Musharraf and Moderation in Islam

 

 

The other day there was a gathering of �intellectuals�� in Islamabad organized jointly by English Speaking Union and Institute of Strategic Studies for a discussion on Islam and modernisation. The invitation card mentioned �Chief Guest� (CG) without being more specific. The time for the invitees to arrive was 10am and the CG was to arrive at 1030. In the event the CG arrived at 1105 and the proceedings commenced with a brief recitation from holy Quran. Looking at the strict security one expected either Chief of Army Staff or his appointed �Prime Minister.� Well it was the former. He looked very relaxed and confident and strode briskly to the dais.

 

After a brief address by an Islamic scholar, the general expounded his thoughts on the subject of Islam repeatedly assuring the audience that he was no scholar of Islam. The august gathering comprised physically and intellectually screened personages and included mostly the military and civil servants of the retired variety plus a sprinkling of young students. In his hour-long �lucid and logical� speech, the general said the following.

 

The way forward calls for demonstration of will and resolve on the part of Organization of Islamic Community (OIC). �Let us pull our downtrodden people out of socio economic state through good governance. Let us understand Islam in its true essence and project it internationally to correct misperceptions about our religion.� He also called upon the West to extend cooperation in the effort. And what should we be doing? Shouldn�t we start right at home? For beginners we have good governance, which has only gone down over the past seven years, and moderation would follow.

 

He went on to reflect on his �vision� of enlightened moderation and the short and long term measures taken by his government over the past six and a half years. He also referred to Islamic renaissance, which the President (a retired Brigadier) of English Speaking Union considered vital to the project and who offered a contribution of Rs.50 m for establishing a Renaissance University. CG did not buy the idea. Short-term measures included banning the extremist organizations, proscribing hate literature and the long-term measures included improvement of curriculum, mainstreaming madressahs and working for Islamic renaissance. When would that happen? In the long run, if all, and in the long run we are all dead. He went on to inform his audience that mosques used to be the place where important decisions were made but no longer. He did not say that now they are made in the GHQ. He claimed that he was a secular person but did not find any contradiction in all the important decisions concerning the people being made in the mosque, thus mixing religious with secular.

 

At the end of the session two short questions were allowed. A young foreigner, perhaps a student, who preferred not to give his full name, asked the CG if Islam had some room for skepticism. The CG did not understand the implications of the question, certitude being the better part of military training, and went on to dilate on his famous lines regarding how the rest of the world treated the Muslims, and how he had fixed things. Islam and democracy, he claimed, were synonymous. But chose not to pause at the lack of it all over the Muslim world and particularly so in Pakistan. Islam was not opposed to modernization though it was against westernization but not against the West he emphasized. He asserted that Islam was compatible with democracy and modernization without realizing the irony that he was a military dictator. Why was the Muslim world un modernized, he did not explain.

 

Much has been made of enlightened moderation. That is a gross misuse of word on account of superfluity. Moderation implies enlightenment and cannot be unenlightened. Dictionary meaning of moderation implies less violent, less intense and less vehement degree of approach. So the appellation is a waste of word. But the audience was straining to admire the CG for his discovery of the phrase signifying his secularist commitment to tolerant Islam. 

 

All these obscurantist pieces of laws put our society and Islam in very bad light to the outside world. How can OIC or the West help in bolstering our image? Undoing these archaic pieces of legislation would.

 

Why has Islam become synonymous with militancy? And what is militancy? All militant outfits whether Sipahe Sahaba, Jaishe Muhammadi or whatever, were created and sponsored by the military regime of Ziaul Haq. He introduced intolerance as a state policy and framed laws that institutionalized intolerance. He went much beyond Bhutto�s constitutional amendment declaring Ahmadis as a minority for being non-Muslims and made them non-persons. They could not recite Kalima or write Salawat/durood on their invitation cards or call their mosque a mosque etc, without attracting strict penal consequences. By legislating laws on blasphemy he institutionalized persecution of religious minorities. By ordinancing Hudood laws he criminalized womanhood and jeopardized their existence on daily basis. He executed the largest number of people ever. His clone, Ghulam Ishaque Khan, added to this genre of legislation in the form of Laws of Diyat and Qisas. This masterpiece privatized the most heinous crime against person. One could kill any number of persons and ask forgiveness from a Wali like two cases illustrate.

 

On Sep 1, 2000 one Zaman of Mardan slaughtered his wife and his three teenaged daughters. Legal heirs (Wali) forgave him and the High Court, in desperation for lack of authority under the law, ended up sentencing him to only 10 years under the principle of �fasad fil ard�, as the crime was outrageous to public conscience.  In appeal the decision may be set aside. Who were the legal heirs? Three sons and the sole surviving daughter. Could they do otherwise? Crime against state in all civilized societies and for ages has been turned into a private affair.

 

Then there was this case of Vehari where a woman pardoned the killer of her four daughters. He was the father of these unfortunate girls who were aged 22 years to five. All in the name of honour. Now what honour would a five year old girl compromise? This is happening under the enlightened moderation of a dictator.

 

In a programme recently screened by National Geographic TV channel, a woman named Zahida was horribly mutilated by her enraged husband. What a brute? He had the time and the crass cruelty to cut both her ears, her nose, gouge both her eyes and then try to cut her tongue. This case got noticed abroad and some Pakistani expatriate arranged for her treatment in the US to make her look less ugly because even her children were afraid to look into her face. When a foreign journalist interviewed our all powerful ruler that why there were no shelters for such battered women or facilities for burn victims, he conveniently spouted the famous line that we are short of funds. When reminded of billions of rupees wasted on defence, he aggressively defended the policy for safeguarding the sovereignty of the country. As if the fancy notion can provide food to the hungry, or succour to the suffering or enlightenment to the illiterate? Another $5b are going to be spent on purchase of old and new F-16 fighters, which we deferred for a few months when big earthquake hit the northern areas and which we could do without for ten years when the US had refused to sell them to us. This colossal amount equals Rs.300b and is more than our development budget. It could provide medicines to all our hospitals/dispensaries and fund teachers and schools for the entire school population. Similarly we have resumed development of alternate GHQ in sprawling two sectors of Islamabad at equally horrendous cost and the poor should wait for their rewards in the next world.

 

What has the enlightened moderate successor done to undo the severe harm to body politic? Nothing. He has waxed eloquent for the last six/seven years without doing any thing. He didn�t have the political stamina to stomach criticism from the clergy in trying to introduce minor procedural change in blasphemy law. He has spent the last six and half years exhorting everybody to evolve a consensus so that he doesn�t have to do anything himself. He only has to issue an ordinance to undo all the obscurantist laws brought on the statute book by his malignant military predecessor. He introduced 70 odd changes in the Constitution to lend durability to his illegal take over. All his acts are geared to making his job permanent. Why not do something for the society for a change and also earn some legitimacy?

 

Nothing could do for moderation more than general education and enlightened leadership who can stand and be counted. After all even with Ziaul Haq at best of times the Mullas got two or three seats in National Assembly. The last elections yielded massive presence of Mullas in the Assembly, thanks to Mulla and military alliance. They are not even graduates and Peshawar High Court has said so. An appeal in the Supreme Court is pending and will pend until this Assembly no longer remains relevant. Obviously there is deep understanding between military and mullas.

 

What has actually happened in the last six and a half years of the authoritarian rule of the General? Not much I am afraid. The path taken by him represents a boulevard of broken promises and commitments.  Only a few days back on the birthday of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) scores of people were slaughtered in Karachi when they were gathered to remember the Prophet. A day earlier similar number had died in a mosque in stampede. People die in indiscriminate mayhem on almost daily basis. Things are a little worse than they were under the much-maligned decade of civilian rule. Mukhtaran Mai who was only fighting for her right having been noticed abroad was not allowed to go because the general thought that she was part of the ring that countenanced rape for obtaining immigration visas, and she only meant to malign a benign democratic Pakistan. Honour killing, only partly reported, must be a daily occurrence in remote parts of the country. Crime against women is a booming industry and it is only when some sensational case gets foreign press our image invariably suffers and Islam gets a bad name. Honour code that defines women as property and killing as well merited indemnification defines our conduct in private life. (sshusain@hotmail.com)

 

 

 

Syed Shahid Husain

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