ‘Cognitive Biases Potentially Affecting Judgment of Global Risks’, in Nick Bostrom
and Milan Cirkovic (eds.), Global Catastrophic Risks (Oxford University Press, 2008), pp 19-119
83
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1540895/Young%2C-British-Muslims-%27getting-moreradical%27.html
22
minority did not. Similarly, among the young Muslims, an increasing minority rejects
Western life. Responses on the other questions are summarized below:
Survey Question
16-24 year
Prefer living under sharia law in UK
40%
Support death for apostasy
36%
Support women wearing hijab or veil
75%
Prefer sending children to Islamic schools
40%
55 plus year
17%
19%
25%
20%
According to Pew Research survey results, 84 younger Muslims in America are both much
more religiously observant and more accepting of Islamic extremism than their older
counterparts. A greater percentage of younger Muslims in the US think of themselves
first as Muslims, rather than primarily as Americans. More than twice as many Muslim
Americans under age 30 believe that suicide bombings can often, or sometimes, be
justified in the defense of Islam. Results of this May 2007 survey are summarized below:
Survey Question
Think yourself Muslim first and American second
Suicide bombing often or sometimes justified
Less than
More than
30 year old 30 year old
60%
41%
15%
6%
A similar pattern of greater acceptance of suicide bombing among young Muslims was
reported in Pew Research surveys in Great Britain, France, Germany and Spain. In
contrast, surveys among Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world do not
show greater tolerance of suicide bombing among young people.
These chilling survey results are in complete accord with the views of the politicized
clergy recorded in the Munir Commission Report (see Appendix 8) and contain
reflections of the Freedom House survey of hate ideologies from Saudi funded US
mosques mentioned earlier. Despite the recent widespread condemnation of suicide
bombings by the OIC and other Muslim scholars, the trends of higher justification for
suicide bombings clearly show increasing radicalism among young Muslims. This also
reconfirms the effect of heuristic biases on human decision-making. Other flawed
concepts (apostasy, blasphemy, jihad, etc.) should also be forcefully condemned so their
influence on decision-making biases is minimized on future generations.
Islam is a modern, straightforward religion based on common sense and good judgment;
it is based on the principles of peace, justice and equity where every individual is
responsible for their actions directly to God. The clergy imposed restrictions on
education, individual responsibility and freedoms and its outright rejection of any modern
concept has divided it into several sects, in complete contravention of the Qur’anic
teachings; each and every individual is equally responsible for allowing the clergy – who
has no role in Islam – to usurp that authority. This process of Creative Destruction can
stop only when one of its components (individuals, sects, Muslim countries, etc.) realizes
the importance of modern secular education, individual freedom and responsibility,
84
http://pewresearch.org/assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf
23
relativity, human rights, etc. – all Qur’anic injunctions – and critically review their belief
individually and through rigorous peer review. The wide open secret of the West’s
success is the adoption of a secular education and a humanist-based system which has
evolved over time and is consistent with the Qur’anic teachings. Based on the discussion
of Misrepresented Concepts and the findings of the Munir Commission Report, it goes
without saying that the gulf between Muslim sects is not easy to bridge by simple human
efforts. Divine guidance is definitely required and provision for which – Messiah or the
Second Coming of Jesus – is made in the Qur’an and clearly defined by the Prophet’s
traditions.
Concluding Comments
The divergence between the Qur’anic teachings and the current Muslim practices is selfevident. Politicized Islam has only served to fragment Muslims into several sects, some
of whom have adopted radical ideologies. Rather than comprehensively practicing the
faith and making it a blessing for mankind, Muslims’ struggle with identity crisis, afraid
of debating fundamental issues and hiding behind sectarian divides and ritualism, have
made it into anything but a blessing. The separation of politics and religion is essential.
Global politics and the confluence of several socio-economic factors in the Muslim world
are perpetuating the growth of radicalism – lack of meaningful education, economic
opportunities for a fast growing and young population, poor governance, the absence of
basic necessities (water, sanitation, etc.), widespread corruption, absence of basic human
rights, can be identified as major factors.
The non-availability of meaningful secular education directs impoverished children to
madrassas, a majority of which are funded or run by radicals. In these, the
impressionable minds are indoctrinated with flawed, politically inspired Islamic concepts.
Without meaningful employment opportunities these indoctrinated children provide the
pool for recruiting jihadi soldiers. Continued subjugation of Muslims in areas such as
Palestine, Kashmir, Guantanamo Bay (Cuba), Abu Ghareb (Iraq) etc., further promotes
radicalism. Similarly frustrations due to widespread corruption and the absence of good
governance in Muslim countries lead people towards disillusionment and, when
compared to their glorious history, result in an understandable craving for a return to the
past. Radicalism feeds and breeds when people have lost hope in the system for
improvement. This vicious cycle thus continues unabated in the Muslim world. Dubai
(UAE), in spite of privileged treatment for its citizens, perhaps presents the only model
for good governance in the Muslim world where some basic freedoms are available and
the rule of law is applied uniformly to a diverse group of immigrant workers. The mutual
coexistence and tolerance among the diverse groups of religion and cultures in Dubai is
commendable.
The complicity between corrupt politicians and culpable clergy prohibits intellectual
discussion through legislation or coercion (Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia are
prime examples). The mosque thus becomes the primary source for disseminating
information to the masses with hate and isolationist ideologies frequently dispensed by
24
the mullah. It is this weak underbelly that helps radicals (Muslims and non-Muslims) to
exploit Islam for justifying terrorism. Islam does not sanction or support senseless
violence of any kind; the radicalization of Islam is a recent and political phenomenon,
which developed during the decline of the Muslim Empire and the colonization of
Muslim countries. Pakistan leads the Muslim world in legislating and institutionalizing
politically motivated ideologies; radicalism is a consequence of those policies and is now
widespread in Pakistan. Sadly, radicals are pushing other Muslim countries to adopt
similar policies. Through such policies, radicals have effectively hijacked Islam and use
the flawed ideologies to justify terrorist acts while the majority, in apparent confusion
about the distorted concepts, is unable or unwilling to take an effective stand against
them. Their internal divisions and vested interests prevent them from intellectually
resolving the differences and effectively preventing the radicals from exploiting Islam.
Having established deep roots in Pakistan and Afghanistan, this destructive trend is
spreading to other Muslim countries (Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sudan, Balkans, Central
African countries, etc) and in countries where impoverished Muslims are significant
minorities (India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, etc.). Muslims must realize that transition to
education and industrialization are long-term phenomena whose time frame cannot be
condensed. Their governments must embark on enduring plans for this transition,
establishing good governance, implementing accountability at all levels and granting
basic human rights and freedoms. Muslims must accept radicalism as a major disruptive
force and take immediate steps to control it. The permanent and enduring solution has to
be the rejection of politically inspired ideologies for which an intellectual offensive is
required. Attempts to hide behind the UN and OIC resolutions for maintaining status quo
will prove counterproductive and, using Pakistan’s example, will threaten their very
existence.
In closing, the following observations made by Justices Munir and Kayani almost six
decades ago appear prophetic in the 21st century:
“If there is one thing which has been conclusively demonstrated in this inquiry, it
is that provided you can persuade the masses to believe that something they are
asked to do is religiously right or enjoined by religion, you can set them to any
course of action, regardless of all considerations of discipline, loyalty, decency,
morality or civic sense.”
“It is this lack of bold and clear thinking, the inability to understand and take
decisions which has brought about in Pakistan a confusion which will persist and
repeatedly create situations of the kind we have been inquiring into until our
leaders have a clear conception of the goal and of the means to reach it. It requires
no imagination to realize that irreconcilables remain irreconcilable even if you
believe or wish to the contrary. Opposing principles, if left to themselves, can
only produce confusion and disorder, and the application of a neutralizing agency
to them can only produce a dead result. Unless, in case of conflict between two
ideologies, our leaders have the desire and the ability to elect, uncertainty must
continue.”
25
“…and press Islam into service to solve situations it was never intended to solve,
frustration and disappointment must dog our steps. The sublime faith called Islam
will live even if our leaders are not there to enforce it. It lives in the individual, in
his soul and outlook, in all his relations with God and men, from the cradle to the
grave, and our politicians should understand that if Divine commands cannot
make or keep a man a Musalman [Muslim], their statutes will not.”
Recommendations
A focused, long-term and multi-faceted strategy at individual, national and international
levels is obviously required to eradicate Islamic radicalism. Individual Muslims must
accept the fact that radicalism is threatening their very existence and, after thorough
introspection, reject the flawed and politically inspired ideologies that are contrary to
Qur’anic teachings. Muslims should develop a better understanding of Islam by going
across sectarian divides and becoming familiar with alternate concepts. This will allow
reconciliation amongst various concepts and help unite Muslims into one community, as
directed by the Qur’an.
On the national level, Muslim countries should ensure good governance, separate politics
from religion, implement policies focused on secular education, adopt basic freedoms and
human rights policies for women and religious minorities, dispense with discriminatory
policies, provide a solid social infrastructure, create meaningful employment
opportunities for the youth and encourage intellectual debate on controversial topics.
Internationally, countries should cooperate and help resolve political issues that have
subjugated Muslims and denied them their homeland, dignity and basic human rights.
The world community must also truly encourage the promotion of human rights and
democracies in Muslim countries by assisting in the development of social infrastructures
(education, basic health care, etc.), meaningful secular education, employment
opportunities, and good governance.
Nothing short of this long-term, multi-pronged approach based on modern secular
education, social development and economic empowerment will be effective in
eradicating Islamic and other forms of radicalism throughout the world.
26
Appendix 1
Why are Jews so powerful?
Dr Farrukh Saleem (Published in The News in 2006)
There are only 14 million Jews in the world; seven million in the Americas, five million
in Asia, two million in Europe and 100,000 in Africa. For every single Jew in the world
there are 100 Muslims. Yet, Jews are more than a hundred times more powerful than all
the Muslims put together. Ever wondered why?
Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish. Albert Einstein, the most influential scientist of all time
and TIME magazine's 'Person of the Century', was a Jew. Sigmund Freud -- id, ego, super
ego -- the father of psychoanalysis was a Jew. So were Karl Marx, Paul Samuelson and
Milton Friedman.
Here are a few other Jews whose intellectual output has enriched the whole humanity:
Benjamin Rubin gave humanity the vaccinating needle. Jonas Salk developed the first
polio vaccine. Albert Sabin developed the improved live polio vaccine. Gertrude Elion
gave us a leukemia fighting drug. Baruch Blumberg developed the vaccination for
Hepatitis B. Paul Ehrlich discovered a treatment for syphilis (a sexually transmitted
disease). Elie Metchnikoff won a Nobel Prize in infectious diseases. Bernard Katz won a
Nobel Prize in neuromuscular transmission. Andrew Schally won a Nobel in
endocrinology (disorders of the endocrine system; diabetes, hyperthyroidism). Aaron
Beck founded Cognitive Therapy (psychotherapy to treat mental disorders, depression
and phobias).
Gregory Pincus developed the first oral contraceptive pill. George Wald won a Nobel for
furthering our understanding of the human eye. Stanley Cohen won a Nobel in
embryology (study of embryos and their development). Willem Kolff came up with the
kidney dialysis machine.
Over the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 15-dozen Nobel Prizes while only
three Nobel Prizes have been won by 1.4 billion Muslims (other than Peace Prizes). [The
first and only recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Prof. Abdus Salam, is considered
non-Muslim in Pakistan because of his beliefs.]
Why are Jews so powerful? Stanley Mezor invented the first micro-processing chip. Leo
Szilard developed the first nuclear chain reactor; Peter Schultz, optical fibre cable;
Charles Adler, traffic lights; Benno Strauss, Stainless steel; Isador Kisee, sound movies;
Emile Berliner, telephone microphone; Charles Ginsburg, videotape recorder.
Famous financiers in the business world who belong to Jewish faith include Ralph
Lauren (Polo), Levis Strauss (Levi's Jeans), Howard Schultz (Starbuck's) , Sergey Brin
(Google), Michael Dell (Dell Computers), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Donna Karan (DKNY),
Irv Robbins (Baskins & Robbins) and Bill Rosenberg (Dunkin Donuts).
Richard Levin, President of Yale University, is a Jew. So are Henry Kissinger (American
27
secretary of state), Alan Greenspan (Fed chairman under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and
Bush), Joseph Lieberman, Madeleine Albright (American secretary of state), Casper
Weinberger (American secretary of defense), Maxim Litvinov ( USSR foreign Minister),
David Marshal (Singapore 's first chief minister), Issac Isaacs (governor-general of
Australia), Benjamin Disraeli (British statesman and author), Yevgeny Primakov
(Russian PM), Barry Goldwater, Jorge Sampaio (president of Portugal ), John Deutsch
(CIA director), Herb Gray (Canadian deputy PM), Pierre Mendes (French PM), Michael
Howard (British home secretary), Bruno Kreisky (chancellor of Austria) and Robert
Rubin (American secretary of treasury).
In the media, famous Jews include Wolf Blitzer (CNN), Barbara Walters (ABC News),
Eugene Meyer (Washington Post), Henry Grunwald (editor-in-chief Time), Katherine
Graham (publisher of The Washington Post), Joseph Lelyyeld (Executive editor, The
New York Times), and Max Frankel (New York Times).
Can you name the most beneficent philanthropist in the history of the world? The name is
George Soros, a Jew, who has so far donated a colossal $4 billion most of which has gone
as aid to scientists and universities around the world. Second to George Soros is Walter
Annenberg, another Jew, who has built a hundred libraries by donating an estimated $2
billion.
At the Olympics, Mark Spitz set a record of sorts by wining seven gold medals. Lenny
Krayzelburg is a three-time Olympic gold medalist. Spitz, Krayzelburg and Boris Becker
are all Jewish.
Did you know that Harrison Ford, George Burns, Tony Curtis, Charles Bronson, Sandra
Bullock, Billy Crystal, Woody Allen, Paul Newman, Peter Sellers, Dustin Hoffman,
Michael Douglas, Ben Kingsley, Kirk Douglas, Goldie Hawn, Cary Grant, William
Shatner, Jerry Lewis and Peter Falk are all Jewish?
As a matter of fact, Hollywood itself was founded by a Jew. Among directors and
producers, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Oliver Stone, Aaron Spelling (Beverly Hills
90210), Neil Simon (The Odd Couple), Andrew Vaina (Rambo 1/2/3), Michael Man
(Starsky and Hutch), Milos Forman (One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest), Douglas
Fairbanks (The thief of Baghdad) and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) are all Jewish.
To be certain, Washington is the capital that matters and in Washington the lobby that
matters is The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Washington knows
that if PM Ehud Olmert were to discover that the earth is flat, AIPAC will make the 109th
Congress pass a resolution congratulating Olmert on his discovery.
William James Sidis, with an IQ of 250-300, is the brightest human who ever existed.
Guess what faith did he belong to?
So, why are Jews so powerful?
Answer: Education.
28
Why are Muslims so powerless?
There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet: one billion in
Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and six million in the Americas. Every
fifth human being is a Muslim; for every single Hindu there are two Muslims, for every
Buddhist there are two Muslims and for every Jew there are one hundred Muslims. Ever
wondered why Muslims are so powerless?
Here is why: There are 57 member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference
(OIC), and all of them put together have around 500 universities; one university for every
three million Muslims. The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407. In
2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an 'Academic Ranking of World
Universities', and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in
the top-500.
As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per
cent and 15 Christian-majority states have a literacy rate of 100 per cent. A Muslimmajority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 per cent and
there is no Muslim-majority state with a literacy rate of 100 per cent. Some 98 per cent of
the 'literates' in the Christian world had completed primary school, while less than 50 per
cent of the 'literates' in the Muslim world did the same. Around 40 per cent of the
literates' in the Christian world attended university while no more than two per cent of the
'literates' in the Muslim world did the same.
Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims. The US has
4,000 scientists per million and Japan has 5,000 per million. In the entire Arab world, the
total number of full-time researchers is 35,000 and there are only 50 technicians per one
million Arabs (in the Christian world there are up to 1,000 technicians per one million).
Furthermore, the Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and
development, while the Christian world spends around five per cent of its GDP.
Conclusion: The Muslim world lacks the capacity to produce knowledge.
Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two
indicators of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society. In Pakistan, there are 23
daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis while the same ratio in Singapore is 360. In the
UK, the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000 while the same in Egypt is 20.
Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to diffuse knowledge.
Exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports are an important
indicator of knowledge application. Pakistan 's export of high technology products as a
percentage of total exports stands at one per cent. The same for Saudi Arabia is 0.3 per
cent; Kuwait , Morocco , and Algeria are all at 0.3 per cent while Singapore is at 58 per
cent.
Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to apply knowledge.
Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't producing knowledge.
29
Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't diffusing knowledge.
Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't applying knowledge.
And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.
Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC-countries is under $2 trillion.
America, just by herself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion; China $8
trillion, Japan $3.8 trillion and Germany $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).
Oil rich Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services
(mostly oil) worth $500 billion; Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1
trillion, Catholic Poland $489 billion and Buddhist Thailand $545 billion. (Muslim GDP,
as a percentage of the world, is fast declining).
So, why are Muslims so powerless? Answer: Lack of education.
All we do is shout to Allah the whole day and blame everyone else for our multiple
failures.
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
Appendix 3
Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008
India's Muslims in Crisis
By Aryn Baker
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1862650,00.html
The disembodied voice was chilling in its rage. A gunman, holed up in the Oberoi
Trident hotel in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), where some 40 people had been taken
hostage, told an Indian news channel that the attacks were revenge for the
persecution of Muslims in India. "We love this as our country, but when our mothers
and sisters were being killed, where was everybody?" he asked via telephone. No
answer came. But then he probably wasn't expecting one.
The roots of Muslim rage run deep in India, nourished by a long-held sense of
injustice over what many Indian Muslims believe is institutionalized discrimination
against the country's largest minority group. The disparities between Muslims, who
make up 13.4% of the population, and India's Hindus, who hover at around 80%, are
striking. There are exceptions, of course, but generally speaking, Muslim Indians
have shorter life spans, worse health, lower literacy levels and lower-paying jobs. Add
to that toxic brew the lingering resentment over 2002's anti-Muslim riots in the state
of Gujarat. The riots, instigated by Hindu nationalists, killed some 2,000 people,
most of them Muslims. To this day, few of the perpetrators have been convicted. (See
pictures of the terrorist shootings in Mumbai.)
The huge gap between Muslims and Hindus will continue to haunt India's — and
neighboring Pakistan's — progress toward peace and prosperity. But before
intercommunal relations can improve, there are even bigger problems that must first
be worked out: the schism in subcontinental Islam and the religion's place and role
in modern India and Pakistan. It is a crisis 150 years in the making.
The Beginning of the Problem
On the afternoon of March 29, 1857, Mangal Pandey, a handsome, mustachioed
soldier in the East India Company's native regiment, attacked his British lieutenant.
His hanging a week later sparked a subcontinental revolt known to Indians as the
first war of independence and to the British as the Sepoy Mutiny. Retribution was
swift, and though Pandey was a Hindu, it was the subcontinent's Muslims, whose
Mughal King nominally held power in Delhi, who bore the brunt of British rage. The
remnants of the Mughal Empire were dismantled, and 500 years of Muslim
supremacy on the subcontinent came to a halt.
Muslim society in India collapsed. The British imposed English as the official
language. The impact was cataclysmic. Muslims went from near 100% literacy to
20% within a half-century. The country's educated Muslim élite was effectively
blocked from administrative jobs in the government. Between 1858 and 1878, only
57 out of 3,100 graduates of Calcutta University — then the center of South Asian
education — were Muslims. While discrimination by both Hindus and the British
38
played a role, it was as if the whole of Muslim society had retreated to lick its
collective wounds.
Out of this period of introspection, two rival movements emerged to foster an Islamic
ascendancy. Revivalist groups blamed the collapse of their empire on a society that
had strayed too far from the teachings of the Koran. They promoted a return to a
purer form of Islam, modeled on the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Others
embraced the modern ways of their new rulers, seeking Muslim advancement
through the pursuit of Western sciences, culture and law. From these movements
two great Islamic institutions were born: Darul Uloom Deoband in northern India,
rivaled only by Al Azhar University in Cairo for its teaching of Islam, and Aligarh
Muslim University, a secular institution that promoted Muslim culture, philosophy
and languages but left religion to the mosque. These two schools embody the
fundamental split that continues to divide Islam in the subcontinent today. "You
could say that Deoband and Aligarh are husband and wife, born from the same
historical events," says Adil Siddiqui, information coordinator for Deoband. "But
they live at daggers drawn."
The campus at Deoband is only a three-hour drive from New Delhi through the
modern megasuburb of Noida. Strip malls and monster shopping complexes have
consumed many of the mango groves that once framed the road to Deoband, but the
contemporary world stops at the gate. The courtyards are packed with bearded young
men wearing long, collared shirts and white caps. The air thrums with the voices of
hundreds of students reciting the Koran from open-door classrooms.
Founded in 1866, the Deoband school quickly set itself apart from other traditional
madrasahs, which were usually based in the home of the village mosque's prayer
leader. Deoband's founders, a group of Muslim scholars from New Delhi, instituted a
regimented system of classrooms, coursework, texts and exams. Instruction is in
Urdu, Persian and Arabic, and the curriculum closely follows the teachings of the
18th century Indian Islamic scholar Mullah Nizamuddin Sehalvi. Graduates go on to
study at Cairo's Al Azhar or the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia, or they
found their own Deobandi institutions.
Today, more than 9,000 Deobandi madrasahs are scattered throughout India,
Afghanistan and Pakistan, most infamously the Dara-ul-Uloom Haqaniya Akora
Khattak, near Peshawar, Pakistan, where Mullah Mohammed Omar and several
other leaders of Afghanistan's Taliban first tasted a life lived in accordance with
Shari'a. Siddiqui visibly stiffens when those names are brought up. They have
become synonymous with Islamic radicalism, and Siddiqui is careful to dissociate his
institution from those who carry on its traditions, without actually condemning their
actions. "Our books are being taught there," he says. "They have the same system and
rules. But if someone is following the path of terrorism, it is because of local
compulsions and local politics."
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, who founded the Anglo-Mohammedan Oriental College at
Aligarh in 1877, studied under the same teachers as the founders of Deoband. But he
believed that the downfall of India's Muslims was due to their unwillingness to
embrace modern ways. He decoupled religion from education and in his school
39
sought to emulate the culture and training of India's new colonial masters. Islamic
culture was part of the curriculum, but so were the latest advances in sciences,
medicine and Western philosophy. The medium was English, the better to prepare
students for civil-service jobs. He called his school the Oxford of the East. In
architecture alone, the campus lives up to that name. A euphoric blend of clock
towers, crenellated battlements, Mughal arches, domes and the staid red brick of
Victorian institutions that only India's enthusiastic embrace of all things European
could produce, the central campus of Aligarh today is haven to a diverse crowd of
male and female, Hindu and Muslim students. Its law and medicine schools are
among the top-ranked in India, but so are its arts faculty and Quranic Studies Centre.
"With all this diversity, language, culture, secularism was the only way to go forward
as a nation," says Aligarh's vice chancellor, P.K. Abdul Azis. "It was the new religion."
This fracture in religious doctrine — whether Islam should embrace the modern or
revert to its fundamental origins — between two schools less than a day's donkey ride
apart when they were founded, was barely remarked upon at the time. But over the
course of the next 100 years, that tiny crack would split Islam into two warring
ideologies with repercussions that reverberate around the world to this day. Before
the split became a crisis, however, the founders of the Deoband and Aligarh
universities shared the common goal of an independent India. Pedagogical leanings
were overlooked as students and staff of both institutions joined with Hindus across
the subcontinent to remove the yoke of colonial rule in the early decades of the 20th
century.
Two Faiths, Two Nations
But nationalistic trends were pulling at the fragile alliance, and India began to
splinter along ethnic and religious lines. Following World War I, a populist Muslim
poet-philosopher by the name of Muhammad Iqbal framed the Islamic zeitgeist
when he questioned the position of minority Muslims in a future, independent India.
The solution, Iqbal proposed, was an independent state for Muslim-majority
provinces in northwestern India, a separate country where Muslims would rule
themselves. The idea of Pakistan was born.
Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Savile Row–suited lawyer who midwifed Pakistan into
existence on Aug. 14, 1947, was notoriously ambiguous about how he envisioned the
country once it became an independent state. Both he and Iqbal, who were friends
until the poet's death in 1938, had repeatedly stated their dream for a "modern,
moderate and very enlightened Pakistan," says Sharifuddin Pirzada, Jinnah's
personal secretary. Jinnah's own wish was that the Pakistani people, as members of a
new, modern and democratic nation, would decide the country's direction.
But rarely in Pakistan's history have its people lived Jinnah's vision of a modern
Muslim democracy. Only three times in its 62-year history has Pakistan seen a
peaceful, democratic transition of power. With four disparate provinces, more than a
dozen languages and dialects, and powerful neighbors, the country's leaders — be
they Presidents, Prime Ministers or army chiefs — have been forced to knit the
nation together with the only thing Pakistanis have in common: religion.
40
Following the 1971 civil war, when East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, broke away, the
populist Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto embarked on a Muslim-identity program
to prevent the country from fracturing further. General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq
continued the Islamization campaign when he overthrew Bhutto in 1977, hoping to
garner favor with the religious parties, the only constituency available to a military
dictator. He instituted Shari'a courts, made blasphemy illegal and established laws
that punished fornicators with lashes and held that rape victims could be convicted
of adultery. When the Soviet Union invaded neighboring Afghanistan in December
1979, Pakistan was already poised for its own Islamic revolution.
Almost overnight, thousands of refugees poured over the border into Pakistan.
Camps mushroomed, and so did madrasahs. Ostensibly created to educate the
refugees, they provided the ideal recruiting ground for a new breed of
soldier: mujahedin, or holy warriors, trained to vanquish the infidel invaders in
America's proxy war with the Soviet Union. Thousands of Pakistanis joined fellow
Muslims from across the world to fight the Soviets. As far away as Karachi, high
school kids started wearing "jihadi jackets," the pocketed vests popular with
themujahedin. Says Hamid Gul, then head of the Pakistan intelligence agency
charged with arming and training the mujahedin: "In the 1980s, the world watched
the people of Afghanistan stand up to tyranny, oppression and slavery. The spirit of
jihad was rekindled, and it gave a new vision to the youth of Pakistan."
But jihad, as it is described in the Koran, does not end merely with political gain. It
ends in a perfect Islamic state. The West's, and Pakistan's, cynical resurrection of
something so profoundly powerful and complex unleashed a force that gave root to
al-Qaeda's rage, the Taliban's dream of an Islamic utopia in Afghanistan, and in the
dozens of radical Islamic groups rapidly replicating themselves in India and around
the world today. "The promise of jihad was never fulfilled," says Gul. "Is it any
wonder the fighting continues to this day?" Religion may have been used to unite
Pakistan, but it is also tearing it apart.
India Today
In India, Islam is, in contrast, the other — purged by the British, denigrated by the
Hindu right, mistrusted by the majority, marginalized by society. There are nearly as
many Muslims in India as in all of Pakistan, but in a nation of more than a billion,
they are still a minority, with all the burdens that minorities anywhere carry.
Government surveys show that Muslims live shorter, poorer and unhealthier lives
than Hindus and are often excluded from the better jobs. To be sure, there are
Muslim success stories in the booming economy. Azim Premji, the founder of the
outsourcing giant Wipro, is one of the richest individuals in India. But for many
Muslims, the inequality of the boom has reinforced their exclusion.
Kashmir, a Muslim-dominated state whose fate had been left undecided in the chaos
that led up to partition, remains a suppurating wound in India's Muslim psyche. As
the cause of three wars between India and Pakistan — one of which nearly went
nuclear in 1999 — Kashmir has become a symbol of profound injustice to Indian
Muslims, who believe that their government cares little for Kashmir's claim of
independence — which is based upon a 1948 U.N. resolution promising a plebiscite
to determine the Kashmiri people's future. That frustration has spilled into the rest
41
of India in the form of several devastating terrorist attacks that have made Indian
Muslims both perpetrators and victims.
A mounting sense of persecution, fueled by the government's seeming reluctance to
address the brutal anti-Muslim riots that killed more than 2,000 in the state of
Gujarat in 2002, has aided the cause of homegrown militant groups. They include
the banned Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which was accused of
detonating nine bombs in Mumbai during the course of 2003, killing close to 80. The
2006 terrorist attacks on the Mumbai commuter-rail system that killed 183 people
were also blamed on SIMI as well as the pro-Kashmir Pakistani terrorist group
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Those incidents exposed the all-too-common Hindu belief
that Muslims aren't really Indian. "LeT, SIMI — it doesn't matter who was behind
these attacks. They are all children of [Pervez] Musharraf," sneered Manish Shah, a
Mumbai resident who lost his best friend in the explosions, referring to the then
President of Pakistan. In India, unlike Pakistan, Islam does not unify but divide.
Still, many South Asian Muslims insist Islam is the one and only force that can bring
the subcontinent together and return it to pre-eminence as a single whole. "We
[Muslims] were the legal rulers of India, and in 1857 the British took that away from
us," says Tarik Jan, a gentle-mannered scholar at Islamabad's Institute of Policy
Studies. "In 1947 they should have given that back to the Muslims." Jan is no
militant, but he pines for the golden era of the Mughal period in the 1700s and has a
fervent desire to see India, Pakistan and Bangladesh reunited under Islamic rule.
That sense of injustice is at the root of Muslim identity today. It has permeated every
aspect of society and forms the basis of rising Islamic radicalism on the
subcontinent. "People are hungry for justice," says Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani
journalist and author of the new book Descent into Chaos. "It is perceived to be the
fundamental promise of the Koran." These twin phenomena — the longing many
Muslims feel to see their religion restored as the subcontinent's core, and the marks
of both piety and extremism Islam bears — reflect the lack of strong political and
civic institutions in the region for people to have faith in. If the subcontinent's
governments can't provide those institutions, then terrorists like the Trident's
mysterious caller will continue asking questions. And providing their own answers.
— With reporting by Jyoti Thottam / Mumbai and Ershad Mahmud / Islamabad
42
Appendix 4
Jihad – Myth & Reality
Arif Humayun
No religion in the modern world is as feared and misunderstood as Islam. It haunts the
popular Western imagination as an extreme faith that promotes authoritarian government,
female oppression, civil war, and terrorism. Karen Armstrong asserts that the [this]
fastest-growing faith is a much richer and more complex phenomenon than its modern
fundamentalist strain might suggest. 85 The heightened interest for better understanding
Islam is important not only for the non-Muslims but is critical for Muslims who have
grossly misunderstood and misrepresented their religion. Jihad is one example of this
lack of understanding which, in addition to tarnishing the image of Islam, has done
incalculable damage to Muslim’s economic and political interests around the world. This
misrepresented doctrine is primarily used to recruit young, ignorant Muslims to commit
terrorist acts with the guarantee to heavens if they die. It is important to state the facts
about the original concept of jihad and demolish the myth.
The gap between the Qur’anic teachings of peace, tolerance, and social justice are
obvious by their absence in the conduct of Muslims as a group or community. The
common understanding and practice of jihad by Muslim communities today is
diametrically opposed to that practiced during the life of Prophet Mohammadsa* . Starting
from his life time and continuing for several centuries, Muslim societies were known for
their social justice, tolerance, multiculturalism and had become centers of excellence in
sciences, arts, and literature and made significant contributions to mathematics,
astronomy, medicine, etc. Today, Muslim societies lack the basic ingredients that made
them successful in the earlier days.
In the Middle East and Europe, for example, the Muslim Empire provided a safe home
for the Jews when they were persecuted by the Christians. Similarly, the integration
between Hindus and Muslims in the Indian subcontinent during the Mughal Empire
demonstrates excellent examples of Muslim tolerance and diversity. Karen Armstrong
accurately captures the recipe for the rapid rise and success of Muslim Empire as “… the
Quran, gave them a historical mission. Their chief duty was to create a just community in
which all members, even the most weak and vulnerable, were treated with absolute
respect.” 86
As already stated, jihad is the one Islamic concept which has conveniently been distorted
by Muslims and non-Muslims alike: Muslims use it to justify terrorism and acts of
violence around the world, both against non-Muslims and amongst themselves while nonMuslims use it to identify Islam with violence, condemn it for its barbarism, and confirm
their jaundiced view that Islam supports terrorism. A critical review of jihad from the
initial days to the present shows how the understanding of jihad has changed in response
85
Karen Armstrong “Islam: A Short History” dust jacket comment
Customary salutation meaning peace be on him
86
Karen Armstrong “Islam: A Short History”, p x-xi
*
43
to specific political events when the strain of violence was interjected by a handful of
supposedly well intentioned but naïve individuals; this transition is summarized in this
article.
John Esposito asserts that the doctrine of violent jihad is not the product of a single
authoritative individual or organization and its emergence in the mainstream is a recent
phenomenon [~150 years old]; it is a product of diverse individuals and self-styled
authorities interpreting and applying the principles of sacred texts to specific historical
and political contexts. 87 Ironically, while the enactment of these twisted pronouncements
and misguided reactions, in response to specific political events may be explainable as
reactionary and desperate moves for that specific event, their acceptance as part of the
faith is simply repugnant to Islamic teachings. Even more detestable is the fact that
mainstream Muslims did not reject these un-Islamic innovations and did not prevent them
from being introduced into the faith. In fairness to the Muslims, it must be admitted that
considerable discussion and opposition occurred within the Muslims of the time. A 22
May 1900 article, forcefully rejecting any justification of terror as part of Jihad has since
been discovered. It is strange that even current Western research was unable to discover
this document which strongly condemned all forms of violence and prohibited violent
jihad in Islam. Either these research efforts were superficial or the article was purposely
overlooked as it undermined the common Western view of Islam being a violent religion.
This article will trace how violence became ingrained with Jihad and was conveniently
used by terrorists as a religious obligation which confused many Muslims.
The arguments about the Qur’an sanctioning violence and killing of non believers is
viscous propaganda and is readily rejected by several Muslim and non-Muslim scholars
alike. Al-Qaida and Taliban radicals and their ilk can cherry pick and selectively quote
Qur’anic references to support their untenable positions but that does not change the
factual position that Islam does not sanction violence. According to Karen Armstrong,
“The Qur’an began to urge the Muslims of Medina to participate in a jihad. This would
involve fighting and bloodshed, but the root JHD implies more than a ‘holy war’. It
signifies a physical, moral, spiritual and intellectual effort. There are plenty of Arabic
words denoting armed combat, such as harb (war), sira’a (combat), ma’araka (battle) or
qital, which the Qur’an could easily have used if war had been the Muslims’ principal
way of engaging in this effort. Instead it chooses a vaguer, richer word with a wide range
of connotations. The jihad is not one of the five pillars of Islam. It is not the central prop
of the religion, despite the common Western view. But it was and remains a duty for
Muslims to commit themselves to a struggle on all fronts – moral, spiritual and political –
to create a just and decent society, where the poor and vulnerable are not exploited, in the
way that God had intended man to live. Fighting and warfare might sometimes be
necessary, but it was only a minor part of the whole jihad or struggle. A well-known
tradition (hadith) has Muhammad[sa] say on returning from a battle, ‘We return from the
little jihad to the greater jihad,’ the more difficult and crucial effort to conquer the forces
87
John L. Esposito “Unholy War: Terror in the name of Islam” p 64
44
of evil in oneself and in one’s own society in all the details of daily life.” 88 John L.
Esposito corroborates Armstrong’s views. 89
The Qur’an, the Supreme law for Muslims, was revealed to Prophet Muhammadsa over a
22-23 year period in short revelations; fortunately its original compilation exists in
Arabic language and has no variants. The Prophet’s life was a living example of
Qur’anic teachings; his practices (sunnah) and sayings (hadith) exemplified those
teachings in practical terms. Since the sunnah and hadith were recorded at a later date,
the possibility of bias and error exists, although scribes took great pains to ensure their
authenticity and accuracy. These are however, subordinate to Qur’anic teachings and can
be rejected if contrary to the Qur’an.
The Qur’an outlines fundamental principles and explains the logic behind their adoption.
It does not go into implementation details which are left to the community leaders, [who]
in consultation with the people, [and] always keeping in mind the overall good of the
community [devise implementation details]. The Qur’an prescribes only those details
which are essential; it thus leaves considerable room for development and safeguards
against restrictive rigidity. Indeed, it warns against seeking the regulation of everything
by express Divine command, as that might make the framework rigid and inelastic and,
therefore, burdensome. 90 “O ye who believe, do not keep asking about things which, if
they were expounded to you, would become troublesome for you….Allah has left them
out. Allah is Most Forgiving, Forbearing. A people before you made such demands, and
when they received the directions they repudiated them” 91 . Without forcing adherence to
its teachings the Qur’an encourages people to ponder why the teachings are beneficial.
Its message is of peace; it abhors violence, killing, exploitation, and injustice while
promoting human rights, service to humanity, and freedom of conscience, equality, and
justice.
Prophet Muhammadsa practically demonstrated the concept of jihad during his lifetime
(570-632 CE). He fought defensive wars and only after receiving Divine authorization.
He accepted the enemy’s offer for peace, even though it appeared disadvantageous for the
Muslims 92 , he did not harm non combatants and the elderly, preserved all places of
worship, treated prisoners with respect and kindness. He forgave his enemies when he
captured Mecca without a fight and without any casualties. 93 As already stated, Prophet
Muhammadsa, urged Muslims to leave the “lesser” jihad and engage in the “greater”
(intellectual) jihad which is against the individual’s arrogance, ego, and other selfish
traits. He thus left a great example for Muslims to follow.
Several centuries later, Saladin demonstrated the same spirit of jihad after the capture of
Jerusalem. According to Karen Armstrong, “On 2 October 1187 Saladin and his troops
entered Jerusalem as conquerors. The sultan kept his word. Not a single Christian was
88
Karen Armstrong “Muhammad: Biography of a Prophet”, p 168
John L. Esposito “Unholy War: Terror in the name of Islam” p 28
* Customary salutation meaning peace be on him
90
Zafrulla Khan “Islam And Human Rights”, p 14-15
91
Quran Ch 5, verses 102-3
92
Karen Armstrong “Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Times” p 175-189
93
Ibid, p 198-205
89
45
killed. The barons could easily afford to ransom themselves, but the poor people could
not, and they became prisoners of war. Large numbers were released, however, because
Saladin was moved to tears by the plight of the families who were being separated when
they were taken into slavery. Al-Adil, Saladin’s brother, was so distressed that he asked
for a thousand prisoners for his own use and released them on the spot. All the Muslims
were scandalized to see the richer Christians escaping with their wealth without making
any attempt to ransom their fellow countrymen. When the Muslim historian Imad ad-Din
saw Patriarch Heraklius leaving the city with his chariots groaning under the weight of
his treasure, he begged Saladin to confiscate this wealth to redeem the remaining
prisoners. But Saladin refused; oaths and treaties must be kept to the letter. “Christians
everywhere will remember the kindness we have done them.” Saladin was right.
Christians in the West were uneasily aware that this Muslim ruler had behaved in a far
more “Christian” manner than had their own Crusaders when they conquered Jerusalem.
They evolved legends that made Saladin a sort of honorary Christian; some of these tales
even asserted that the sultan had been secretly baptized.” 94
The above examples clearly show that the jihad practiced by the early Muslims was
different from that practiced by the radicals today. Let us now explore how the peaceful
concept of jihad was subsequently turned on its head and used to justify terrorism.
Esposito 95 and Armstrong 96 correctly identify the founders of Egyptian Brotherhood,
Jamaat-i-Islami, and Islamic Jihad, as the main culprits for innovating and interjecting
violence in jihad. Unfortunately, these and similar other groups are still the torch bearers
for propagating this sad and destructive phenomenon. Esposito documents how a handful
of supposedly well intentioned but naïve individuals were able to transform jihad from a
noble and peaceful concept to a destructive tool for terrorist organizations to justify their
cruel actions.
Some detail is necessary to fully understand the events and the indefensible reasoning
used by these individuals for interjecting violence in jihad.
The Kharijites represent early examples of the way in which dissent could turn to unholy
war in the name of Islam. Initially Ali’s followers, the Kharijites turned against him and
subsequently assassinated him for accepting arbitration to settle a long, drawn-out war
with Muawyiah, the ruler of Syria. As a separate community, on the margins of
mainstream Islam, they proclaimed a radical, militant form of jihad believing that the
Qur’anic mandate to “command the good and forbid evil” must be applied literally,
rigorously, and without qualification or exception. Their world was divided neatly
between belief and unbelief, Muslims (followers of God) and non Muslims (enemies of
God), peace and warfare. Any action that did not conform rigorously to the letter of their
interpretation of the law constituted a grave or mortal sin. Sinners were guilty of unbelief
and thus excommunicated takfir, (exclusion for unbelief), became apostates, guilty of
treason and meriting death unless they repented. The Kharijites viewed other Muslims
who did not accept their uncompromising viewpoint as infidels or idolaters, and thus the
94
Karen Armstrong “Jerusalem: The City of Three Faiths” p. 293-294
John Esposito “Unholy War: Terror in the name of Islam” p 43-64
96
Armstrong Brotherhood and JI
95
46
enemies of God who must be killed. 97 The Kharijites thus assumed the role of judging
the person’s belief by their own flawed standards and excommunicating them from Islam
– a practice forbidden by the Qur’an (no compulsion in religion) and frowned upon by
Prophet Muhammadsa. Being on the fringe of mainstream Islam, it is ironic that they
assumed that role! Furthermore, after excommunicating the “unbelievers” they went on
to sanction their death – again in total contradiction to Qur’anic injunctions. Fortunately,
the Kharijites’ viewpoint did not gain currency at among mainstream Muslims but their
rationale was to be revived by future radical groups.
Ibn-Taymiyya (1268-1328), a medieval scholar and political activist, lived through the
most disruptive period of Islamic history. He was forced to flee to Damascus after
Baghdad, his native town, fell to the Mongols. He hated the Mongols and through a
fatwa (religious decree) declared them unbelievers (kafirs) and thus excommunicated
(takfir) from Islam. His action was based on the Kharijite doctrine. He also added
another deviant concept of dar ul Islam and dar ul harb to that flawed concept. Dar alIslam represented the land of Islam where the Islamic Law was fully practiced and Dar
al-Harb, the Land of Non-Muslims which had to be subdued through occupation or
treaties. Ibn Taymiyya established a dangerous precedent of declaring Mongols as non
Muslims and apostates – despite their claim to be Muslims – and hence the lawful object
of jihad. Ibn Taymiyya decreed that Muslim citizens were required to revolt against
them, to wage jihad to kill them. 98 Like the Kharijites, he also went against the
fundamental teaching of Islam (there is no compulsion in religion) and established a very
dangerous precedence by assuming the right to certify a person’s faith! This ridiculous
“authority” is still exercised by several Muslim groups and haunts the Muslim world. Ibn
Taymiyya thus justified and expanded the scope of the Kharijites’ un-Islamic viewpoint
after almost six centuries.
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1791; founder of Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi sect)
reinforced violence in Islam and built on Ibn Taymiyya’s doctrine. He joined his
religious zeal with military might as he allied with Muhammad Ibn Saud (founder of the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), a local tribal chief, to form a religio-political movement. Ibn
Saud used Wahhabism as a religious ideal to legitimate his jihad to subdue and unite the
tribes of Arabia, converting them to his puritanical version of Islam. Like the Kharijites,
the Wahhabi viewed all Muslims who resisted as unbelievers (who ought to be fought
and killed). They were therefore to be subdued in the name of Islamic egalitarianism. 99
Muslims in India were subjected to severe atrocities by the British after the Indian War of
Independence in 1857. Dejected Muslim survivors from Delhi founded an influential but
depressingly narrow-minded Wahhabi-like madrasa at Deoband, l00 miles north of Delhi
in order to return to what they regarded as pure Islamic roots. Ironically, one hundred
and forty years later, the Deobandi madrasas in Pakistan and Afghanistan created the
Taliban who formed the most retrograde Islamic regime in modern history, a regime that
97
John L. Esposito “Unholy War: Terror in the name of Islam” p 41-42
John L. Esposito “Unholy War: Terror in the name of Islam” p 46
99
Ibid p 47-48
98
47
in turn provided the crucible from which emerged al-Qaeda, and the most radical and
powerful Islamic jihadi movement. 100
The concept of violence propagated by the Kharijites and expanded by Ibn Taymiyya and
Saudi Arabia’s Wahabi movement appealed to the modernist Islamic movements –
Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and Pakistan’s Jamaat-i-Islami (Islamic Society) – who
combined religious reform and political mobilization. They framed their struggle in a
call for a jihad against British imperialism and corrupt Muslim rulers and the adoption of
the expanded Kharijites doctrine gave them the power to condemn people for being non
Muslims and then justifying their murder.
It is noteworthy that both organizations – Muslim Brotherhood and the Jamaat-i-Islami,
established in 1928 and 1941 respectively – were formed within Muslim societies in
crisis. Hasan al-Banna, a teacher, and Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, a journalist, were
both educated individuals with traditional Islamic religious backgrounds and knowledge
of Western thought. Placing the primary blame for the ills of their society and for the
decline of the Muslim world upon European imperialism and westernized Muslim elites,
they initially called for moral and social reform of the society but soon also became
embroiled in political activism and opposition. Maulana Maudoodi was a leading
proponent of violent jihad. According to him: “The Messenger of Allah invited the
Arabs to accept Islam for 13 years. He used every possible means of persuasion, ….
When every method of persuasion had failed, the Prophet” took to the sword. That sword
removed evil mischief, the impurities of evil and the filth of the soul. The sword did
something more – it removed their blindness so that they could see the light of truth, and
also cured them of their arrogance; arrogance which prevents people from accepting the
truth, stiff necks and proud heads bowed with humility. As in Arabia and other countries,
Islam’s expansion was so fast that within a century a quarter of the world accepted it.
This conversion took place because the sword of Islam tore away the veils which had
covered men’s hearts.” 101 Needless to say, this interpretation is absolutely contrary to the
Quranic teachings.
When Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949) established the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and
Mawlana Mawdudi (1903-1979) created the Jamaat-i-lslami in undivided India, few in
the West or in their own societies took serious notice. Both al-Banna and Mawdudi
recognized that change would be slow to come, and expecting rejection and persecution,
focused on training future generations. [They established themselves in educational
institutions and were very successful in achieving their goal.] Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966)
built upon and further radicalized the deviant ideas of al-Banna and Mawdudi and created
an ideological legacy that incorporated all the major historical forms of jihad, from the
reforms of Muhammad to the extremes of the Kharijites. Within a few short decades, the
ideas of al-Banna’s Muslim Brotherhood and Mawdudi’s Jamaat-i-lslami, often viewed
through the prism of Qutb’s more radicalized interpretation, became the primary models
for new activists and organizations across the Muslim world. 102
100
William Dalrymple “The Last Mughal: The fall of a dynasty, Delhi 1857” p 485
Al-Jihad fil Islam, 137-8.
102
John L. Esposito “Unholy War: Terror in the name of Islam” p 49-50
101
48
Just as the interpretations of Hasan al-Banna and Mawdudi were conditioned responses to
the political and social realities of their times, so too Sayyid Qutb’s Islam grew out of
militant confrontation between the repressive Egyptian state and the Brotherhood in the
late 1950s and 1960s. Increasingly radicalized by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s suppression of
the Brotherhood, Qutb transformed the ideology of al-Banna and Mawdudi into a
rejectionist revolutionary call to arms. 103
Muhammad al-Farag, a member of the radical organization Islamic Jihad, the group that
killed Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat, drew heavily from al-Banna, Mawdudi, and
especially Ibn Taymiyya and Sayyid Qutb and articulated this ideology in “The
Neglected Duty”. Farag believed that the decline of Muslim societies was made possible
by those who had lulled the community into believing that jihad was nonviolent; the
restoration of the Muslim world to the straight path of Islam hinged on reclaiming the
true meaning of jihad, the forgotten or neglected requirement of Islam. Farag maintained
that jihad was the sixth pillar of Islam, forgotten or obscured by the majority of ulema
and Muslims. Farag maintained that conducting jihad was the task of a minority, a
vanguard who must be prepared to fight against unbelief and apostasy, prepared to suffer
and die for their faith. Looking at the state of the ummah, he concluded that unbelief and
apostasy were endemic diseases and the punishment for the apostasy is loss of all rights,
including their right to life. 104
It is thus evident that while the concept of violence in the name of Islam, which first
emerged few years after the Prophet Muhammad’s death during the first Islamic civil war
(also known as the first fitna, 658-661 CE), stayed out of the mainstream Islam; it was an
imprudent reaction by those who rejected Ali’s decision to compromise and make peace
with Muawyiah. Ali was following Prophet Muhammadsa’s example when he made
peace with the Arabs under seemingly disadvantageous terms. Till the twelfth century
(Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem), there is no evidence of this deviant concept coming up
in Islamic history. It emerged again, in the thirteenth century after the Mongols captured
Baghdad and was reinforced by Ibn Tayyimma but there is no evidence of its acceptance
by mainstream Islam. It was not till the beginning of the twentieth century, in response to
the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the European colonization of the Muslim lands, that
radical groups like Egyptian Brotherhood in Egypt and Jamaat-i-Islami in undivided
India reinvigorated this concept of violence and adopted this destructive doctrine which
was widely distributed through modern publication and information sharing technologies.
European colonizing powers were blamed for the Muslim’s economic and political
decline and the Muslim youth were urged to wage jihad against them. Also targeted for
the violent jihad were moderate Muslims who did not accept their convoluted doctrine of
violence.
Thus in less than a century, these four individuals successfully transformed the original
concept of jihad from a peaceful and constructive doctrine to a violent and destructive
ideology. More than that, they also succeeded in getting tactical acceptance of their
103
104
Ibid, p 56
Ibid, p 62
49
actions from mainstream Muslims who were confused because of their ignorance.
Frustration, disillusionment and lack of education and critical examination of facts by the
lay people were extinct in Muslims when Egyptian Brotherhood and Jamaat-i-Islami
were propagating violent jihad. After decades of propagating violent jihad as their only
hope for redemption, Muslims and non Muslims are simply baffled at the unintended
consequence of the irresponsible and short sighted ideology which allowed the terrorists
to hijacked Islam and justify terror under the Islamic façade.
As mentioned earlier, considerable discussion occurred among mainstream Muslims
during the past century as these violent and un-Islamic innovations were being proposed
for political and social reforms. Against this caustic backdrop of increasing hatred
against non-Muslims, a leading Muslim scholar, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad published an
article on 22 May 1900 denouncing violence in the name of jihad and stating that this
Islamic concept has been misunderstood and misrepresented both by Muslims and non
Muslims alike. 105 Furthermore, he opined that Islam never sanctioned violent jihad and
prohibited its practice from this point forward. He urged people to adopt intellectual
jihad for moral and social reformation which Prophet Muhammad himself had referred to
as the greater jihad. Against the backdrop of the recent tragic and destructive events, his
denunciation of violent jihad and the adoption of intellectual jihad make perfect sense.
Sadly, mainstream Muslims did not accept his view then; in hind sight, that was probably
the gravest mistake that the Muslims made in the current era.
The histories of Islamic fundamentalism and Western Imperialism have, after all, often
been closely, and dangerously, intertwined. Edmund Burke …., rightly stated: those who
fail to learn from history are always destined to repeat it 106 . It is important that we now
learn from history and stop this vicious and destructive cycle of violence. Muslims must
shun violent jihad and instead, adopt the intellectual jihad for social and moral
restructuring of their societies. They should not use contrived religious arguments for
resolving political matters. This will enable Muslims to adopt the spirit of the early days
of Islam and use it to reform and reconstruct societies based on social justice,
multiculturalism, tolerance and peace, in accordance with Qur’anic teachings and Prophet
Muhammad’ssa practices. Adopting the original spirit of Islam will enable Muslims to
implement human rights, eliminate corruption and create an atmosphere of cooperation
and brotherhood which is a prerequisite for education, growth and development. By no
means, this will be an easy road but that surely will be the right direction.
105
106
http://www.alislam.org/library/books/BritishGovt-and-Jihad.pdf
William Dalrymple “The last Moughal:: The fall of a dynasty, Delhi 1857 ” p.486
50
Appendix 5
Enforcing the Shariat
(Dawn, 29 August 2004; http://www.dawn.com/2004/08/29/op.htm#1 )
By Anwar Syed
In Muslim writings hasba (or hisba) refers to an inspectorate whose business it was to see
that conduct in the public realm conformed to Islamic criteria. The MMA government in
NWFP plans to establish such an inspectorate and, to this end, it intends to bring a bill to
the provincial assembly. Mr Akram Khan Durrani, the chief minister, says that he and his
associates were elected to Islamize governance and society. Furthermore, the Quranic
injunction to enjoin right and forbid wrong ("amr bil maroof, wa nahi anil munkar")
requires them to launch this project.
The text of the proposed bill has not been published, but its contents appear to have been
leaked out to certain newspapers. It is said to authorize the chief minister to appoint an
inspector, to be known as mohtasib, at the provincial level and one in each district. He
will be an alim (learned in theology and law), with a diploma from a recognized
seminary. He will be empowered to force persons to do what they are required to do, and
desist from doing or saying that which, in his judgment, is unIslamic. He will have a
body of policemen under his command to carry out his orders.
Beyond enforcing piety among the generality of Muslim citizens, the mohtasib will
function as an overseer of probity and propriety in government. He may undertake
investigations on his own initiative or on the basis of complaints filed with him. He may
require persons to appear before him to testify or answer questions. Disregard of his
summons or orders will be treated as contempt of his office, and punished, as contempt of
the superior courts is.
The mohtasib may impose penalties (fine, flogging, imprisonment) on the spot, so to
speak. Some reports have it that his findings and decrees will not be subject to judicial
review. It is said also that the hasba law will override all other laws to the extent that they
may conflict with it.
In addition to his general authority to spread virtue, the mohtasib will be asked to do the
following: (1) discourage commercial activity or any kind of "fanfare" outside the places
where Friday congregational prayers are held; (2) end negligence in performance of
Friday prayers; (3) enforce respect for azan (call to prayers) and performance of
obligatory prayers; (4) reform public servants and stop them from patronizing activities
of which the Shariat does not approve (e.g., singing and dancing); (5) stop togetherness
of unrelated men and women; (6) discourage ostentatious spending; (7) discipline those
who disobey their parents; (8) require stores and other establishments to close at prayer
times.
Organizations of lawyers are concerned that the project will create a parallel legal and
judicial system. We already have three systems at work: statute law and a hierarchy of
51
courts to enforce it; Shariat courts and benches; customary law and the "jirgas." One
more system will, indeed, compound the existing confusion, but it is not anything
catastrophic.
Other critics have cautioned that the mohtasibs and their enforcers will actually become
"witch-hunting" vigilante. This is a distinct possibility. Still others believe that the MMA
wants, mainly, to create lucrative jobs for preferred members of the Islamic establishment
(ulema). There may be some troth in that. Let us move on to some of the more serious
problems.
First, it should be noted that the injunction in the Quran (III, 110, 114) to enjoin right and
forbid wrong is not addressed specifically, or exclusively, to governments; it is addressed
equally to all believers. True, the Quran says also (III, 104) that the believers should let a
"band of people" arise who will enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong. Such a
"band of people" we have indeed allowed to arise, and it is called the National Assembly.
None of these verses can be invoked to justify a band of men who will go out and flog,
fine, or imprison Muslims whom they, in their discretion, consider to be wrongdoers.
The office of the mohtasib is by no means an integral part of an Islamic administration.
We encounter no such official in the Prophet's (pbuh) time or during the pious caliphate.
He is at work in the earlier period of Abbasid rule, trying (in vain) to stop drinking and
gambling, and monitoring the performance of Islamic duties such as fasting during
Ramazan and joining the Friday prayers. But this role is gradually abandoned, and the
mohtasib becomes primarily a "market supervisor" who monitors business transactions,
weights and measures, and prices. He stops cruelty to animals that carry merchandise. He
guards against cheating in the bazaar and fraudulent practices in the professions and
crafts.
It should be understood that the shariat, as conceived by many of our professional
theologians, is an unedited collection of laws, injunctions, recommendations, counsel,
and expositions of values and principles. The binding authority of some of its provisions
is eternal, while the relevance of others is situational, that is, addressed to a certain time
and place. They derive from a variety of sources, namely: God, the Prophet (pbuh), jurists
(fuqaha), consensus of the community (or the learned), and speculation. They cannot all
be equally authoritative. They stand in need of reconciliation when they seem to point to
different ways in regard to the same subject. Much of the Shariat is, thus, open to
interpretation.
If the reports concerning the finality of the proposed mohtasib's decrees and actions are
correct, he will be, at once, pope and Caesar; not the present pope but the one who for
many centuries claimed supremacy and infallibility on issues of Christian doctrine,
theology, and morality. Considering that Islam does not admit of an institutionalized
church and, instead, contemplates something closer to a "priesthood of all believers," it
would be preposterous for a mohtasib, or any alim, to arrogate to himself conclusive
authority to interpret and enforce the Shariat.
52
We all know of the sectarian divide among Muslims. Let me mention just a couple of
problems it poses. The Sunni pay Zakat to the government, the Shia don't. The latter
combine the noon and mid-afternoon, and then again the evening and late evening
prayers, but the Sunni don't. There may be people out on the street, or in places of work,
at a prescribed prayer time. Will the mohtasib check and establish that each one of them
is a Shia before shoving him into a mosque or a jail?
Islam concedes the individual a private domain that remains beyond the reach of public
authorities. Private is that which the individual wants to keep hidden from others and, in
addition, that which he alone has the right to decide or settle. His home is his private
space and, at initial consideration, it may be said that whatever he does within its four
walls, including neglect of divinely ordained duties, is his affair and none of anyone
else's business. Any sin committed in private is between him and God; for him to repent
and for God to forgive. This position is fortified by the injunction that one is not to probe
into another person's private affairs and, further, that if one does come to know of his/her
sins one is not to spread this information to others.
Even if we make the improbable assumption that the MMA's mohtasib will honour
Islam's stipulations on behalf of the individual's right to privacy, it has to be noted that
the domain of one's home is very small. It can be made even smaller if the mohtasib
suspects that a crime, or something hurtful to the public interest, is being done there.
The private domain extends to public places with regard to matters which are within the
individual's right to settle: for instance, his choice of a field of study, occupation, spouse
and, to some degree, the clothes he will wear, the food he will eat (in a restaurant), the
means by which he will travel. But even here the mohtasib may bring his interpretations
of the public interest, morality, or modesty to interfere with the individual's right to
choose.
The proposition that "Islam is a complete code of life," including the most private of
relationships and interactions, should not be interpreted to mean that all of this "code" is
left to the public authority to enforce. The great bulk of it is in the nature of advice and
suggestion, not law, and it is for the individual to follow as best as he can. But unless
matters subject to government regulation are specified and enumerated, the danger is
clear and present that the mohtasib will regard all aspects of a person's life as being open
to his inspection.
Values and principles, even more than law and injunctions, are open to interpretation.
There is no reason to assume that the mohtasib's understanding of Islamic values (social
justice, equality, accountability, moderation, brotherhood, neighbourliness, chastity,
modesty, frugality and austerity among others) will be conclusive or any more reliable
than that of many other Muslims. The way Mr Akram Khan Durrani envisages his
mohtasib's role, this functionary may emerge as a vicious tyrant.
Mr Durrani says he wants to reform the society. Good idea, but he should first identify
the specific wrongs that he wants to right. It would also be more effective to go one step
53
at a time instead of adopting an open-ended agenda. We would recommend the
eradication of bureaucratic and political corruption as the first object of his reforming
zeal.
Want of precision and specificity can defeat the purposes of law and justice. Those who
want to enforce the Shariat should select portions that are clearly meant to be enforced by
governments and have them made into laws so that enforcers and judges have a settled
text that enables them to exclude arbitrariness from its interpretation and application.
The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst, USA.
http://www.dawn.com/2004/08/29/op.htm#1
54
Appendix 6
It frightens the West, but what really is Shariah?
International Herald Tribune, Sat-Sun, March 15-16, 2008
Islamic law began as check on rulers
By Noah Feldman
Last month, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, gave a nuanced, scholarly
lecture in London about whether the British legal system should allow non-Christian
courts to decide certain matters of family law. Britain has no constitutional separation of
church and state. The archbishop noted that "the law of the Church of England is the law
of the land" there; indeed, ecclesiastical courts that once handled marriage and divorce
are still integrated into the British legal system, deciding matters of church property and
doctrine.
His tentative suggestion was that, subject to the agreement of all parties and the strict
requirement of protecting equal rights for women, it might be a good idea to consider
allowing Islamic and Orthodox Jewish courts to formally handle marriage and divorce.
Then all hell broke loose. From politicians across the spectrum to senior church figures
and the ubiquitous British tabloids came calls for the leader of the second-largest
Christian de- nomination in the world to issue a retraction or even resign.
Needless to say, the outrage was not occasioned by Williams' mention of Orthodox
Jewish law. For the purposes of public discussion, it was the word "Shariah" that was
radioactive.
In some sense, the outrage about according a degree of official status to Shariah in a
Western country should come as no surprise. To many, the word conjures horrors of
hands cut off, adulterers stoned and women oppressed. By contrast, who today
remembers that the much-loved English common law called for execution as punishment
for hundreds of crimes, including theft of any object worth five shillings or more? As for
sexism, the common law long denied married women any property rights or indeed legal
personality apart from their husbands. When the British applied their law to Muslims in
place of Shariah, as they did in some colonies, the result was to strip married women of
the property that Islamic law had always granted them -hardly progress toward equality
of the sexes.
In the Muslim world, the reputation of Shariah has undergone an extraordinary revival in
recent years. A century ago, forward-looking Muslims thought of Shariah as outdated, in
need of re- form or maybe abandonment. Today, 66 percent of Egyptians, 60 percent of
Pakistanis and 54 percent of Jordanians say that Shariah should be the only source of
legislation in their countries. Islamist political parties, like those associated with the
transnational Muslim Brotherhood, make the adoption of Shariah the most prominent
plank in their political platforms.
55
The sway of the scholars
To understand Shariah's deep appeal, we need to ask a crucial question that is rarely
addressed in the West: What, in fact, is the system of Islamic law? In his lifetime, the
Prophet Muhammad was both the religious and the political leader of the community of
Muslim believers. His revelation, the Koran, contained some laws, pertaining especially
to ritual matters and inheritance; but it was not primarily a legal book.
When the first generation of believers needed guidance, they went to Muhammad. He
either answered of his own accord or, if unsure, awaited divine guidance in the form of a
revelation.
With the death of Muhammad, the role of the political-religious leader passed to a series
of caliphs (Arabic for "substitute") who stood in the Prophet's stead. That left the caliph
in a tricky position when it came to resolving difficult legal matters. The caliph possessed
Muhammad's authority but not his access to revelation. If the Koran did not speak clearly
to a particular question, how was the law to be determined?
The answer that developed over the first couple of centuries of Islam was that the Koran
could be supplemented by reference to the Prophet's life - his "sunna," his path. His
actions and words were captured in an oral tradition, beginning presumably with a person
who witnessed the action or statement firsthand. Accurate reports had to be distinguished
from false ones.
But of course even a trustworthy report on a particular situation could not directly resolve
most legal problems that arose later. To address such problems, it was necessary to
reason by analogy from one situation to another. There was also the possibility that a
communal consensus existed on what to do under particular circumstances, and that, too,
was thought to have substantial weight.
This fourfold combination - the Koran, the path of the Prophet as captured in the
collections of reports, analogical reasoning and consensus -amounted to a basis for a legal
system. But who would be able to say how these four factors fit together? Indeed, who
had the authority to say that these factors and not others formed the sources of the law?
The caliphs were faced with a growing group of specialists who asserted that they,
collectively, could ascertain the law from the available sources. This self-appointed group
came to be known as the scholars -and over the course of a few generations, they got the
caliphs to acknowledge them as the guardians of the law. By interpreting a law that
originated with God, they gained control over the legal system.
Among Sunnis, this model took effect very early and persisted until modem times. For
Shiites, who believe that the succession of power followed the Prophet's lineage, the
Prophet had several successors who claimed extraordinary divine authority. But once
they passed, the Shiite scholars came to occupy a role not unlike that of their Sunni
counterparts.
56
Under the constitutional theory that the scholars developed to explain the division of
labor in the Islamic state, the caliph had paramount responsibility to fulfill the divine
injunction to "command the right and prohibit the wrong." But this was not a task he
could accomplish on his own. It required him to delegate responsibility to scholarly
judges, who would apply God's law as they interpreted it. The caliph could promote or
fire them as he wished, but he could not dictate legal results: Judicial authority came from
the caliph, but the law came from the scholars.
The caliphs - and eventually the sultans who came to rule once the caliphate lost most of
its worldly influence - still had plenty of power. They handled foreign affairs more or less
at their discretion. And they could also issue what were effectively administrative
regulations -provided these regulations did not contradict what the scholars said Shariah
required.
The upshot is that the system of Islamic law as it came to exist allowed a great deal of
leeway. Modem advocates of Shariah as the source of law are not actually recommending
the adoption of a comprehensive legal code derived from or dictated by Shariah -because
nothing so comprehensive has ever existed in Islamic history.
To the Islamist politicians who advocate it or for the public that supports it, Shariah
generally means establishing a legal system in which God's law sets the ground rules,
authorizing and validating everyday laws passed by an elected legislature. In other words,
for them, Shariah is expected to function as something like a modern constitution.
Human and divine rights
So in contemporary Islamic politics, the call for Shariah does not only or primarily mean
mandating the veiling of women or the use of corporal punishment - it has an essential
constitutional dimension as well. But what is the particular appeal of placing Shariah
above ordinary law?
The answer lies in a little-remarked feature of traditional Islamic government: that a state
under Shariah was, for more than a thousand years, subject to a version of the rule of law.
And as a rule- of-law government, the traditional Islamic state was legitimate, in the dual
sense that it generally respected the individual legal rights of its subjects and was seen by
them as doing so. These individual legal rights, known as "the rights of humans,"
included basic entitlements to life, property and legal process -the protections from
arbitrary government oppression sought by people all over the world for centuries.
Of course, merely declaring the ruler subject to the law was not enough on its own; the
ruler actually had to follow it. For that, he needed incentives. As it happened, the system
of government gave him a big one, in the form of a balance of power with the scholars.
Because the scholars were in charge of the law, and he was not, the ruler could pervert
the course of justice only at the cost of being seen to violate God's law -undermining the
very basis of his rule.
57
By controlling the law, the scholars could limit the ability of the executive to expropriate
the property of private citizens. This, in turn, induced the executive to rely on lawful
taxation to raise revenues, which itself forced rulers to be responsive to their subjects'
concerns. The scholars and their law were thus absolutely essential to the tremendous
success that Islamic society enjoyed from its inception into the 19th century. Without
Shariah, there would have been no Haroun al-Rashid in Baghdad, no golden age of
Muslim Spain, no reign of Suleiman the Magnificent in Istanbul.
But if Shariah is popular among many Muslims in large part because of its historical
association with the rule of law, can it actually do the same work today? Here there is
reason for caution and skepticism. Rulers now govern as if they were above the law, not
subject to it, and the scholars who once wielded so much influence are much reduced in
status.
How the scholars lost their exalted status as keepers of the law can be summed up in the
adage that partial reforms are sometimes worse than none at all. In the early 19th century,
the Otto- man Empire responded to military set- backs with an internal reform movement.
The most important reform was the attempt to codify Shariah.
Once the law existed in codified form, however, the law itself was able to replace the
scholars as the source of authority. Codification took from the scholars their all-important
claim to have the final say over the content of the law and transferred that power to the
state. To placate the scholars, the government kept the Shariah courts running but
restricted them to handling matters of family law.
With the scholars out of the way and no legislature to replace them, Sultan Abdulhamid II
found himself in the position of near-absolute ruler. This arrangement set the pattern for
government in the Muslim world after the Ottoman Empire fell. Law became a tool of the
ruler, not an authority over him.
A democratic Shariah?
The Islamist movement's vision for bringing Shariah to bear incorporates two common
features of modern government: legislature and constitution.
The mainstream Sunni Islamist position, found, for example, in the electoral platforms of
the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Justice and Development Party in Morocco, is
that an elected legislature should draft and pass laws that are consistent with the spirit of
Islamic law. On questions where Islamic law does not provide clear direction, the
democratically chosen legislature is supposed to use its discretion to adopt laws infused
by Islamic values. The result is a profound change in the theoretical structure underlying
Islamic law: Shariah is democratized in that its care is given to a popularly elected
legislature.
In case the assembly gets it wrong, however, the Islamists often recommend the judicial
review of legislative actions to guarantee that they do not violate Islamic law or values.
What is sometimes called a "repugnancy clause," mandating that a judicial body overturn
laws repugnant to Islam, has made its way into several recent constitutions that seek to
58
reconcile Islam and democracy. It may be found, for example, in the Afghan Constitution
of 2004 and the Iraqi Constitution of 2005. (I had a small role advising the Iraqi drafters.)
Islamic judicial review transforms the highest judicial body of the state into a guarantor
of conformity with Islamic law. The high court can then use this power to push for a
conservative vision of Islamic law, as in Afghanistan, or for a more moderate version, as
in Pakistan. Islamic judicial review puts the court in a position resembling the one that
scholars once occupied.
What the Islamists generally do not acknowledge is that such institutions on their own
cannot deliver the rule of law. The executive authority also has to develop a commitment
to obeying legal and constitutional judgments. That will take real-world incentives, not
just a warm feeling for the values associated with Shariah. How that happens is one of the
great mysteries of constitutional development worldwide.
It is possible to imagine the electoral success of Islamist parties putting pressure on
executives to satisfy the demand for law-based government embodied in Koranic law.
This might bring about a transformation of the judiciary, in which judges would come to
think of themselves as agents of the law rather than as agents of the state.
The odds of success in the endeavor to deliver the rule of law are never high. Nothing is
harder than creating new institutions with the capacity to balance executive dominance except perhaps avoiding the temptation to overreach once in power.
Still, with all its risks and dangers, the Islamists' aspiration to renew old ideas of the rule
of law while coming to terms with contemporary circumstances is bold and noble -and
may represent a path to just and legitimate government in much of the Muslim world.
Noah Feldman, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, is a law
professor at Harvard University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations. This essay is adapted from his book "The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State,"
which will be published this month.
59
Appendix 7
THE CONTROVERSY
The genesis of the controversy that led to the disturbances is to be found in what has been
described in official documents as 'the Ahrar-Ahmadiya controversy', which had existed
since long before the Partition. But this description was objected to, in fact resented,
before us by all non-Ahmadi parties, on the ground that differences with the Ahmadis are
not confined to the Ahrar and are common to all sects of Musalmans. Similarly the use
of the word' Ahmadi' exclusively in respect of the followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
was resented by non-Ahmadis for the reason that all Musalmans are Ahmadis, being the
followers of the Holy Prophet Muhammad, whose other name was Ahmad, and that it has
been wrongly usurped by the followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. We have decided to
use the word ' Musalman ' to distinguish the general body of Muslims who do not believe
in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad from those who believe in him and the word 'Ahmadi', 'Qadiani'
or 'Mirzai' for the Qadiani section of Ahmadis who believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
was a prophet (nabi).
AHMADIS
In Part V we will deal in greater detail with the doctrinal and social differences between
the Qadianis and Musalmans. Here we content ourselves with only giving a brief account
of the Ahmadiya movement, which was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a grandson of
Mirza Ghulam Murtaza who was a General in the Sikh Darbar. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
was born on 13th February 1835, at Qadian, a village in the district of Gurdaspur, which
exclusively belonged to his family in proprietary rights. He learned Persian and Arabic
languages at home but does not appear to have received any Western education. In 1864
he got some employment in the District Courts, Sialkot, where he served for four years.
On his father's death he devoted himself whole-heartedly to the study of religious
literature, and between 1880 and 1884 wrote his famous 'Buraheen-i-Ahmadiya' in four
volumes. Later he wrote some more books. Acute religious controversies were going on
in those days and there were repeated attacks on Islam, not only by Christian missionaries
but also by preachers of Arya Samaj, a liberal Hindu movement which was becoming
very popular.
In March 1882 Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed, to have had a revelation (ilham) to
the effect that he had been entrusted by God with a special mission, in other words, that
he was a 'mamoor-Illin-Allah'. In 1888, again under an ilham, he demanded homage
(bai 'at) from his adherents. Near the end of 1890, Mirza Sahib again received an ilham
that Jesus of Nazareth (lsa Ibn-i-Maryam) had not died on the Cross, nor lifted up to the
Heavens but that he was taken off the Cross in a wounded condition by his disciples and
cured of his wounds, that thereafter he escaped to Kashmir where he died a natural death,
that the belief that he will reappear in his original bodily form near the Day of
Resurrection was wrong, that the promise relating to his appearance merely meant that
another man with the attributes of Isa Ibn-i-Maryam would appear in the ummat of the
Holy Prophet of Islam and that this promise had been fulfilled in the person of Mirza
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1954 TO ENQUIRE INTO THE PUNJAB DISTURBANCES OF 1953
Sahib himself who was Maseel-i-Isa, and thus the promised Messiah. The publicity
given, to this doctrine created a stir among the Musalmans because this was contrary to
the generally accepted belief that Isa Ibn-i-Maryam was to descend from Heaven in his
bodily form, and gave rise to strong opposition among the Muslim theologians.
Subsequently, Mirza Sahib also claimed to be the promised Mahdi, not the Mahdi who
was to engage himself in conquest and bloodshed but the reasoning Mahdi who would
vanquish his opponents by argument. This new claim gave further impetus to the
opposition to Mirza Sahib and theologians began to pronounce fatwas of kufr against
him. In 1900 he expounded another doctrine that thereafter there was to be no jihad bis
saif and that jihad was to be confined to efforts to convince the opponent by argument.
In 1901 Mirza Sahib claimed to be a 'zilli nabi' and by an advertisement 'Ek ghalali ka
izala', explained the doctrine of khatam-i-nubuwwat to mean that after the death of the
Holy Prophet of Islam no nabi would appear with a new shari'at but that the appearance
of a new prophet without a shara'a was not contrary to the doctrine of khatam-inubuwwat. In a public lecture in Sialkot in November 1904, Mirza Sahib also claimed to
be a Maseel-i-Krishan.
The Jama'at-i-Ahmadiya was founded in 1901 and at Mirza Sahib's own request was
shown as a separate Muslim sect in the census records of that year. The present number
of the jama 'at is stated to be in the neighbourhood of 2,00,000 in Pakistan, Ahmadis are
also to be found in other Muslim countries and in India, Europe and America.
The new movement had attracted substantial support in Mirza Sahib's own lifetime,
including several men of consequence and influence. On Mirza Sahib's death in 1908
Maulvi Nur-ud-Din became the first khalifa of Jama'at-i-Ahmadiya. On Khalifa Nur-udDin's death in 1914, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's son Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad,
the present head of the Ahmadiya community, became the second klwlifa. His succession
as a khalifa caused a split in the jama 'at and a section of the jama'at led by Khwaja
Kamal-ud-Din and Maulvi Muhammad Ali, seceded and formed a separate party, called
the Lahore party, the difference between the two being that whereas the Qadiani party
believes Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to have been a prophet, the Lahore party deny this status
for Mirza Sahib and hold that he was no more than a mujaddid or muhaddas. The
seceders set up in Lahore an organisation called 'Ahmadiya Anjuman-i-Isha'at-i-Islam'.
Both parties are engaged in extensive missionary work in foreign countries.
THE AHRAR
The Ahrar were a party of nationalist, Muslims who seceded from the Congress and in a
meeting held in Lahore on 4th May 193 I founded the Majlis-i-Ahrar-i-Islam. They first
came into prominence during the Kashmir agitation of 1931 when on 30th October in that
year Mazhar Ali Azhar led a determined band of one hundred volunteers from Sialkot to
march into the Jammu territory. The Kashmir agitation in the Punjab was a spontaneous
expression of sympathy with the Kashmiri Muslims who were being subjected to ruthless
oppression by the Dogra Darbar. The grievances of Kashmiri Musalmans comprised the
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appropriation by the State of a number of mosques, graveyards and other places sacred to
Muslims, the exclusion of Muslims from public offices, the restrictions imposed on the
observance of their religious ceremonies and the absence of a properly constituted
legislature in which Muslims could be represented in accordance with their numerical
proportion in the State. A campaign in the press against these grievances resulted in a
communal riot in Srinagar on 13th July 1931. Attempts to take charge of the agitation,
resulting from this riot were made both by the Majlis-i-Ahrar and by a body styled "The
All India Kashmir Committee", which came into being on July 26, and included in its
personnel Doctor Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Nawab Sir Zulfiqar Ali Khan, Khwaja Hasan
Nizami, Nawab Ibrahim Ali Khan, Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad, the present
head of the Ahmadiya community, and Abdur Rahim Dard, an Ahmadi, as Secretary. The
subsequent conflict between the Ahrar and the Ahmadis was largely due to the mutual
hostility arising from their having been in opposite camps during the period of the
Kashmir agitation. The Ahrar arranged to celebrate the 14th of August as the 'Kashmir
Day', and on the following day officially announced that they had taken up the agitation
on behalf of their co-religionists in Kashmir. As already stated, on October 30, Mazhar
Ali Azhar with one hundred followers entered the Jammu territory. This dramatic act at
once brought the Ahrar into prominence.
Though they had cut themselves off from the Congress, the Ahrar continued to flirt with
that body right up to the Partition. One of the resolutions passed by the Working
Committee of the Majlis-i-Ahrar which met at Delhi on 3rd March, 1940, disapproved of
the Pakistan plan, and in some subsequent speeches of the Ahrar leaders Pakistan was
dubbed as 'Palidistan'. In a press statement issued on 29th November 1940 Maulana Daud
Ghaznavi announced the decision of the Ahrar to merge themselves into the Congress. In
the resolution passed by the Punjab Provincial Ahrar Conference held at Gujranwala from
17th to 19th March 1943, and in a subsequent resolution passed at Saharanpur in the
same year they declared themselves against the proposed Partition which they described
as vivisection of the country. In every important speech one leader of theirs or another
criticised the Muslim League and its leadership, including the Quaid-i-Azam for whom
they had little love and who in those days had come to be regarded as the sole and
undisputed leader of the Muslim nation. They took mean advantage of his liberal views
and lack of ostentation in religious matters by calling him an infidel. The author-ship of
the couplet'Ik kafira ke waste Islam ko chhora [for an infidel, he deserted Islam]
yeh Quaid-i-Azam, hai keh hai kafir-i-azam' [Is he a great leader? or a great
infidel?]
is attributed to Maulana Mazhar Ali Azhar, a leading personality in the Ahrar
organisation, who had the audacity to assert before us that he still held that view.
References were made in the speeches of the Ahrar not only to Quaid-i-Azam's marriage
with a Parsi lady but also to his not having gone on pilgrimage to Mecca. In 1945, they
attempted to revive the Sunni-Shia controversy and Mazhar Ali Azhar and his son
Mustafa Qaisar left Lahore for Lucknow on 16th November to re-open the Madah-iSahaba agitation. In the elections of 1946, three Ahrar candidates stood against the
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Muslim League candidates but they were all defeated. From the subsequent direct action
which the Muslim League started in the Punjab they kept themselves completely aloof.
One of the main activities of the Ahrar was their opposition, in one form or another, of
the Ahmadis. It may indeed be said that the Ahrar took their birth in the hatred of the
Ahmadis. Only two years after they founded the Majlis-i-Ahrar, they passed a resolution
that no Qadiani should be elected to any public body. Qadian, as already stated, was,
before the Partition, almost exclusively an Ahmadi town. In 1934, the Ahrar decided to
hold a conference in Qadian itself but on the meeting having been banned, they held the
conference on 21st October of that year in the playground of the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic
High School in Rajada, a village only a mile away from Qadian, where they attracted an
audience of many thousands. In that conference the popular Ahrar speaker Sayyad Ata
Ullah Shah Bukhari delivered a 5-hour diatribe against the Ahmadis in the course of
which he said "things which could have no other effect but to rouse hatred of the
Ahmadis in the minds of the hearers", the professions of peace in his speech alternating
with abuse and wit of a very low order. Bukhari was prosecuted for this speech and
convicted at the conclusion of a sensational trial which created more interest and antiAhmadiya feelings than the speech itself. Since then every Ahrar speaker of note has
been saying one thing or another against the Ahmadis, their leaders and their beliefs.
The Partition of 1947 and the establishment of Pakistan came as a great disappointment
to the Ahrar because all power passed to the Congress or the Muslim League, and no
scope for activity was left for the Ahrar in India or in Pakistan. The new Muslim State
had come to them as a shock, disillusioned them of their ideology and finished them as a
political party. For some-time they found themselves in a state of frustration, completely
bewildered as to their future. Two of their leaders, Maulvi Abdul Ghani Dar and Maulana
Habib-ur-Rahman, decided to stay on in India; Sheikh Husamud-Din, another equally
important leader, wavered for some time and eventually decided to come over to Pakistan
to take charge of a hotel, known as the Vira Hotel, in Lahore, which a Congressman
Parbodh Chander by name had handed over to him. Master Taj-ud-Din Ansari of
Ludhiana and Maulvi Muhammad Ali of Jullundur also came over to Pakistan, and while
the former settled at Sialkot, the latter went to Multan. Even Sayyed Ata Ullah Shah
Bukhari who belongs to Gujrat, shifted to a village in the Muzaffargarh district. Maulana
Mazhar Ali Azhar renounced politics. Sahibzada Faiz-ul-Hasan took to a secluded life in
his village Alo Mohar in the Sialkot district.
In November 1947, the Ahrar held a meeting of the Working Committee at Khangarh,
where Sayyad Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari had settled, to consider what their future
programme should be, but could come to no decision. The same was the result of a
subsequent meeting held in December 1947, in Lahore where three possible courses,
namely, of dissolving the party of giving up politics and confining themselves to religious
activities, and of keeping the party alive, were discussed but the only decision taken was
that an All-Pakistan Majlis-i-Ahrar should be founded. In the first conference after this,
held in May 1948 at Lyallpur, faint references were made to Ahmadis and loyalty to
Pakistan was affirmed. More distinct sentiments in favour of Pakistan were expressed in
the next meeting in Lahore in June 1948, accompanied by a hint that the Ahrar were not
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joining the Muslim League because of the un-Islamic beliefs of men like Chaudhri
Zafrullah Khan and Mian Iftikhar-ud-Din. Their most important gathering since the
Partition was on the occasion of the Ahrar Defence Conference which was held from 12th
to 14th January 1949 at Lahore and at which they announced their decision to cease
functioning as a political party and to continue their future activity as a religious group.
In political matters, they announced, they would follow the Muslim League. After this
they began holding their conferences under the label of Tabligh Conferences, and a series
of such conferences was held at Okara, Lyallpur, Maghiana, Chiniot, Sialkot,
Gujranwala, Gujrat, Pind Dadan Khan, Jhelum, Shujabad, Burewala and Mullan. The
demand for the declaration of Ahmadis as a non-Muslim minority was first made at a
conference in Rawalpindi and reiterated at a public meeting held at Pind Dadan Khan on
1st May 1949. After this, criticism of the founder of the Ahmadiya community and
Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan became a regular feature of all Ahrar addresses and they began
to feel that it was not necessary for them to seek the help of the Muslim League and that
they could in future function as a separate party. The Muslim League also adopted a
friendly attitude towards them because the Working Committee of the Pakistan Muslim
League in its meeting held in Karachi on 27th December 1949 excluded, the Ahrar from
the list of nineteen parties which were tabooed for Muslim Leaguers.
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Appendix 8
Excerpts of Direct Testimony of several Muslim “ulema” to the Court of Inquiry
constituted under the Punjab Act of 1954 to enquire into the Punjab Disturbances of
1953 (aks Munir Commission Report). Commission members were Chief Justice
Mr. Mohammad Munir and Justice Mohammad Kayani of the Supreme Court of
Pakistan.
The generally accepted view [of the scholars] is that the fifth verse to Sura-i-Tauba (Sura
IX) abrogated the earlier verses revealed in Mecca which permitted the killing of kuffar
only in self-defence. As against this the Ahmadis believe that no verse in the Qur’an was
abrogated by another verse and that both sets of verses, namely, the Meccan verses and
the relative verses in Sura-i-Tauba have different scopes and can stand together. This
introduces the difficult controversy of nasikh and mansukh, with all its implications. 107
Evidence of Maulana Abul Hasauat Sayyad Muhammad Ahmad Qadri, Maulana
Ahmad Ali, Mian Tufail Muhammad and Maulana Abdul Haamid Badayuni.
Maulana Abul Hasanant on being questioned on the subject stated as follows:—
“Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
If we were to have an Islamic State in Pakistan, what will be the position
of the kuffar (non-Muslims)? Will they have a voice in the making of
laws, the right of administering the law and the right to hold public
offices?
Their position will be that of zimmies. They will have no voice in the
making of laws, no right to administer the law and no right to hold public
offices.
In an Islamic State can the head of the State delegate any part of his
powers to kuffar?
No.”
Maulana Ahmad Ali, when questioned, said :—
“Q[uestion] If we were to have an Islamic State in Pakistan, what will be the position
of the kuffar? Will they have a hand in the making of the law, the right to
administer the law and the right to hold public offices?
A[nswer]
Their position will be that of zimmies. They will have no say in the
making of law and no right to administer the law. Government may,
however, permit them to hold any public office”.
Mian Tufail Muhammad [Jam’at-i-Islami] stated as follows :—
‘Q[uestion] Read the article on minorities’ rights in the ‘Civil and Military Gazette’ of
13th October, 1953, and say whether it correctly represents your view of an
Islamic State? (It was stated in the articles that minorities would have the
same rights as Muslims).
107
Ibid, pg 223
65
A[nswer]
I have read this article and do not acknowledge these rights for the
Christians or other non-Muslims in Pakistan if the State is founded on the
ideology of the Jama’at”.
The confusion on this point in the mind of Maulana Abdul Haamid Badayuni, President,
Jami’at-ul-Ulama-i-Pakistan, is apparent from the following: “Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
Have you ever read the aforesaid speech (the speech of the Quaid-i-Azam
to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 11th August, 1947)?
Yes, I have read that speech.
Do you still agree with the conception of Pakistan that the Quaid-i-Azam
presented to the Constituent Assembly in this speech in which he said that
thereafter there would be only one Pakistan nation, consisting of Muslims
and non-Muslims, having equal civic rights, without any distinction of
race, religion or creed and that religion would be merely a private affair of
the individual?
I accept the principle that all communities, whether Muslims or nonMuslims, should have, according to their population, proper representation
in the administration of the State and legislation, except that non-Muslims
cannot be taken in the army or the judiciary or be appointed as Ministers
or to other posts involving the reposing of confidence.
Are you suggesting that the position of non-Muslims would be that of
zimmies or any better?
No. By zimmies are meant non-Muslim people in lands which have been
conquered by an Islamic State, and the word is not applicable to nonMuslim minorities already living in an Islamic State. Such minorities are
called mu’ahids, i.e. those people with whom some agreement has been
made.
What will be their status if there is no agreement with them?
In that case communities cannot have any rights of citizenship.
Will the non-Muslim communities inhabiting Pakistan be called by you as
mu’ahids?
No, not till the absence of an agreement with them. To my knowledge
there is no such agreement with such communities in Pakistan.”
So, according to the evidence of this learned divine, the non-Muslims of Pakistan will
neither be citizens nor will they have the status of zimmies or of mu’ahids. 108
“… This being the position, the State will have to devise some machinery by which the
distinction between a Muslim and a non-Muslim may be determined and its consequences
enforced. The question, therefore, whether a person is or is not a Muslim will be of
fundamental importance, and it was for this reason that we asked most of the leading
ulama to give their definition of a Muslim, the point being that if the ulama of the various
sects beliaved the Ahmadis to be kafirs, they must have been quite clear in their minds
not only about the grounds of such belief but also about the definition of a Muslim
108
Ibid, pgs 213-214
66
because the claim that a certain person or community is not within the pale of Islam
implies on the part of the claimant an exact conception of what a Muslim is. The result
of this part of the inquiry, however, has been anything but satisfactory, and if
considerable confusion exists in the minds of our ulama on such a simple matter, one can
easily imagine what the differences on more complicated matters will be”. 109
Earlier we have pointed out that one of the doctrines on which the Musalmans and
Ahmadis are at variance is that of jihad. This doctrine at once raises a host of other allied
matters such as the meanings of ghazi, shahid, jihad-bis-saif, jihad fi sabili’llah, dar-ulIslam, dar-ul-harh, hijrat, ghanima, khums and slavery, and the conflict or reconciliation
of these conceptions with modern international problems such as aggression, genocide,
international criminal jurisdiction, international conventions and rules of public
international law.
An Islamic State is dar-ul-Islam, namely, a country where ordinances of Islam are
established and which is under the rule of a Muslim sovereign. Its inhabitants are
Muslims and also non-Muslims who have submitted to Muslim control and who under
certain restrictions and without the possibility of full citizenship are guaranteed their lives
and property by the Muslim State. They must, however, be people of Scriptures and may
not be idolaters. An Islamic state is in theory perpetually at war with the neighbouring
non-Muslim country, which at any time may become dar-ul-harb, in which case it is the
duty of the Muslims of that country to leave it and to come over to the country of their
brethren in faith.
We put this aspect to Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi and reproduce his views
Q[uestion]
Is a country on the border of dar-ul-lslam always qua an Islamic State in
the position of dar-ul-harb?
A[nswer]
No. In the absence of an agreement to the contrary, the Islamic state will
be potentially at war with the non-Muslim neighbouring country. The nonMuslim country acquires the status of dar-ul-harb only after the Islamic
State declares a formal war against it’.
Q[uestion]
Do you call your migration to Pakistan as hijrat in the religious sense?
A[nswer]
Yes” 110
The law relating to prisoners of war is another branch of Islamic law which is bound to
come in conflict with International Law. As for instance, in matters relating to the
treatment of prisoners of war, we shall have to be governed by Maulana Abul Ala
Maudoodi’s view, assuming that view is based on the Qur’an and the sunna, which is as
follows :—
“Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
109
110
Is there a law of war in Islam?
Yes.
Does it differ fundamentally from the modern International Law of war?
These two systems are based on a fundamental difference.
Ibid, pgs 214-215
Ibid, pgs 221-222
67
Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
What rights have non-Muslims who are taken prisoners of war in a jihad?
The Islamic law on the point is that if the country of which these
prisoners are nationals pays ransom, they will be released. An exchange of
prisoners is also permitted. If neither of these alternatives is possible, the
prisoners will be converted into slaves for ever. If any such person makes
an offer to pay his ransom out of his own earnings, he will be permitted to
collect the money necessary for the fidya (ransom).
Are you of the view that unless a Government assumes the form of an
Islamic Government, any war declared by it is not a jihad?
No. A war may be declared to be a jihad if it is declared by a national
Government of Muslims in the legitimate interests of the State.” 111
Maulana Abul Hasanat Muhammad Ahmad Qadri’s view on this point is as follows:—
Q[uestion]
ls there a law of war in Islam?
A[nswer]
Yes.
Q[uestion]
Does it differ in fundamentals from the present International Law?
A[nswer]
Yes.
Q[uestion]
What are the rights of a person taken prisoner in war?
A[nswer]
He can embrace Islam or ask for aman, in which case he will be treated as
a musta’min. If he does not ask for aman, he would be made a slave”.
Similar is the opinion expressed by Mian Tufail Muhammad of Jama’at-i-lslami who
says:—
Q[uestion]
Is there any law of war in Islamic laws?
A[nswer]
Yes.
Q[uestion]
If that comes into conflict with International Law, which will you follow?
A[nswer]
Islamic law.
Q[uestion]
Then please state what will be the status of prisoners of war captured by
your forces?
A[nswer]
I cannot reply to this off hand. I will have to study the point. Of course
ghanima (plunder) and khums (one-fifth) if treated as a necessary incident
of jihad will be treated by international society as a mere act of
brigandage.
REACTION ON MUSLIMS OF NON-MUSLIM STATES
The ideology on which an Islamic State h desired to be founded in Pakistan must have
certain consequences for the Musalmans who are living in countries under non-Muslim
sovereigns. We asked Amir-i-Shari’at Sayyad Ataullah Shah Bukhari whether a Muslim
could be a faithful subject of a non-Muslim State and reproduce his answer:—
Q[uestion]
In your opinion is a Musalman bound to obey orders of a kafir
Government?
A[nswer]
It is not possible that a Musalman should be faithful citizen of a nonMuslim Government.
Q[uestion]
Will it be possible for the four crore of Indian Muslims to be faithful
citizens of their State?
A[nswer]
No.
111
Ibid, pg 225
68
The answer is quite consistent with the ideology which has been pressed before us but
then if Pakistan is entitled to base its Constitution on religion, the same right must be
conceded to other countries where Musalmans are in substantial minorities or if they
constitute a preponderating majority in a country where sovereignty rests with a nonMuslim community. We, therefore, asked the various ulama whether, if non-Muslims in
Pakistan were to be subjected to this discrimination in matters of citizenship, the ulama
would have any objection to Muslims in other countries being subjected to a similar
discrimination. Their reactions to this suggestion are reproduced below:Maulana Abul Hasanat Sayyed Muhammad Ahmad Qadri, President, Jami’at-ulUlama-i-Pakistan:—
Q[uestion]
You will admit for the Hindus, who are in a majority in India, the right to
have a Hindu religious State?
A[nswer]
Yes.
Q[uestion]
Will you have any objection if the Muslims are treated under that form of
Government as malishes or shudras under the law of Manu?
A[nswer]
No.
Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi:—
Q[uestion]
If we have this form of Islamic Government in Pakistan, will you permit
Hindus to base their Constitution on the ham of their own religion?
A[nswer]
Certainly. I should have no objection even if the Muslims of India are
treated in that form of Government as shudras and malishes and Manu’s
laws are applied to them, depriving them of all share in the Government
and the rights of a citizen. In fact such a state of affairs already exists in
India.”
Amir-i-Shari’at Sayyad Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari:—
“Q[uestion] How many crores of Muslims are there in India?
A[nswer]
Four crores.
Q[uestion]
Have you any objection to the law of Manu being applied to them
according to which they will have no civil right and will be treated as
malishes and shudras’
A[nswer]
I am in Pakistan and I cannot advise them.”
Mian l Tufail Muhammad of Jama’at-i-Islami:
“Q[uestion] What is the population of Muslims in the world?
A[nswer]
Fifty crores.
Q[uestion]
If the total population of Muslims of the world is 50 crores, as you say and
the number of Muslims living in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen,
Indonesia, Egypt, Persia, Syria, Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, Turkey and Iraq
does not exceed 20 crores, will not the result of your ideology be to
convert 30 crores of Muslims in the world into hewers of wood and
drawers of water?
A[nswer]
My ideology should not affect their position.
69
Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
Even if they are subjected to discrimination on religious grounds and
denied ordinary rights of citizenship? :
Yes.”
This witness goes to the extent of asserting that even if a non-Muslim Government were
to offer posts to Muslims in the public services of the country, it will be their duty to
refuse such posts.
Ghazi Siraj-ud-Din Munir:
“Q[uestion] Do you want an Islamic State in Pakistan?
A[nswer]
Surely.
Q[uestion]
What will be your reaction if the neighbouring country was to found their
political system on their own religion?
A[nswer]
They can do it if they like.
Q[uestion]
Do you admit for them the right to declare that all Muslims in India are
shudras and malishes with no civil rights whatsoever?
A[nswer]
We will do our best to see that before they do it their political sovereignty
is gone. We are too strong for India. We will be strong enough to prevent
India from doing this.
Q[uestion]
Is it a part of the religious obligations of Muslims to preach their religion?
A[nswer]
Yes.
Q[uestion]
Is it a part of the duty of Muslims in India publicly to preach their
religion?
A[nswer]
They should have that right.
Q[uestion]
What if the Indian State is founded on a religious basis and the right to
preach religion is disallowed to its Muslim nationals?
A[nswer]
If India makes any such law, believer in the Expansionist movement as I
am, I will march on India and conquer her.”
So, this is the reply to the reciprocity of discrimination on religious grounds.
Master Taj-ud-Din Ansari:—
“Q[uestion] Would you like to have the same ideology for the four crores of Muslims
in India as you are impressing upon the Muslims of Pakistan?
A[nswer]
That ideology will not let them remain in India for one minute.
Q[uestion]
Does the ideology of a Muslim change from place to place and from time
to time?
A[nswer]
No.
Q[uestion]
Then why should not the Muslims of India have the same ideology as you
have?
A[nswer]
They should answer that question.”
The ideology advocated before us, if adopted by Indian Muslims, will completely
disqualify them for public offices in the State, not only in India but in other countries also
which are under a non-Muslim Government. Muslims will become perpetual suspects
70
everywhere and will not be enrolled in the army because according to this ideology, in
case of war between a Muslim country and a non-Muslim country, Muslim soldiers of the
non-Muslim country must either side with the Muslim country or surrender their posts.
The following is the view expressed by two divines whom we questioned on this point:—
Maulana Abul Hasanat Sayyed Muhammad Ahmad Qadri, President, Jami’at-ul-Ulama-iPakistan:—
“Q[uestion] What will be the duty of Muslims in India in case of war between India
and Pakistan?
A[nswer]
Their duty is obvious, namely, to side with us and not to fight against us
on behalf of India.”
Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi:—
Q[uestion]
What will be the duty of the Muslims in India in case of war between
India and Pakistan?
A[nswer]
Their duty is obvious, and that is not to fight against Pakistan or to do
anything injurious to the safety of Pakistan.”
Maulana Abdul Haamid Badayuni considers it to be a sin (ma’siyat) on the part of
professors of anatomy to dissect dead bodies of Muslims to explain points of anatomy to
the students.
The soldier or the policeman will have the right, on grounds of religion, to disobey a
command by a superior authority. Maulana Abul Hasanat’s view on this is as
follows:—
‘I believe that if a policeman is required to do something which we consider to be
contrary to our religion, it should be the duty of the policeman to disobey the authority.
The same would be my answer if ‘army’ were substituted for ‘police’.
Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
Q[uestion]
A[nswer]
You stated yesterday that if a policeman or a soldier was required by a
superior authority to do what you considered to be contrary to religion, it
would be the duty of that policeman or the soldier to disobey such
authority. Will you give the or the soldier to disobey such authority. Will
you give the whether the command he is given by his superior authority is
contrary to religion?
Most certainly.
Suppose there is war between Pakistan and another Muslim country and
the soldier feels that Pakistan is in the wrong and that to shoot a soldier of
the other country is contrary to religion. Do you think he would be
justified in disobeying his commanding officer?
In such a contingency the soldier should take a fatwa of the “ulama.”
We have dwelt at some length on this subject of Islamic State not because we intended to
write a thesis against or in favour of such State but merely with a view to presenting a
clear picture of the numerous possibilities that may in future arise if true causes of the
ideological confusion which contributed to the spread and intensity of the disturbances
71
are not precisely located. That such confusion did exist is obvious because otherwise
Muslim Leaguers, whose own Government was in office, would not have risen against it;
sense of loyalty and public duty would not have departed from public officials who went
about like maniacs howling against their own Government and officers; respect for
property and human life would not have disappeared in the common man who with no
scruple or compunction began freely to indulge in loot, arson and murder; politicians
would not have shirked facing the men who had installed them in their offices; and
administrators would not have felt hesitant or diffident in performing what was their
obvious duty. If there is one thing which has been conclusively demonstrated in this
inquiry, it is that provided you can persuade the masses to believe that something they are
asked to do is religiously right or enjoined by religion, you can set them to any course of
action, regardless of all considerations of discipline, loyalty, decency, morality or civic
sense.
Pakistan is being taken by the common man, though it is not, as an Islamic State. This
belief has been encouraged by the ceaseless clamour for Islam and Islamic State that is
being heard from all quarters since the establishment of Pakistan. The phantom of an
Islamic State has haunted the Musalman throughout the ages and is a result of the
memory of the glorious past when Islam rising like a storm from the least expected
quarter of the world— wilds of Arabia—instantly enveloped the world, pulling down
from their high pedestal gods who had ruled over man since the creation, uprooting
centuries old institutions and superstitions and supplanting all civilisations that had been
built on an enslaved humanity. What is 126 years in human history, nay in the history of
a people, and yet during this brief period Islam spread from the Indus to the Atlantic and
Spain, and from the borders of China to Egypt, and the sons of the desert installed
themselves in all old centres of civilization—in Ctesiphon. Damascus, Alexandria, India
and all places associated with the names of the Sumerian and the Assyrian civilizations.
Historians lave often posed the question: what would have been the state of the world
today if Muawiya’s siege of Constantinople had succeeded or if the proverbial Arab
instinct for plunder had not suddenly seized the mujahids of Abdur Rahman in their fight
against Charles Mattel on the plains of Tours in Southern France. May be Muslims would
have discovered America long before Columbus did and the entire world would have
been Moslemised; may be Islam itself would have been Europeanised. It is this brilliant
achievement of the Arabian nomads, the like of which the world had never seen before,
that makes the Musalman of today live in the past and yearn for the return of the glory
that was Islam. He finds himself standing on the crossroads, wrapped in the mantle of the
past and with the dead weight of centuries on his back, frustrated and bewildered and
hesitant to turn one corner or the other. The freshness and the simplicity of the faith,
which gave determination to his mind and spring to his muscle, is now denied to him. He
has neither the means nor ability to conquer and there are no countries to conquer. Little
does he understand that the forces, which are pitted against him, are entirely different
from those against which early Islam had to fight, and that on the clues given by his own
ancestors human minds has achieved results which he cannot understand. He therefore
finds himself in a state of helplessness, waiting for some one to come and help him out of
this morass of uncertainty and confusion. And he will go on waiting like this without
anything happening. Nothing but a bold re-orientation of Islam to separate the vital from
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the lifeless can preserve it as a World Idea and convert the Musalman into a citizen of the
present and the future world from the archaic in congruity that he is today.
It is this lack of bold and clear thinking, the inability to understand and take decisions
which has brought about in Pakistan a confusion which will persist and repeatedly create
situations of the kind we have been inquiring into until our leaders have a clear
conception of the goal and of the means to reach it. It requires no imagination to realize
that irreconcilables remain irreconcilable even if you believe or wish to the contrary.
Opposing principles, if left to themselves, can only produce confusion and disorder, and
the application of a neutralizing agency to them can only produce a dead result. Unless,
in case of conflict between two ideologies, our leaders have the desire and the ability to
elect, uncertainty must continue. And as long as we rely on the hammer when a file is
needed and press Islam into service to solve situations it was never intended to solve,
frustration and disappointment must dog our steps. The sublime faith called Islam will
live even if our leaders are not there to enforce it. It lives in the individual, in his soul and
outlook, in all his relations with God and men, from the cradle to the grave, and our
politicians should understand that if Divine commands cannot make or keep a man a
Musalman, their statutes will not.112
112
Ibid, pgs 226-232
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Appendix 9
Constitutional Amendment Declaring Ahmadi Muslims as non-Muslims
(Emphasis added)
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Appendix 10
Ordinance Criminalizing Religious Practice by Ahmadi Muslims (Emphasis added)
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76
Appendix 11
(Emphasis Added)
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