Excellent thread Mr. Mod
But I would like to point out something:
Philosopher Dr Muhammad Asad (First citizen of an independent Pakistan) pictured with his colleagues at the door of '
The Department of Islamic Reconstruction'. The department was created by the father of the nation Muhammad Ali Jinnah himself to Research and Develop an Islamic, democratic political system to be implemented into the infant Muslim state. After Jinnah's passing, Dr Asad was transferred by Zafar-ullah Khan to a diplomatic duty and the Department was set on fire with most of its research work destroyed by
unidentified men.
Brother what is the source of this highly misleading description ??
1)There is absolutely no reference to a Department of Islamic Reconstruction in any of the official documents of the Government of Pakistan.
2)There is no reference to “Allama” Asad aka Lepold Weiss in Jinnah Papers. Jinnah never corresponded with him, never met him and never appointed him to anything. I have looked through Jinnah Papers as well Jinnah’s correspondence during this period. Even the Shamsul Hassan collection has no reference to this Allama Asad. There is absolutely no primary source evidence that shows this Allama as being associated with the Pakistan Government. How strange then that Jinnah who meticulously saved his correspondence forgot to mention this.(Yasser Hamdani)
3)Muhammad Asad himself has made no mention of any such details in his famous auto biography ; "Road to Mecca"
The Road to Mecca (book) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
All we find is : Asad in his book
“Principles of State and Government in Islam” claims that he headed what seems to be an Islamic Reconstruction Department in West Punjab. Even if that were true, which would require confirmation,
that does not connect Asad to Jinnah or the Central Pakistan Government.
Soon after his arrival in Lahore, Asad was called by Nawab of Mamdot, the first Chief Minister of Western Punjab who sought advice on the possible ideological contours of the new country. Asad suggested setting up of an organization to examine this issue. Mamdot agreed and thus he came to design, set up and head the Department of Islamic Reconstruction. Explaining the aims and objectives of the Department in an interview broadcast over Radio Pakistan in October 1947, Asad observed that it was the only government department of its time anywhere in the Muslim world to carry the word ‘Islamic’ in its title. He added, “All that we are expected to do – all that we can legitimately do – is to help the community to co-ordinate its spiritual and intellectual resources and to revive the moral strength of which the Millat must be capable by virtue of its being the Millat of Islam; in other words to help the Millat to re-create the Islamic atmosphere so necessary for a revival of Islamic life in its practical aspects.”
A few weeks later the Chief Minister asked him to draw up a Memorandum on the lines of his article Towards Islamic Constitution which would be published by the government of Punjab and may come to the notice of the Central government. The Memorandum was soon written and published. It generated sufficient interest in the capital city that led to Asad being called to Karachi to meet with Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan who advised him to write in more detail on the subject of Islamic Constitution.
Muhammad Asad: The Story of a Story of a Story | Criterion
So saying that Jinnah himself set up a department of Islamic reconstruction and appointed Muhammad Asad as its head , is nothing more than a blatant lie , concocted by pathological liars like Orya Maqbool Jan ..
What our great scholar , Jinab Orya Sahib , apparently failed to realize (while desperately trying to "Islamize" Jinnah) is :
1) Muhammad Asad, accepted Islam on the hands of Maulana Sadar Ud Din, Imam of Berlin Mosque, Germany,
run by Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement. His name is still written in the registers of converts to Islam.
2)His main focus was on the primacy of Quran over any all other sources such as Hadith and Sunna as he felt that Quran had been over-ruled by secondary sources. He did not believe in second coming of Jesus for example!!
So if Jinnah appointed such a man as head of Islamic Reconstruction Department , We can clearly judge Jinnah`s understanding of Islam !! Hope you get the point
How ironic is our dilemma as a country? We abuse and insult Zafrullah Khan, a man who Jinnah appointed as Pakistan’s first representative to the UN, Pakistan’s first foreign minister and Pakistan’s lawyer before the boundary commission but are willing to latch on to the most tenuous of claims by some Jewish convert to Islam of having been head of some provincial department, if at all.
Muhammad Asad disliked Zafarullah as he was denied a permission to marry a polish lady by Ministry of Foreign affairs (Zafarullah was the foreign minister) . The ridiculous blog in Express Tribune speaks of Asad being the “first citizen of Pakistan”. What an utter and total national shame. (Asad was the first person to carry a Pakistani passport but that does not make him the first citizen)
Not trying to make any point - just an interesting observation.
