Tracing hate
-Photo Courtesy Ayesha Vellani/White Star
It is believed that Pakistan’s descent into the quagmire of violence, partaken in the name of religion has its roots in 1974 when the otherwise ‘secular’ government of Z A. Bhutto declared (through legislation) the Ahmadi community as a religious minority.
Many Pakistani political historians have also correctly pointed out that the Bhutto government’s move in this regard set off various other scenarios that set the scene for its own dramatic downfall in 1977.
Without getting into the theological debate of whether the Ahmadi community deserved excommunication from the fold of Islam in Pakistan or not, one can, however, reach a political conclusion that this issue has triggered the demise of democratic and non-religious forces that sided with those who originally initiated legislative action against the Ahmadis.
The following examples in this context should also be taken as a warning by democratic parties on both sides of the ideological divide that their ‘pragmatic’ association with fundamentalist and sectarian outfits is akin to digging a hole for themselves.
For example, in hindsight one can suggest the Bhutto regime deluded itself by believing that ousting the Ahmadis from the fold of Islam would appease the religious parties that were constantly criticising the government of being ‘un-Islamic.’
The Ahmadis’ ouster saw the Bhutto government increasingly cornering itself and offering more and more concessions to the religious parties in spite of the fact that most of these parties had been routed in the 1970 general election.
Simply put, parties that were rejected by the electorate in 1970 were actually strengthened by Bhutto’s policy of appeasement; a policy he thought was a clever and pragmatic ploy on his part to co-opt them.
This unwitting and unintentional strengthening of the religious parties by Bhutto was one of the main reasons why these parties managed to unite on a single platform during the 1977 election and then, rather ironically, unleash a violent protest movement against his government that culminated in the declaration of Martial Law by General Ziaul Haq.
What is also ironic is the fact that Zia’s aggressive ‘Islamisation’ process throughout the 1980s was largely built around the unsuspecting blueprint of Political Islam that the Bhutto regime had begun to outline from 1974 onwards.
But before we set out to find exactly what happened in 1974, it would also help to reanalyse the first major movement against the Ahmadi community in 1953.
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In one of the most thorough books written on the rise of religious radicalism in Pakistan – ‘Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism,’ – author Hassan Abbas has painstakingly researched and detailed the 1953 incident.
At the time of the creation of Pakistan in 1947, fundamentalist outfits such as the Jamat-i-Islami (JI) and the Ahrar had been discredited and sidelined due to their stand against Jinnah and the creation of Pakistan (both had labeled Jinnah as ‘Kafir-i-Azam’ or the leader of infidels).
But in spite of this, both the parties’ main leadership had decided to migrate to Pakistan.
In 1951 due to a failed ‘communist coup’ attempt by some left-wing military men in league with the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) and a group of progressive intellectuals initiated an intense governmental crackdown and bans against left-leaning officers in the military, the CPP and affiliated trade and labour unions.
This created just enough of a void for some radical rightist forces to seep in.
This opportunity was further widened by the disintegration of the ruling Muslim League (ML) that was by then plagued with in-fighting, corruption and myopic and exhaustive power struggles among its top leadership.
In 1953-54 after smelling an opportunity to reinstate their political credentials, the JI and the Ahrar gladly played into the hands of the then Chief Minister of Punjab and veteran Muslim Leaguer, Mian Mumtaz Daultana, who was plotting the downfall of his own party’s prime minster, Khuwaja Nizamuddin.
With a burning ambition to become the Prime Minister after former Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan’s enigmatic assassination in 1951, Daultana was bypassed when the ML government chose the Bengali Nizamuddin as PM whom Daultana considered to be incompetent.
As Chief Minister of Punjab, Daultana was being criticised for the rising rate of unemployment and food shortages in the province.
Anticipating protests against his provincial government’s failure to rectify the economic crises in Punjab, Daultana began to allude that economic crises in the Punjab were mainly the doing of the Ahmadi community.
The Ahmadis had played a leading role in the creation of Pakistan and were placed in important positions in the military, the bureaucracy, the government and within the country’s still nascent industrial classes.
Daultana did not accuse the Ahmadis directly. Instead, he purposefully ignored and even gave tact support to JI and Ahrar who decided to use the crises in the Punjab by beginning a campaign against the Ahmadi community and demand their excommunication from the fold of Islam.
As JI and Ahrar members went on a rampage destroying Ahmadi property and personnel in Lahore, Daultana was able to shift the media’s and the nation’s attention away from his provincial government’s economic failures.
But his ‘victory’ was short-lived. The Nizamuddin government with the help of the military crushed the movement and rounded up JI and Ahrar leaders.
It then went on to dismiss Daultana. The demand to throw the Ahmadis out of the fold of Islam was rejected.
Veteran Muslim League leader, Sardar Nishtar (left) in a meeting with General Azam Khan in 1954. General Azam was instrumental in crushing the anti-Ahmadi riots in Lahore in 1953 and arresting JI and Ahrar leaders.
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After the failure and crushing of the 1953 movement, the anti-Ahmadi sentiment receded to the fringes.
However, some religious parties like the JI tried to reignite it many years later during the campaigning of the 1970 election. But there were no takers and the initiative quickly dissolved.
In his book, ‘Bhutto, Zia & Islam,’ Syed Mujawar Shah suggests that JI’s move during the 1970 election was related to the overwhelming support the Ahmadi community had exhibited for Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in West Pakistan – a party that was being labelled by the JI as ‘atheistic’.
Almost all religious parties and even old conservative outfits such as the many factions of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) faced rousing defeats during the 1970 election.
But in 1973, fearing marginalisation and a possible exit from the political process, these parties once again decided to repose the ‘Ahmadi question.’
The first shots in this regard were fired in the Azad Jamua Kashmir Assembly in April 1973 when some right-wing members of the Assembly floated a resolution to declare the Ahmadis as non-Muslims.
The resolution did not carry much weight.
Undeterred, the same year religious party members and those belonging to PML floated similar resolutions in the Punjab and Sindh assemblies but these too were shot down by the PPP MPAs who were in the majority in the two assemblies.
Then, when Bhutto was about to host a mammoth summit of Muslim heads of state and government in Lahore, he was approached by Ahmadi religious leader, Mirza Tahir, who told him that religious parties were planning to use the Summit to demonise the Ahmadi community.
Bhutto assured Tahir that nothing of the sort would happen.
A month after the Summit, an organisation called the Rabita Alam-i-Islami that was founded in Saudi Arabia in 1962, passed a resolution declaring the Ahmadis as non-Muslim.
Having the backing of the Saudi monarchy, the resolution also stressed that people of the Ahmadi faith not be allowed to enter Saudi Arabia.
A delegation of Pakistan had also become a member of this organisation and it did not hesitate to sign on the resolution. Bhutto did not think much of it, though.
Unable to make a dent in the assemblies, the religious parties decided to pour out onto the streets.
In 1974 they launched a full-fledged campaign against the Ahmadis. Once again Punjab was the main battleground as the anti-Ahmadi sentiment remained weak in the other three provinces of the country.
The religious parties even managed to obtain fatwas from some well known Saudi Arabian clerics to back their demands to excommunicate the Ahmadis.
One of the founding members of the PPP and a minister in the Bhutto regime’s first cabinet, Dr. Mubashar Hasan, recently went on record to claim that the government knew that the Saudi monarchy was encouraging the campaign.
He suggested that since from 1974 onwards Bhutto had begun to push Pakistan closer to oil-rich Arab monarchies, he largely remained silent on the issue.
Cheered on by the ‘ulema’, mobs in many cities of the Punjab began attacking Ahmadis and their property.
Eight religious parties led by the JI, including the Deobandi Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI) and the Barelvi Jamiat Ulema Pakistan (JUP), and the conservative Pakistan Democratic Party (of Nawabzada Nasarullah) and PML factions, formed an organisation called the Qadiyani Muhasbah Committee (Committee for Exposition of Qadyanism).
Islamic Scholar and founder of the Jamat-i-Islami holding a press conference in 1974 demanding that the government declare the Ahmadi community non-Muslim.
The organisation vehemently criticised the Bhutto government for ignoring ‘the aspirations of the people’ by not heeding to the calls of the ulema.
The ‘people’ in this case, of course, were the raging mobs led by local clerics and student-wings of the religious parties rampaging across the streets in the Punjab committing murder and arson.
Shaken by the sudden, but well orchestrated violence of the mobs, in June 1974, 37 MNAs in the National Assembly moved a resolution demanding the excommunication of the Ahmadis from Islam.
It should also be kept in mind that the Punjab in the 1970s held the PPP’s largest vote bank and support base.
Prime Minister Bhutto soon broke his silence and decided to allow the National Assembly to debate the issue.
At the same time a government delegation led by Kausar Niazi, held a series of meetings with the ulema belonging to Sunni (both Deobandi and Barelvi) sub-sects, and the Shia sect.
The parliamentary committee that came into being after the talks agreed to listen to the leaders of the Ahmadi community who wanted the committee to hear their side of the argument as well.
Bhutto’s hand in this context was also influenced by the fact that by 1974 his regime had begun to forge a series of economic and political links with oil-rich Arab monarchies.
These monarchies had begun to assert themselves with the help of the rise and pouring in of ‘Petro-Dollars’ after the 1973 Arab-Israel War and the oil crises that followed.
Z A. Bhutto (right) with Saudi king, Shah Faisal at a banquet in Karachi.
After going through the report on the meetings the government’s team had had with the Sunni and Shia ulema, Bhutto finally gave the green light to the PPP majority in the National Assembly to approve the passage of the anti-Ahmadi resolution.
Soon, the excommunication of the Ahmadis became part of the 1973 constitution (Second Amendment).
The 1974 National Assembly report on the ‘Ahmadi question’ and a montage of newspaper headlines announcing the assembly’s decision to ouster the Ahmadi community from mainstream Islam.
The Ahmadi community that had overwhelmingly supported the PPP was shocked.
Though the violence stopped after the passage of the resolution, a large number of Ahmadis who were actively involved in the fields of business, science, teaching and the civil service began to move out of Pakistan, leaving behind the less well-to-do members of the community who till this day face regular bouts of violence and harassment.
In another series of ironies, in 1977, the parties that had rejoiced the introduction of the Second Amendment were out on the streets again – this time agitating against the very government and man who had agreed to accept their most assertive demand.
In the final act of this irony, in April 1979 the same man was sent to the gallows (through a sham trial) by the military dictatorship of Ziaul Haq, who decided to stay on to ‘turn Pakistan into a true Islamic republic,’ and would go on to explain how Bhutto had become ‘a danger to both Islam and Pakistan.’
In 1984 the Zia dictatorship further consolidated the state of Pakistan’s stand against the Ahmadis by issuing an ordinance (Ordinance XX), which prohibited Ahmadis from preaching or professing their beliefs.
The ordinance that was enacted to suppress ‘anti-Islamic activities,’ forbids Ahmadis to call themselves Muslim or to pose as Muslims. Their places of worships cannot be called mosques and Ahmadis are barred from performing the Muslim call to prayer, using the traditional Islamic greeting in public, publicly quoting from the Qur’an, preaching in public, seeking converts, or producing, publishing, and disseminating their religious materials. These acts are punishable by imprisonment of up to three years.
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As a new generation of Pakistanis is growing up amidst the still on-going violence against the Ahmadi community, many of them have emerged with a number of questions, especially on social media.
The following are some of the questions being asked: How exactly was Islam and Pakistan saved by what happened in 1974? How did all this help Pakistan become a better place and a more robust democracy? And are not the Muslim sects and sub-sects who all joined in to throw the Ahmadis out of the fold of Islam now trying to do the same with each another?
But to me the most pertinent question remains, what were all the revolutionary leftists, secular liberals and progressive Muslims up to when all this was going on?
One must remember that till the late 1970s, the left and the liberal in Pakistan had far more influence in educational institutions, political parties, the media, and the bureaucracy, even in the armed forces than ever.
The Muslim League and the generation of Pakistani leaders and the military that took the reigns of the country soon after its creation in 1947, were steeped in the ‘modernistic and progressive Islam’ of scholars like Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Alama Iqbal (The Aligarh Generation).
They might have been vehemently opposed to leftist ideologies, multi-party democracy and multiculturalism; they were equally suspicious of the more radical strains of both political and social Islam.
That’s why its response to the 1953 Anti-Ahmadi riots is now a well documented (and quotable) part of history.
Not only did the government and the military crush the riots, it sent the main perpetrators packing.
Some of them were even given death sentences, including JI’s Abul Ala Maududi (though he was later pardoned).
Then to determine the claims of the anti-Ahmadi clergy and scholarship, the government chose a respected, learned and neutral judge to hear them out, Chief Justice Munir.
After hours and hours of holding interviews with a number of Sunni and Shia ulema, Justice Munir concluded that each one of his interviewees had their own, unique interpretation of who or what a good Muslim was.
The ulemas’ demand to declare the Ahmadi community as non-Muslim was rejected on the findings of the lengthy report that Munir produced from these interviews (called the Justice Munir Report).
This might be explained as the liberal response to the issue. But what was the left’s response?
The left in Pakistan that would reach a peak in the late 1960s, and was fond of understanding politics and society based on thorough Marxist analysis, failed to gage the impact the religious parties would go on to have in the coming political struggles in the country.
The focus of the Pakistani left at the time remained to be the elimination of feudalism in Pakistan by infiltrating left-liberal bourgeoisie parties that would then be ideologically redirected and used to overthrow the resultant capitalist order with a communist revolution.
In fact it was in the late 1960s that the Pakistani left for the first time got down to also seriously analyse the role of the religious parties in its study of class struggle in Pakistan.
The trigger in this respect was the appearance of anti-left literature bundled out by the fundamentalist JI.
The JI had declared socialism to be ‘an atheistic conspiracy against Pakistan and Islam’
Leftist intellectuals like Safdar Mir and Hanif Ramay while writing for progressive Urdu weekly, ‘Nusrat,’, retaliated by describing the religious right in Pakistan as being ‘agents of imperialist forces (the US)’ and ‘lackeys of feudal lords, military generals and capitalist exploiters.’
‘Nusrat’ also reproduced old articles written by Maududi in which he had attacked Jinnah and denounced the creation of Pakistan.
Then in 1969 famous leftist poet and author, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, took the Pakistani left’s analysis of religion a step further by writing a fluent treatise on the culture of Pakistan.
He dismissed the religious right’s wish to turn Pakistan into ‘an abode of Islam,’ and also its claim that ‘secularism was like the Trojan horse from which anti-Islam forces wanted to infiltrate Pakistan and break it.’
Faiz suggested that Pakistan did not have a monopoly to define Islam.
In his paper he insisted that Pakistani culture was not just Islamic, but a mixture of many ethnic, sectarian, religious and western cultures that it had inherited after 1947.
Famous poet, author and intellectual, Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
Nevertheless, by the early 1970s much of the affective political and intellectual left had been co-opted by the PPP.
So when in 1974 Bhutto began to concede vital ground to the religious right, many leftists mostly remained quiet (sectioning their leader’s so-called pragmatic manoeuvres).
Those who opposed him (like Meraj Muhammad Khan and J A. Rahim were beaten, arrested and thrown into jails), while others had become just to fragmented due to the petty ideological battles between the Stalinists, Maoists, Trotskyites, Leninists, etc. This was a petty display of leftist sectarianism.
By the time Zia issued his Ordinance XX in 1984, both the left and the liberal were too embroiled in fighting the dictatorship on many fronts.
And anyway, his Ordinance seemed softer compared to the laws he would go on to enact in the name of Islam.
But one can’t really separate all these laws. They are eventually a legacy of the 1974 move.
They are sides of the same coin. A coin that has only grown in value and currency, sapping the genius and energy from things like democracy, pluralism and multiculturalism can infuse in a society.
Nadeem F. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.com
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
Z.A Bhutto though secular was a Muslim after all. and according to his beliefs, any one believing in the prophethood after Muhammad s.a.w is outside the fold of islam…….please dont blame him for following his faith. May he rest in peace ameen.
ZAB did not care about religion. But he did care about his political survival.
Mustafa Kemel though secular was a Muslim after all.
While reading NFP is always a pleasure, it has often bothered me that he looked at the ZAB era thru rose colored glasses. It’s good to see objectivity here.
Looking forward to comments on ZAB’s role in 2 events.
One was pushing Ayub Khan towards Operation Gibraltar, watching him fail and then enjoy the limelight. The second was steering Yahya Khan towards Operation Searchlight which ended up with the only time in history when a majority population has seceded from the minority.
very biased liberal fascist point of view, they never would learn that majority of pakistani if they reject religious parties they reject them as well.
Truth hurts!
Isn’t the concept of Kafirs a hate concept?
In Damascus Kafirs were a wealth concept, especially the Jewish Kafirs. They filled the treasury of the Caliph with great wealth from taxes.
No, actually the word means ‘non-believer’, but is used in a demeaning manner.
Thank you Nadeem for a good recap. Despite all their deliberations in 1974, the Pakistan Assembly could only come up with the definition of a “non-Muslim”. They have yet to come up with the universal definition of who a “muslim” is. I suggest that they choose the definition given by the Holy Prophet(PBUH) if ever they decide to come up with one. And that is belief in the unity of Allah and in the Prophethood of Mohammad (PBUH).
Dr. Mohamed Boodhun/Canada
The Real Irony! “What is also ironic is the fact that Zia’s aggressive ‘Islamisation’ process throughout the 1980s was largely built around the unsuspecting blueprint of Political Islam that the Bhutto regime had begun to outline from 1974 onwards.”
Infact Bhutto made his own gallows
Hats of to u Ndeem F. Paracha for highlighting the issue and presenting true facts, and standing ovation for pointing out that Buhutto wasnt a wise man as most people have mistaken him for, but real WICKED and Evil person who showed the path to Zia and Mullahs to behave stupidly and make this country a LIVING HELL!
When you trace hate why don’t you talk about hatred against Bengalis and Hindus perpetrated by left leaning Bhutto and his cronies ? Please stop rewriting history. Bhutto was the biggest curse which happened to this country and we’re still suffering.
A good reason to elect his whole family, no doubt.
Actually we can trace it further back to the partition dates, when hate against hindus was raised to the level of faith and ‘Direct action’ was invoked. What goes round comes around.
This is another great eye-opening article published by the Dawn news. If there is one institution that can bring about a sea change in Pakistan, it would have to be the openeness of Journalism, not some vague promises by incompetent politicians (like halving corruption in 9 days). The future generation of Pakistan will appreciate the great work of Journalism in Pakistan. All these years I was made to believe that there is no compulsion in religion, Islam is peaceful, it protects minorities etc. But the history of Pakistan tells me another story. I hope they publish such great articles in Urdu news and Pashtun news in KP and FATA.
In 1492, the year of America’s discovery, Ferdinand and Isabella routed the Ummayads from Spain.
For 700 years, the Muslims had allied themselves with the Yehud in Spain, and had terrorized the Christians. Now the shoe was on the other foot. The Spanish, the most vicious form of Christianity ever that later obliterated the Latin America natives and looted their wealth, was in no mood to spare the Muslims and Yehud – convert or die.
Some did, others escaped, mostly to Turkey now under a fresh Ottoman Kaliphate. The Sultan welcomed the Yehud. His memorable quote on the Spanish Muslim and Yehud brain drain –
“woe unto the Christian king of Spain who impoverishes his kingdom and enriches mine”
So, same woe unto the Pakistanis who impoverish themselves by terrorizing the Ahmedis, and now the Hindus, Christians, and the Shia. They impoverish Pakistan and enrich where the brain drain goes – to infidel lands.
What are you doing in the Infidel land then?.
Panjabi Puttar…it seems you skipped abbas’s entire post and read only the last sentence. Please do read again. Unless you are beig sarcastic…
Making us all proud to be infidels.
All the 72 Firqahs are fighting each other still they don’t know who’s the right one?
Thank you Nadeem F. Paracha for educating our tenacious Pakistani nation.
A weak man reprimanded at work come home, shouts at his wife, beats his dog.
Pakistan, defeated in 1971 by India, turned on the weakest. Someone had to take the blame. The Ahmadis got shafted.
But let us talk about things fundamental.
After our Prophet’s death Islam split into two political camps – one Fatimite, the other Umarite. One wanted the Imamate that cares for the poor, the other wanted Kaliphate and conquest.
For 2 centuries there was continuous bloodshed between the 2 camps – Muslims killing Muslims. After 225 years of our Prophet’s death the Muslims had had enough of this incessant infighting so a compromise was sought. To the hitherto only 3 Rightly Guided Kaliphs, a 4th one was added too, and the Sunni religion was founded.
There was relative peace. The Shia and the Sunnis proved less belligerent than the Umarites and the Fatimites of the yore. The Shia allied themselves with the Christians, the Sunnis with the Yehud. So, their political differences morphed into theological ones.
So today the Shia and the Sunni believe in different gods (whom they both call Allah) and different prophets (whom they both call Mohammed AS). For the Shia, Allah is abstract external powerhouse of 99 attributes in infinite measure who can never be seen. For the Sunni, Allah is homo-morphic with arms, legs, face, and will be seen.
For the Shia not only the Prophet is almost divine a la Jesus, and so is his family, and the “city of knowledge”, a profound influence of the Gospel. For the Sunnis the Prophet is un-lettered and marries a 9 year old, literally an illiterate pedophile, very Talmudic indeed.
Enter the Qadianis who came with a new Prophet. In fairness, the Ahmedi prophet looks to be an improvement on the Sunni prophet.
Unless the Sunnis, the Shia, and the Qadianis believe in the same Allah and the same Prophet, the bloodshed will continue. Nay, it will increase.
Good description and brief summary of Islam. Muslims killing Muslims is still continuing to date. No changes to that yet!
I’m afraid the killing’s everywhere. remember the 2 world wars? Nothing to do with islam or Muslims.
In the 20th century the West committed suicide – killed 120,000,000 of their own in 31 years (1914-45) in 2 wars, concentration camps, gulags, force collectivizations, not including the 6,000,000 to 16,000,000 (pick up your figure) that the Christians admit to have killed the foreign race of yehud.
And it will rile the Westerners when you point out that it was a sectarian war of Christianity, pitting the Catholic Axis against the Protestants and Orthodox Allies.
The Axis Powers
Catholic Germany
Catholic Italy
Catholic Vichy France
Catholic Spain & Portugal (sympathizers)
Catholic Pope
The Allies Powers
Protestant UK
Protestant Netherland, Denmark
Protestant USA, Canada (English – the French are Catholic and were sympathetic to Axis)
Protestant Australia.
Orthodox Russia and satellites.
The “occupied” lands of Belgium, Poland are a separate category. They had to resist the oppressors.
1 in 4 souls lost their lives (a rate not matched since Abel killed Cain) and Europe has not recovered since then, and will not recover.
The Shia-Sunni carnage, though deplorable, is nothing more than a Sunday picnic. We can never match our Christian friends in this game, nor we want to.
There is a difference, and a big one for that matter. The 2 WW were not in the name of religion.
Very interesting history lesson about how the religious parties first opposed the creation of Pakistan and then claimed to be Pakistan’s most fervent soldiers. If only we can remove the cancerous tumor of religion from Pakistan, it will have a chance to be normal.
Pakistan is going through a Correction Process of Differentiating between Right from Wrong in the end the Right would In Shah Alllah win because there is only ONE DEEN (Religion) Allah Subhanutallah prefers for us which is ISLAM and all other faiths are man made MYTHS.
what we believe for our religion and other religions, other faiths believe same.
The key word you used in your last sentence is “man made MYTHS”. Now please reflect on your religion on how or who started it. And you will realise that you fall into the same category of your statement. May God Bless you and release you from you myopic thougth process!!!!
If you care to read the Quran you will see how much it stresses respect for other religions. As for the Abrahamic faiths , they are seen to evolve from Judaism to Islam and are inter-connected. So dismissing them as man-made belies your own ignorance.
Allah is in fact the God of the Hebrews. They were God’s chosen until they betrayed Him and He turned away from them. Pakistanis should take heed. Yes they should.
The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) discovered the Hebrew Allah.
Pakistan has little connection to Ibrahim, Moses, Noah, or Jesus – if any connection at all by blood. It was the Angel Gabriel who had the knowledge of the Hebrew people.
Reading Quran is not enough but followers must follow it but it does not look they are following even a bit. Sorry 1600 years of killing is enough and hating others because of their belief is wrong
Well, be ready to fight with your neighbor China. They have no religion. They will all be Muslims when the Chinese stop eating the pig – which will be never in this world. China has 300 million people of military age who do not, in fact like Muslims.. They only tolerate Muslims.
Don’t invade China and get “corrected”.
Pakistan’s descent into quagmire started in 630 A.D. not in 1974.
It was then that the Secular Republic of Medina with Covenant of Medina as its constitution that respected the rights of all was turned into a theocratic Kaliphate, suppressing the rights of women, minorities, and non-Arabs.
Unless Muslims face up to their history, they will be condemned to re-live it again and again.
Oops – 632 AD, not 630. Apologies.
in 630 AD there was no pakistan
It’s shocking that Dawn has allowed this comment by ‘Abbas’, which has clear sectarian connotations, to be published here!!
@ ‘Usman’, sectarian or not, isn’t it a worthwhile effort to explore the root cause of continuing militancy and hatred among Muslims?
Well you can see how much the Syrians and Iraqis love each other.
…or at least from 1947 when we decided we couldn’t live with the Hindus.
That is why more Muslims are living in India than in Pakistan and almost doubled from 1947.
@ abbastoronto – Dawn has been ‘moderating’ me for far less. What are your connections????
Hats off to you sir,A complete History.I salute to your courage as even now there is only the You who can jot down the reality.
One of the best articles that I have read so far in this respect. Only by acknowledging the real reason for the ‘birth of terrorism’ in the country could this ‘decease’ be tackled.
All of this history is well documented for those who want to look. Sadly most of Pakistanis are so afraid of the mullah that they dont dare to challenge him even if they can see him spread hatred & dont agree.
The divide that exists in our society, the twisted values the masses adhere and subscribe to are the product of a long and deep indoctrination of pseudo Islamic radical extremism which has nothing to do with real Islam and as you have mentioned are the result of political aspirations.
Here is the dilemma. It might already be too late, we ignored the plight of who were suffering for too long, thinking at least it’s not us but by doing that we have strengthened the hands which now choke us.
The only Iraqi I ever liked is Muktada Al-Sadar. It would be hard for me to trust a Sunni in such a situation.
If Al-Qaeda are Sunnis, let me trust the Shiites. If one is trying to stay alive in a war zone religious ideology is of no use to you. If you want to stay alive in a civil war – respect everyone and you just might make it through. Maybe.
“The Ahmadis had played a leading role in the creation of Pakistan and were placed in important positions in the military, the bureaucracy, the government and within the country’s still nascent industrial classes”.
Bravo NFP for putting a hard and often embarrasing to recognize truth into perspective.
The author who is a committed votary of Bhutto appears to have matured enough so as to see that he was nothing but an opportunist who like the creator of Pakistan used religion for political purposes. without envisioning the consequences and eventual ramifications. I hope some day Piracha will give similar treatment to Mr.Jinnah also.
Good idea!
In 1974 Pakistan Parliment passed a resolution and declared Ahamadiyas as non muslims and were declared a minority. Now, look at the plight of all minorities in Pakistan be it Shias. Aga Khanis, Hindus, Christians or Ahamadiyas. Unless there is a fundamental change in the thinking of the people you are heading for a disaster in the name of islam
Is hammam mein sub nangey.
No one is above reproach in making of this sordid affair. Opportunism galore.
There is much truth in what you say. If you look back, every single leader, especially the military and intelligence, in Pakistan used religion as a tool to get what he wanted. What is sad though is that the normal man on the street buys into it and he is ready to destroy and kill when any leader goads him.
An excellent rendition of historic facts, to add one of many, Ahmadis have played a mojor role in the creation of Pakistan, before the 3rd round table Quaid was extremely dejected and had left India for good, but it was the Ahmadiyya leadership who convinced him to come back and keep the spirit alive. It was Ahmadi generals who have laid down their lives for Pakistan in the wars – are there any non-ahmadi generals who died in any war? It was an Ahmadi who presented the Kashmir and Palestine issue in the UN. There are many more such cases. Answering your question – all those liberals were sitting on the side lines because when it comes to Ahmadis people dont have enough moral courage to stand up and say that “this is not right” – because the mullah and the extermeists have a huge nuisance value, and nobody wants that in their face. Wait for some time until these same extermists are in their faces and there will be no one on their sides. But once again God Bless you for an excellent article.
well presenting kashmir issue in UN and Indians troops are still fucking every Kashmiri there . Cheers.
It will stop if radicals stop killing innocents and drive out Pandits and Pakistan stops supporting terrorists. People who can’t live in peace and let others live in peace can cross the border and settle in Azad Kashmir
No one can doubt that the Ahmedis have contributed enormously to Pakistan. However, Jinnah was brought back by letters of Iqbal, and personal efforts of Liaquat and his wife Raana.
what goes around comes around.
JazakAllah,
“due to a failed ‘communist coup’ attempt by some left-wing military men in league with the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP)”— there was no coup at all. This was a ploy by the Pak govt to create an artificial and inflated communist threat and get money and weapons fron the USA. Hundreds of communists including Faiz and Sajjad Zaheer were jailed tortured unnecessarily. All to achieve ‘parity’ with India.
“A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts,
who refuse to believe that their government and their media will
routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality contrary to
verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the
police state dictatorship it’s going to get.”
— Ian Williams Goddard
Sikhs are Sikhs ,Hindu is a Hindu, A Christian is a Christian, and A Muslim is a Muslim. So why its so hard to accept that a Qadyani is a Qadyni and not a Muslim. They choose to be Qadyani, and should
not come from the back door and call themselves Muslims. I’m pretty sure this way no one in their right
mind will even bother them.
They always called themselves Ahmadis whereas their opponents preferred the word Qadiyani.
In Christianity there are Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Baptist denominations. Yet they are all Christians. If Ahmedi’s say they are Muslim then who are you to say they are not?
No we actually prefer Muslim, but the constitution does not allow us, we are law abiding citizens, hence we abide.
Why Muslims then.
They should be free to choose what they want to call themselves. It is only for Allah to decide who is a Muslim and who isn’t. Allah never gave us the authority to decide who is a Muslim and who is not.
If so, why do you need to listen to the Mullahs and Imams for what the Quran says? Why not just read it yourself.
Who says we need Mullahs and Imams for Quranic interpretation? We should read it ourself and use our judgment about the meaning. Thats the real beauty of Islam. No middlemen are required. Its each man for himself. Thats why there is a Day of Judgment to see who was wrong and who was right in this world.
This mentality of having “trade mark” kind of rights on Islam made us so bold and numb of reality that Islam is no ones personal property. We need to decide who is the owner of this “TradeMark”, and then we can decide who is Muslim and who is not Muslim.
If you are going to comment on these public forums, please learn how to spell. Or better yet, enable ‘spellchecker’.
Tell me who made you in charge of deciding who is Muslim or who is not. Your so called ‘Assembly’? Everyone knows who they were and what was their ending.
That may be so but it is not the business of the state to define who is a muslim and who isn’t. Today a lot of sunni mullahs believe that shia are not muslim and vice versa so at some poitn one or the other could be declared a non-muslim in another Pakistan like state and go on and on. Read the Aug 11, 1947 speech by Jinnah ahd you will know exactly.
A shia is a shia, a sunni is a sunni, why is it hard so accept that they are not a muslim. I hope you are getting my point my boy..
shame on you for being so dumb, we are just humans after all you moron
if a person says he is a christian and his book is bible and his god is Jesus then he is a christian. what business others have in saying he a non-christian. likewise for a Hindu or a jew or Muslim.
You speak as if it is a great privilege or a great status to be Muslim. Sorry. Look at yourselves on any place on earth. Is there a single place where one Muslim is not killing another Muslim. What ego!!
Ranganath: Namaste
Yes, it is a great privilege to be a Muslim, especially today because border-less Islam is the natural religion for the era of globalization and trade, just as Christianity and Hinduism were the natural religions for the Agrarian Era, and the religion of Moses the right one for Pastoral Era. Moses was a shepherd, Jesus an artisan in the Fertile Crescent, and our Prophet a Businessman Trader, and today Trade is supreme.
Islam is a privileged religion because it is not wasteful but Efficient – get more bang for your buck. Compare yourself with your Muslim neighbour (of any sect) and see how he has a larger family, lives a better, more saner, healthier, longer life, even with fewer resources. Islam is frugal.
Lack of violence is no index of growth. America is violent (I was held here at gunpoint a few months ago) yet is the magnet for Europeans and Asians alike where there is more peace. A lots of Indians here. USSR was more peaceful than USA, but it you know what happened to it.
The current violence among the Muslims is a mark of its vibrancy, its dynamism. There are certain basic issues that have been postponed by the Muslims for over 12 centuries because they were not yet relevant (the age was agrarian). Now that Islam is becoming the natural religion of our Trading age, it is high time to have these difference resolved. And it may take violence, great violence. But in the end the good guys will win, Inshallah.
Best wishes
Try to be hurry Petrol is going to finish soon or alternative energy sources are in horizon. I really like to see muslim world once impotence of oil goes down. It seems you are getting free pension from Canada without doing (contributing) anything to the country that allow you to live out of mess of Pakistan. You are just a burden on the Canadian taxpayer.
Sunny: Greetings
Burden on the Canadian Taxpayer??? Free Pension??? Burden??? LOL
Canada is going bankrupt soon. All the social programs will not last more than 10 years. Gone are the good days. Pension you say?? What Pension??
Canada should kiss my feet that for the last 15 years I have been toiling abroad (East Asia, Middle East, USA) and bringing in the loot, and paying taxes on the top to keep these lazybones sustain their lifestyle. These words are coming to you from Dearborn MI.
We certainly consider being a Muslim a privelege, thats why we are Muslims. As for the violence, it is nothing compared to the millions who perished in the 2 world wars less than a century ago, not to mention the holocaust. Those events had nothing to do with Muslims or Islam. There are actually very places in the Muslim world where Muslims are busy killing Muslims if you think about it.
No. You are not a Muslim because being Muslim is a privelege. That would have been a considered decision. You are a Muslim because you were born to a Muslim family.
Don’t spew just raw hate and rubbish. Turkey and Malaysia are both world’s finest democracies and have produced moral leadership that the West or Indians can not even dream of. Turkey is an economic power house with a per capita income twice that of china and almost six times India. Malaysia has an even higher per capita income.
Turkey has also established true secularism where state is indifferent to religion and not hostile to religion. Where media does not invent vile names and labels to demonize those who profess a religion. In Turkey you can’t imagine the country’s leading news outfit having a name like your NDTV-Hindu channel nor you can have an anti-religious channel.
history tells whenever religion is used as a tool in running state affairs it brought injustice opression and haterd
Hear, hear.
History tells everyone what they want to hear. There was no religion involved in either of the world wars. There was was no religion involved in perhaps history’s only true genocide that lasted 400 years and decimated the native population of half of the world’s inhabited continents (North America, South America and Australia). There was no religion involved in slave trade that killed tens of millions of Africans, there was no religion involved in apartheid in South Africa. There is only a pseudo religion involved in the Indian caste system,
But religion was involved in partition of India.
And the only two countries created on the basis of religion are Pakistan and Israel.
What a great coincidence.