Extremism: Heart of crisis

One is not concerned here with al-Qaeda in the context of 9/11 or the current ME (Iraq) Crisis. One is focusing more narrowly on Pakistan. This country happens to be self-sufficient in Islamic extremism; indeed it has exported some of it to the ME. Here it arose from day one: Pakistan idea had not been thought through and intensively discussed between the years 1940 when it was mooted and 1947 when it came into being. In the short stormy days of Pakistan movement, Pakistan was a vague but highly emotive slogan that worked. Once Pakistan came into being, the question of what should be the nature of the new state in the achievement of which the name of Islam certainly played a role.

Debate continues on what Quaid-i-Azam wanted and what his and Muslim League leaders' ideas were. Some of it is pointless and misconceived. It is quite true that Mr. Jinnah was a secular person and he could only have wanted Pakistan to be an ordinary democratic state, as he repeatedly denied that Pakistan will be a theocratic state. The troubling point is not what one man thought. But what do the people of Pakistan want it to be. Let us face it: there was a certain cogency in Maulana Abul Ala Maududi's arguments, who led the debate on Pakistan being a pure Islamic State. He was factually right in that the name of Islam was massively used during Pakistan Movement, though I do not recall any ML leader ever having uttered the famous Jamaat-i-Islami's slogan: Pakistan Ka Matlab Kya, La Ilah Illallah. If the name of Islam played a part in the achievement of Pakistan, then it makes the demand for giving it an important place in its body politic becomes plausible.

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Thus far there is some ostensibility in the argument of Islamicists. But from this point on they are on shaky ground. What does Islam demand of Muslims? This religion of peace asks its people to live in peace, do not commit sins that virtually every religion or even Godless ethics proscribe. Islam's idea of piety, Taqva, is not much different from what the 10 Commandments lay down.

The contribution of Islamicists like Maududi is the claim that Islam prescribes a distinctive system of political thought, a unique economy and its own recognisable culture. This idea has played havoc and is also responsible for the profound confusion that obtains.

This is a new phenomenon, not to be found in the corpus of Islamic thought and tradition. One traces it back to two distinguished Indian journalists: Maulanas Mohammad Ali and Abul Kalam Azad. That 'Islam covers every contingency from cradle to grave' was the rhetorical flourish of the former. It did find some expression in latter's journal also in the 1910s. Factually all statecraft Islam was experimental (pragmatic); no shape or form was intrinsically Islamic. In the earlier days it was dictatorship of the pious by the ruled's rough and ready consent and later hereditary kingship was accepted as being adequately Islamic. No Islamic scholar ever found that the tyranny or debauchery of any Caliph in Baghdad or elsewhere made his rule any the less Islamic or his Kingdom Dar ul Harb (area of violence). Indeed an accepted Islamic doctrine was what newspapers in Saudi Arabia and Iran used to print every day in 1980s: 'obeying the ruler is the duty of all citizens' no matter if he is Fasiq (rake) or Fajir (wicked). If that is authentically Islamic, and I think it is, then there is no debate: Islam, in the interest of peace and order, permits all manner of rules and states. Factually Islam permitted wide experimentation and was de facto tolerant.

However, the world faces the new phenomenon of Islamic extremism. Contrary to the history of tolerance of all beliefs, especially under Muslim rulers of India, we now have political movements against minorities, whether religious or sectarian. Today's Islamic fanatics are ready to kill themselves in order to kill a few infidels or what they think are apostates. Suicide bombing is the ultimate in fanaticism. It has surfaced in the service of Sunni Orthodoxy or formalism in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in ME and also for the sake of Arab Nationalism (Palestinian state) in Palestine. No debate is necessary to show that such intolerance in Pakistan is sure to lead to the self-destruction of the whole society: it will result in endless conflict and the warp and woof of society would come apart. It has not merely to be rejected but fought against -- though not by violent means.

To repeat, it has to be recognised with an unjaundiced eye that Islam allows a pragmatic search for what suits a society or state. Pakistanis want to be citizens of a state that serves them (and does not run after airy- fairy notions) and is accountable to them. It must give them all the human rights that the two UN Charters envision and should not discriminate in favour, or against, any recognisable group of citizens. It has necessarily to be a democratic state that is tolerant, pluralistic and devoted primarily to the welfare and progress of all its citizens and decides matters rationally after widest feasible consultations.

One opposes all Islamic fanaticisms and wants this one to be countered by cultivation of rational and scientific mode of thought. It is not a recommendation for the state to run amuck, arresting or oppressing either individuals wholesale or parties. What is recommended is providing rationalists, democrats and all secular-minded persons a level playing field. One is farthest from being a revivalist of any kind. But one does assert that Islam, with a 1500 years long history, needs a renaissance: positive thoughts of its savants should be separated from the chaff and preserved (and utilised to promote the quest for more knowledge).

All manner of minorities need protection. This too is not a plea for more police constables outside temples, churches or Imambaras. It is by endeavouring to make the society tolerant that establishes the rule of law, punishing only the guilty. No special privileges are against and let merit be the general rule.

Why is this idyllic situation not a reality in Pakistan today? Two or three basic causes must be looked at -- and this exercise is necessary if the Pakistani state is rescued from its present state of near-failure. Actually, in the initial years, the landlord-ridden Muslim League leadership in West Pakistan looked askance at East Bengali legislators who were sons of peasants, clerks, postmen and the like. action in East Bengal. West Pakistani landlords, heavily represented in the Parliament, rallied behind ambitious bureaucrats and asked them to help prevent the Bengali-majority from taking power at the Centre. That is how democracy was killed and there was no political stability from the word go. The Constitution-making was actually hindered by West Pakistan deputies by endless arguments against the permanent majority of Bengalis. Ulema felt encouraged to raise as much political dust as they could. Power thus slipped into bureaucrats' hands.

Bureaucracy needed Army's help which was easily available from Gen Ayub Khan. Without Army's help the Bengalis could not be kept out of power. A charade of democratic procedures, including several palace coups and an abrogation of virtually two constitutions (1954's and 1956's), was played out in the first 11 years. After which the Army took over lock, stock and barrel. Landlord-dominated ruling Muslim League offered no resistance and bureaucracy quickly adjusted itself as the junior partner of the ruling generals. Bengalis were left outside in the cold. The military has functioned as a suzerain ever since 1958 either directly providing a dictator or dictating to the nominal civilian governments over key policy matters.

It is necessary to repeat history's two conclusions: first Islam does not impose any definite principle or methodology of selecting a ruler -- there being no concept of a parliament or election. Nor does it lay down any principle of peaceful succession. Secondly, and as a corollary, there is no definite political dispensation that can be called typically Islamic for which there are no parallels in the history of Christianity or elsewhere. People are free to live in any dispensation they desire or is imposed on them.

Secondly, in Pakistan, the demand for a unique Islamic State ­ now called Nizam-i-Mustafa by some and Nizam-i-Islam by the more orthodox ­ has always been made by a political party, the main leader of which obviously wanted power by becoming Amir-al-Momineen (the leader of the virtuous people) without any agreed method of consultation. What we can thus expect from their demand being accepted is the absolute dictatorship of men like Gen. Ziaul Haq, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Maualanas Fazlur Rahman, Sami ul Haq, Anas Noorani, et al. Well, no reasonable Pakistani agrees to that.

The whole point is that most of the Islamic extremists owe their allegiance, in the final analysis, to one of these parties that are demanding Nizam-i-Islam through one or more front organisations. The suicide bomber who killed so many 'deviant' Muslims in the Islamabad Imambara was actually striking a blow for Nizam-i-Islam so that we can have a certain Amir-ul-Momineen. Now, no one can doubt the personal sincerity of the suicide bomber. But the implications of this phenomenon are explosive for Pakistan. Leave aside human values, the present state structures cannot survive the chaos and confusion when more and more people begin to strive for their respective objective with violence. There may soon be no Pakistan if its citizens do not become law-abiding in a dispensation that establishes the rule of law.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.