Confusion over jihad: FRIDAY FEATURE

THE Quran did enjoin Jihad on those Muslims who had been driven away from their homes and were targeted by the heathens even in the place of their asylum, and who were, at the time of the revelation, struggling for their survival in hostile environments. This was the situation in Madinah during the holy Prophet’s life-time (peace be upon him).

There are a number of Prophetic pronouncements too on the subject. But the early Jurists of Islam, the Imams of Sunni Fiqah, did not treat Jihad as one of the obligatory religious duties like Salat (prayer), Zakat (alms-giving), Saum and Hajj (pilgrimage). Imam Jafar Sadiq also did not encourage haphazard armed uprising, the sense in which Jihad is interpreted by some people.

But the way the term Jihad has, of late, gained currency and is being treated by the electronic and print media the world over is a matter of concern. Muslims are being presented as ‘terrorists’ and their religion as the fountain-head of ‘terrorism.’ In fact, the West is terribly afraid of the global spurt of the ‘Jihadi’ movement directed, as it is, against the oppressors who happen to be non-Muslims in all cases — Palestine, Kosovo, Kashmir, Chechnya, southern Philippine and eastern Turkey. So, almost all those who matter, belonging to this or that side of the religious, political and ideological divide, have coalesced as had never happened before.

It was unthinkable that even Russia, China and Cuba would join the grand coalition forged by the United States of America and its trans-Atlantic allies. This is, quite obviously, an alliance of the ‘Rest’ against Islam and the stand-off is not likely to be non-violent but is prone to violence of the worst kind. Countries on whom the axe will fall have also been named and notified. They are all, without exception, Muslim states.

What have the Muslims lost by the warped notion of ‘Jihad’? This is the question. The general feeling in the non-Muslim world is that all terrorists are Muslims though all Muslims may not be terrorists. Islam, which was the fastest growing religion in North America, is now a red rag to the citizens there.

Therefore, the Muslims, all over the world, have to consider whether or not those verses of the holy Quran and sayings of the holy Prophet that encouraged Jihad, or armed struggle, against the heathens of Arabia and also the powerful non-Muslim empires of the Romans and the Persians that were flexing their military muscles on the peripheries of Arabia and posed a real threat to nascent Islam need to be re-interpreted in today’s geopolitical background.

Unfortunately, the word ‘Jihad’, meaning earnest endeavour, has become synonymous with ‘Qital’, meaning armed conflict and war, although an objective study of the Quran will show that, unlike our present day clerics who interpret Jihad as necessarily implying Qital, the holy Book and the holy Prophet distinguish between the two, sanctioning Qital, or war, only in self-defence and against a force that threatens Islam. Qital against civilians and non-combatants is not permissible in any case.

It would be worthwhile drawing attention to Surah Al-Fath, meaning ‘victory’, where the victory refers not to the conquest of Makkah or even to the miraculous triumph in the battle of Badr but to the Truce of Al-Hudaybia which averted blood-letting and fighting with the Quraish who had gathered with their allied tribes to prevent the holy Prophet and his 1400 followers (in 6 A.H.) from entering Makkah to perform Umrah, or lesser pilgrimage.

The holy Prophet was resolute to give parleys with the Quraish a chance, and thereby avoid war, that he turned down the advice of even his closest companions who favoured fighting a battle with the enemy that stood arrayed against them with full preparedness to fight.

As opined by Ibn Khaldun, “there was never a victory greater than this victory”, the reason being that when it was war, the people did not meet and when the truce came, they indulged in conversation and discussion; and as a result, more people converted to Islam in the two years that the truce remained operative than was the case before the truce.

The following Ayat, revealed a year or so after the truce, indicates the optimism in the Heavens that the said truce for peace would lead to normalization of relations between Muslims and the hostile heathen tribes: “It may be that Allah will ordain love between you and those with whom you were at enmity” (60:7). So, adoption of peaceful means is recommended by the Scripture as the first option, though not the only option.

There is a misconception that Quranic verses, which were revealed by way of Divine counselling on appropriate occasions, are applicable in the same manner and meaning in all circumstances without regard to the historical context. This is the result of the stagnation and decadence of Muslim religious thought.

Imam Abu Hanifa is reported to have observed, during the reign of Harun Rasheed, that the actual decision in given juristic cases should take into account the fact that the society had moved ahead with the lapse of time. On this, he had incurred not only the royal displeasure but had also evoked the mild protest of certain clerics of his time. Also, Imam Malik, who had compiled Muatta’, his own version of reliable Hadith, declined to enforce it as the authorised version throughout the realm on the ground that it was unfair to deny the right of Ijtihad, or re-appraisal, to the future jurists and scholars.

In this context the role of the OIC where followers of all the different schools of Islamic jurisprudence are represented, should be actively invoked. It is important to note that, at the moment, Jihad is not an ecclesiastical issue for which the OIC may not be the appropriate forum. As we are witnessing, it is a serious political issue, over which the OIC can deliberate and provide the guidelines for the benefit of all its member states.

Let city govt take over kutchi abadis control: CITYSCAPES

APART from the defence personnel, the bureaucrats, businessmen and the toiling masses have a right to own and live on a piece of land in the city of their choice. Magnanimous Karachi accommodated the bulk of the migrants at the time of the partition of the subcontinent. Locals witnessed burgeoning squatter colonies with refugees arriving with little personal belongings.

Soon most of the refugees found permanent abodes, but somehow the ever-growing squatter colonies, also known as kutchi abadis, have stayed here ever since. According to conservative estimates more than forty percent of all its residents, or almost five million Karachiites, live in sub-human conditions in kutchi abadis.

It is not that other cities of the country do not have kutchi abadis. According to a policy document issued by the ministry of environment, local government and rural development, during 2001 the number of people living in kutchi abadis in Lahore was only 4,58,000.

According to the same policy document, the number of people living in kutchi abadis in Rawalpindi was 19,636 less than two per cent of the population, in Multan 40,300 less than four per cent, in Gujranwala 38,989 less than four per cent, Larkana 5,328 less than three per cent of the city’s population.

People fail to understand the reasons for such a large number of people slogging their existence at sub-human levels in the kutchi abadis of Karachi?

Some sociologists tend to call “lack of employment opportunities in the agriculture sector” as the reason for an exploding population of the rural farm workers having no option but to migrate to urban areas vibrating with commercial and industrial activity!

But it is an open secret that for over 20 years Karachi has actually seen negative economic growth. Meanwhile the real economic activity may have taken place in Punjab still its urban centres did not see any phenomenal growth in kutchi abadis. The above reasoning may only be partially correct but there has to be other factors for unchecked growth of kutchi abadis in Karachi.

Most of the people living in kutchi abadis have migrated from the NWFP, Punjab, the Interior of Sindh, Afghanistan with traces of Bengalis, Ceylonese, Burmese, etc. camping mostly over storm water drains, hills and railway reservations.

The city government is only part owner of Karachi’s land with many others also laying claim to it. There may be several reasons for the city’s failure to develop decent housing but the policy of continuing regularization in the name of God-fearing and people-friendly governance, of haphazard encroachments may have condemned the intended beneficiary to the clutches of organized land mafia colluding with the corrupt.

Government’s failure to fulfil the growing demands for low- cost housing and satellite towns yet looking the other way as likes of the infamous KESC driver (just one in a long list of names) illegally developed and sold thousands of residential and commercial plots over state land, at facilities starved Baldia and other places, may have been another contributing factor in mushrooming of kutchi abadis during the 80’s and the 90’s.

Paucity of funds may have hampered development and maintenance of infrastructure at KDA schemes, Defence, F.B. Area and Gulshan-i-Iqbal, or societies like PECHS. But regularization of kutchi abadis over encroached state property has absolved the ruling elite from making allocations in the housing and social sectors for the poor. People living in Orangi, Baldia, Punjab colony, Akhtar colony, Niazi colony, Neelum Basti, etc are mollycoddled by regularization of 40- or 50-square-yard plots, and seven-feet-wide streets with non-existent amenities or utilities.

The unchecked growth of kutchi abadis has also helped big business by taking away the pressure of developing labour colonies. In fact most of the plots allotted by SITE for that very purpose might have been sold or utilized for other lucrative ends.

There may be numerous loopholes in the official policy that tend to serve the land mafia and the corrupt authorities but hardly ever benefit the people they were designed to facilitate. Even today there may be no limit over the size of a plot of encroached land that can be regularized in the name of kutchi abadis. But obviously that does not mean that the poor will be allowed a thousand-square-yard plot.

It is also an open secret that one of the assistant directors of the defunct KMC owns one of the commercial centres in the so- called Kutchi Abadi of Gizri. But then many ground plus four commercial centres like Mustafa Centre or Inam Centre at Gizri commercial area of Defence or over Queens Road, Gulshan-i-Iqbal have been constructed and regularized.

Some KDA officers and one official of the prime cooperative society gulped a huge amenity plot in the name of regularization of forty families sitting over it prior to the cut-off date of 23rd March, 1985. There sit beautiful plazas over several such sites. Needless to say that many past and present officials of the land owning agencies, ministers and just plain land mafia barons own such precious property.

We need a sustained effort for provision of low-cost housing in the city. An acre of city land could be used for construction of 100 to 150 apartments of 600 square feet. The estimated cost for such low-cost housing remains within Rs300 per square foot that HBFC offers. It will be well within the spirit of the devolution plan if the city government takes upon itself the responsibility of addressing the issue of kutchi abadis, of course to contain its growth in the future.

If devolution plan is to be implemented in its real spirit, the city government should be allowed to tackle the problems, and handle the affairs of kutchi abadis.