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A long and old article but worth reading...
The Identity Crisis of a Modern Muslim
Anwar Iqbal January 14, 2002
Tags: Literacy , History , Education
"They chased the dog out, lest it pollute the mosque. But they left these
men inside, ignoring the ***** hidden in their hearts. Who will clean the
mosque now?'' I looked back and saw a strange man sitting on the steps of
this old Muslim shrine which was half way between my college andhome. He
had a long flowing beard and was wearing a spotless white shalwar-qamis
(baggy trousers and a long shirt).
He did not look poor yet he was doing a job only the poorest do. He looked
after the shoes of the visitors who had to take them off before entering the
shrine and the adjoining mosque. In return they threw a few coins before
him. Nobody knew his name. Everybody called him "jootaywala" or the
shoe-man.
He saw me looking at him and smiled. "Don't believe what you see. Seek
more," he said. I ignored him and went inside. ''What will you get from this
bowing and prostrating when your heart is still attracted to sins. Clean
your heart first and then come to worship,'' the Qawwal was singing a
devotional song. Surrounded by a group of devotes, he was playing a simple
tune on a harmonium, one of his companions played the tabla while others
repeated the refrain with him.
"What will you get from your worship, what will you get from your worship,"
they chanted. Some of the devotees got up and started dancing in ecstasy. I
sat under the banyan tree that sheltered the shrine. Dozens of parrots were
chattering above me. The Qawwal was singing and the devotees were dancing.
Every now and then one of the devotees would say ''Allah'' and the others
would join the chant which was echoed back to them by the surrounding hills.
"Chase the dog out of your heart," I heard the shoe-man talking to a group
of people who had gathered around him. Then he started telling them the
stories of Mullah Nasiruddin (a legendry character popular in the Muslim
world). "Mullah came to a wedding reception in his usual dress which was
made of coarse cloth and nobody took any notice of him. Nobody asked him to
sit. Nobody served him food. He went back, put on his new silk coat and
returned to the reception. Now he was taken to the best table and made to
sit with the notables of the city. When the food came Mullah dipped his
sleeve in the soup and said 'eat, my coat, eat.' The host was surprised and
asked Mullah why he was doing that. 'When I came in my usual dress, nobody
welcomed me but my new coat made all the difference. So I gather that the
invitation was for the coat, not for me,' said Mullah Nasiruddin."
The old story pleased the audience because they could relate to it.
Although the story was hundreds of years old, it had not lost its message.
"Now tell me what do you want, you want to be respected for your appearance
or desire real honor," asked the storyteller.
This reminded me of another story that I had read as a child. This was a
story from Gulistan, a book by the famous Persian poet Sa'adi which was
popular throughout the region until 50 years ago. For centuries people have
read Gulistan to learn wisdom, faith and morality and also about the wicked
ways of the world. The story that the man at the shrine told as one of
Mullah Nasiruddin's is also sometimes credited to Sa'adi. The Mullah was a
legendary character and many of his stories are found in other collections
as well.
The other story was of a poet who wrote a long eulogy for the sardar or
chief of a gang of robbers and went to his den to recite it before him,
expecting a great reward in return. The robber listened to the poem
patiently and when he finished, he asked his companions to strip the poet
and throw him out of the cave.
"But why? I praise you and you do this to me," asked the poet. "This will
teach you not to praise robbers," said the chief. When he came out of the
cave, dogs started chasing the naked poet. He looked around for stones to
throw at the dogs but it was snowing and the snow had covered all the
stones. He tried but could not retrieve one from under the snow. "What
strange people," said the poet, "they have tied their stones but set their
dogs free."
When I read this I asked my teacher what relevance the story had for me, as
I was neither a poet nor a robber. He asked me to be patient and read
through the book. But later, while working as a journalist, I would remember
the story again and again. Dozens of times I had to write homage for robbers
and their chiefs and dozens of time I was stripped of my ego and thrown out
in the streets to suffer my nakedness. Many times their pet dogs bared their
teeth at me and I had no stone to throw at them.
And yet I was among those who did not have the courage to say no to this
hypocrisy. The punishment was greater for those who did not praise the
robbers. Instead always tried to say what they wanted to and willingly
suffered the consequences. Yet sometimes they could not help feeling bitter
and helpless. Thus the story echoes again in a beautiful poem by Faiz Ahmad
Faiz, a poet who dominated the minds of several generations of South Asians
with his powerful poetry. When talking about restrictions on freedom of
expression in his country (Pakistan), he refers to Saadi's story and reminds
his readers of the mental torture that a poet or a writer has to go through
because of those restrictions.
These old stories were part of the knowledge of the Sufis. They used them
to train their followers for the path. The stories are so powerful that they
appeal to an intellectual like Faiz and an ordinary peasant alike. Perhaps
that's why there is always a crowd at the shrines of the Sufi saints. They
give knowledge without arrogance. But what brought me to the shrine, I did
not know. I could have read the stories at home but instead I preferred to
hear them from this man who always shouted: "Take the plunge, take the
plunge. Don't watch the storm from the bank." He never explained what he
meant.
Perhaps he was referring to Hafiz, another famous Iranian poet. Himself a
Sufi, Hafiz asks the seekers of the path ''not to watch the storm from the
safety of the bank but to take the plunge'' if they wanted to learn. I was
surprised to hear an apparently illiterate shoe-man quoting Hafiz.
The man intrigued me. I could not make out if he was educated or had learnt
bits and pieces from here and there and kept repeating them. He never gave
me the chance to guess. One moment he was there smiling and inviting to take
the plunge and the next he was gone, ensconced in his shell, dusting the
shoes with a piece of cloth, unwilling to let anything out.
One day I saw the shoe-man in the bazaar, buying flowers for the shrine. It
was the only time I saw him buying something. When he saw me, he laughed and
showed me a little boy who was selling 'nay' (flutes). "Do you know why the
nai (flute) wails? It is the pain of separation from its source that makes
it do so," he told me and laughed. Now he was referring to the Sufi master
and great Persian poet Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi who also formed the circle of
whirling dervishes. "Listen to the nai, it cries because it has been
separated from its source (the tree from which the branch was broken).
That's why it is full of sad notes. Similarly men suffer because they are
separated from their source (God)," says Rumi.
"My God," I said to myself, "who is this man? Apparently rough and
illiterate and yet he knows classical Persian poetry which is difficult even
for the educated to understand. How?" But I could not find an answer because
when I turned back to look for him, he had disappeared in the crowd. To my
contemporary mind his attitude made no sense. If he is educated why does not
he print a resume and do something more respectable! Why does not he carry a visiting card!
I went back to the shrine. The qawwals (devotional singers) were signing
another song. "In your love I dance like a whirlwind, I dance like a
whirlwind." The shoe-man was there but he ignored me. I sat under the tree.
The parrots were chattering. One big bird sat separately on a higher
branch. It seemed as if others listened when he spoke. It reminded me of
another story, The Assembly of Birds, by Attar. And I entered another age
when animals spoke and people understood.
One day the shoe-man disappeared from the shrine also. It annoyed me. I
wanted to know where he went but nobody could tell. I was annoyed because he
had disappeared before I could figure out who he was and what he wanted. But
why I wanted to know who he was, I don't know. How could have I known him
when I don't even know myself. I am worse than the disciple of a Sufi master
who spent several years learning irfan, the knowledge of the Sufis, and then
came back to his master to tell him that he was now a man of knowledge. When
he knocked at the door, the master asked, 'Who?'
"Me," said the disciple. "Go back. There is no room for two in this house,"
said the master. The disciple went away to learn more and when he comes
back, the master asked again: 'who?' ''You," said the disciple. "Yes, get
in, now you have knowledge," said the master.
But who am I? I did not know. I am not two. I am many. Like a broken
mirror, I reflect a thousand images. One day I looked at the mirror. I saw a
thousand faces staring at me. One moment all looked familiar. The next all
looked different. It scared me. I threw the mirror away and it broke into
dozens of pieces, fragmenting me further in the process. My search
continues. I look for myself everywhere, inside and outside. I see no light.
I seem to be floating around in a mist, a fluffy velvety mist. It softly
touches my toes, moving up. Out of the cloud emerges a face. One moment it
is my face. The next moment it is someone else's. I try to touch it, hold it
but it melts away. Many faces appear. I feel around, trying to hold them but
they slip through my fingers and disappear in the fog which is slowly
slithering around my body. I am tense. I want to scream. I want to hold on
to something. But all faces, all images disappear in the haze as I stretch
my hands. Shadows dance on the wall. Broad, bold shadows, leaping around in
a rhythmic chaos. They whisper to each other and laugh; a full-throated
laughter fills my room. My skin prickles with fear. I try to escape to the
comfort of past images. I seek refuge in narrow, warm streets. Familiar
smells of closed rooms, sweat and masala (herbs) wander in the streets,
getting stronger as the heat increases. I see people pushing, shouting,
laughing and jostling. The muezzin (a Muslim priest) calls for the evening
prayers. A soothing shadow slips down the minarets. The sun is plucked from
the sky. The night drops from the clouds. But the streets are not deserted.
They are now filled with the faithful smell of summer evenings. People still
move around, laughing and shouting. I extend my hands. Try to coax them into
my existence. But they slip off my hands. The mist licks my fingers and the
shadows moving on the wall scare me. I reach out but only touch the cold,
slithering mist.
The longing never ends. I wander like a lost soul through the images that
fill my mind. Sometimes the images look familiar to me. Sometimes they float
through my mind like strangers. But as the time passes, these strangers also
become a part of me, of my identity. Yet the confusion continues.
Sometimes I see myself in a valley full of both familiar and strange
images. I see people, buildings and trees slowly emerging out of the mist. I
see cars, buses and trains. An airplane flies over my head. I see shops and
office blocks. I see people working on their computers, lifting telephones,
talking to those thousands of miles away, and speaking foreign languages.
"We received your e-mail earlier this morning. Here is a list of the goods
you asked for," says a message from distant America. The man working on the
computer looks at his watch. As expected, the reply had come in less than
half an hour.
Although all these seem foreign, they also look familiar. I feel sure of
myself moving around in this world of computers. I need them. I am used to
them. They form part of my identity. But then the muezzin calls again.
"Allah is great, Allah is great," he reminds the faithful. The man switches
off his computer, turns his face towards Mecca and prays. There seems no
conflict between his faith and the technology he is using.
The scene changes again. Now I hear thousands of horsemen, crossing huge
mountains and running into the valley. They come in groups, some small, some
large. They keep coming for hundreds of years. Wherever they stop, they make
small mosques and call the faithful to pray to their one and only God. It
sounds familiar. I understand it. I identify with it.
But my search does not end here. Now I hear music and songs. It is a group
of girls in white saris with red borders. Wearing fragrant garlands around
their necks and arms and colorful bindies (a decorative dot) on their
foreheads, they sing as they move towards the river with their offerings of
flowers and fruits. I understand their song. I recognize their music. Dress.
Flowers. Fruits. All seem familiar. After all we share so much with them.
Our social habits, our cultural manifestations, languages and even physical
features are similar.
So I see a link.
Their song fades away. Once again I hear horses and battle cries. These are
Aryan warriors who come with their horses and arrows and conquer the valley.
They come and over-power those who lived here before them. But the valley
conquers them and they never go back. Now they live with us. I speak the
words I borrowed from them; I share their customs, their tales and even
their prejudices about castes and creed.
But does my journey end here? No, I also have affinities with those who
lived here before the Aryans. I feel a sense of attachment to the
un-ciphered tablets discovered from the ruins of the Indus cities of
Moenjodaro and Harrapa. The statues of the mother goddess fascinate me. The
dancing girl of the Indus is no stranger. She lives inside me -- frozen in a
frame of ecstasy which has been copied by countless generations of dancers
ever since.
Many in my country say that this journey of thousands of years ended 54
years ago when we assumed a new identity, that of Pakistanis. After that we
should shun all other identities. We have been trying to do so for than half
a century now but it has not worked. I can't ignore the invisible string
that links me to all those who came before me. Yet there are some who put my
new identity in conflict with my old identities. Besides being a Pakistani,
I am also a Punjabi, a Sindhi, a Baluch and a Pashtun. And, here I must
speak the forbidden word, an Indian, a cultural Indian.
There are some who don't feel comfortable living with the past. The
controversies they stir also disturb me. It has pitched my faith against my
politics, my traditions against my work, my ethnic origin against that of
others and my language against that of my neighbor. My being a Muslim is not
enough. I also have to identify myself with the groups doing politics in the
name of Islam. My being a Pakistani is not enough. I must also associate
with those who look at any mention of other historical, social or cultural
references with suspicion. I also have to subscribe to the narrow ethnic
identities of various groups who have their own definitions of nationalism.
Born a Muslim in Pakistan, I grew up with strong cultural traditions that,
although heavily influenced by our religious beliefs, have retained their
secular characteristics. Poetry, music and painting are an integral part of
the Muslim culture of my region. The Sufi# saints who preached Islam in
South Asia over hundreds of years borrowed generously from the local
culture. They introduced such religious practices as qawwali and dhammal
(devotional songs and dances).
For most South Asian Muslims first introduction to Islam comes from the
poetry of these Sufi saints. Sufi poets have influenced South Asian
languages so deeply that hundreds of their couplets that preach tolerance
and acceptance of other faiths have become proverbs.
South Asian Muslims' devotion to Prophet Mohammed is nurtured in the
tradition of milad (a Muslim religious gathering). A practice common in
other Muslim cultures as well, in the Subcontinent a milad includes
recitation of poetry and singing of religious songs. The religion that
Muslims learn at milad gatherings is one of love and tolerance. It is also
at these gatherings that we are introduced to Sufi poetry, which defines all
religious paths as leading to the same destination (God).
A modern South Asian Muslim is also influenced by South Asian literature
written in the later 19th and 20th centuries. The strongest influence is
that of the Muslim poet Dr. Mohammed Iqbal, who, writing in early 20th
century India, presented Sufi concepts in modern terms.
Modern poets and writers like Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Saadat Hassan Manto,
perhaps among the most popular South Asian writers of the mid 20th century,
introduced Marxist and liberal Western thought to the local Muslims. Even
the Marxism introduced by Faiz, a winner of the Lenin award for literature,
was of a South Asian nature -- mild and romantic.
The popular Islamic culture of South Asia owes as much to poets like Amir
Khusro and Ghalib and Muslim masters of the Indian classical music as to
Sufi saints like Nizamuddin Awlia and Data Ganje Bukhsh.
It is a culture that allows people like Ghalib to "seek an idol in Kaaba
(Mecca)" and encourages Khusro to declare, "It is the man who is the center
of his prayers rather than the holy mosque in Mecca." Even in modern times
South Asian Muslim writers have raised probing questions about the very
basis of Islamic faith without causing a violent popular reaction.
This popular culture has had little difficulty coexisting with other South
Asian religions and has attracted many followers from other faiths who visit
the shrines of Muslims saints in both India and Pakistan. It has encouraged
people like Prem Chand, Krishan Chandar and Firaque Gorakhpuri, all Hindus,
and Rajinder Singh Bedi, a Sikh, to write literature in Urdu, basically a
language of the South Asian Muslims, using Muslim symbols and metaphors. It
is a culture that is alive and thriving not only around the shrines of Sufi
saints but also in the hearts of millions of their followers, who often fail
to understand the political fervor of the militant Islam.
Although brought up under the influence of these liberal cultural and
literary traditions, most South Asian Muslims also retain a strong
attachment to their religion, which does not pose a contradiction. Such
blending of cultural and religious traditions and the coexistence of Islamic
values with local traditions and Western influence is not confined to South
Asia. Most Muslim nations continue to experience such mingling traditions.
However, confusion and contradictions emerge in the realm of politics,
particularly the politics practiced by groups identified as militant
Muslims. So far political Islam has failed to attract strong popular support
in the Islamic but its influence is increasing. This is because of a general
disenchantment with the current political system and the ruling elite. Most
Muslims express their dislike for the current political set up by staying
away from the fake elections held by their governments, allowing the rulers
always to proclaim a sweeping victory for themselves.
Widespread corruption and the failure of a Western inspired democratic
system to address social and economic weaknesses of the society is the
apparent cause of this disillusion. In Pakistan people don't trust the
English speaking ruling elite. There is a general perception that they may
be good at making money but they have no desire or training to do anything
for others. Gone are the days when people looked up to the Western educated
elite and believed that with their knowledge and expertise they could help
change the society. "My heart is dead. I don't trust anyone. I will not go
to vote," said a laborer, working at the new palatial office of the
Pakistani prime minister in Islamabad when asked by a BBC correspondent if
he would vote in the 1997 elections. His comments were polite compared to
what people say about the educated elite in general and the politicians in
particular.
Disillusion with the Westernized elite turns into a dislike for the West
when they see Western governments supporting totally corrupt and morally
bankrupt rulers in the Islamic world. The West is seen as a bully bent upon
maintaining its hegemony over the Islamic world with the help of inefficient
and corrupt Muslim rulers.
But despite this there is still a widespread respect for Western technology
which many believe could help them jump several generations on the
development ladder. So people want Western technology but not Western
culture. However, this attitude is full of contradictions. Everybody speaks
against the Western culture but people still watch Western movies and listen
to American songs. Until recently this was confined to the upper and middle
classes but now even the lower middle class is developing a taste for
American films and music. As soon as they get money, people send their
children to English medium schools. Thus the West is revered, even if
grudgingly, for its prosperity and scientific achievements.
However, the possibility of benefiting from the West or the Westernized
education is still only available to less than 20 percent of the population.
Most people don't benefit from it. They continue to live in abject poverty.
In fact no changes have had any impact on their lives.
Ask any man, or woman, in the street about how democracy was different from
a military rule or monarchy, he would see no difference. "We struggle for
bread, clothes, democracy or no democracy," would be the standard answer. In
Pakistan the slogan for roti, kapra aur makan (bread, clothes and shelter in
Urdu) was made popular by the late Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the
1970s. Similar promises were made by other left-leaning Muslim leaders as
well. But they did little to make them available to those who need them
most. Nothing seems to work in the Islamic world. Political ideas and
economic theories -- Islamic, socialist and dictatorial -- of all ilk and
brand have been tried here. All failed.
No country suffered under this ideological conflict more than Afghanistan.
The cold war brought the Russians who brought superpower-rivalry to this
unfortunate country. Both the Russians and the Americans -- and their allies
-- created dozens of armed groups who are still fighting each other.
Hundreds of thousands died during the Soviet occupation, 1979-1989. But what
followed the Russian withdrawal was even worse. More than 50,000 were killed
in Kabul alone during the first Mujahideen government which ruled the
country from 1993-96. They paved the way for the Taliban takeover in 1996.
The Taliban brought even more suffering and turned Afghanistan into an
international pariah by sheltering suspected terrorists like Osama bin Laden
and his al Qaida network.
The Muslim nationalists tried to create Western nation states in countries
that have not one but many nations with distinct ethnic, linguistic and
cultural features living within their boundaries. The socialists tried to
impose a secular ideology on a people known for their devotion to Islam. The
Muslim radicals based their dreams of a pure and just Islamic society on
people's attachment to religion. But instead of delivering any of the goods
they had promised, they led their followers to a path that pitched Islam
against the rest of the world.
Reforms, introduced by liberal Muslim rulers, helped improve the situation
but only for some. Education was supposed to bring knowledge and prosperity
to all. It did not. For most, it only increased their dreams without
equipping them with the tools to make them come true. Divided between the
English (or French) schools of the elite and the ordinary schools for the
rest of the country, the education system has created a large number of
educated unemployed or under-employed.
In Pakistan, most of these unemployed or under-employed educated youths
come from Urdu medium schools who churn out thousands of graduates every
year but the establishment, dominated by the English speaking elite, has few
jobs for them. Totally disenchanted with a system which has little to offer
to them, they are the ones who provide the bulk of the supporters to Islamic
militant parties, as they did to the Marxist groups before the collapse of
the Soviet Union. They want change, any change and at any cost.
The cities are growing, slowly but steadily. In Pakistan, officially between
30-40 percent people live in the cities but nobody trusts official
statistics. People argue that since it is the zamindars or the rural
landowners who dominate the establishment, they juggle up the figures to
suit their interests. And it is in their interest to make the cities look
smaller than they are.
Many in Pakistan argue that the zamindar-dominated establishment rigs census
results because true results would lead to a re-arranging of parliamentary
seats between the cities and the villages. An increase in the number of
urban representation in the parliament threatens their power base.
Most leading political families in Pakistan come from the villages. People
like Bhuttos, Jatois, or Hussains of Jhang own thousands of acres of land.
They rule over the villages in their jurisdiction like kings. They decide
who goes to parliament from their areas. Peasants refusing to vote for their
favorite candidates may face eviction and even physical torture.
But the cities are growing. They have a high literacy rate. The city
dwellers also have exposure to modern thoughts, courtesy the media. They
also develop, what the Pakistani establishment calls, a disrespect for
authority. The cities are full of hundreds of thousands of unhappy people
who want to topple the system, peacefully and through democratic means if
possible. But if not, they will use any other means which is made available
to them. And that's why militant groups get recruits from the unemployed
educated youths of the cities too.
Another important thing happened during the during the previous elections
held in 1997. The Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakistan's main Muslim militant party,
for the first time in 50 years boycotted the elections and pledged to
struggle for change through other means. The Jamaat had no other option. It
has countrywide support in Pakistan's educated middle and lower middle
class. It gets thousands of votes in each constituency it contests from, but
only thousands. This means that they never get more than a handful of seats
in the parliament. Most of its supporters live in the cities. In the
villages the zamindars hold sway and do not allow Jamaat or any middle class
party to come and disturb the status quo.
Denied opportunities to expand in the present set up, many in Jamaat, and
other Muslim militant groups, openly talk of a revolution to create an
Islamic society in Pakistan (or in Egypt or Algeria). In the mid 1990s, some
of them wanted to follow the Sudanese model where a small but effective
Islamic group, led by Hassan al Turabi, joined the army in creating an
Islamic state. Such a move, the radicals believed, would enjoy the support
of the urban middle class. The Sudanese army has since gotten rid of Turabi
but it did not weaken the resolve of the Muslim militants in Pakistan of
bringing an Islamic revolution with the army's help.
The Pakistani army, once dominated by the feudal families of Punjab and the
North West Frontier Province, has also undergone a change in the 1980s when
the former military ruler Gen. Zia encouraged recruitment from lower middle
classes. Thus now the army has a large number of junior and middle rank
officers who are unhappy with the present political situation and share
Jamaat's zeal for an Islamic revolution. They are still not in a position to
influence decision-making and will be further weakened by Musharraf's
attempt to root out religious extremism.
The more radicals, particularly those from thousands of madrisas or Muslim
seminaries spread across Pakistan and Afghanistan, did not even trust the
army. They wanted a pure Islam, so pure that they could not trust the
Islamists, like those of Jamaat, either. They believed that only a mullah is
qualified to lead an Islamic state. In 1994, the madrisas got lucky.
Searching for a force to control unruly Afghanistan, and to maintain its
influence over the neighboring country, the Pakistan army helped form the
Taliban movement. The Americans and other Western powers, fed up with the
Mujahideen infighting, quietly supported the move.
Within two years the Taliban, or the students of Muslim seminaries as the
word means in the local dialects, captured most of Afghanistan and pushed
the Mujahideen to a narrow strip in the north. Thus Afghanistan became the
first state of the majority Sunni sect to be ruled by the clergy. As the
events that followed proved, the Taliban were not fit to rule.
Power corrupted them. For a group, which traditionally depended on the alms
the mosques get from affluent Muslims, even a little power was too much. So
they went berserk. Nothing else explains the strange, and un-Islamic,
restrictions they imposed on women and their decision to dynamite the Bamian
Buddhas.
Intoxicated with power, the Taliban failed to understand the difference
between beating a helpless Afghan woman for peeping out of her veil and
allowing their fundamentalists guests to go about planting bombs around the
world. And so the inevitable happened.
Their so-called honored guest, Osama bin Laden, allegedly arranged the 9/11
disaster which brought down the icons of world capitalism, the twin towers
of the World Trade Center, and damaged the Pentagon. The Americans reacted
as expected and in two months, the Taliban were history.
But the Taliban were not created out of void. The madrisas serve an
important purpose: providing food and some education to those who were
denied both. They are mainly children of landless peasants who cannot feed
them. So they send their children to the madrisas where they are given two
meals a day, two pairs of clothes and some education which can provide
low-level jobs in thousands of mosques across the country.
For the families that they come from, even this is a major social
accomplishment as it brings both food and some prestige. Some of these
madrisas received money from Arab governments wanting to fight increasing
Iranian influence in non-Arab Muslim countries after Ayatollah Khomeini's
revolution. Others received money from affluent Muslims who prefer to give
their religious tax, called Zakat, and alms to mosques rather than
governments.
Since Sept. 11, the Pakistani government was under great pressure to
control these religious schools. And on Jan. 12,2002 President General Pervez Musharraf announced a plan to control them. Now the government will write the books read at these schools. No new madrisa or mosque can be opened without the government's permission. They will not be allowed to teach jihad or holy war. They will not be allowed to collect funds for jihad. They cannot recruit foreign students and teachers, without the government's consent, and cannot preach sectarianism.
But many Pakistanis say that the government does not have the resources or
the will to carry out such an ambitious plan. Besides, so far it has no
plans to control the process that brings these poor village children to the
madrisas. "As long as there is poverty and unemployment, both in the
villages and the cities, the madrisas will never be short of volunteers,"
says Mahmood.
New madrisas will still be opened, now in remote villages. And only time
will tell who will use them to create another Taliban force in the future.
This time they may be asked to fight for a social change or in the name of
the class struggle but they will always be willing to fight as long as they
live on the fringes of the society.
But this will not end the process that brings these poor village children to
the cities. They will still come. New madrisas will still be opened, now in
remote villages. And only time will tell who will use them to create another
Taliban force in the future. This time they may be asked to fight for a
social change or in the name of class struggle but they will always be
willing to fight as long as they live on the fringes of the society.
The appeal of Islam as a remedy to the Muslim world's social and economic
ills is not confined to the Taliban. It is also not just a reaction to
Western domination or the hold of the Westernized elite over the
administrative set up. For many Muslims their religion has always had this
special appeal. The distinction between religion and politics is not as
obvious in Islam as it is in the West today. Even poets and philosophers
like Iqbal have opposed the separation of religion from politics saying, "A
political system without religious influence becomes a tyranny." For this
Muslims draw inspiration from their history which is full of religious
figures opposing despotic secular rulers, often at the risk of their lives.
Prophet Mohammed's entire family, except a male child and a few women, was
martyred while opposing one such ruler, Yazid. And thus his grandson Imam
Hussain has become a symbol of courage, resistance and supreme sacrifice.
Since then many have followed his example and laid down their lives fighting
for the oppressed and the down trodden against the tyrannical rulers. Their
list is long and includes Imams, Sufi saints, religious scholars and the
freedom fighters. It is not the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad or the great
Moguls of India that the Muslims look up to for inspiration but it is people
like them who have been inspiring the Muslims for generations.
So Islam has always had an appeal for the Muslims as an alternative to a
corrupt political system and the current situation in the Islamic world
makes it even more attractive. Thus when the common people debate the issue
of politics and Islam, they don't say whether it is right or wrong to mix
the two. They are more concerned about the legitimacy of the people aspiring
to represent those martyrs to determine whether they are fit to do so or
not.
However, this over-emphasis on religion clashes with their other identities
that are also dear to the people. Most Pakistanis are well aware of their
Islamic identity but they are also aware of their group interests as
Punjabis, Sindhis, Pashtun or Baluch. They respect their neighbors as fellow
Muslims and Pakistanis but most also retain a strong desire to preserve the
economic and cultural interests of their provinces which prevents them from
whole-heartedly supporting a Pan-Islamic or even a nationalist Pakistani
ideology.
Thus those born as Muslims in the 20th century, particularly in South Asia
face this crisis of identity from the very beginning. It is like being born
with several faces. Who are you? A Muslim, a Pakistani, an Indian, a
Bangladeshi, a Punjabi, a Sindhi or a Baloch?
The first identity, a Muslim, transcends all national and geographical
boundaries. A Muslim is identified by his faith and as long as he believes
in Islam he is a Muslim. Ideally, it may be correct, practically, it is not.
A Muslim is also a Pakistani, an Indian, an Afghan or an Arab. Being a
Muslim does not automatically grant him the nationality of all the 56
countries that claim allegiance to Islam. The moment he wants to travel,
even from one Muslim country to another, he ceases to be a Muslim and he
becomes an Egyptian or an Iranian. No Islamic country allows a Muslim to
enter its territory on the basis of his or her faith only. And this is where
the national identity, which provides the traveler with a passport and a
visa, becomes more important than the religious identity.
But, as internal conflicts in many Muslim countries show, even a national
identity is not enough. You need to identify yourself with a particular
group or place as well, in the case of Pakistan with one of the four
provinces. Then there are identities based on a language or race. Sometimes
one identity takes precedence over the other. Thus a Muslim living in the
West, where he confronts the non-Muslims, often gets more comfort from his
Islamic identity than his nationality.
But a Pakistani living in the Gulf finds it more useful to be a Pakistani
before a Muslim. Here his Pakistani identity comes before his religious
identity. It also comes before his regional identities as a Punjabi or a
Pashtun because it provides him strength in dealing with the Arabs who often
look down upon him as a Pakistani, whether he is from one province of
Pakistan or the other. However, back in Pakistan his Pakistani identity
ceases to be important. Now he is more cautious of being a Pashtun, a
Punjabi, a Mohajir, a Baloch or a Sindhi. And when he goes to his ancestral
district, he has to further divide his identity on ethnic and tribal lines
thus becoming a Seraiki speaking Sindhi or a Sindhi speaking Sindhi, a
Pashto speaking Baluch or a Balochi speaking Baloch.
In the West, the Pakistanis face yet another crisis, that of their affinity
with the Indians. Back home India is the number one enemy. Pakistanis spare
no effort to prove Pakistan as the ultimate un-India. They argue that
Pakistan does not retain any of the traditions that it might have acquired
when it was a part of united India for hundreds of years.
But these walls of separation don't prove very strong against the waves of
affinity that the Pakistanis face when they meet Indians in the West. Here
they are both seen as belonging to the same race. They face the same racial
prejudices. In some cases they speak the same language as their adversaries
from India do, eat the same food and even wear the same dress. Thanks to
films and television more and more Indian women are wearing shalwar qamis
and Pakistani women are wearing sari. In Britain a large number of
Pakistanis try to hide under a larger South Asian identity when the British
racists brand them as Pakis. So whether at home or abroad, the confusion of
identity never ends.
What the hell is this. I didnt have this much to read for my Masters degree..
i am NOT brown neither have any BROWN roots so why should i be even defensive what browns think of my PoV is i say we are not same .
)))) are bashing roots or just telling you that if NOT entire Pakistan BUT most of its areas have NO roots shared with Hindus.
