April 5, 2008...9:48 am
Remembering Bhutto: History,Clergy and Pakistan
By Yasser Latif Hamdani
The oddest point in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s career as a politician and a statesman was when his National Assembly voted to constitutionally
ex-communicate the Ahmaddiya community from the circle of Islam. Odd because, barring Jinnah and some ethnic leaders from small sub-nationalities, Bhutto was till then the most secular politician in
Pakistan. His support base was mostly left and no where during the election campaign had the PPP given voice to the demand for Ahmadis to
be ex-communicated. There are many theories as to why Bhutto would do it, but an investigation into the history of Ahmadi conflict in Pakistan leads to some astonishing conclusions about the role of
Pakistan’s military and civil establishment and their blatant use of
religious clergy in creating the conditions which might have forced a
popular national politician like Bhutto to opt for such a drastic and
draconian measure.
Pakistan was created as a result of the inability of the Congress
Party to recognize the legitimate secular concerns (such economic and
political safeguards) of the Muslim bourgeoisie represented by the
Muslim League. Instead of relying on secular and liberal Muslim
leaders like Jinnah, who had for much of his career been described as
the Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity by the Hindu leadership, the
Congress co-opted the Muslim religious clergy to prove its secular
credentials. Soon the Congress found itself out of sync with the
mass of Muslims. Since Muslims themselves were fragmented into
several sects and schools of thought, Jinnah and the Muslim League
kept theological and purely religious issues out of the main political
discourse. This allowed Jinnah to bring Sunnis, Shias, Ismailis,
Khojas and Ahmadis on one table despite major doctrinal differences
between these groups. It was for this reason that after Pakistan was
created, Jinnah extended his policy of keeping religious doctrine out
to state governance. To drive the point home, he included in his
cabinet a Hindu (Jogindranath Mandal) as a law minister and an Ahmadi
Muslim (Ch. Zafrullah Khan) as his foreign minister.
After 1947, the religious clergy that had opposed Jinnah and the
creation of Pakistan found itself like a fish out of a pond. They
would have all but lost political significance had it not been for the
political weakness of the ruling Muslim League. By 1951 the Muslim
League was without both Jinnah and Liaqat Ali Khan, the two leaders
who had recognition and mass appeal. Khawaja Nazimuddin who took
over after Liaqat Ali Khan was known as a good honest man but was not
known as a decisive leader. That he was from East Pakistan was an
additional factor which made him undesirable for the West Pakistani
establishment. By January 1953, the religious parties including
Maulana Maududi’s Jamaat-e-Islami had formed the “Majlis-e-Amal” whose
demands were the removal of Ch. Zafrullah Khan as the foreign minister
and declaration of the Ahmadi community as “Non-muslim”. Khawaja
Nazimuddin refused to entertain this demand and when informed of the
chance of 100 000 crazed Mullahs marching onto the Prime Minister
House, merely ordered the doubling of his guard. Violence broke out
in Lahore and Karachi.
Iskandar Mirza, the then Secretary of Defense, took note and wrote to
the Prime Minister:
“The problems created by your personal enemies including Mullahs, if
not dealt with firmly, will destroy the administration of the country…
is religion to destroy the very foundation of the administration of
the premier Muslim state? In Cairo, Sir Zafrullah Khan is being
received with the utmost honour and respect… while in Karachi he is
being abused in public meetings and his photographs are being spat
upon… what then is the position of Pakistan today internationally… for
god’s sake become a courageous leader and take decisive action. Once
you do this, the whole country, with the exception of the rascals,
will really round you…”
Similar warnings were addressed to Mian Mumtaz Daultana, the Chief
Minister of Punjab, who was more interested in using the agitation
against Nazimuddin’s government and thus continued to encourage the
clergy’s movement. On February 27th, 1953, the cabinet approved
stringent measures and the protesters and rioters from the
Majlis-e-Amal were rounded up by the police in Karachi. In Lahore
however the actions taken against the protesters were half hearted and
violence spiraled out of control. In a phone call, Daultana urged the
Prime Minister to immediately accept Majlis-e-Amal’s demands or else
Lahore would be burnt down. The Prime Minister as usual refused to.
Meanwhile the Iskandar Mirza moved and ordered General Musa to move
Sialkot division into Lahore. The first martial law in Pakistan’s
history was thus enforced in Lahore by General Azam Khan, the
commander of the operation. Army soon restored law and order and the
unrest was quashed brutally. A month later, Khawaja Nazimuddin’s
government was dismissed by Governor General Ghulam Muhammad. The
Prime Minister had planned on sending his executive request to the
Queen to remove Ghulam Muhammad. What followed is well known in
history.
These events raise a very important question: Was the Ahmaddiya issue
deliberately fomented by the establishment to do away with the Muslim
League government? With the exception of Jinnah and possibly Liaqat,
the Muslim League did not have a leader who had popular support or
charisma to face off the alliance between civil bureaucracy, military
generals and the entrenched Punjabi feudal latter day Leaguers. It
is well known that after the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan, a deep
rift had emerged between the professional politicians and the ex-ICS
crew. The ex-ICS crew Ghulam Muhammad, Iskandar Mirza and Ch.
Muhammad Ali were deeply suspicious of Muslim League politicians and
disliked them intensely. Could it be that the Punjabi landlords like
Daultana had conspired in cahoots with the establishment and the Army
to create conditions which would de-stabilize the Bengali led Muslim
League government?
In any event, the result of these unfortunate events was that
Pakistan Army got its first taste of civil government, the
establishment won a major victory over the politicians and Pakistan
began to slip towards martial rule. Even more disturbing was the
willingness of the Pakistani civil and military establishment to use
religious divines to beat down on professional politicians. What is
amazing is that the religious forces have always lent themselves to
such conspiracies against the state of Pakistan and we see the same
events culminating in form of the 17th Amendment and the Lal Masjid
crisis.
As a politician who had started his career on the shoulders of the
establishment, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto must have been well aware of the
Ahmaddiya issue. As Prime Minister he must have feared that the
Ahmadi issue would be used against him to de-rail his government. It
is possible that the rioting that gripped Punjab over this issue in
1974 was started by the civil-military nexus which felt insulted and
alienated by many of Bhutto’s actions. Bhutto therefore must have
thought it prudent to throw the question to the assembly to settle the
issue once and for all. Unfortunately this could not save him from
the wrath of the all powerful establishment.
Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. The need
of the hour is for Pakistan to revive the vision of Mahomed Ali Jinnah
i.e. of a modern secular democratic state where not just all Muslim
sects but also the Non-Muslim minorities can live in dignity and their
held high as equal citizens of Pakistan. As with the Pakistan
movement, the only way to realize Pakistan’s potential as the world’s
sole Muslim majority nuclear power is to keep religion strictly
separate from governance and administration. Otherwise we will
continue to be held hostage by an unthinking clergy manipulated by
Pakistan’s wretched and entrenched establishment.
Yasser is a lawyer based in Islamabad a regular writer at PTH
28 Comments
April 5, 2008 at 12:12 pm
hear hear, yasser. well said.
and i puts my full faith in the wision of mr zardari, and the visdom of messrs sharif. insha’allah, maane ke god willing, with their sin cere and
malbenevolent guidancings we shall achieving this laufty goals.mullah-mil’try alliance murdabad.
April 5, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Minos that was funny
great!
April 5, 2008 at 4:25 pm
YLH has once again contributed a brilliant piece on what ails Pakistan. By tracing the history of exclusion; and by lamenting the oddity of Bhutto Saheb’s politics, Yasser has reminded us of the faultlines within our body politic.
thanks again
R
April 5, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Excellent and intelligent article.
What a read !!
Thank you !
April 7, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Why just the Quaid’s vision?- which you misrepresent btw… What about the Millions of other Muslims who sacrificed all for Pakistan, for la ilaha illallah [pakistan ka matlab kiya, lest we forget]
What about Allama Iqbal, or Sir Syed? or the Ali brothers or Zafar Ali Khan?
Their aspirations don’t count?
Why unthinking clergy? What about unthinking secularists, for whom the sun rises out of Voltaire’s head.
As for the history of Ahmedi exclusion Raza, Sufi saint and scholar Hazrat Pir Mehr Ali Shah RA declared the Ahmedis non-muslim 100 years ago. Not a single Sufi of any order has disagreed with him since.
Best thing Bhutto did. along with banning alcohol.
April 7, 2008 at 8:50 pm
With all due respect your ignorance is apparent in your frivolous attack.
If Mehr Ali Shah and others like him matter you should have asked them to make Pakistan instead of relying on a Qadiani lawyer like Zafrullah Khan to draft the Lahore resolution and an agnostic like Jinnah to lead the movement.
As for Sir Syed…read up on him. He was as opposed to exclusivist religio-fascists as Jinnah. In any event Sir Syed died in 1898 and Iqbal in 1938… so you don’t really have a point there.
As pakistan ka matlab kiya…the slogan itself was invented in the 1960s by some ulema and there is little chance of it being the main push of the Pakistan movement.
Muslims fighting for Pakistan did not believe it would be a theocracy or else they would have voted for the likes of Maududi etc. Muslims in those days believed Islam was compatible with equal rights, democracy and indeed what we today call secularism.
In other words there was no disparity between Islam and modernity to their eyes.
As for misrepresenting the Quaid, let me just say that the Quaid was liberal enough to have a Hindu as the law minister of Pakistan and Qadiani Ahmadi as the foreign minister. So much for misrepresenting him.
Jinnah made Pakistan and in Pakistan we shall follow his liberal democratic creed no matter how much it upsets the remnants of those who opposed Jinnah.
April 8, 2008 at 9:17 am
YLH,
I agree with the main thrust of your article and the need for secular Pakistan and how the project got hijacked by religious elements. However, to call Mr. Jinnah an agnostic is really wrong. I think it should be beyond any doubt- that Mr. Jinnah was a Shia- as he converted from Ismaili branch to the mainstream Twelvers or Ithna-Ashari Shia Islam. It is well documented in Wolpert’s book that the conversion took place, when he wa a young man, under the influence of Sir Badruddin Tyabji- who also served as the head of Congress. Mr. Jinnah’s nikah documents of his marriage with Rutti Jinnah also show that he professed Shia faith. Raja Sahib of Mahmudabad- a known Shia- was his witness and the Nikah ceremony was performed by Shia mujtahid. Later Rutti was buried in Khoja Ithna Ashari Shia graveyard in Bombay. I think all these should be proof enough to which faith he belonged. How practising one is in some faith is a personal matter but in terms of issues that required fiqah or jurisprudence to be followed- it is very clear which fiqah he followed.
April 8, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Yasser, thanks for contributing a brilliant piece for PTH - contested as it is, it does bring an alternative view of history that people are shy to acknowledge in contemporary Pakistan.
Having said that, I think plurality demands that we accept alternative points of view of all shades.
Whilst I fuly agree with your argument on Mr Jinnah and his secularism, we ought to realise that Jinnah alone did not represent all the shades of opinion within Indian Muslims. There were several voices and trends and movements that all claimed separateness - and eventually found themselves in Pakistan. This is why we have a complex situation..
And I think cycle wala banda was at best ironical about secularists as the latter are those of Mullahs - I don’t think that it was an “attack” per se. I would therefore call for an amity as we all need to co-exist within the parameters of Pakistani Constitution that above all protects our right of expression.
The Ahmadi issue is tricky - at a purely secular level, I think that state has no business to go ahead and declare anyone anything. But then it is also an emotional issue - and overtime has become such a complex thing to handle that the moment you talk for or against the Ahmaddiya community you are bound to raise a red flag…
Salaam -peace- to all!
April 8, 2008 at 8:38 pm
In my eyes there are two kinds of Islamism that have plagued Pakistan — Supremacist and Machiavellian. Supremacist is when conservative and devout Muslims try to forcibly impose their version of Islam upon all other people i.e. Zia or JI. Machiavellian is when otherwise irreligious and secular minded people manipulate people’s romantic views of Islam in order to advance political control.
ZAB falls in the latter category. We like to pretend that he “capitulated” to the Islamists, when, in fact, he tried to center control for himself by occupying the people with Islamic issues. The Ahmadi amendment wasn’t the only Islamist thing he promulgated: The 1973 constitution made Islam the State religion. He hosted the Organization of Islamic Conference in Lahore. Promised an Islamic bomb…put Wahhabis like Zia in his military…
April 9, 2008 at 5:02 am
As to your attacks on me I won’t bother to reply. Raza bhai has made some valid points about shades of opinion. Pakistan belongs to the Muslims of India, not to any one man.
Secularists seem to think Pakistan the Quaid’s private property, and since he [allegedly] wanted a “Secular Pakistan”… they read a lot into a few [carefully selected] actions of the Quaid.
This is fallacious thinking to my view.
Iit’s a contradiction in terms anyway, to talk about a secular Pakistan. May as well have stayed in India then.
A few facts FYI however:-
Pakistan ka matlab kiya, la ilaha Ilallah was coined by Sialkoti poet, Asghar Sodai in 1944, in his immortal Tarana e Pakistan, which spread like wildfire amongst the Pakistan Movement rallies.
My late father, who took part in the Pakistan Movement, remembered it well, including at Quaid e Azam’s rallies.
As for the Quaid Mr. Jinnah, whatever his views earlier,
he requested Maulana Shabbir Ahmed Usmani, to raise the Pakistan flag at the very first time instead of himself;
and in event of his death for Maulana Usmani to lead the funeral prayer;
when asked at several rallies, in front of thousands of witnesses, the Quaid held up the Holy Qur’an and said this is the Constitution of Pakistan.
etc. etc.
The fact is that Quaid e Azam was one of the many Muslims who worked for Pakistan. Pakistan did not ‘belong to him’ that his giving a position to Zafarullah Khan be viewed as a symbolic act, any more than Quaid’s giving places of importance to Maulana Shabbir Ahmed Usmani and Maulana Pir Jamaat Ali Shah [ameer e millat, remember?] etc.
As for whether saints like Hazrat Mehr Ali Shah RA matter, well all I can say is you view everything in a secular paradigm. But for us the prayers of the Saints are everything, the ‘zahiri asbab’ materialize later.
For no less a personage than Allama Iqbal, Hazrat Mehr Ali Shah was THE authority on religion in his later life. See his published correspondence.
Finally with regards to Sir Syed & Islam, not only have I read up ‘on him’ but coming from a family of Aligarians who read the monthly Tehzeeb regularly, I’m quite aware of the Reformist but still Islamic thrust of his thinking.
If you could be more specific as to which of his texts you are referring to, I’d be happy to discuss the matter with you. I have access to all 9 volumes of Sir Syed’s collected works.
April 9, 2008 at 6:04 am
I am not aware of Shabbiruddin Usmani raising the flag … but eve if that were true (which probably isn’t) could you tell me what Usmani’s portfolio was in Jinnah’s cabinet? I will enlighten you: Nothing.
By the way… who was Jinnah’s law minister? Oh he was a Hindu - Jogindranath Mandal… and no he had no knowledge of Sharia law… a rather ironic fact if Pakistan was going to be an Islamic state eh?
As for Zafrullah Khan… not only was he chosen to be Pakistan’s first foreign minister but Pakistan’s lawyer in front of the boundary commission. Do you understand the implications of that?
April 9, 2008 at 6:07 am
PS: and talking about symbolic gestures… what does Jinnah’s choice of a Hindu (Jaggannath Azad) to write the first national anthem mean (in addition to his appointment of a Hindu as the law minister and his invitation to Khushwant Singh to be one of the judges of the Lahore High Court)
http://www.thehindu.com/2005/06/19/stories/2005061907400100.htm
April 9, 2008 at 6:17 am
Dear Raza,
The reason I don’t accept this argument of other points of view within the great push for Pakistan… is simply because as a student of history, I am forced to conclude that the only contribution anyone else had to the Pakistan movement other than Jinnah was voting en masse for the Muslim League thereby giving Jinnah the vote he needed. This I say very responsibly despite the fact that my own great grandfather was honored with a gold medal posthmously for his “participation” in the Pakistan movement.
The masses voted for Jinnah because they trusted his judgement completely. They always knew that he was westernized and was accused of not knowing the basics of Islam. But they voted for him as one… he was their lawyer, their leader… their Quaid-e-Azam. If there was any other vision than that of Jinnah’s… there were great Islamic scholars … all lined up against him… Madani, Maududi, Azad … they could have voted for them. But they didn’t.
Jinnah is - in my personal view- larger than the sum total of Pakistan and Pakistan movement. This is not an emotional view but a view based on careful consideration of historical evidence.
April 9, 2008 at 6:10 pm
And Hazrat Muhammad PBUH is bigger than the sum total of all the Jinnahs who could ever exist. This is the view of the Qur’an as well as ‘my personal view.’ Oh and that of a few million subcontinental muslims.
So Maulana Usmani, Pir Jama’at Ali Shah, Shah Muhamad Salman Phulwari, Khwaja Taunsavi, Muhammad Ameen al-Hasanat of Mani Sharif, Allama Pir Ghulam Muhyuddin of Golra Sharif, Mufti-e Azam Hind Mazharullah Dehlvi, Faqir Nur Muhammad Sarwari, Maulana Pir Muhammad Shah of Bhera Sharif, Maulana Sayyid Mazhar Gillani Peshawari, Maulana Seyyid Muhammad Zauqi Shah Chishti Sabri Ajmeri, Khwaja Muhammad Qamar of Siyal Sharif, Maulana Abdul Qayyum Khan Kanpuri, Maulana Abdus Sattar Khan Niazi, Pir AbdurRahman Sakharvi, Pir AbdulLatif Zakori Sharif, Maulana Shaykh Dr. Abdul Hayy Arifi, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Khan Hazarvi, Maulana Hazrat Mohani, Maulana Abdul Qadir Qasuri, Maulana Abdul Quddus Bihari, KHwaja Hasan Nizami, Allama Abdul Quddus Hasmi Makhdumpuri, Hakeem ul Ummat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, Maulana Zafar Ahmed Usmani, Qazi Hakeem Haydari Alori, Maulana Akram Khan Hakimpuri, Allama Syed Muhammad Qadri, Maulana Abdul Hamid Badyuni, Ghazali-e-Zaman Allama Ahmed Saeed Kazmi etc etc etc were not great Islamic scholars?
I don’t quite think you’re qualified to make such statements Yasser sahib.
Whether it pleases some or not, I think most of us would rather follow the Holy Prophet PBUH’s advice on how to run a country.
April 10, 2008 at 7:38 am
Green Sufi,
Fair enough … novel way of arguing. Quoting relative unknowns… for each of these I can name 10 Ismailis, Ahmadis and even Christians who paricipated in the Pakistan movement.
As for your point about the Holy Prophet (PBUH)… I am sure the Holy Prophet (PBUH) would not approve of all that is done in his name.
Could you tell me what the Holy Prophet (PBUH) said about Eifai-ahed ? The keeping of promises? On that ground alone the entire “declare Ahmadis kafir” movement comes crashing down.
April 10, 2008 at 7:43 am
PS: On your list… the only three people I can see as having any real importance are:
Pir of Manki
Hasrat Mohani (who was a political activist and not a Mullah per se)
And Ashraf Ali Thanvi, a great scholar who had no real contribution to the Pakistan movement.
April 10, 2008 at 9:04 am
Ammar Ali Qureshi,
Jinnah was a shia no doubt … but that has to do more with cultural affiliation than anything else. How strong was his faith in God only he can tell.
April 10, 2008 at 7:13 pm
betraying your ignorance here Yasser.
Most of them are famous, nay, legendary scholars & saints! Have you honestly never heard of Allama Ahmed Saeed Kazmi, Shabbir Usmani etc?
There are many other prominent Ulema I could name, but your ‘novel argument’ would be to say they are not prominent at all. What can I say. Dana ra ishara kafi.
Obviously you are unfamiliar with Traditional religious circles, deobandi or barelvi.
All I can say is that it seems you are in your twenties and are a product of English medium schools, nor have access to most of the Urdu literature on the freedom movement. As such you haven’t made an unbiased study of the Movement and the events leading up to it, such as the Khilafat Movement etc., which have a bearing on the Pakistan Movement itself.
Finally as to the Holy Prophet PBUH…. he said a lot of things. Are you willing to listen? For instance, you talk of separation of religion, its’ relegation to the private sphere, away from Government, Law, Politics, Commerce, etc.
However the Prophet came to forbid any such separation of State & Scripture. His whole message was that the Sharia is binding on all of us including the ruler & the state. The Qur’an gives guidelines and rules in many areas of life. Ttrue enough the Qur’an does not give a specific rule in every area, but where it does we are bound to follow it, and where it gives a guideline we are bound to go by that guideline too.
As for the hackneyed argument about the 73 sects & ‘which Sharia?’, perhaps you have heard of the ‘baees nuqaat’ [22 points] agreed upon by the Ulema of ALL SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT under the chairmanship of Allama Syed Suleman Nadvi on 24th January 1951? Which the secularists promptly thwarted?
The fact is, Mr. Latif, that the same English speaking, whiskey-swilling, grammar-school educated secularized Westernized Elite have dominated this country since its inception. And by God, its about time this changed. And inshaAllah it will change.
PS. As for Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, it is he who deputed the Usmanis [Shabbir & Zafar] to the Pakistan Resolution in 1940, 3 years before his death, with a letter to Liaquat Ali Khan, reiterating he would have made a speech but for his ill health. This letter is an important text of the Freedom movement.
And Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a pukka ba-shara’ punj-waqta namazi Molvi, and a Sufi of the Qadri order and a murid of the Firangi Mahalli Ulema. Ever heard of them? Many members of this prominent family of Ulema were also involved in the Pakistan movement.
April 10, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I say the sooner we ship these Secularists off to India the better it will be.
Aik Kishti tayyar karo aur uss me Mubarak Ali, Hasan Nisar, Hoodbhoy, Asma Jehangir & Cowasjee ki qayadat me bhej do. Raste me Qayadat hi dubo de gi.
April 11, 2008 at 9:03 am
Green Sufi Saheb
Thanks for adding information and other perspectives to the discussion here.
However, let me state that the personal comments about the author, YLH, at best are unwarranted. It is not fair to assume certain things about a person if you do not agree with his viewpoint. Furthermore, the lables of grammar school, whiskey are quite respectfully not in line with your stature and above all the title you hold - Sufis have been known for tolerance, respect for fellow human beings and understanding.
this was just a random thought.
April 11, 2008 at 9:28 am
I meant prominent with respect to the Pakistan Movement. The three names I pointed out were in some form or the other associated with the Pakistan movement.
The rest of them were not in any way prominent vis a vis the Pakistan movement.
In my view- and this is my view which no one is obligated to accept- Jinnah was greater than the sum total of all these “great scholars” combined multiplied into 100.
None of these great scholars would have gotten elected to the local municipal board, let alone command the complete and total respect of 100 million Muslims and several million Non-Muslims that Jinnah did.
As for Hasrat Mohani (the only worthwhile name on your list really)… he was a pukka communist who believed in a secular order and apart from the Muslim League, he was also the founding member of the Communist Party of India. But in any event Hasrat Mohani chose to stay on in India to fight for the rights of Muslim minorities and as such should be viewed in that light- a great Indian Muslim leader.
April 12, 2008 at 2:07 am
Sure Raza bhai, while comments about Hazrat Mehr Ali Shah RA & the other great scholar-saints of the subcontinent whose prayers got us Pakistan, and whose existence guarantees our Faith & our hereafter, are perfectly fine.
You are entitled to your tolerant view. We all have things we wish to tolerate and what we don’t tolerate. And these lists show where we are. “A man is with who he loves” as the Prophet PBUH said.
On the subject of Sufi tolerance, yes, Sufis are kind to sinners, but they hate the sin for sure. To think Sufis are cool with our whiskey-drinking elite oppressors is a travesty of the sulah-e-kull [peace to all], and a misunderstanding of it.
As Sultan ul Arifeen Hazrat Bayazid Bistami RA clarified, “He who does not hate what the Almighty God & His Prophet PBUH hate, is himself despicable and a pretender to Sufism.”
Our Sufism is Islamic Sufism and nothing more or less.
There are 2 comments here:- one about the secular elite who have oppressed our masses. They are necessarily harsh.
Finally as to the ‘unwarranted assumptions’ about Yasser? I have to conclude from his post & comments that since he is a young man from an English speaking background he hasn’t yet had an opportunity to study the Urdu literature on the Pakistan Movement. Frankly without that it is difficult.
The only other ‘unwarranted assumption’ about Yasser is that he is unfamiliar with religious circles deobandi or barelvi. Now tell me Raza, when he claims that the [list of] Ulema who participated in the Pakistan Movement [in comment no. 14] are ‘relative unknowns’, how unwarranted is my assumption???
Frankly I am disappointed by this Raza. You run a blog influenced by Sufism. But you are first to jump to the defense of Secularists and the last to defend Traditional Islam.
salam alaykum wa rehmatullah. May God guide us.
April 13, 2008 at 7:37 am
I have read much more of the Urdu literature on the Pakistan movement than you can imagine.
However, barring Sibte-Hassan and Daniyal Latifi and some other writers of the left wing within the Muslim League , I have found most of that literature to be hogwash… especially that which has come off the ink of religious divines.
Your ignorance about simple facts is appalling. So I suggest you refrain from making assumptions about me and invest in educating yourself in the history of the Pakistan movement.
April 13, 2008 at 6:00 pm
fi aman Allah.
April 13, 2008 at 8:39 pm
YLH,
I do not think that Jinnah’s being a shia had anything to do with cultural affilitation… if it had anything to do with cultural affiliation- he could have converted to mainstream Sunni Islam from being an ismaili… it had to do with fiqah and jurisprudence ( and he was a constitutionalist himself- let us not forget- some one who is a constitutionalist does understand the importance of fiqah and religious jurisprudence)… About his affiliation with Shia Islam read “Jinnah as I knew him” by M.A.H.Isphani and “Memories of Jinanh” by K.H.Khursheed- his private secretary. Jinnah, during his talks with Gandhi, cancelled his appointment with him on 21st of Ramadan- according to Khursheed, for the sole reason that it was the day of martyrdom of Hazrat Ali. I think his private secretary knew him quite well.
April 14, 2008 at 5:44 am
Dear Ammar,
I am quite aware of the said incident and I have read K H Khurshid’s book on Jinnah. Maybe I misconstrued what he wrote, but my impression was that Jinnah wanted a “continuance” or an “adjournment” of sorts because he was not prepared that day to argue with Gandhi- probably because either he or Gandhi had failed to read/respond to one of the letters… this is just an impression.
But that said… what I meant by cultural affiliation was exactly this: shias have a cultural and historical affiliation with the family of Ali (AS). Theology and religious issues are just not the point. Like I said what Jinnah’s beliefs etc were regarding God etc … are something he could answer and he is dead.
In my view a conversion to Sunni faith would have actually shown something more than mere cultural affiliation. The fact that there was none- though Sharifudin Pirzada claims otherwise- shows me religion/community etc were cultural issues.
In any event, Jinnah as a Shia would have never allowed for one kind of religious interpretation to reign supreme in a country where Hanafi sunnis had a majority.
April 14, 2008 at 10:22 am
Yes you are misconstruing the event regarding Jinnah-Gandhi talks,. it was not meant to buy time at all and that too using an overtly religious reasoning! In fact- if you read Khursheed’s narrative carefully- it was not only 21st of Ramadan but also 27th of Ramadan that Jinnah conveyed would be no talks day. Khursheed had to do the explaining to Gandhi about the significance of these two religious days to Muslims. Gandhi was not amused at all as it meant that he had to stay for two more days- something he had not planned at all.
IIt is human nature that people find it hard to move away from the faith of their fathers and forefathers. Generally there are three reasons for such conversion: faith, benefits ( finanical. marriage related etc) or fear of harm/persecution. In Jinnah’s case I do not see any existence of the last two- so that means it had to do with faiith- otherwise why would he repudiate the faith of his forefahers. As for achieving cultural affiliation with Hazrat Ali’s’ family - he was already achieveing it by being in the Ismaili fold- and if that was his only objective- he did not have to convert to mainstream shia relgion. If I am not wrong Jinnah was an expert in Waqf laws and did have understanding of religious jurisprudence such as different fiqah’s point of views about that.
Yes I agree with the fact that Jinnah as a shia would not have imposed shia fiqah on the country.
I did not comprehend your point about Sharifuddin Pirzada- as to which side he was on. However,what can one say about a person whose own claim about being Jinnah’s private secretary is doubted. To support his claim he produced a picture in which he is standing and smiling behind Jinnah and Gandhi. As I mentioned K.H.Khursheed was his private secretary during those years and has written extensively about Jinnah-Gandhi talks in his book. When Khursheed was shown the picture and told about Pirzada’s claim - he remarked that Pirzada could have used the same picture to claim that he has been Gandhi’s private secretary!
April 14, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Which is why I don’t accept Pirzada’s comment.
In my opinion … Jinnah’s conversion from ismaili to ithna ashari shiism had something to do with the issue with the marriage of his sister Mariam Peerbhoy to a sunni and ismaili excommunication of Jinnah’s family.
Please note that all these constitute cultural arguments and we have no clue about Jinnah’s personal view of god etc.
The important point however is that Jinnah would have never accepted imposition of one kind of fiqh.
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