An overwhelming majority of Pakistan’s population finds itself hostage to narratives of ‘terror’ that are either alien to its ethos or are constructed by its home-grown theologians and opinion-makers. This is not to say that the issue of suicide bombings is easy to define and understand. They are essentially complex and located in decades of Pakistan’s evolution into a society that is difficult yet again to label: Islamic in name, struggling to be democratic and a republic it is not, well, not yet.
If we take the viewpoint of liberals, it is our war as much as a war of others. If we were to hear the west, it is about countering terror and preserving world peace; and if we listen to Pakistan’s right it is someone else’s battle fought on our land — the land of the pure lest we forget.
Where does this leave the confused, battered citizen who now has to strive for personal security among other daily struggles of existence? There are no clear answers and if one were to probe further, the questions are as murky as their geneses.
One thing is clear though: to identify the recurrent suicide bombings in the name of theological, tribal and imperial grievances is at best a half-truth. The genie is far more complex than a response to the reductionist narrative of “war against terror” and such other imperial phraseology. At the core of this phenomena, if one were to be rather blunt, lies an exclusive, bigoted ‘ideology’ of a few men of holy intentions orchestrating a script written by others. (more…)
I hold no brief for the Taliban. They have enraged the world and brought much shame to Muslims and dare I say the great religion Islam as well. In fact, I detest their version of Islamic codes that they want to impose on the world through coercion.
However, the NATO battle against Taliban is not only barbaric in equal intesnity but it also dehumanizes them.
Mr Ali Khan of Washburn University School of Law sent his piece that is eloquent, and extremely well argued. Ali Khan says that in the name of the “war of terror,” NATO forces are “committing genocide in Afghanistan by systematically hunting down and destroying” the Taliban, in violation of the terms of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide…
These sentences are chilling:
Politicians, the armed forces, the media, and even the general public associate in the West the Taliban with irrational fanatics, intolerant fundamentalists, brutal assassins, beheaders of women, bearded extremists, and terrorists. This luminescent negativity paves the way for aggression, military operations, and genocide. Promoting the predatory doctrine of collective self-defense, killing the Taliban is celebrated as a legal virtue..”
THe West should remember that this will not solve the issue of terrorism or militancy - whatever one may want to name it - in fact such wars cause more pain, create more martyrs and legends and motivate people to resist - theyhave nothing to lose in the first place. And, the history of Afghanistan spells out some clear lessons for the current imperial powers.
“..calling it a film is to abuse both the English language and the legacy of cinema”
Yesterday, a friend sent an internet link to Mr Wilders’ crappy excuse of a “film”. It was so silly, distastefully offensive that I felt pity at Wilders’ utter lack of talent and skill. By according more attention than the idiotic film, the Muslims will only make him more popular and a rallying point for Islamophobia disguised as freedom of expression. Wilders has to be ignored and all peaceful protest against Islamophobia should continue.
As always, my dear friend Ali Eteraz is on top of things - by way of his intelligence and wit evident from this excellent article.
What I’m really wondering: is Wilders’ protesting against Islam or the monopoly extremists already have over grainy, low-budget, YouTube videos? …….
The rest of the film is a mixture of conflating the most painful and heart-wrenching images from terror-strikes with extremist imams, in an effort to turn the entirety of Islam into a demonic edifice. This is neither new, nor interesting. It is a facile trick for facile minds…. (more…)
Tehelka magazine has this story on how magic and adventure render the Hamzanama the most popular oral epic of the Islamic world.
WILLIAM DALRYMPLE tracks its mad energy in its first-ever compilation in English
IN JUNE 2002, as Pentagon strategists were making their plans for the invasion of Iraq, a short distance away down Washington’s National Mall, the Freer- Sackler Galleries at the Smithsonian were showing one of the most interesting exhibitions of Islamic art seen in the US for years. Ironically, the show was made up of illustrations of a story largely set in the very Iraqi cities which were shortly to find themselves as targets for the Pentagon’s munitions. (more…)
My city Lahore was attacked yet again by the pusillanimous attackers pretending to be brave and honourable. There is no justification and no excuse for this modus operandi. And it should not be tolerated by the state and the people. Any excuse would legitimise this reign of terror..
I am posting this excellent piece by the wise Khalid Hasan (Daily Times) that makes some excellent points on the menace of Jihad and how unholy it is -
Leaders of Salafi-jihadist organisations hypocritically preach about the benefits of martyrdom, but rarely, if ever, conduct suicide operations themselves, or send their loved ones on such missions. It is a fact that Al Qaeda and associated groups offer no vision for Muslims other than perennial jihad, hardly an appealing prospect
Jihad is now an industry among scholars, including those who masquerade as scholars but are actually in the service of more shadowy outfits, and those who believe that by blowing up people praying in mosques or families out shopping, they will not only serve God but win a point-to-point ticket to the pastures of heaven where seventy-two swooning virgins await their arrival. (more…)
The election results notwithstanding the irregularities and fears of rigging, are pretty straightforward. They undo the paradigm of ousting the two mainstream parties from the political arena; and instituting real democracy that is hostage to the bogey of Islamism and local feudal cliques through a non-party local governments.
These elections are also a slap on the face of the global corporate media (and their backers the global military machine) that had painted Pakistan as a breeding ground for Islamic extremism and dare I say terrorism.
The erstwhile sponsored face of Islamism - the Mutihada Majlis-i-Amal- has been routed in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The people of the NWFP have outrightly rejected this rentier class that uses Islamisation and extols Talibanisation for power and pelf. The secular and moderate parties have won the overwhelming majority of the vote.
When you allow the people of Pakistan to vote freely, they shun extremism.
Nothing could be more satisfying.
P.S. My friend Yasser Hamdani’s predictions are close to the emerging tally - King’s Party has lost more and Nawaz Sharif has gained more - but Yasser should take up forecasting now..!
Muslims in Germany are completely alienated politically and also have to cope with a racist witch-hunt, which has increased continually ever since the September 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington. Muslims as a whole are routinely associated with the enforced wearing of headscarves, honour killings, arranged marriages and violent criminality.The ruling elite in the worlds of politics, the media and academia are systematically attempting to divert attention away from the social crisis and class tensions, instead expounding on a “war of cultures.” This could be seen in the article by historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler in the Die Zeit newsweekly about a “Turkish problem,” due to the fact that the “Muslim minority has proven itself incapable of assimilation.” Writer Botho Strauß warned in Der Spiegel of the “Islamification of the West” and implicitly called for a crusade and fight against Muslim minorities in Western countries.The study “Muslims in Germany” has now given new impetus to this demagogy. Even though the authors have subsequently called for a more differentiated view to be taken on the results of their study, they are nevertheless directly responsible for the fact that the study has provided new fuel to the likes of Koch and Schäuble. This Muslim-baiting has since been joined by the interior ministers of Lower Saxony, Uwe Schünemann (CDU), and of Bavaria, Joachim Herrmann (Christian Social Union), who demand that all Muslims living in Germany must sign a “declaration renouncing violence.”
Rather than harping on the divisive rhetoric of tribe, sect and political persuasion, we have a theological and teleological imperative to “green our society”
In a remote part of Central Java, Indonesia’s most populous island, there is a rather unusual form of environmentalism taking root. Shadowed by the great Merapi volcano and surrounded by fertile fields of rice and sugarcane, a small school is graduating environmentalists whose commitment to the earth is not based on Western conservation texts but rather predicated in values derived from Islam. The head of the school, Nasruddin Anshari, frequently uses the refrain “one earth, for all”, just as much as he does the usual Islamic invocation of Allah-u Akbar (God is Great). (more…)
It was a pleasure to have read Pankaj Mishra in the Guardian:
Last week Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-Dutch polemicist, spoke to a gathering of what The Spectator called “Britain’s biggest brains - politicians, editors, academics”. She told them that they were “actually at war, not just with Islamism, but with Islam itself”. Apparently, a good Muslim has no choice but to strive “to establish Sharia law”. Martin Amis, too, has recently informed us that moderate Muslims, if they ever existed, have lost out to radicals in Islam’s civil war. In any case, Islam is “totalist”: “There is no individual; there is only the umma - the community of believers.”
Never perhaps in history has so much nonsense been so confidently peddled about a population as large and diverse as this planet’s billion-plus Muslims. Within the past decade an Islamic movement has led Indonesia towards democracy, while market reforms in Turkey have created a new and religious middle class that now challenges the power of a secular elite.
Each one of the national realities Muslims inhabit is prodigiously complex and ceaselessly evolving, shaped as much by geopolitics - imperial conquest, the cold war, the war on terror - as by internal conflicts of class, religion and ethnicity. Closely examined, Muslim societies briskly dissolve our complacent, parochial notions about religion, democracy, secularism and capitalism. They expose, too, the notion of a monolithic Islam pressing down uniformly on all believers everywhere as a crude caricature.
I am grateful to Saadi to have forwarded me the this amazing ancient text.
********
The Letter of Prophet Muhammad
Below is the English translation of the extra-ordinary letter by Prophet Muhammad as a Charter of Privileges to Christians monks of St. Catherine Monastery at Mt. Sinai. It consists of several clauses covering all aspects of human rights including such topics as the protection of Christians, freedom of worship and movement, freedom to appoint their own judges and to own and maintain their property, exemption from military service, and the right to protection in war. It bears the hallmark of Islam and Prophet’s attitude about the right[s] of other religious practitioners. (more…)
The suggestion of violent disputes between a 16-year-old girl in Mississauga and her father over her desire to show her hair and live a “normal” lifestyle raises questions about tensions between parents and children in the Muslim community…But members of the community – particularly young Muslim women – say the tension can exist both ways.
…research into the readership of her publication shows that the decision to wear the hijab – the traditional Muslim headscarf – is almost always a choice the girl makes on her own.
Complex, sordid and tragic. And, I wonder what would the head honcho of Al-Huda (these days based in Canada) has to say on the sad story of a girl who died at 16? What is this obsession with the Hijab when you live in a non-Islamic country. There is no consensus on this within Islamic jurisprudence. As my friend Asma (who sent this story) said: ”Is this more important than hayya - the inner modesty; and the ability to discern the right from the wrong?”
The common stories about Islam or Muslims have to do with the chopping of arms and killing of infidels. We are told that Muslims had a great empire, after many conquests and subjugation of the “infidels.” And what have we learned in the textbooks: Ali (AS) was a brave general with a legendary sword? Have we heard this:
Do not close your eyes from glaring malpractice of officers, miscarriage of justice and misuse of rights, because you will be held responsible for the wrong thus done to others. In the near future, your wrong practices and maladministration will be exposed, and you will be held responsible and punished for the wrong done to the helpless and oppressed people.(more…)
• Sentence of death is allowed only through the process of justice, but even then, forgiveness is better. “Nor take life – which Allah has made sacred – except for just cause…” (17:33). (more…)
Taslima Nasrin is now a “sensation” of another kind in India. She has attracted the attention of those segments of Indian media that love to sell anything that brings Islam and Muslims related controversies into the public domain. (more…)
An overwhelming majority of Pakistan’s population finds itself hostage to narratives of ‘terror’ that are either alien to its ethos or are constructed by its home-grown theologians and opinion-makers. This is not to say that the issue of suicide bombings is easy to define and understand. They are essentially complex and located in decades of Pakistan’s evolution into a society that is difficult yet again to label: Islamic in name, struggling to be democratic and a republic it is not, well, not yet.
My city Lahore was 
The election results notwithstanding the 
The suggestion of 
Complex, sordid and tragic. And, I wonder what would the head honcho of 
