Cases of Islamic Intolerance
In this page: (please scroll down for articles)
(1) Blasphemy - After Taslima Nasareen's Lajja Tehmina
Durrani's - Muzaffar Hussain
It should not surprise anyone if the oft-debated
Pakistani writer Tahmina Durrani matchest the uneviable position of the
Bangladeshi Taslima Nasareen. Taslima has in her novel Lajja advocated the cause
of the minorities in Bangladesh and in the process has bitterly attacked the
Muslim orthodoxy. In her turn Tahmina Durrani has exposed the Pakistani maulanas
and shown to the whole world how the Muslim clergy exploits the Muslims masses
behind the facade of Islamic religious traditions...
(2) Where is the justice Muhammad preached? - Ali Sharrif
An international outcry arose when an
Islamic court in the Nigerian state of Zamfara sentenced teenaged Bariya Ibrahim
Magazu to 100 lashes for engaging in premarital sex and another 80 lashes for -
in the courts view - falsely accusing her father's friends of paying to have
intercourse with her...
(3) ‘When one is a Hindu one lives in constant fear’ -
Every day, in Kahnaur, Indian relatives hear tales of
woe from their Pakistani relatives. And, each time a new story is recounted,
they cannot help but pray in gratitude for having the good sense to leave
Pakistan after Partition...
(4) Letter from Karachi: The Talibanisation of Pakistan -
Ishtiaq Ali Mehkri
Killing in the name of Allah seems to be the modus
operandi of the religious parties in Pakistan. This is the Talibanisation
phenomenon--a direct offshoot to our meddling in the Afghan affairs to appease
our erstwhile Cold War ally...
(5) The Taliban menace - Kris Mitel
Two months ago, Muslim clerics knows as the Taliban,
educated in "religious" schools (madarsas) in Pakistan
and armed and trained by its ISI, captured Kabul and thereby seized control of
most parts of Afghanistan. One
of the first things Taliban mullahs did after entering the Afghan capital was to
drag the former president
Najibullah out of the UN compound (where he was sheltering after relinquishing
power following a UN-sponsored peace plan) and castrate him...
(6) All we are breaking are stones: Taliban -
The leader of the Taliban Islamic militia in
Afghanistan on Tuesday shrugged off international condemnation of his order to
destroy ancient Buddhist statues, saying "all we are breaking are
stones." The massive Buddhas, carved into a sandstone cliff near the
provincial capital Bamiyan, stand 50 meters and 34.5 meters tall respectively
and date back to the second century AD...
(7) Zero-Tolerance Islam in Northern Nigeria -
The introduction of Islamic law, or Shariah, in many
of the northern states of Nigeria is making life difficult for Christians.
During a recent tour of the country, the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury,
George Carey, declared that Christianity has been in decline in the northern
state of Zamfara since the adoption of Islamic law...
Blasphemy - After Taslima
Nasareen’s Lajja Tehmina Durrani’s
Author: Muzaffar Hussain
Publication: Organiser
Date: November 22, 1998
It should not surprise anyone if the oft-debated Pakistani writer Tahmina
Durrani matchest the uneviable position of the Bangladeshi Taslima Nasareen.
Taslima has in her novel Lajja advocated the cause of the minorities in
Bangladesh and in the process has bitterly attacked the Muslim orthodoxy. In her
turn Tahmina Durrani has exposed the Pakistani maulanas and shown to the whole
world how the Muslim clergy exploits the Muslims masses behind the facade of
Islamic religious traditions.
Tehmina Durrani’s book, Blasphemy, is published in London. Its Urdu version
too is available and is published under the Urdu title Ihanat. In common
parlance the term means "insult". But as this "insult" is
under the garb of religion, it has started the Muslim world. Nine years ago,
Tehmina Durrani wrote a book, My Feudal Lord, which also appeared in Urdu
translation under the title, Mere Jagirdar aur Aqa. Actually the book was less
of a polemic narration. Because she had presented an expose of the atrocities
heaped on her by her husband Mustafa Khar who was a prominent Punjabi with
political clout. Khar was a powerful member of the Bhutto cabinet. Khar was one
of the founder- members of the Pakistan People’s Party. Tehmina was his eighth
wife. The book is a tragic heart-rending tale of the hapless victims of the lust
of the feudal landlords cleverly concealed under the guise of Islam. It reveals
how the name of Islam is misused in their exploitation of women. Tehmina
maintained that the real power of these feudal landlords was the protection they
received from the distorted version of Islam. She argued at several places in
that book that the real Islam was quite different from the parody of that noble
religion paraded by the Jagirdars. It is the mullahs and moulvis who subserve
these feudal elements by lending a religious sheen to their lustful escapades.
This time round Tehmina has unmarked the reality of the Pakistani political scene. After her expose of the atrocities on women by Pakistani’s feudal masters in her last book, Tehmina has in her latest book Blasphemy virtually defrocked the mullah-moulvis. Tahmina says this clan of religious ministers is a bunch of very cunning and treacherous operators. This group is cent per cent responsible for the dire difficulties in which the Muslim masses find themselves today. Tehmina has in her new book revealed to the whole world how this class of religious operators indulge in all the sensual pleasures behind the exterior of Islam. After the publication of this book, it is inescapable that Tahmina Durrani will be a target of all the wrath and ire of the Muslim clergy. But the fact that a woman found it incumbent on herself to be boo enough to write all this and thereby incur the anger of the powerful religious and fanatic lobby and that too when Pakistan is on the brink of Islamization by the Shariah Bill, cries loud enough for the general public to understand to what perilous limits the current form of Islam, sponsored by the maulanas is feared to take their society. As Tehmina has touched the Muslim society’s "painful nerve" there is bound to be a cacophony of shrieks and creams galore throughout the entire country.
In her present novel Tahmina has narrated a woeful tale of a woman associated with jagirdar Sufi hero. The novel chronicles the sexual shenanigans of Peer Sain, a sexual lecher, wolf in a sheep’s skin ostensibly performing religious duties. He is a supporter of the feudal jagirdari system, members of which were steeped in concupiscence, as he is himself a passionate practitioner of the very depraved dissipation. He indulges in such degeneracy that the devil himself would have been embarrassed. The circle of people gathered around is also fit to be in a gang of satanic fiends in the garb of saints. They wantonly outrage women behind the convenient curtain of religion. They have no compunctions in sexually abusing minor girls and eve incestually ravishing their own daughters. The heroine of this Tehmina book is Heer. She is in Peer Sain’s bondage. Peer Sain forces this Heer to submit to the sexual demands of his clients. He supplies sex serum to the village youths so that they could enhance their sexual prowess.
Tehmina writes in her novel that when Heer’s son attains prime of youth Peer forces him to marry the same girl who was a victim of her father’s incestual atrocities under the very religious umbrella of Peer Sain. And Heer’s second son is compelled to marry a girl who happens to be his biological sister. Tehmina has also successfully exposed the denizens of Punjab’s dargahs and graves, who indulge in black magic and making the so-called magical talismans and other such items of sorcery. She had presented extensive tales of the misdeeds of these satanic practitioners like their wicked influence on innocent young girls and beautiful women whom they make preys of their lust. Tehmina assures that there is no exaggeration in these tales and that however farfetched they may appear to a casual reader, she assures the readers that the incidents described in her novel have actually taken place. The volume also has illustrations of a few instances of the male atrocities on women who are subjected to every form of adultery. Tehmina says that these men bear al kinds of blemishes. But when someone tries to point a finger at them, he is gagged by saying that the accuser is guilty of blasphemy. Thus the religious fanaticism and injustices are practised under cover of the alleged blasphemy or contempt of religion. Anyone who raises his voice against these injustices is branded as blasphemer and either murdered on beaten up beyond recognition. These religious operators issue fatwas and somehow an atmosphere is created so that the ignorant may believe that the very Almighty is their slave or a genie under their spell.
Tahmina believes that because the jagirdars have always been in the lead of the Islamic world, the moment they acquire power they misuse it and twist and turn the religion of Islam to serve their own selfish ends.
Tehmina Durrani has presented in her novel the travesty of the halala provision in the matter of a divorce. The imams and mullahs make a mokery of the practice of halala by offering their ‘services’. The fact is that under the pretext of offering the ‘services’, they actually slake their lust. In certain Muslims sects the instructions regarding halala are strictly followed. If a wife in a fit of anger deserts her husband and so is divorced by her husband, she may repent her impetuous act when she cools down. In such circumstance if both reconcile, religious convention forbids them to do so. To overcome this restriction, the woman has to take a tortuous course. The wife in this situation has to marry some other man and establish her having physical relationship with that man. After this when, the second husband divorces her and she completes the stipulated period of iddat she will be deemed qualified to marry her former husband again, i.e., in the conventional parlance she will become halala (sanctified) for the reunion. When ever such a contingency arises, the maulana or mullah offers his ‘services’, that is, presents himself to marry her for the intervening period. He then after gratifying his carnal desire divorces her and thus renders the ‘service’ of reuniting the estranged couple. This custom not only makes the husband knowingly help his own wife to marry the imam or mullah, but envisages the practice of the imam or mullah charging sizeable fees for their ‘services’. Sometimes the mullah or imam after marrying the miserable women refuses to divorces her. Tahmina durrani has bitterly berated these captains of Islam. She deprecates a practice that victimizes the wife for any loss of temper by the husband resulting in a divorce. Why should the wife undergo the punishment of repeated iddat? Why should she have to offer herself for the wolfish demands of a man whom she does not like merely in order to reunite with a man she loves? And if this disliked man changes him mind? She has to live with him for the rest of her life, and satiate his sexual demands. Thus the woman is always at the receiving end and the man always gratifices his desires whichever way the dice turns. This heads-I-win-tails-you-lose situation victimizes the woman in every situation. In Pakistan there is a large class of agents dealing in halala ‘services’, in which the ‘dealers’ in religion like imams and mullahs have prominent share. Tehmina has presented several instances of the halala practice resulting in humiliation and torture of Muslim women.
But this is not the first book to expose the sexual aberrations of the priestly class. Every religion in the world has its share of the black sheep of heretic priests. Jayshankar Prasad had thoroughly exposed in his literature the cesspools of sins shaming the Buddhist viharas. The sensational Maharaja libel case in the Mumbai High Court in 1932 speaks volumes for the sins committed by so-called sadhus in the sanctified precincts of Hindu temples, and that too in the name of religion. The unnatural sinful sexual abuse of minors entrusted to their charge by the very custodians of Christian morals is a matter of frequent newspaper reporting in Europe and America. There is hardly any religion the tenants of which are not misused by its priests to exploit and humiliate the women-folk. But in the Islamic world Tehmina Durrani happens to be a courageous first woman to have openly aired the dirty linen of the Muslim clergy. It is anybody’s guess whether the Pakistan Government would let the book go unpunished. This book certainly is going to present a test for the Government of India also when a deafening din is raised with slogans of "din, din!" and "Islam khatre mein!" against this book by the self-proclaimed champions of Islam which they have today tortured into misshapened mound that has lost all its original ideal identity.
Pakistan’s mullahs, peers, fakirs and other apologists of every form of
distortion of Islam are indulging in the parody of religion. To exercise force
and compulsion in the name of religion is in itself ihanat-i-Islam, insult to
Islam, its blasphemy. How long can the sinful gratification of their libido by
the mullahs in the name of halala will be allowed? This is a sad comment on the
moral perspicacity of Muslim society residing in the entire Indian subcontinent.
The courage displayed by the intrepid Tehmina Durrani in bringing out this book
commands all
round respect. Truth is central and pivotal to Islam. To dismiss this book by
branding it anti-Islam is in itself an insult to true Islam.
Where Is The Justice Muhammad Preached?
Author: Ali Sharrif
Publication: Toronto Star
Date: January 20, 2001
An international outcry arose when an Islamic court in the Nigerian state of Zamfara sentenced teenaged Bariya Ibrahim Magazu to 100 lashes for engaging in premarital sex and another 80 lashes for - in the courts view - falsely accusing her father's friends of paying to have intercourse with her. Last week, perhaps because of these worldwide protests, her sentence was reduced to 100 strokes and indefinitely postponed.
But the shy village girl, now the mother of a month-old son, still lives in fear of her impending punishment. The government of Nigeria has refused to step in even though the west African state is signatory to international human rights treaties, including the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Why is it always females who suffer under such barbarism? The court that sentenced Magazu has done nothing to publish, or even uncover, the identity of the man responsible for her pregnancy, even though, under sharia (Islamic law), he is also guilty. This double standard seems to have escaped most Muslims.
Women fall victim to such "justice" far more often than men in Muslim societies. They are the easy victims of the laws banning premarital sex because they can't hide the evidence when the "crime" results in pregnancy. The initial silence that greeted Magazu's conviction can be interpreted two ways. It is partly the result of an unwritten code among male Muslims - and I have heard this point of view from my friends and others -- that Muslims should not condemn or criticize each other's actions. The code of silence is so strictly observed that even when a wrong is committed, Muslims are reluctant to condemn the act.
Many Muslims also believe that acts committed by other Muslims in the name of their religion, including violent ones, must somehow be justified because, supposedly, Muslims are incapable of committing injustices. The silence is also part of the long-held Muslim belief that any criticism of Islamic practices must be the work of anti-Muslim western conspirators bent upon the destruction of the religion and its practitioners. Many also believe that the non-Muslim world has not the moral justification or the sufficient understanding of sharia to offer any criticism. This belief is the result of another belief, that Islamic laws are applicable anywhere they are proclaimed, including in dictatorships, where brutality, misuse and abuse can hide under the cover of sharia.
That sharia can be misapplied by self-serving "Muslim" rulers and dictators is rarely acknowledged within the faith. In many of the oil-rich Arab countries where these laws are practiced, the high and mighty operate outside of sharia while the umma (masses) live in fear of its strict and harsh application. You only need to go to the red-light districts of Europe, America and eastern Asia to see how the so-called sheiks, the monied elite of the Arab world, flout Islamic laws against prostitution, gambling, drinking and drug use. If sharia were applied equally to the ruling elite of the Muslim world, many would be lashed, beheaded or stoned to death.
A telling example of the perversion of justice in the Muslim world is the punishment meted out by the Pakistani government to former prime minister Nawaz Sharrif: several life sentences for massive corruption, later commuted to 21 years. Everyone thought he was history until the Saudi Arabian royal family stepped in and made secret deals with Pakistan's military regime to release Sharrif. He now lives in comfort in Saudi Arabia subsidized by the royal family. This interference with Pakistani justice infuriated average Pakistanis. Under sharia, it appears there's one law for the elite and another stricter and harsher version for the masses.
One of the biggest problems in Muslim societies is that their Islamic governments are doing what the West discovered was impossible: making religion part of the state. Islam is a complete religion that tries, in theory, to address all parts of human existence, including politics. But this is challenging to bring into actual practice. When you legislate morality, for example, how do you enforce proscriptions against pre-marital sex?
In the strict interpretation of Islam, adultery is not merely the physical act of sex with a person to whom you aren't married. It is also a state of mind. You commit adultery if you look lustfully at a member of the opposite sex. And even thinking about pre-marital sex is equivalent to the actual act.
Muslims need ask themselves three questions: If Islam preaches justice, tolerance and peace, why are Muslim societies convulsed with anger, suspicion and violence? Why are other religious societies around the world peaceful and non-political and Muslim societies wracked by violence, much of it by so-called Islamic militants? Where in the Muslim world is the peace, justice and tolerance that our prophet Muhammad preached?
(Ali Sharrif is a writer in the Life Section of the Toronto Star.)
Author:
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: December 9, 2000
Every day, in Kahnaur, Indian relatives hear tales of woe from their Pakistani relatives. And, each time a new story is recounted, they cannot help but pray in gratitude for having the good sense to leave Pakistan after Partition.
Tharuram is one of them. He does not remember how old he is, but believes he has seen over 80 summers. His legs cannot take his weight, yet it hurts him to sit for long.
But this pain, he says, is nothing compared to the agony of those days in 1947 when he fled to India. Till the train rolled into the territory that was demarcated as India, he and his family did not believe they would live through the horrors of Partition.
Today, though, he is happy. And grateful.
Which is why he understands what people like Sidhu Ram are going though. "I understand the pain of the Pakistani Hindus."
Take Shubhram, for example. He came to Kahnaur in March from Layya. It has been many months since his visa has run out, but he has no plans of going back. He used to own a provision shop in Pakistan, but was forced to shut it down when Muslim fundamentalists objected to Hindu ownership.
Or 35-year-old Bashir who, despite his name, is not a Muslim. He called himself Bashir when he was in Pakistan. In India, he is Bashirchand. He used to lay tube wells and also dabbled in homeopathy. Now, he is consumed by worry. He wants to bring his sister into India. He knows she will be safe here.
Or Allah Divayaram, who is happy he is finally on Indian soil; today, he regrets the fact that he did not take this decision 53 years ago. Unfortunately, one of his daughters has been left behind. He worries for her.
It is stories like this that make Tharuram forget his age and his weak body as he exhorts the people of his village to make the visitors feel welcome.
Sabaram was just a few days old when, post-Partition, his family escaped to India. Yet, he has forged a unique bond with those who have come to his village from Pakistan. He constantly urges them not to talk too much to me. He wonders if the publicity will go against them; whether it will make the government deport them.
Everyone in Kahnaur is suspicious of the media. Sidhu Ram's wife does not even disclose her name. Every question I put to her is met with silence. All she says is that she will not go back.
But the Pakistani Hindu refugees also recall a time of peace, after the Partition-triggered riots settled down. There was also tolerance, remembers Sidhu Ram. The locals were respectful of the few Hindus who had chosen to make Pakistan their home.
But, over the years, the elders who respected them died. The younger lot did not care, were intolerant and disrespectful. The hatred spewed by the politicians against India had infected the psyche of the Pakistani teenager.
Intelligence sources told rediff.com that, when asked, the Pakistani Hindus revealed two principal reasons that compelled them to stay back in India. One, they did not want to convert to Islam. The second was the fear that their daughters would be sexually harassed.
"They say that women working in the fields were potentially in danger as there was no police to hear them or record their complaints," an Indian police official told rediff.com
"Our lives are over," says Sidhu Ram. "But let our children live with dignity and respect."
They say many of their relatives in Pakistan are no longer Hindus. They have converted to Islam because they could no longer deal with the pressure of living there as Hindus. Conversion to Islam is the easiest and the most pragmatic alternative. "You cannot blame them," says Sidhu Ram. "When one is a Hindu, one lives in constant fear."
Surinder Jain, chief of the Bajrang Dal, a right wing group closely associated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in India, says, "Seventeen per cent of Pakistan was Hindu at the time of Partition. Today, that number is down to around 0.1 per cent. Minorities like the Hindus will naturally be discriminated against."
Says Ranguram: "Even before I reached India, I had told myself I was never going to return to Pakistan. I do not want to convert to Islam. If I have to live there for the rest of my life, I will have to convert. There are many cases where children studying in madrassas influence their illiterate parents to convert to Islam; they see that is the best way of surviving in Pakistan. Muslims are assured of safety there."
Ranguram studied in a madrassa till the seventh standard, where he was also taught the Koran-e-Sharief. Somehow, he could not relate to it. He stopped going to school.
He is in Kahnaur with his extended family of seven, which includes his wife, children, brothers and sisters.
The villagers have offered them the anganwadi building to stay in. It has just two rooms. He is now trying to find a job and his feet in a country that has not yet told him what it intends to do with him.
Yet, Ranguram's heart sings with joy. He has already admitted his five-year-old brother, Tekaram, in a neighbourhood school.
Since the villagers are both helpful and sympathetic, more and more Pakistani Hindu families are likely to seek refuge in Rohtak. "We cannot ask them to leave," points out a Rohtak-based official. "The people here are ready to let them stay. The villagers are ready to make space for them. Organisations like the Bajrang Dal are vocally fighting their case."
The Bajrang Dal's Jain, who has taken up the case of their visa extension with the ministry of home affairs, believes India is morally bound to help them. "They have lived all these years in trying circumstances," he says. He has requested Minister of State for Home I D Swami to consider giving them Indian citizenship.
Life has come a strange circle in Kahnaur.
Before Partition, the area was dominated by Muslims. Most of them packed up and left after Partition. So much so that, today, there are very few Muslims in the area. Instead, it is populated by Hindus who came here from Pakistan. Even today, it provides refuge to Pakistani Hindus.
Prashant Kumar Aggarwal, the superintendent of police who has forwarded their requests for visa extension to the home ministry, says the police have to keep a close watch on Pakistani Hindus.
Plainclothesmen visit the village daily to make surprise checks. None of the Pakistani Hindus are let out of sight for more than four hours.
The police foresee a major job ahead of them as more Hindus are expected from Pakistan soon. They say they have to be on high alert.
Already, three ISI-trained Pakistanis -- Jameel, Aslam and Ashraf -- were found living in Rohtak. Their eventual plan was to strike at New Delhi, which is just two-and-a-half hours away by road. The police recovered RDX bombs from them.
The police believe Rohtak can be a hideout for such terrorists. It is a small town and the capital is less than three hours away.
"The fear that the ISI might plant agents here should not make us passive to our Hindu brothers's suffering in Pakistan," thunders Jain.
Numerous Pakistani Hindu families had also moved into Sirsa, another district in Haryana. But the local administration there refused to let them overstay their visa. Many of them have now moved in with other relatives in Jodhpur and Ganganagar in Rajasthan.
Intelligence sources say thousands of Pakistani Hindus having been living for years in the border districts of Rajasthan and Haryana. Till date, the government has just looked the other way. Security considerations, though, may now compel the government to take note of their presence.
"Pakistani Hindus have been coming in hundreds since the demolition of the Babri Masjid," says an intelligence official. "Once their visa expired, they would apply for an extension. Normally, the extension would be officially given and the family would continue to stay on. As none of them caused any law and order problems, the government would be humanitarian in its approach."
Says Praveen Batra, whose ancestors also lived in Kahnaur: "No one objected to their presence as these Pakistani Hindus are very good agricultural labourers. Since the Jats did not like to do this kind of work, it was also convenient to have them around."
Today, though, the government is in a quandary, even as the villagers remain sympathetic.
Meanwhile, Sidhu Ram and the 42 other Pakistani Hindus in Kahnaur continue to pray and wonder what the future has in store for them.
Author: Ishtiaq Ali Mehkri
Publication: India Today
Date: August 7, 2000
Killing in the name of Allah seems to be the modus operandi of the religious parties in Pakistan. This is the Talibanisation phenomenon--a direct offshoot to our meddling in the Afghan affairs to appease our erstwhile Cold War ally.
Pakistan today is no more a safe place to live. A belief held by all and sundry. Terrorism, corruption and a culture of intolerance have rented its social fabric. Fanaticism in the disguise of Islam has become the new political doctrine. Almost all religio-militant outfits are today obsessed with the Taliban style of governance and are bent upon taking over the reigns of the government by hook or crook. Of late, they have even learnt to hoodwink and blackmail the government for everything they wish under the sun. Surprisingly, the Establishment continues to nurse the evil for reasons best known to it.
The social mosaic on which the Talibanisation seeds have now taken their deep roots are the madrassas (religious seminaries) stretched countrywide. They are their breeding ground where everything from hate to sectarian prejudice is taught. Students enrolled in these madrassas come from the poor sections of the society where for their parents whatever is being offered in lieu of two times meals is worth praising. And at the end of the day they prove to be perfect souls to deliver anything. They think from the barrel of the gun and believe in a Stone Age life.
With such madrassas being run by Wahabis, Deobandis and Ahle Hadiths schools of thought, an uncompromising and intolerant mode of religious zeal has come into being. Believers in other sects of Islam are considered anything, but not Muslims. Jehad, fighting in the name of God, remains their political weapon and unfortunately their targets could be anybody: a liberal Sunni Muslim, a Shia, a Jew or a Hindu. Though the government funds many of these seminaries through the Zakat emoluments, yet the government has no control over their conduct and syllabus affairs.
Most of these schools are considered to be potential hideouts for terrorists with their strings being pulled by their foreign mentors. Statistics say that around 30,000 students from various seminaries in Pakistan have of late joined the Taliban movement. Thus begins the vicious circle of recruiting men for Jehad to fight anywhere from Karachi to Kargil or even in Chechnya and Xingziang at the cost of a civil society in Pakistan. All this goes on as the government looks the other way round.
Maulana Samiul Haq's love for Taliban style of governance is no secret. Recently, he had the courage to advise the Chief Executive General Pervaiz Musharraf to "get liberal with the Taliban, and not to meddle in the affairs of religious schools." Political analysts believe that institutions where these radical students get training to participate in the Afghan Jehad are under the control of Maulana Fazulur Rehman and his Jamiatul Ulema-e-Islam party, which has its own network of seminaries countrywide, especially in Balochistan.
But there are saner religious elements, too. Though they boast a religious mantle, but disassociate themselves from any sort of fanaticism. The Jamaat-e-Islami of Qazi Hussain Ahmed is one such vibrant political voice. Though it itself believes in Jehad and an Islamic government to its core, but shuns Talibanisation from Pakistan's body politik. Recently, Qazi was seen convincing the US authorities and think tanks to drive home the point that "whatever Taliban do is not Islam."
Similarly, President of Shias TJP, Allama Sajid Ali Naqvi had openly asked the army chief, Gen Musharraf, to "undo the Talibanisation trend in Pakistan, if he wants to preserve its territorial integrity." From behind the bars, ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif too fears the catastrophic impact of Talibanisation and has "blamed the military junta for appeasing them." A report presented to him shortly before his dismissal said that there were about 100 madarssas in Pakistan which impart militant training to their pupils, and that there were about 10,000 foreign nationals studying in these so-called centers of religious learning.
For Taliban, Pakistan is their second home. Their activities originate here with the active help of the local religious elements and are free enough to strike anywhere, anytime. Today they number in millions and are beyond anybody's control. Their only agenda is to 'react' in the name of Jehad in and outside Pakistan. They have access to more influential lobbies and groups in Pakistan than most Pakistanis. "At times they even defy the ISI, premier intelligence agency, by enlisting the help of concerned in the corridors of power," writes Ahmed Rasheed in his best-selling book Oil, Islam and Taliban.Though Pakistan is believed to be the mentor of Taliban movement, but it has lost its writ. Kabul rebuffed a recent demand by Pakistan to shut down training camps in Afghanistan and repatriate its outlaws. What is euphemistically called the Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) has become the biggest smuggling racket in the world and has enmeshed the Taliban with Pakistani smugglers, transporters, drug-barons, bureaucrats, politicians, police and army officers. The power of drugs, arms and ammunition, and money-laundering business has made the Taliban not only an unavoidable reality, but a political might, too.
With the advent of Taliban, the immediate threat to Pakistan is in the form of Pakhtunistan--endangering its integrity with any change across the Durand Line. For long the military and political establishments in Islamabad considered a friendly Afghanistan to be their 'strategic depth.' The reality today is vice versa with the Afghans calling the shots. Not only has the Taliban regime refused to recognise the Durand Line as their international border, contrary to the wishes of their mentors in Islamabad, but have also laid claims on parts of NWFP and Balochistan. Ironically, Afghanistan and its Taliban movement are turning out to be anybody's Nicaragua for Pakistan.
(The writer is a journalist working with The Dawn, Karachi)
The Taliban Menace
Author : Kris Mitel (Connecticut)
Publication : The Observer
Date : December 5, 1996
Two months ago, Muslim clerics knows as the Taliban, educated
in "religious" schools (madarsas) in Pakistan
and armed and trained by its ISI, captured Kabul and thereby seized control of
most parts of Afghanistan. One
of the first things Taliban mullahs did after entering the Afghan capital was to
drag the former president
Najibullah out of the UN compound (where he was sheltering after relinquishing
power following a UN-sponsored peace plan) and castrate him: then they killed
him and hanged his body to a traffic control post - a fact witnessed by
multitudes of Afghans and photographed by scores of news reporters.
The mullahs executed Najibullah without pity or trial and denied him any opportunity to speak in his own defense, even as he pleaded for that. Apparently Taliban mullahs not only defied the UN authority and assaulted it, but also acted in defiance to the Koran's injunction against the mutilation of the human body. Yet, strangely, not one world leader condemned their brutality, nor an Imam admonished them for their blasphemy.
Since capturing power, Islam's new graduates have imposed strict Islamic laws repressing women, barring them from education and outside jobs and handing out brutal punishments for theft and adultery. Women are veiled and men without beards tortured because of the Koran's injunction against shaving. And televisions, stereos, cameras smashed, cinemas closed and their film feels burned again because of the Koran's injunction against making images of the human form.
Over the past two years, Taliban mullahs have forced millions
to flee their homes and reportedly "secularist"
India is hosting over half a million Afghans, probably permanently. All this,
they claim, is.intended to create
a purist Islamic state as preached by prophet Mohammed.
"We take our lead from our Holy Prophet," said Mullah Mohammed Hassan, a spokesman for Taliban recently. The culture minister in the Taliban government, Mullah Amir Khan Mutaqui, earlier said: "We are committed to establishing 'a new society' and a new 'order' based on the Koran."
Another cleric Mullah Mohammed Zalmani, also a deputy
commander of police, reported The New York Times, said: "By following the
eternal precepts of Islam, we are building a perfect society. " No wonder
the next day
(October 22), The Times spoke out: "At the level at which Taliban decrees
are enforced, clerics speak in a way that is chillingly reminiscent of other
absolutist systems." Clearly, the allusion here was to Hitler and his band
of
Nazis.
Author:
Publication: The Times of India (Web Edition)
Date: February 27, 2001
The leader of the Taliban Islamic militia in Afghanistan on Tuesday shrugged off international condemnation of his order to destroy ancient Buddhist statues, saying "all we are breaking are stones." The massive Buddhas, carved into a sandstone cliff near the provincial capital Bamiyan, stand 50 meters and 34.5 meters tall respectively and date back to the second century AD. Previously protected by hordes of pilgrims and monks who lived in nearby caves, the statues are now only visited by children who climb all over them. When they were built, Afghanistan was one of the most cosmopolitan regions in the world, a melting pot of merchants, travellers and artists from China and India, central Asia and the Roman Empire.
Mulla Mohammad Omar told the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) that he had issued his order to destroy all statues in Afghanistan, including those from the country's rich pre-Islamic history, in line with "Islamic" beliefs.
"According to Islam, I don't worry about anything. My job is the implementation of Islamic order," he said from the fundamentalist militia's stronghold in southern Kandahar.
"The breaking of statues is an Islamic order and I have given this decision in the light of a fatwa of the ulema (clerics) and the Supreme Court of Afghanistan. Islamic Law is the only law acceptable to me." The order, announced late on Monday on the official Taliban radio, was met with shock from Tokyo to Paris, where UNESCO demanded the Taliban "halt the destruction of (Afghanistan's) cultural heritage." The Taliban's Radio Shariat said the ministry of information and culture and the religious police would carry out the destruction. "Only Allah, the Almighty, deserves to be worshipped, not anyone or anything else," Mulla Omar's decree said. Afghanistan, a Buddhist centre before Islamic conquerors invaded around 1,400 years ago, is famous for the two massive and ancient Buddha statues. They are believed to be among the tallest standing Buddhas in the world. Museums around the country host smaller but equally important Buddhist figures and other priceless statues.
Before their faces were lost to the elements and Taliban vandalism, the statues wore the same serene smiles of the much later Buddhas in the far East, including Thailand, but their classical features and Hellenistic Greek robes represented their unique place not just in the history of Afghanistan, but of the world in general. In Tokyo, Hokkaido University's professor emeritus of Buddhism Kotatsu Fujita said: "I cannot believe the Taliban will destroy the big Buddhas."
"Even though the statues are in Afghanistan, they are really world heritage sites now. I strongly doubt the Taliban's understandings of cultural heritage."
All Japan Buddhist Association secretary general Kijo Nishimura said the destruction "must be avoided as much as possible under any circumstances." "Once you destroy something, you can never get it back. We have an important responsibility to leave these statues to our descendants," he said. Omar said Afghan history was secondary to the history of Islam. "Whoever thinks this is harmful to the history of Afghanistan then I tell them they must first see the history if Islam," Omar told the Pakistan-based AIP. "Some people believe in these statues and pray to them ... If people say these are not our beliefs but only part of the history of Afghanistan, then all we are breaking are stones." The Sri Lankan government also expressed "grave concern" at the order. "If true, this is a very serious matter and we are gravely concerned," said government spokesman Ariya Rubasinghe. In deeply Buddhist Thailand, Foreign Ministry spokesman Pradap Pibulsonggram said the loss of the Bamiyan Buddhas would be a "loss to humanity." "It is their loss. I hope they could rethink their decision. It's a loss to humanity," Pradap said. "It's the loss of Afghanistan to destroy these (Buddhas). One day when they resolve their problems, they'll want to attract tourism. This would help them."
The decree was issued as a team of western diplomats visited the Afghan capital, Kabul, to check reports that Taliban hardliners had vandalised ancient statues in the national museum.
The Pakistan-based envoys from Greece, Italy and France left on Tuesday morning, saying only they were "very sad."
The Taliban, or movement of religious students, seized Kabul in 1996 and have imposed a puritanical mix of Pashtun tribal and Sharia law in a bid to create their idea of a true Mohammedan state. Their regime is recognised only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and is not represented at the United Nations nor the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. (AFP).
Author:
Publication: Zenit.org
Date: February 17, 2001
The introduction of Islamic law, or Shariah, in many of the northern states of Nigeria is making life difficult for Christians. During a recent tour of the country, the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, declared that Christianity has been in decline in the northern state of Zamfara since the adoption of Islamic law. Carey observed that many Christians in the state had left in despair because they were unable to build churches or teach religion in schools, the BBC reported Feb. 5.
Zamfara was the first Nigerian state to impose the Islamic legal code, at the end of January 2000, which includes punishments such as stoning to death, amputation and flogging. Attempts to introduce Shariah in the neighboring state of Kaduna, with its much larger Christian population, led to terrible bloodshed last year. At least 2,000 people died in fighting between Christians and Moslems.
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, although estimates of its population range from 80 million to over 120 million. The dominant ethnic group in the northern two-thirds of the country is the Hausa-Fulani, most of whom are Muslim. The Yoruba people are predominant in the southwest. About half of the Yorubas are Christian and half Muslim. The predominantly Catholic Igbo are the largest ethnic group in the southeast.
About half of Nigerians practice Islam, with 40% following Christianity and about 10% adherents of traditional indigenous religions. The prevailing form of Islam here is Sunni. The Christian population includes Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists and a growing number of followers of evangelical Pentecostal groups. Catholics constitute the largest Christian denomination.
In February 1999, following 15 years of military rule, Olusegun Obasanjo of the centrist People´s Democratic Party (PDP) was elected president, assuming power in May that year. The PDP also won a clear majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Since independence, governmental power has alternated between inept civilians and incompetent and brutal military dictators. Much of the country´s huge oil wealth has been squandered, and gross domestic product per capita has halved in the last 20 years.
North and South divided
The conflicts between Muslims and Christians are taking place just when a Christian from the Yoruba tribe, Obasanjo, has taken office as president, the Telegraph newspaper of England reported Dec. 27. For the past 40 years, the predominantly Muslim north had provided Nigeria´s rulers, all from the Hausa-Fulani tribe.
The divisions between north and south, Muslims and Christians, are due in part to historic factors. In 1914, Nigeria became a political entity through the fusion of the northern and southern territories, thus bringing together hitherto independent groups. The British colonial powers gave the Hausa and Fulani tribes, predominately Muslim, power over the other ethnic groups, principally Christians.
In its January and February bulletins, the Christian agency Compass Direct reported extensively on the Christian-Muslim conflicts. Between 1980 and 2000, more than 30 major religious conflicts have been recorded between the two groups in northern Nigeria. Thousands of Christians and Muslims have been killed, and hundreds of church buildings have been destroyed.
At the beginning of February, Zamfara marked the first anniversary of Shariah, and according to Agence France-Presse on Feb. 4, Christians say they have been demoted to a "second-class" status.
Zamfara has been the most zealous in demanding observance of the Muslim precepts. Early last year, authorities amputated the hand of a man convicted of being a cattle thief. Last month, they flogged 100 times a young girl who became pregnant before marriage. The girl claimed she was coerced; no man was prosecuted. Agence France-Presse quoted Father Linus Awehe, president of the Zamfara State section of the Christian Association of Nigeria, as saying, "The church in Zamfara has a lot of problems which are attributable to marginalization and religious segregation. ... Here in Zamfara, Christians are treated as second-class citizens. We are not allowed to participate in government. We are not allowed to teach in schools. We are not allowed to appear on radio."
A Feb. 7 report by the Panafrican News Agency announced that Nigeria´s northern state of Borno has set up a 25-member committee to determine how Shariah should be introduced. The Panafrican News Agency said more than a dozen of the 19 states in the Muslim north have adopted Shariah. Reaction from Christian leaders In view of the current religious tension in the country, church leaders have warned that there is a limit to which Christians would endure persecution. The Catholic archbishop of Lagos, Olubunmi Okogie, said a dual legal system will not work and "Nigeria is not an Islamic country." The Rev. Dr. Sunday Mbang said, "We as a people of this country belonging to the Christian faith have decided that Christianity is our religion and cannot overnight be forcefully made to change our faith. We shall continue to stand firm and demand respect for our religious liberty."
Bishop Mike Okonkwo, president of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, commented, "Anything whatsoever that would obstruct an atmosphere of worship and freedom in Nigeria as enshrined in the constitution will be resisted with all the power vested on us by the Almighty Jehovah." Persecution intensifies Compass Direct reported Feb. 16 that Muslims have attacked Christians on a number of occasions recently. In the state of Sokoto, Muslim extremists have been targeting Christian women for rape since the introduction of the Islamic legal code last May, Christian leaders there say.
"There is intimidation of Christians and pastors within Sokoto metropolis in different ways, such as ejection from houses with little or no notice, harassment and increased cases of rape, especially on Christian ladies," pastor Momo James said.
Pastor Elisha Nmeribe added that the Sokoto State Urban and Regional Planning Agency in Sokoto has been vandalizing church property. Church buildings have been demolished by government agents in Mabera, Mujaya and an area known as the old airport. The threat of more church demolitions has frightened the Christian community in these areas.
Muslim extremists, meanwhile, went on a rampage Jan. 9 in several northern Nigerian states, attacking Christians and church properties, reportedly because of a lunar eclipse. The attacks by Muslim mobs took place in the capital cities of Adamawa, Yobe, Sokoto and Borno states. Eyewitnesses said the mobs claimed that the lunar eclipse occurred because of the sins of non-Muslims, particularly Christians.
And in Zamfara the governor plans to forcefully convert a Catholic church in Dashi into an Islamic school. Governor Alhaji Ahmed Sani announced the move after he and some of his followers broke into St. Dominics Catholic Church on Jan. 19.
According to Compass Direct, eyewitnesses confirmed that after Governor Sani helped break into the church, he ordered the pulpit pulled down and declared "Allahu Akbar" (God is great). He also directed his aides to ensure the church was immediately put to use as an Islamic school. Shariah, in northern Nigeria at least, leaves little room for religious tolerance.