Suicide Bomber was My Cousin

By Sahar Saba

Sahar Saba is the spokesperson for Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)

For rest of the world, victims of Afghan war remain nameless and faceless. Not for us in Afghanistan. I myself have mourned number of such victims including my real uncle (father’s brother). Three weeks back, there was yet another suicide blast which killed only the bomber and his accomplice. Reportedly, the suicide bomber was on his way to ambush German troops in north of Afghanistan. He was being driven to the possible scene of action on motorbike by his accomplice. On their way, at a police check-post, they were asked to stop for search. Instead of stopping, they attempted to escape and were fired at. The biker lost the balance and both fell setting off the explosive filled in the suicide jacket. Both died on the spot. Either the accomplice or the suicide bomber was my cousin, Abdul Latif. He was 22.

Patriotism and Religiosity in Pakistan

By Umayr Hassan

I can appreciate, why you don’t want this to be yet another discussion about Zaid Hamid. It is indeed difficult to reasonably discuss a commentator disinclined to cite his sources. (I will underline, though, the constant parading of the “Syed” part of his name: his supposed ancestry does not already make him a better person or citizen). So, let’s focus on the problem of national and religious zeal that seems to concern both you and Zaid Hamid. I’ve appended your original note at the end of this.

1. Your first paragraph vaguely presents diversity as a reason for strife. Which schools of thoughts do you refer to? Assuming them to be limited to religion, ethnicity and politics: one can reasonably argue that diversity in all three pre-existed current conditions. Islam has never been a homogeneous religion with pre-existing axioms for life (even the Quran was revealed piecemeal, according to situational relevance [1]). The political differences within the early Muslim community had started with the election of Abu Bakr to caliphate (ensuring the dominance of Meccan followers over the Medinites), intensified by the murder of Uthman bin Affan, precipitating the formation of a Shia faction. The diversity of religious and political ideology within the early Islam only intensified as the empires of Islam expanded and new ethnicities came into contact with Arab-Islamic culture. Why shouldn’t we connect murder and mayhem with diversity, all the more strongly given the crises of early Islam? The rationale for political differences and the manner of political action are *different* events: e.g. while the elevation without election of Abu Bakr to caliphate may be questionable, that should not necessarily entail a battle to resolve differences. Discussion may be a good alternative. Aisha and Ali eventually ‘resolved’ their differences through dialogue.

Profile of the Religious Right

By Eqbal Ahmad

Dawn- 7 March, 2009

In two earlier essays l had argued one, that all religio-political movements are products of the shift from the agrarian/pastoral to the capitalist/industrial mode of production and the many forms of dislocations that it entails and two, that the religious tradition they invoke is more imagined than real, outcome of political opportunism and contemporary compulsions rather than of a return to sources and fundamentals.
Given their shared roots, the so-called ‘fundamentalist’ movements bear remarkable similarities which are outlined in the following paragraphs:

The Jew as well as the Christian, the Hindu no less than the Muslim ‘fundamentalist’ plies an ideology of superior difference. Each confronts an inferior and threatening Other. Each engages in the politics of exclusion. Hence each poses a menace to the minority communities within its boundary. The Jewish ones regard the Arab, especially the Palestinian Arab whose land they covet and colonize, as the Other violent, dirty, uncivilized, over-sexed, and dangerous.

For long, the Hindu militants’ sole Other was the Muslim; Christians have now been added to their enemy list. The Christian bigot had long regarded the Jew as the conspiratorial, grasping Other. In the decades after World War II, antisemitism became a widely decried prejudice and receded into the interstices of Christian societies. Gradually, Muslims and coloured immigrants are taking the place of Jews in the western world. For the Muslim militants the Other are the Jews, occasionally Christians and, in South Asia, the Hindus, Christians, and Ahmedis. I know of no religio-political formation today which does not have a demonized, therefore threatened, Other.

Islam and Politics

By Eqbal Ahmad

Islam, Politics, and the State, ed. Mohammad Asghar Khan (London. Zed Press, 1985 )

In writing about Islam and politics, one faces special difficulties. The field of Islamic studies, strewn with ancient potholes and modern mines, is dominated by apparently different but complementary adversaries-the “traditionalist” Ulema and the “modern” Orientalists. Their methods are different; so are their intentions. Yet, with few exceptions, both tend to view Islam’s relationship to politics in fundamentalist and textual terms. Both emphasize the absence of separation between religion and politics in Islam. Both hold an essentially static view of Islam and interpret change and innovations produced by social and economic forces as impingements on established, therefore ordained, religious standards. Both treat Muslim history, especially its most creative periods-that is, the Umayyads in Spain, the Moghuls in India, the Safavids in Persia-as deviations from the norm. The interplay of the Westerners’ academic orthodoxy and the Ulemas’ theological orthodoxy has set the terms of prevalent discourse on Islam.

A second problem concerning perceptions and prejudices should be put forth. The Islamic civilization is the only one with which the territorial, religious, and cultural boundaries of the West have fluctuated for fourteen centuries. Islam’s relationship with the West has been continuous, frequently intimate, marked by protracted and violent confrontations and fruitful, though often forgotten, collaboration. During the century that followed the prophet hood of Mohammad, the dramatic expansion of Islamic dominance occurred largely at the expense of Christendom. Subsequently, the West and Islam remained locked in a relationship of antagonistic collaboration that included seven centuries of Muslim rule in Spain, unsuccessful invasion of France, and an inconclusive occupation of Sicily. The long and bitter confrontation during the Crusades, and later the Ottoman domination of the Balkans further solidified in the West the adversarial perceptions and menacing images of Islam and Muslims. Even the prophet Mohammad and the Quran were not spared several centuries of vilification and abusive misrepresentation. In turn, medieval Muslim writers misrepresented and misjudged Judaism and Christianity. However, because Islam venerates Biblical prophets as predecessors of Muhammad, their polemics fortunately stopped short of vilifications in extremis. To the Western world’s credit, the “medieval canon” of Christian discourse on Islam (up to the eighteenth century) has been admirably documented.’

Islam’s Arrested Development

By Pervez Hoodbhoy
Guardian – 25 November 2009

The question: Can Islam be reconciled with science?

Material resources are immaterial to the current sorry state of science in Islam. To do science, it is first necessary to accept the key premises underlying science – causality and the absence of divine intervention in physical processes, and a belief in the existence of physical law. Without the scientific method you cannot have science because science is all about objective and rational thinking. Science demands a mindset that incessantly questions and challenges assumptions, not one that relies upon received wisdom. If this condition is not fulfilled, all the money and machines in the world make no difference.

Can Islam accept the premises of science? There are some versions of the religion that can, and others that simply cannot.

But before proceeding further, let me distinguish between ancient science – which Muslims did brilliantly – and modern science. They are not quite the same but are so often confused together that it is important to make the point. The ancient science of the Greeks, Chinese, Muslims, and Hindus was a rather limited affair that did not put any theological system under undue stress. Scholars observed, drew a few conclusions, and wrote a treatise that only a few could read. It was inconceivable at that time to imagine that the workings of the entire physical world could be understood from just a handful of basic principles. There was almost no link to technology and therefore no impact upon how people actually lived.

Censorship in Pakistani Urdu Textbooks

By Ajmal Kamal

Saadat Hasan Manto

Suppression of dissent and criticism has always been an active force in Pakistani society. Journalists and creative writers have had to struggle hard to find their way around or across many laws threatening to punish  any deviation from the official line on most vital issues. The authorities’ initiative to impose censorship through legislative means dates back to the Public Safety Act Ordinance imposed in October 1948, and later, in 1952, ratified by the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan as the Safety Act.  Apart from numberless political workers, newspapers, and periodicals, the leading literary journals too fell victim to this oppressive piece of legislation which was only the first in a long series of such laws.  In fact,  Savera (Lahore) has the dubious honor of being the first periodical of any kind to be banned, in 1948, under this very Public Safety Act Ordinance.  This legal device was also invoked to suspend two other Lahore-based literary periodicals—Nuqush and Adab-e Latif—for six months and to incarcerate the editor of Savera, Zaheer Kashmiri, in 1950 without even a trial.[1]

The infamous Safety Act had well-known literary people on both sides. On the one hand, literary critics such as Muhammad Hasan Askari[2] found the law perfectly justifiable—indeed, they even praised it. On the other hand, there were writers and editors who were prosecuted under this law, Sa’dat Hasan Manto perhaps being the most prominent among them.[3] Manto’s writing had had a history of attracting the wrath of the authorities for its downright honest and realistic portrayal of life and its stinging moral and political comment. He had been prosecuted under the British colonial government for publishing the short stories “Dhuvan” and “Kali Shalvar.” Individuals such as Chaudhry Muhammad Husain of the Press Branch, Government of Punjab—immortalized by Manto in the dedications of two successive editions of his collection Lazzat-e Sang—were always eager to assist the authorities in this respect. Having decided on intolerance of any moral or political comment almost from the moment the new state came into being, the Pakistani authorities have since kept it alive and have never felt the need to relax it. Consequently, there has been a long series of unjust laws and practices intended to suppress freedom of thought and expression, irredeemably crippling any tradition of dissent in the society. Especially regrettable is the fact that people like Chaudhry Muhammad Husain and Muhammad Hasan ‘Askari have always come forward to lend a helping hand to the authorities by providing legal and ideological support in stilling any expression of
dissent.

Tablighi Jamaat Coming of Age?

By Waqar Gillani, The News

Cross Posted from Pak Tea House

Ex-servicemen belonging to Tablighi Jamaat meet in Raiwind ahead of its annual Ijtimah to discuss the party’s future agenda

Ahead of the Tablighi Jamaat’s annual congregation in Raiwind near Lahore — one of the largest congregations of Islamic world attended by at least one and half million Muslims — there has been a day-long meeting of at least 50 former officers of Pakistan’s armed forces in Raiwind to discuss the future agenda of the rapidly-expanding movement.

Though party sympathisers term the meeting as ‘routine’, insiders claim these retired officers had travelled from across the country to attend this special meeting of “Halqa-e-Khawas” (group of special people) and were well-taken care of and hosted by the Ameer of TJ, Maulana Abdul Wahab. It may be interesting to note that Wahab is no seminary student but an ordinary landlord.

The annual congregation of TJ, which is considered a non-resistant and non-political Islamic revivalist movement, is scheduled from Nov 5-8, 2009.

The meeting, convened under the driving force of this group in Pakistan armed forces, Lt Gen (r) Javed Nasir, former director general Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), was attended by at least 50 former high-rank officers of the military including many generals, brigadiers and admirals and even top police officers etc. Apart from Lt Gen (r) Nasir, there were Lt Gen (r) Agha Masood Hasan, former naval chief Admiral (r) Karamat Rehman Niazi, Lt Gen (r) Aftab Ahmed and others.

Rewriting the History of Pakistan

by Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy and Abdul Hameed Nayyar

[Source: Islam, Politics and the State: The Pakistan Experience, Asghar Khan (ed.) Zed Books, London, 1985, pp. 164-177.]

From indoctrination’s foul rope
Suspend all reason, all hope
Until with swollen tongue
Morality herself is hung.

Introduction

Education in Pakistan, from schools to universities, is being fundamentally redefined. This development is expected to have profound implications for the future of the country’s society and politics. Most changes are traceable to factors related to the stability of the present government, but there are also others which cannot be analysed as a mere response to immediate threats. A new concept of education now prevails, the full impact of which will probably be felt by the turn of the century, when the present generation of school children attains maturity.

Having pledged to divorce education from liberal and secular ideals, Pakistani rulers view education as an important means of creating an Islamised society and as an instrument for forging a new national identity based on the ‘Ideology of Pakistan’. Important steps have already been taken in this direction: enforcement of chadar in educational institutions; organisation of congregational zuhr (afternoon) prayers during school hours; compulsory teaching of Arabic as a second language from sixth class onwards; introduction of nazara Qur’an (reading of Qur’an) as a matriculation requirement; alteration of the definition of literacy to include religious knowledge; elevation of maktab schools to the status of regular schools and the recognition of maktab certificates as being equivalent to master’s degrees; creation of an Islamic university in Islamabad; introduction of religious knowledge as a criterion for selecting teachers of all categories and all levels; and the revision of conventional subjects to emphasise Islamic values.

The Myth of History

by Prof. Shahida Kazi

DAWN- March 27, 2005

History is a discipline that has never been taken seriously by anyone in Pakistan. As a result, the subject has been distorted in such a way that many a fabricated tale has become part of our collective consciousness

Does mythology have anything to do with history? Is mythology synonymous with history? Or is history mythology?

Admittedly, the line between the two is a very fine one. From time immemorial, man has always been in search of his roots. He has also been trying to find a real and tangible basis for the legends of ancient days — legends that have become a part of our collective consciousness. As a result, we witness the quest for proving the existence of King Arthur, the search for whereabouts of the city of Troy, and many expeditions organized to locate the exact site of the landing of Noah’s Ark.

During the ‘60s and the ‘70s, there was a worldwide movement to prove that the ‘gods’ of ancient mythologies did actually exist; they came from distant galaxies; and that mankind owed all its progress to such alien superheroes. Several books were written on the subject.

We, in Pakistan, are a breed apart. Lacking a proper mythology like most other races, we have created our own, populated by a whole pantheon of superheroes who have a wide range of heroic exploits to their credit.

Signatures on Balochistan Statement

by A. H. Nayyar

Dear friends,

Balochistan is burning and needs our special and urgent attention. For the fifth time the people of Balochistan have been forced to take up arms as an expression of defiance against their continued exploitation. Each time the state of Pakistan embarked on military action to crush the resistance rather than to seek a reconciliation with the Baloch.

The state atrocities on the people of Balochistan have now reached unbearable proportions. So many have faced extrajudicial killings. Thousands of young men have disappeared at the hand of state agencies. Common people are being humiliated everyday by the Pakistani law enforcement agencies. Most young men in Balochistan have become totally alienated from Pakistan. If we continue to keep quiet we will commit a gross injustice to our Balochistani brothers and sisters. We must speak up now.

We the citizens of Pakistan must express solidarity with the people of Balochistan. The enclosed statement is meant to do just that. It also suggests steps that we the citizens feel the government must take in this regard.

We are approaching you to seek your help in this campaign.

A web-based signature portal is also being created. But we are all aware that as a vast majority of Pakistani citizens do not have access to such portals. Hence a need for signatures on a printed statement. The statement is in both English and Urdu, and we would deeply appreciate if some friends translate and print it in other languages, and get signatures.