Outside Islamabad

In the heart of Muslim Town, Lahore, a dozen mullahs and mullah-cum-politicians gather behind closed doors.

In a florescent-lit drawing room, they sit on a hideous sofa set, around an obnoxious flower arrangement. They quietly sip their chilled nestle orange juice and enjoy the air-conditioning as a generator angrily rattles outside. The conversation is minimal. They don’t need to discuss anything. They are there, because the decision has already been made and the press release has already been drawn up. It has also been decided who will read it: Maulana Zahid ul-Rashidi, a leading Pakistani Deobandi scholar with a thirty-year long political career, who happens to currently be the Secretary-General of the Pakistan Shariat Council.

I hear a satanic drum roll as he declares, “the attacks that claimed 100 Ahmadis lives was nothing more than a conspiracy to build pressure to repeal the laws declaring Ahmadis’ non-Muslim.”

With Mullahs like these, who needs enemies?

Bullet-ridden Ahmadi Mosque

Five years ago Rashidi said this in an interview with SikhSpectrum.com Quarterly:

“To consider all non-Muslims as enemies and to seek to mobilize against them in that way is wrong and is also not pragmatic. Many non-Muslims all over the world are willing to listen to what Islam is all about, but we have not bothered to do anything in this regard. Many non-Muslims share similar concerns with Muslims, including opposition to imperialist forces, but we have failed to reach out to them. The number of non-Muslims who are seriously anti-Islam is relatively much less, but because they control, in large measure, the leverages of power, the economy, culture and the mass media, they appear to us to be everywhere, while this is not actually the case. Muslim intellectuals must seriously look into this and revise their understandings. For this it is essential to promote intellectual awakening and serious research.”

Sounds like a smart guy, doesn’t he? In the same interview he also said:

“I have always differed with the extremist stance of the Sipah-i Sahaba, and have also written about this in several of my articles. I tried to explain my position on the issue in my meetings with several Sipah-i Sahaba leaders, including Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, Maulana Zia ur-Rahman Faruqi and Maulana Azam Tariq. For my part, I agree with the consensus of the Sunni ‘ulama that those Shi‘as who believe that the Qu’ran has been distorted, who claim that the companions of the Prophet were kafirs and who curse Hazrat Ayesha [a wife of the Prophet] are not Muslims. Further, I have reservations regarding the political role of the Shias in the past 1400 years. However, I do not support, on this basis, the launching of a movement denouncing them as kafirs, forcibly suppressing them and creating an environment of conflict. My own position is that, considering the question of beliefs and history, and preserving our differences and distance, we can still tolerate our differences and try to present our case through logical proofs.”

Was Rashidi a different man 5 years ago?

Nope.

Unfortunately, even the Mullahs that attempt to preach tolerance and enlightenment never extend that courtesy to Ahmadis. In a country where conspiracy theories are more widespread than facts, the Ahmadis were the very first victims. The Ahmadi movement was started by mostly western-educated individuals in the Indian sub-continent who felt that Islam did not offer solutions to modern-day problems, and modern civilization was increasingly dependent on material things, leaving a big hole in their souls. Their interpretation of Islam was quickly branded ‘western’ and ever since then, they have been victims of conspiracies declaring them Western agents out to subvert Islam from within.

In fact, Rashidi is a founding member of an organization that is dedicated solely to attacking and ostracizing Ahmadis called “Muttahida Tehrik-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwat”. This organization very boldly put up banners across Lahore declaring Ahmadis Wajib-ul-Qatl last month.

Billboard reads: Have no contact whatsoever with the worst of infidels and worst enemies of Islam i.e. Mirzais and Qadianis; and convey the same to your children. People who meet them will find themselves deprived of Mohammadan intercession on the Dooms Day.

Bumper sticker reads: One who does not strive to safeguard the finality of the prophethood and the honour of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is at risk on Dooms Day.

And the latest mullah and mullah-cum-politician meeting was held at an office of the Majlis Ahrar Islam, which is the organization responsible for holding the very first anti-Ahmadi conference in 1934.

Back then the Majlis’ Attaullah Shah Bukhari boldly led the conference called “Tahafuz-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwat ” at Qadian, the headquarters of Ahmadis in the subcontinent.

By 1949 a bunch of Deobani clerics had loosely formed the “Kul Jamaati Majlis-e-Aml Tahafuz-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwat” taking their three demands to the Pakistani government:

i) removal of Zafarullah Khan, from the foreign ministry because they believed he was an Ahmadi;
ii) removal of all Ahmadis from top government offices;
iii) declaration of all Ahmadis as non-Muslims.

With Majlis-e-Ahrar in lead, the movement launched countrywide campaigns and protests. In 1954, the Majlis-e-Ahrar was banned. And like most present-day dedicated Jihadi organizations, they emerged with a new name, “Majlis-e-Tahafuz-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwat.”

Since Ahmadis were very active in overseas dawaa missions–they had converted thousands outside Pakistan–simultaneously the “Aalami Majlis-e-Tahafuz-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwat” was also launched to malign Ahmadis across the world.

By 1974, their anti-Ahmadi movement reached the Pakistani parliament. ZA Bhutto caved in and passed a constitutional amendment to define what it was to be Muslim–Ahmadis were excluded.

In 1984, General Zia ul Haq added more sting to the law, prohibiting Ahmadis from professing their faith, and banned them from “indirectly or directly posing as a Muslim”. This meant Ahmadis could go to jail for saying Assalam-al-aikum, giving Azaan or even calling their mosques, mosques. From there on forward they had to hide their faith. Being Ahmadis became a capital crime.

In the Land of the Pure, the mullahs and mullah-cum-politicians successfully and ruthlessly shunned millions of Pakistanis who believe in one God and the Holy Prophet into the corner of non-existence.

According to a recent survey carried out by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), 46.8 percent of Pakistanis want to give religio-political parties a chance to rule the country.

I hate to shatter the distant glass planet that these 46.8 per cent living on, but the religio-political parties are made up the likes of mullahs like Rashidi and the sell-your-soul-for-politics heavyweights–Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat-i-ulema-i-Islam Fazlur Rahman group.

Their ideology and loyalty shifts as does the political wind. The very creation of the MMA and the way Qazi Hussain and Fazl ur Rahman played the party’s alleged divide in the 2008 elections attests to these brutal realities.

But I guess I can’t blame that 46.8 per cent either. They turn to the religio-political parties because the alternative (PPP, PML-N, PML-Q, MQM and ANP) is a disappointing path they have followed one to many times.

Who are Pakistanis supposed to turn to?

Their politicians give them nothing but heart ache. Their mullahs nothing but hate.

According to the same PIPS survey, most Pakistanis –95% of their sample–do not believe in Al Qaeda’s mission number 1: spreading Islam to every corner of the world through Jihad. And even smaller number–2.7%–correlated the lack of progress in the Muslim world to the “loss in passion to fight against their enemies.”

Fortunately, the message of hate the mullahs and their likes have been preaching for decades hasn’t sunk too deep.

I say before it does, let’s turn back time.

Or tune into Coke Studio. A few days before the mullahs came out with their salt-on-an-open-wound conspiracy theory, the timeless message of Bulleh Shah echoed across televisions and radios of Pakistan.

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The latest series of Coke Studio opened with Sufi rocker Arieb Azhar reciting “Na Rahndee hai”
The world is a slippery place
Tread carefully for ‘tis dark
Go inside see who’s there
Why do the people search outside
What’s on the tongue must be said
Bullah, the beloved is not separate from us
Besides the beloved there is naught
But the discerning eye is missing
Therefore life endures separation
What’s on the tongue must be said
Learning through the rote of books you call yourself a scholar
Grasping the sword in your hand you call yourself a warrior
Having visited Mecca and Medina you call yourself a pilgrim
Bullah, what have you accomplished if you have not remained true to your friend!

Bulleh Shah wrote these verses at a time when his Punjab was rocked by communal strife between Muslims and Sikhs. His poetry sent a clear message to the Mullahs of the time that persecuting your fellow Sikh citizens is wrong.

If only the government school curriculum in Punjab included Bulleh Shah’s poetry, maybe it would help turn away some of the recruits that are so easily brainwashed into suicide bombers full of hate.

The Bahawalpur in the headlines these days is a city hijacked by the Punjabi Taliban, but once upon a time it used to be Bulleh Shah’s hometown where his message of unity, peace and love had originated and eventually tapped into the tolerant mind of the millions living in the land now known as Pakistan.
Bulleh Shah could you please come back and captivate us?

READ: Dawn Blog, Timeline-Plight of the Pakistani Ahmedi