Minaret with a view

The Maulana does not look burdened by fame, because his mind is clearer than his reputation. Media loves a tag, and 'Father of the Taliban' is as good as it gets. Maulana Fazlur Rehman is the leader of the Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, a successor organisation to the Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Hind, which of course continues to function in India. This is not the place to delve into the complexities of the various movements inspired by the Islamic clergy in undivided India, but it would be broadly correct to say that the Jamaat-e-Ulema has a very powerful anti-imperialist tradition, having fought the British consistently through most of the 19th century. The battle was both ideological and military; it preceded the mutiny of 1857 and continued long after it, provoking the British administration to ask what became the consuming question of the time: Are Muslims bound by their religion to oppose the Raj? For these mullahs preached that a jihad against the British was a Quranic duty, no less -- and violence flared up periodically against British rule all through the 19th century.

They belonged to the same school of thought as the wandering ideologue Jamaluddin Afghani, a Persian who found periodic refuge in Istanbul but drifted across the world urging Muslims to confront western, and by extension Christian, imperialism. Tides as strong as this prompted the British administration in Calcutta to set up what might be called a pro-British Muslim party after the formation of the Indian National Congress, whose purpose was to thwart an incipient nationalism by dividing Hindus and Muslims. Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan served that role with all the power of his intellectual brilliance and of course personal integrity. nBut Afghani, who spent two years in Hyderabad, was furious at the politics of Sir Sayyid and accused him of being a dajjal, or a betrayer of Muslims. To take the story forward, the Jamaat-e-Ulema did not believe in partition, and thereby came close to Gandhi and the Congress. It remained true to its line, even when the fires that divided India went out of the control of both protagonist and antagonist. It is useful to remember that the disciples of Afghani created the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which continued the anti-imperialist tradition at one level, and spawned numerous groups that spread across the Arab world, taken over by Britain and France after the collapse of the Ottoman empire in 1918.

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Partition obviously changed the politics of the Jamaat-e-Ulema in Pakistan but it never lost its essential anti-Western thrust, nor did it surrender the dream that the Islamic clergy would lead that challenge to the West. Although there are no exact parallels, in a sense, the JUI's philosophy was the Sunni equivalent to the themes argued so passionately by Ayatollah Khomeini in the Iranian revolution. It was no accident that Imam Khomeini quoted Jamaluddin Afghani with approval.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman's views on South Asia and the threat he perceives from the United States must be seen in this historical contexnt. But history cannot be an artificial interventionist; it must be justified by contemporary facts to become relevant. An increasing number of politicised Muslim activists draw a definite conclusion from the American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11. They believe that neither war has been justified by the reasons offered for them, and that the reasons have proved to be palpably false. In neither case did the United States argue that it was the nature of those in power that had persuaded it to invade the country and replace the regimes. It could not, because Washington had done business with both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, without asking the former about fundamentalism and the latter about tyranny. Saddam was not any less brutal when Washington and London gave him billions of dollars in food credits, and looked the other way while he evaded arms sanctions during the war Saddam launched on Iran. Discussions with the Taliban on an oil pipeline through Afghanistan were not broken when the Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed. The Taliban had developed a comfortable relationship with Washington, which is why they allowed American Christian missionaries to operate in Afghanistan when they were in power. The Taliban cooperated with Washington to ensure that the missionaries left the country unharmed before America and Britain attacked.

Irrespective of what anyone else might argue, Maulana Rehman believes that there is no proof that the Taliban, or Osama bin Laden, were responsible for 9/11. Nothing has emerged from even the interrogations at Guantanamo Bay that links Osama directly with those who flew the aircraft into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. A speech glorifying war against Anwmerica is at best circumstantial evidence. Maulana Rehman is certain that the Taliban was punished only because it believed in Islamic rule, not because it was guilty. George Bush needed a scapegoat, and found one with a beard. The Jamaat proclaimed Osama a hero in the successful election campaign that brought them within an inch of power in Pakistan.

There may be genuine doubts about this view, and perhaps also unexpressed self-doubt among the believers. But Iraq became the incontrovertible proof that they needed. America has become the latest in a long line of colonisers, in a process that began in the early 19th century and seems set to continue into the foreseeable future. Even ardent supporters of the Anglo-American war now are beginning to concede that the weapons-of-mass-destruction argument was a shoddy excuse. Tony Blair, the eyes-wide-shut evangelist, now pontificates that history will justify his decision because the war removed a tyrant. By such standards the British Army is scheduled for busy days ahead. The pressure of a lie can become unsustainable in a democracy, as the apparent suicide of Dr David Kelly, who is believed to have blown the whistle on doctored intelligence to the BBC, indicates. Hubris requires only one tragic flaw to destroy a hero: Tony Blair is less than a hero, and has more than one flaw. Even George Bush is beginning to put some distance between the two.

But that is not the real issue. The Bush-Blair problem is that the response in Iraq and Afghanistan, and among those young men ready for another Jihad, will be determined by what the latter believe. If they believe, as they are beginning to do, that America is determined to become the new master of the Muslim world, then they will take up arms. Saddam Hussein's statue came down in early April; Bush declared the war over some three weeks later. He did not suspect that the war may have only begun.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman is certain about American intentions. Some of the harsh conservative rhetoric has helped to create such certainty, particularly when rhetoric has become policy. He reflects a growing view that the last thing Pakistan needs is American intervention, on any excuse. This is a total shift from the traditional Pakistani policy on Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan believes that India has played out a neat trap: to the world Delhi says that Kashmir can be resolved by a bilateral dialogue, and when a bilateral effort starts, Delhi treats Kashmir as an internal problem. Pakistan has been pleading for American intervention, with or without a UN camouflage, since the early 1950s. After Iraq, India has become less of a problem than the United States.

This is a remarkable turnaround. This is what Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was suggesting, in his typical oblique way, when he launched his present peace initiative from Srinagar with a throwaway line that the world had altered after Iraq. He did not elaborate. He did not need to. The signal was picked up.

But any journey towards understanding (peace is too ambitious a word, as yet) between India and Pakistan is a journey through a minefield. There are two reasons for guarded optimism, however. The first is the care with which the principals are walking. This is critical. Any attempt to leap forward will create serious injuries that can so easily become septic. Let both sides, at every level, bare their suspicions, glare from their corners and get the snarls out of the way. Let every difficulty be bared and discussed, and if the pace of change is only a crawl, so be it. Better to crawl and survive in a minefield than rush and die.

The second reason is that the ground is being prepared. You cannot build peace in a greenhouse; this is a field that has to be furrowed with care, watered abundantly, and then permitted patience before a crop appears. The sudden visit by the ranking leader of the Pakistan Opposition and his three colleagues, was one such vital exercise in a patient process. Maulana Fazlur Rehman did not come to India to solve the problem. He cannot. He came here to be a part of the solution, rather than remain a part of the problem.

He came silently. He returned accompanied by the faint whirr of hope.

MJ Akbar is Chief Editor of the Asian Age.