Respect for Prophets

IN the wake of the worldwide protests against the blasphemous cartoons, it has come to light that the ignorance, real or feigned, of the enlightened West regarding Muslim belief about the Prophet of Islam, as also about Prophets of other religions, is tragic and disappointing.

Those who caused such a grave offence to Muslim sensitivity globally were so pathetically ill-informed not only about the person of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) but also about how the Muslims are required by their faith to revere and respect other Prophets of God, specially those named in the Bible and Quran.

It appears that the present-day Christian Europe has not shed from its collective consciousness the vulgar, indecent and entirely unfounded accounts about the Holy Prophet, whose name was deliberately and derisively distorted and circulated by the Christian clergy in mediaeval Europe to ignite the Crusades that lasted for well over two centuries. If it is so, then it is most unfortunate, as it belies the West’s tall claim that it has discarded the religious baggage of yore, having embraced secularism which stands for the belief that the state machinery, moral values, citizens’ mindset and educational system should be independent of religious prejudices and predilections.

In Islam, a Prophet, such as Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), is neither God’s offspring, nor His incarnation, nor even His shadow on earth. They were all mortals like any one of us except that they received revelation from their Maker. The Prophet of Islam declared many a time, as can be seen in the text of the Quran that “he was only a mortal like any one else with the difference that it was inspired in him that our God is one and only God” (18: 110 & 41:6). And, as desired by the Almighty, he proclaimed: “Glory to my God! I am no more than a mortal Messenger” (17:93).

The one attribute common to all Prophets of God that distinguishes them from ordinary folks is that they received ‘revelation’ from the Divine Being through a spiritual or ‘angelic’ medium. And, it is entirely God’s prerogative to choose Prophets to convey the Divine dictation to fellow humans for guidance on the right path. The Quran confirms this in these words: “God sends down the angels with the Spirit of His command to whom He wills” (16:2). Similarly, the Quran affirms that all Prophets received ‘revelation’: “God did not send any Prophet from among the inhabitants of that place who were not given the Divine revelation” (16:109).

Such being the status of all the Divinely-inspired Prophets, the Muslims are required to treat all of them as equally respectable and venerable. The Quran records this fact: “The believers (i.e. Muslims) say that they make no distinction between any of God’s Prophets” (2:285). But what is not permissible for the believers — differentiation between Prophets — is the Almighty’s prerogative. He can, and He did, distinguish and differentiate. In this regard the Quran states: “out of the Prophets, some have been caused by god to excel others — some to whom He spoke, while some of them He exalted in degree, and some, like Jesus son of Mary He supported with the Holy Spirit” (2:253).

In this excerpt from the Scripture, there is reference, evidently, to three Abrahamic Prophets — Moses to whom God spoke, Jesus Christ who was provided support through the holy Ghost and Prophet Muhammad whom He ‘exalted in degree.’ This particular excellence of the Prophet of Islam is also confirmed by an earlier Makkan Surah 94 addressed to him while he was facing tyrannical opposition from Makkan polytheists: “Has god not caused your bosom to open up? And eased you of the burdensome weight that had (metaphorically) bent your back? And exalted your fame?”

Commenting on the phrase: ‘exalted your fame’ Marmaduke Pickthal, the blue-blooded British Muslim, observes (vide his translation of the Glorious Quran) that “speaking of his fame as exalted must have seemed particularly misplaced at that time of humiliation and persecution, but today from every mosque in the world, the Prophet’s name is cried as that of the Messenger of God five times a day and every Muslim prays for blessings on him when his name is mentioned.”

The point arises as to why Muslims pray for Allah’s blessings on him when he, according to his own statement preserved in the Quran, was no more than ‘a mortal messenger’ and had announced, right in the beginning of his apostleship as recorded in the Quran, that he “neither possessed the treasure of Allah nor had knowledge of the Unseen, nor was an angel, but followed only what was inspired in him” (6:50). Not only this. He had, at the same time, declared that “he had no power to benefit, nor power to hurt, except that which Allah willed” (7:188).

Then what are the reasons for such extraordinary attachment of his followers with his memory and devotion to his name by generations after generations of believers throughout the world?

For the answer, just consider the facts: An unlettered person born and brought up in a family and place not familiar with formal education, attaining manhood in a country devoid of literacy and learning traditions where there was no study circle like that of the Greek philosophers and where lived no consummate genius who knew the history of the rise and fall of nations, or had studied various theological systems, or was well-versed in ethics and social sciences, or was an authority on law and legal doctrines and so on and so forth.

A person with no formal education having spent 40 years of his life amongst his townsmen, mostly in public and partly in the seclusion of a cave, one fine morning comes out of the cave, stands on the summit of a hill and gives a clarion call to his elders, chieftains of tribes and ordinary folks to listen to his words that were inspired in him by the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. And then the stream of inimitable verses of the Quran shedding light on all conceivable topics that concern human life — from creation to culture, from ethics to criminal law and social justice, from worship to trade and commerce, from waging war in self-defence to making peace with stubborn foes and sworn enemies.

The stream kept flowing for a little over two decades and in the words of Lane Poole, “his doctrine falling upon a people prone to quick impulses and susceptible of strong impressions worked a revolution” (‘Moors in Spain’).

But it was not oratory and erudition alone that had attracted his fellow citizens’ attention to him. It were also his pragmatism, practicality and unmatched ability to implement, by personal example, all the precepts that he preached. This rare quality acted as a magnet and bound to him all who come close to him who are till today remembered with utmost deference by Muslims, wherever they are, as the Prophet’s Companions (may God be pleased with them).

None of them disobeyed him while he was there and none of them even thought of betraying him. They all accepted him as their leader in this life and their intercessor in life hereafter. Not because they had seen him performing miracles but because they saw in him the signs of a miraculous person, a Divinely-inspired holy man, who was not a recluse, but more active and more involved than others in social, political and administrative affairs of the ideal state which he founded with the collective efforts of his followers. He succeeded in his mission in his life time although he had not even a quarter of a century to work his way through hardships and adversity to accomplish what he was destined to attain.

It is such a person who has inspired and guided the past and present generations of believers and, God willing, the scripture and the example left by him will continue to inspire and guide generations to come till time ceases to tick.

When assets turn into liabilities

IT IS a given in accounting that the sum of all assets on a balance sheet will equal the total of its counterpart liabilities. In politics, especially in Pakistan, an asset is not equal to but the reverse of a liability, the obverse of the same coinage. Flip it, and fortune can change that very asset into a liability.

Ask Lady Margaret Thatcher. In August 1990, she was reigning supreme as the queen of the Conservative Party in the UK for 15 years, out of which eleven and a half had been as Britain’s prime minister. She had fought and won three general elections in a row. She seemed unbeatable at home and unassailable abroad.

On August 2, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, she was in Aspen (Colorado) with President George Bush. As she recalled afterwards, she told the president ‘in the clearest and most straightforward terms’ that her experience during the Second World War against Hitler’s Germany and during her war against Argentina over the Falkland Islands, had taught her that “aggressors must never be appeased.”

She listened on the telephone for an hour to Saudi King Fahd while he asked her for British planes and troops to be stationed in Saudi Arabia to counter any attack on his country by Saddam Hussein. She reprimanded Jordan’s King Hussein over lunch at Chequers that he “should not be attempting to negotiate on Iraq’s behalf but rather to implement sanctions against it.” From Downing Street in London, she encouraged Turkey’s President Turgut Ozal to continue his costly support of UN sanctions against Iraq.

Yet, less than four months later, during a European conference on security and cooperation in Paris, while Chancellor Kohl (who had never been one of her closest friends) was telling her that it was “unimaginable” that she should be deprived of office, she found herself fighting for her own political survival back home. It was the only war in her belligerent career she thought she would never lose, but did.

She could have accepted being voted out of 10 Downing Street through a ballot box, as Winston Churchill had been in 1945. What she could not stomach was the reprehensible betrayal by her own Conservative colleagues who, in secret conclave, voted her out of a job she could do better than all of them put together. Perhaps she had said as much to them, once too often.

Initially, undaunted by the erosion of their support, she told reporters waiting outside No. 10 Downing Street: “I fight on, I fight to win.” Inside, she gave in when her husband Denis told her: “Don’t go on, love.” She resigned on November 22, to preserve “the unity of the party and the prospects of victory in a general election.”

Could there be a lesson in that debacle for Pakistani political leaders?

Ask Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. In her heyday, she shared with Mrs Thatcher the backhanded compliment of being “the only man in her cabinet.” Since her father’s death, she has controlled the Pakistan People’s Party with an iron grip that some still within its clutch describe as akin to rigor mortis. Once before and now once again, she finds herself in exile, sustaining herself on a ration pack of electoral goodwill that must after so many years be fast approaching its expiry date.

She demands absolute loyalty from her party members as a one- way ticket to her favour, without any reciprocal commitment to hand out party tickets in return. She commands from abroad and millions of her supporters obey at home, cutting cakes on her birthday, even though few of them have seen her for over six years. There will be few amongst them who can remember when free and fair elections were conducted within their party.

Yet, she expects them to vote her back into power through the ballot box when the ones in her party headquarters, rusty from disuse, gather dust. Democracy, Mrs Thatcher commented ruefully in her memoirs, is not a respecter of persons. What she had not meant was that democratic leaders should also not be respecters of persons.

Ask Mian Nawaz Sharif. His palate for democracy has been in the nature of TV dinners — pre-cooked, pre-packaged, and waiting to be reheated. He too has had a stream of loyalists calling on him in Jeddah and in London, reassuring him of his indispensability to the domestic political scene. Unable to test the waters for himself, he has like King Canute to rely upon their advice and may suffer a similar disappointment when he discovers that he cannot stem the waves of opposition against him. After all, what can he offer his Muslim Leaguers that the Chaudhris are not already supplying with apparently limitless largesse to them?

Ask General Musharraf. Almost overnight, he finds his assets — a one-to-one relationship with the president of the world’s biggest superpower, a geo-strategic location that, like a stye in the eye, will always receive instant attention, and a persuasive glib earnestness that convinces his listeners of his readiness to restore democracy — turning into liabilities. Had he been an elected president in the US, he would have been well into his second term.

His mentor George W. Bush is already a lame duck president maimed during the Iraq war and with an abysmal approval rating that, had it been his school report card, he would have been careful to hide from his parents. For Musharraf, the past six years have been more in the nature of a preparation, a dress rehearsal for his next term as president of Pakistan, hopefully from 2007 onwards.

Ironically, despite the differences that separate them, all three of them — Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and Pervez Musharraf — purport to be in love with the same entity: the electorate of Pakistan. Might they be persuaded to listen to the voice of that tired beloved which is weary of unproductive stalemates? Could they bring themselves — or better still be brought by their followers and supporters — to follow the advice Denis Thatcher gave to his prime minister wife? Mrs Thatcher recalled that moment of truth: “Affection never blunted honesty between us. His advice was that I should withdraw. ‘Don’t go on, love,’ he said.”

Nine years is long enough

TO Tony Blair’s immense credit he can still control the circumstances of his departure from office. By fighting for a third term but not a fourth and by accepting the consensus that Gordon Brown must be his successor, the prime minister has prepared the way for what should be an elegant passing of the baton, testimony to his character and political command.

But this orderly transition places a responsibility on Mr Blair. The departure must be timely. There is no excuse for foot-dragging, no excuse for trading on the patience of his party, the country or his successor. Carrying on simply because he can will begin to look self-indulgent. Better reasons are needed if the transition is to be postponed.

It is increasingly hard to think what these might be. Adrift in Iraq, opposed by much of his own party on education reform at home, caught in a net of soft loans which looks worse by the hour (and led even John Prescott to admit he was unhappy), Mr Blair risks becoming a leader without purpose beyond power: accident-prone and asking for trouble. The longer he waits, the greater his troubles will be and the greater the damage to his party, the country and his reputation.

The fact is clear: Mr Brown (barring the unexpected) will replace Mr Blair as prime minister and Labour leader either this year or next, or the one after, though there must be a contest. Having created the expectation, the onus is on Mr Blair to explain his strategy and his plan. His successor is ready for office and will come to it with much to do.

Mr Blair made the case for re-election last year jointly with the man who should take over from him - and who will not only continue much of what he has already started, but who shared in its creation. In policy and in personnel, the government that seeks election in 2008 or 2009 will rightly have much in common with the one returned in 2005. But if the promise is continuity as well as renewal, where is the case for delay? What is it that Mr Blair thinks would be lost under Mr Brown? If he has doubts, he has (mostly) hidden them. If he has wands left to wave, he should know that his friends are less sure.

This is a truth about political magic. It fades. In most spheres where Mr Blair might claim he needs to finish the job, the job is either done, or beyond his capacity to complete. Abroad, Britain’s EU and G8 presidencies are over and the 2012 Olympics have been won for London. Peace between Israel and Palestine is far enough off to be a task for his successor, as is African renewal, EU reform and the accession of Turkey. Iraq’s elections are over and yet the situation in the country gets more ghastly by the day.

At home, education reform has reached a point where Mr Blair’s involvement has become a hindrance not an advantage. The NHS is struggling to keep pace with the scale of what has been done to it, and regressing in parts, while new political challenges — on climate change, the replacement of Trident, energy supplies, terror and the constitution, as well as confronting a newly vigorous Conservative party — will outlast the handover whenever it comes. Mr Blair needs to ask himself: why drag things on for another 12 or 24 awkward and empty months just because he can?

That he can, if he wants, should not be in doubt. For now, the timing of the transfer is still of his own choosing. True, the Jowell-Mills affair was bad, the education rebellion worse for him, and revelations about how Mr Blair chose to fund the Labour party through undercover loans from uncertain sources degrade him both personally and politically.

Much more of this and Mr Blair will begin to lose his freedom to decide. But for the moment he is ahead in the polls (further ahead than Mr Brown might be, according to this month’s Guardian/ ICM study), he faces no immediate call to quit from most Labour MPs and his successor is apparently content to wait. The jeers of a rancorous minority on the Labour left hold no fears for him. But though the foundations remain in place, the facade is taking many hits. The fact that he can survive as prime minister does not mean it is in his interests to cling on until he cannot remain. Choosing is a bolder thing when there is still a choice.

One dreadful week should not, alone, be enough to move him from Downing Street and some of his friends will tell him that this current wretched business will blow over or hurt the Conservatives too. Perhaps it will.

— The Guardian, London