Author: Khaled Ahmed
Publication: Daily Times
Date: June 15, 2004
URL: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_15-6-2004_pg3_5
If all the 'forty' Muslim armies
unite and attack America or anyone in the West they will be collectively
defeated. Wars are not fought on the basis of principles or emotion of
self- sacrifice; they are fought on the basis of a calculus of strategic
and tactical superiority. Muslims must learn to bide their time and do
other self-reforming things instead of going to war. The experience in
the Middle East teaches us that lesson; in South Asia, Pakistan has tried
war with disastrous results and should now take it easy
There are many reasons why we cannot
engage in any meaningful discussion of Islam. Our scholars have to go abroad
and discuss it, if at all; but that discussion too gets derailed if our
scholars are defensive. We have to accept that at home the compulsion is
to agree with the dominant orthodoxy; abroad, we feel compelled to go into
a state of denial. We use the by-now recognisable technique of arbitrarily
denying status of Muslims to those whose actions we find indefensible.
Instead of admitting Muslim behaviour as a theme for discussion we foreclose
it by asserting that 'Muslims who do this are not Muslims'. At home any
fresh thinking on Islam arouses shock, which is usually followed by anger.
GEO (5 April 2004) had its Alif
programme discuss the current Islamic predicament with Jama'at-e Islami's
Syed Munawwar Hassan, Islamic scholar Syed Hussain Jafri, Shia scholar
Allama Turabi and PPP's Fauzia Wahab. Munawwar Hassan dwelt on the gap
between the Islamic masses and their ruling elites. He said the masses
lived according to the guidelines of Islam but the rulers were simply carrying
out orders from America. He said there were over 40 armies owned by the
Muslim states but these armies were not able to unite and fight against
the Americans. But these armies were willing to fight America's wars more
readily. He said it did not matter if the Muslim armies did not have technological
advantage; the success depended on principles because that was the secret
of the Battle of Badr. Dr Hussain Jafri rebutted Munawwar by pointing out
that the life of the Prophet PBUH was an example of how best to pursue
the interests of Islam. He fought but he also compromised and sought time
for preparation. His compromise at Hudaibiya actually led to the best victory
for the Muslims. Host Aniq could not understand what he was referring to.
Jafri replied that the life of the Prophet was a mixture of realism and
idealism. (The host still did not understand.) Dr Jafri then made it clear
that it was not time for the Muslims to fight. It was time for preparation,
and before you are prepared you should not go to war with India. He accused
Munawwar of creating a hostile environment which resulted in the doors
of the universities in the West getting closed on Muslim youth.
Dr Jafri was not understood by host
Aniq who is steeped in orthodoxy and has an instinctive reaction of obsequious
reverence towards the clergy - an attitude that then spreads to the rest
of the nation. He shakes his head from side to side in admiration even
on the slightest point scored by the clerics and will not challenge them
on the basis of logic. In a way, the cleric is the Scripture itself. Munawwar
Hassan is an agitator and his political role has taken him away from the
function of a thinker about religion. What he said about 'the armies of
Islam' was absurd. If all the 'forty' Muslim armies unite and attack America
or anyone in the West they will be collectively defeated. Wars are not
fought on the basis of principles or emotion of self-sacrifice; they are
fought on the basis of a calculus of strategic and tactical superiority.
(Holland may have more F16s than the entire Islamic world.) Muslims must
learn to bide their time and do other self-reforming things instead of
going to war. The experience in the Middle East teaches us that lesson;
in South Asia, Pakistan has tried war with disastrous results and should
now take it easy. Dr Jafri's claim that the life of the Prophet PBUH was
a mixture of idealism and realism sounded strange to host Aniq, not because
it was new, but because it sounded strange in Pakistan. Dr Jafri was 'heretical'
because he wanted our youth to go abroad and get the best science education
in the best universities of the world and not get bounced out of there
just because Aniq is conducting absurd warlike discussions on Geo with
Mr Hassan recommending another Armageddon in which Islam is sure to be
defeated. Why can't we have a host who is neutral if not pro- enlightenment?
We have to accept that you can't get too 'free' in discussion because you
can get killed in Karachi.
Host Aniq finally understood what
Dr Jafri was saying and asked Allama Turabi if he agreed with his point
of view. Turabi readily agreed with the view that Muslims should not engage
in wars at this time but should acquire knowledge. Turabi said that Islam
was in decline because of lack of knowledge. The host still insisted whether
Muslim should educate themselves or go to war. Fauzia Wahab said Muslims
had given up ijtihad and given society over to the mullahs. She said if
bank interest was abolished the economy would collapse but the mullahs
were insistent on it. The host said abolition of bank interest (riba) was
one of the fundamentals of Islam. Dr Jafri immediately corrected him and
said that the five fundamentals of Islam were different and did not contain
'riba' in them. He said 'riba' was different from bank interest and asserted
that a widow keeping her savings in a bank and drawing interest on them
was not guilty of 'riba'-taking. Munawwar became riled on this and accused
Dr Jafri of declaring riba 'halal'.
The discussion went the way it did
because Munawwar Hassan was isolated. He had to be supported, if at all,
by the other cleric, Mr Turabi, whose Shia community is being serially
killed by a school of thought in Sunni Islam that Mr Hassan supports. The
other discussant was an errant 'kafir(a)' (in the eyes of all non-liberal
Pakistanis; and that includes almost all the nation) from the PPP; but
she did score all the good points except, alas, that, like all our politicians,
she was not gifted with the ability to speak the Urdu language. On bank
interest Dr Jafri shocked the host again who thought that abolition of
'riba' was among the fundamentals of Islam. Just anyone could have corrected
him. He himself could have, had he thought about what he said. But first
he had to get out of the brainwash spread by the Shariat Appellate Bench
of Supreme Court that refused to answer the questions Dr Jafri was asking.
Needless to say, Mr Hassan called the discussion on 'riba' a perpetration
of 'ilhad' (heresy). Where did we get after this yet another futile discussion
of Islam? The audience was bemused and most unwilling to accept the thoughts
of Dr Jafri. We can move ahead only if we have more people like Dr Jafri
in our discussions and we hold these discussions at a higher level of representation.
Or maybe it is too late already. *
