A shameless extreme

Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is a blunt man who does not believe in sugar-coating what he has to say in coloured phrases of shallow rhetoric. In his Martyrs’ Day speech on Monday he took on those who criticise the ongoing war against terrorism: “Despite all this bloodshed, certain quarters still want to remain embroiled in the debate concerning the causes of this war and who imposed it on us…Does the fight against the enemy of the state constitute someone else’s war?” He also reaffirmed the army’s full support for democracy and dispelled the fanciful narrative that the May 11 elections could be derailed.
The statement has been widely acclaimed and a segment of the media has proposed that religious scholars should also do their bit to counter the violent anti-election campaign of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). But unfortunately clerics have a tendency to stray into the marshes and muddy places of controversy.
This was evident from the National Solidarity Conference organised by the All Pakistan Ulema Council (APUC) on April 25 in Islamabad. The participants issued a 40-page edict which declared that not voting in an election was a sin. This ridiculous pronouncement was justified on the false premise that casting a vote is obligatory in Islam.
For starters, Islam predated the gradual emergence of democracy by more than a thousand years and voting is not even vaguely alluded to in any of its sacred texts. The Quran does, however, contain the elements of democratic governance and this is apparent from two of its verses. One of these enunciates the principle that all matters of communal business must be transacted through mutual consultations (42:38). This contains the rudiments of an eventual parliament.
The other verse declares: “(True) believers are only they who have attained to faith in God and His Apostle and who, whenever they are (engaged) with him upon a matter of concern to the community, do not depart (from whatever has been decided upon) unless they have sought (and obtained) his leave” (24:62). Many scholars believe that this allows an individual to abstain, for valid reasons, from “participating in a course of action or a policy agreed upon by the majority of the community. In a logical development of this principle we arrive at something like the concept of a loyal opposition, which implies the possibility of dissent on a particular point of communal or state policy combined with absolute loyalty to the common cause.”
That is where any semblance to contemporary democratic norms and practices ends. Nevertheless, what it does imply is that the elements of a state structure outlined by the Quran fourteen hundred years ago was far more advanced than the absolute monarchies that prevailed at the time in the known world. But in the west the divine right of kings was gradually eroded by the transfer of power to parliament, whereas the Islamic world remained static.
The main transformation in several Muslim countries in the last century witnessed the replacement of some, but not all, dynastic rulers by autocratic republican regimes. Only a few emerged as faltering democracies. Almost all of them whether monarchies, authoritarian republics, or quasi-democracies are confronted with the hideous spectre of extremist violence.
The space that the Quran provides for adapting the state structure and laws to modernity has seldom been availed by Muslims. Instead, distorted interpretations of the religion have been allowed to obscure its inherently progressive and liberal spirit. Thus, earlier in the week, the TTP spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, declared: “Islamic law and values are from Allah and secular doctrine is from Rousseau, Kant and Bentham. A man cannot be secular and Muslim at the (same) time.”
The statement contains the ingredients from which the Taliban concoct the lethal brew of their hate-filled ideology which makes cold-blooded murder look like piety. Unfortunately, the term ‘secular’ translates in Urdu as ‘without religion’ (ladiniyat) and, this is exploited by the Taliban to condemn moderate Muslims as apostates who deserve to be killed.
This was in evidence last Sunday when the TTP distributed pamphlets reiterating that in the run-up to the May 11 elections, secular mainstream parties such as the PPP, ANP and MQM would be targeted because, as components of the previous ruling coalition, they had supported military action in the tribal regions. However, Imran Khan’s PTI, the JUI-F and the PML-N would be spared. This decision, according to the pamphlet, had been taken by the Taliban council after detailed deliberations. Since April 11 more than 60 people, mostly members of the ‘secular’ parties, have been killed.
An intriguing comment during the ulema conference was made by the APUC chairman Hafiz Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi who, in his keynote address, exhorted voters to favour ‘good candidates’ and, if none were available, to throw in their lot with those who were ‘less bad.’ He unwittingly laid bare the unachievable eligibility criteria stipulated in Article 62 of the constitution for membership of parliament.
The conference participants appropriately expressed concern over the denial of the right to vote to women and correctly zeroed in on the home truth that these strictures had nothing to do with Islam but were derived from the stultifying and repressive feudal system. What the conference conveniently glossed over is that there was also no hurdle in Islam in the way of women to become the head of the community. The Quran refers to the queen of Saba (Sheba), initially a polytheist, who later converted to Solomon’s monotheism.
The possibility of a woman becoming head of state in an Islamic system was even conceded by the founder and leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Maulana Maudoodi, who, along with other orthodox religious parties, supported the candidature of Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah against Ayub Khan in the 1965 presidential election. In recent times, Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, Khalida Zia and Hasina Wajid of Bangladesh, Tansu Ciller of Turkey and, Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia have headed governments in their respective countries. These nations collectively account for more than two-fifths of the Islamic world’s population.
The outcome of the National Solidarity Conference was unspectacular. The meeting failed to identify those who are out to derail democracy and, amazingly, some of the clerics even went to the extent of justifying violence. But if truth be told, every political party, with the exception of the ANP and the MQM, has been pandering to violent extremist groups.
The PML-N, for instance, has awarded a party ticket to Sardar Ebad Dogar, a fervent supporter of the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (renamed Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat) of which the murderous Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is an offshoot. Two years ago Dogar announced Rs20 million as reward to anyone who succeeded in killing the former Punjab governor, Salmaan Taseer.
Despite its secular pretentions, the PPP has reached a seat adjustment agreement for the coming elections with the ASWJ in Toba Tek Singh in central Punjab. In the 1990s, when it controlled Punjab, it inducted an SSP member into the provincial cabinet.
But it is the PTI that has gone to the giddy and shameless extreme in appeasing the Taliban. At a rally on April 21, Imran Khan announced that should his party win the elections he would end the military operations against the militants. This is nothing short of surrender to the TTP which has killed thousands of innocent people and wreaked havoc in the country.
A few days later, in Rahimyar Khan, the PTI leader stooped even lower. Media reports indicate that he appealed to the TTP to put its ongoing killing spree on hold till he came to power, 13 days after which there would be no compelling reasons for them to perpetrate any form of violence. What compromises does he intend to make?
More than 4,000 of our armed forces personnel have sacrificed their lives in defending the country against the terrorist onslaught. He should heed general Kayani’s warning: “We cannot afford to confuse our soldiers and weaken their resolve with such misgivings.”
The writer is the publisher of Criterion Quarterly. Email: iftimurshed@ gmail.com