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Friday, January 30, 2009

Darul Harb versus Darul Aman: Can Pakistan or Saudi Arabia be considered a Land of peace for Muslims?

Islam and Pluralism
30 Jan 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com
Darul Harb versus Darul Aman: Can Pakistan or Saudi Arabia be considered a Land of peace for Muslims?

Pakistani blogger Mr. Aamir Mughal has raised a very important issue in a comment posted in relation to the article below: Demolish Kafir/ Mushrik/ Munafiq-manufacturing factories, says Sultan Shahin, defending New Age Islam against Talibani onslaught

http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1143 which needs to be debated threadbare- that of Darul Harb and Darul Aman. I live in India. Suppose I were to consider it a Darul Hrab - which of course, I don’t - on the basis of the mere fact of it being a non-Muslim majority country - though it would appear that only so-called Darul Harbs are Darul Amans, lands of peace, in today's world - which Darul Aman, a Muslim country, would accept me as a full-fledged citizen, that India accepts me as? Pakistan will not even give me a visit visa, perhaps, unless I give it a host of false and forged documents. Saudi Arabia and all other Arab or Muslims countries, I can live and work there, if I find a job, for hundreds of years, but I would never get any citizenship rights. Only countries that I can think of which can give me full citizenship rights as India does would be countries of the West, like the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, other European countries. It won't be easy but it is doable. However, according to Mr. Aamir Mughal's definition, these are all Darul-Harbs, so what would be the point of shifting from one Darul Harb to another? What kind of Islam and what kind of Darul Harbs and Darul Amans are you talking about Mr. Aamir Mughal? Do you consider Pakistan a Darul Aman for Muslims, where Muslims are killed routinely during prayers in mosques, and where even the Muslims for whom this country was created do not get even visit visas?

Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam

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Darul Harb versus Darul Aman: Can Pakistan or Saudi Arabia be considered a Land of peace for Muslims?

Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam

Pakistani blogger Mr. Aamir Mughal has raised a very important issue in a comment posted in relation to the article below: Demolish Kafir/ Mushrik/ Munafiq-manufacturing factories, says Sultan Shahin, defending New Age Islam against Talibani onslaught

http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1143 which needs to be debated threadbare- that of Darul Harb and Darul Aman. I live in India. Suppose I were to consider it a Darul Hrab - which of course, I don’t - on the basis of the mere fact of it being a non-Muslim majority country - though it would appear that only so-called Darul Harbs are Darul Amans, lands of peace, in today's world - which Darul Aman, a Muslim country, would accept me as a full-fledged citizen, that India accepts me as? Pakistan will not even give me a visit visa, perhaps, unless I give it a host of false and forged documents. Saudi Arabia and all other countries, I can live and work there, if I find a job, for hundreds of years, but I would never get any citizenship rights. Only countries that I can think of which can give me full citizenship rights as India does would be countries of the West, like the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, other European countries. It won't be easy but it is doable. However, according to Mr. Aamir Mughal's definition, these are all Darul-Harbs, so what would be the point of shifting from one Darul Harb to another? What kind of Islam and what kind of Darul Harbs and Darul Amans are you talking about Mr. Aamir Mughal? Do you consider Pakistan a Darul Aman for Muslims, where Muslims are killed routinely during prayers in mosques, and where even the Muslims for whom this country was created do not get even visit visas?

Reference:
Aamir Mughal
29-1-2009
The Post may please be read in the context of the Deviant Ideologies of Political Islamists Type of Muslims living in Anglo Saxon Based Secular Democratic Countrres of the West:

Democracy: meaning rule by the people for the people not as per Islam through Quran and Sunnah.

Undoubtedly the democratic system is one of the modern forms of shirk, in terms of obedience and following, or legislation, as it denies the sovereignty of the Creator and His absolute right to issue laws, and ascribes that right to human beings. Allaah says:
Those whom ye worship beside Him are but names which ye have named, ye and your fathers. Allah hath revealed no sanction for them. The decision rests with Allah only, Who hath commanded you that ye worship none save Him. This is the right religion, but most men know not. [YUSUF (JOSEPH) Chapter 12 - Verse 40]

The decision is for Allah only. [AL-ANAAM (CATTLE, LIVESTOCK) Chapter 6 Verse 57]

So judge between them by that which Allah hath revealed, and follow not their desires, but beware of them lest they seduce thee from some part of that which Allah hath revealed unto thee. And if they turn away, then know that Allah's Will is to smite them for some sin of theirs. Lo! many of mankind are evil-livers. Is it a judgment of the time of (pagan) ignorance that they are seeking? Who is better than Allah for judgment to a people who have certainty (in their belief)? [AL-MAEDA (THE TABLE, THE TABLE SPREAD) Chapter 5 - Verse 49 and 50]

In one of his post in another thread of New Age Islam, Mr Bashir Syed has declared that he is a Mohajir in America [Immigrant in USA]. If he is so concerned about Muslims and Islam then he should follow Quran and Hadith and return back to Pakistan. Please review your stance as per Quran and Hadith [which all Muslim claim to follow and exploit] regarding Living in a Non Muslim Country. Those who want to observe Islam, Veil and Islamic Culture should come back and live in Afghanistan and Northern Areas of Pakistan.

Lo! as for those whom the angels take (in death) while they wrong themselves, (the angels) will ask: In what were ye engaged? They will say: We were oppressed in the land. (The angels) will say: Was not Allah's earth spacious that ye could have migrated therein? As for such, their habitation will be hell, an evil journey's end; [AN-NISA (WOMEN) Chapter 4 Verse 97]


Prophet Mohammad (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “I disown every Muslim who settles among the mushrikeen [Polytheists].” [Sunnan Abu Dawood]

It is obligatory to migrate from the kaafir lands to the Muslim lands for those who are able to do that, if they are unable to practise their religion openly

Ibn al-‘Arabi al-Maaliki said: Hijrah (migration) means leaving dar al-harb [non-Muslim lands] and going to dar al-islam [Muslim lands]. This was obligatory at the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and remains so after his time for those who fear for their lives. From Nayl al-Awtaar, 8/33, by al-Shawkaani.

Al-Haafiz Ibn Hajar said concerning the hadeeth, “I disown every Muslim who settles among the mushrikeen”:

This is to be understood as referring to those who are not safe to practise their religion there. Fath al-Baari


For example:

If you want to live in the West then follow their Law and don't complain about Prohibition of Veil, dont raise hue and cry when someone amongst them use 'Freedom of Expression' to practice Homosexuality and Lesbianism openly [what do you think when an underage or even adult Muslim male or female watch these acts of Hedonism? Wont this effect him or her? Forbidden as per Quran to even go near to those things which lead to Adultery].


And come not near unto adultery. Lo! it is an abomination and an evil way.[AL-ISRA (ISRA', THE NIGHT JOURNEY, CHILDREN OF ISRAEL) Chapter 17 Verse 32]


Even watching these things gives you wrong ideas?


What about your Tax Money through which USA and other NATO Countries financing War On Terror and bombing Innocent Muslims? Forbidden in Quran to help Combatant Non-Muslims in any way. What do you think your Tax Money does? Undoubtedly the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) did not compromise in matters of his religion. When he was in Makkah, before the Hijrah, he used to pray openly, whilst they were looking on. After the Muslims became a distinct community, a specific style of dress was ordained for them, and they commanded to forsake anything else that was a symbol of kufr and was distinctive to the kuffaar, because this is imitation, and whoever imitates a people is one of them.

How can the believer be content to live in the land of the Non Muslims where the rituals of kufr [Disbelief] are proclaimed openly and rule belongs to someone other than Allaah and His Messenger, seeing that with his own eyes, hearing that with his own ears and approving of it, and even starting to feel that he belongs there and living there with his wife and children, and feeling as comfortable there as he does in the Muslim lands, even though he and his wife and children are in such great danger and their religious commitment and morals are in such peril?


AS PER PURE ISLAMIC LAW [FOR WHICH THIS UMMAH IS ITCHING] and since theses don't exist in the West and that is why those who condemn Secular-Anglo-Saxon Western Democarcies should come back to 'Islamic Countires'. Following are the salient feature of the Secular Democracies through which Islamic Political Activists Type of Muslims e.g. Mr Bashir Syed and those who belonged to Jamat-e-Islami and Ikwan but settled in the West, reap all the benefits and then shamelessly raise finger against the same system.


A- Foreign Exchange:

1 – Dealing in buying and selling for the purpose of profit, and this dealing is usually done in major currencies or financial certificates (shares and bonds) or some types of products, and it may include trade in options, futures and the indexes of major markets.

2 – Loans, which refers to the money given by the agent to the customer directly if the agent is a bank, or via a third party if the agent is not a bank.

3 – Riba, which occurs in this transaction in the form of fees for delaying the deal. This is interest that is charged to the purchaser if he does not make a decision on the same day, and which may be a percentage of the loan or a set amount.

4 – Commission, which is the money that the agent gets as a result of the investor’s (customer’s) dealing through him, and it is an agreed-upon percentage of the value of the sale or purchase.

5 – The pledge, which is a commitment signed by the customer agreeing to leave the contract with the agent as a pledge for a loan, giving him the right to sell these contracts and take back the loan if the customer’s losses reach a specific percentage of the margin, unless the customer increases the pledge in order to compensate for a drop in the price of the product.


Firstly: It involves obvious riba, which is represented by the addition to the amount of the loan which is called “paying fees for delaying the deal”. This is a kind of haraam riba. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“O you who believe! Fear Allaah and give up what remains (due to you) from Ribaa (from now onward) if you are (really) believers. 279. And if you do not do it, then take a notice of war from Allaah and His Messenger but if you repent, you shall have your capital sums. Deal not unjustly (by asking more than your capital sums), and you shall not be dealt with unjustly (by receiving less than your capital sums)” [al-Baqarah 2:278-279]

Secondly: The agent stipulates that the customer must deal through him, which leads to combining both giving a loan for something in return and paying commission, which is akin to combining giving a loan and selling at the same time, which is forbidden in sharee’ah because the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “It is not permissible to give a loan and sell at the same time…” The hadeeth was narrated by Abu Dawood (3/384) and al-Tirmidhi (3/526), who said it is a hasan saheeh hadeeth. In this case he has benefited from his loan, and the fuqaha’ are unanimously agreed that every loan that brings a benefit is haraam riba.


Thirdly: Dealings that are done in this manner in the global markets usually involve many contracts that are haraam according to sharee’ah, such as:

1- Dealing in bonds, which comes under the heading of riba which is haraam. This was stated in a resolution of the Islamic Fiqh Council in Jeddah, no. 60, in its sixth session.

2- Dealing indiscriminately in company shares. It is haraam to deal in the shares of companies whose main purposes are haraam, or some of their dealings involve riba.

3- Selling currencies is usually done without the hand to hand exchange which makes them permissible according to sharee’ah.

4- Dealing in options and futures are not permissible according to sharee’ah, because the object of dealing in these contracts is not money or services or a financial obligation which it is permissible to exchange. The same applies to futures and trading in indexes.

5- In some cases the agent is selling something that he does not possess, and selling what one does not possess is forbidden in sharee’ah.

B- Establishing Insurance

1) All kinds of commercial insurance are clearly and undoubtedly ribaa (interest/usury). Insurance is the sale of money for money, of a greater or lesser amount, with a delay in one of the payments. It involves riba al-fadl (interest-based transaction) and riba al-nas’ (interest to be charged if payment is delayed beyond the due date), because the insurance companies take people’s money and promise to pay them more or less money when a specific accident against which insurance has been taken out happens. This is riba, and riba is forbidden in the Qur’aan, in many aayaat.

2) All kinds of commercial insurance are based on nothing but gambling which is haraam according to the Qur’aan:

“O you who believe! Intoxicants (all kinds of alcoholic drinks), and gambling, and Al-Ansaab (stone altars for sacrifice to idols etc.) and Al-Azlaam (arrows for seeking luck or decision) are an abomination of Shaytaan’s (Satan’s) handiwork. So avoid (strictly all) that (abomination) in order that you may be successful” (al-Maa’idah 5:90 – interpretation of the meaning).

All kinds of insurance are kinds of playing with chances. They tell you, Pay this much money, then if this happens to you we will give you this much. This is pure gambling. Insisting on differentiating between insurance and gambling is pure stubbornness that is unacceptable to any sound mind. The insurance companies themselves admit that insurance is gambling.

3) All kinds of insurance are forms of uncertainty, and transactions which involve uncertainty are forbidden according to many saheeh ahaadeeth, such as the hadeeth:

“The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) forbade transactions determined by throwing a stone and transactions which involved some uncertainty.” (Narrated by Muslim).

[“Transactions determined by throwing a stone” – this was a type of transaction that was prevalent in the markets of pre-Islamic Arabia, whereby a stone was thrown by either the buyer or the seller, and whatever it touched, its transaction became binding. “Transactions which involved some uncertainty” – is a transaction in which there is no guarantee that the seller can deliver the goods for which he receives payment. Footnotes from the translation of Saheeh Muslim. (Translator)].


All forms of commercial insurance are based on uncertainty of the most extreme kind. Insurance companies and those who sell insurance refuse to insure cases except where there is clear uncertainty in whether or not the condition being insured against will happen or not. In other words, the condition being insured against must have a possibility of happening or not happening (as opposed to, for example, someone who has a pre-existing condition, such as a person who is on death row applying for life insurance--translator.) Moreover, this transaction involves something uncertain, which is when an accident will happen and the extent of the damage caused. Hence insurance combines three kinds of extreme uncertainty.

4) All kinds of commercial insurance consume people’s wealth unjustly, which is haraam according to the Qur’aan:

“O you who believe! Eat not up your property among yourselves unjustly” (al-Nisaa’ 4:29 – interpretation of the meaning).

All forms of commercial insurance are fraudulent transactions aimed at consuming people’s wealth unjustly. The precise statistics calculated by one of the German experts state that what people get back of what has been taken from them is no more than 2.9%.

Insurance is an immense loss for the nation, and there is no evidence or excuse to be found in the actions of the kuffaar who have lost the ties of kinship and friendship and are therefore forced to resort to insurance, which they hate as much as they hate death.

These are only some of the violations of sharee’ah which insurance is essentially based upon. There are numerous other violations which we do not have room to mention here, and there is no need to do so, because just one of the violations which we have mentioned above is sufficient to make insurance one of the things which is most prohibited in the sharee’ah of Allaah.

It is a shame that some people are deceived by the ways in which the insurance companies make insurance attractive and confuse them by calling it “co-operative” or “mutual support” or “Islamic”, or other names which do not change the unjust nature of insurance in the slightest.

The insurance companies’ claim that the ‘ulamaa’ have issued fatwaas stating that so-called “co-operative insurance” is halaal, is a lie. The reason for this confusion is that some insurance companies approached the ‘ulamaa’ with a deceitful set-up which has nothing to do with any kind of insurance, but they said that it was a kind of insurance which they called “co-operative insurance” (to make it sound attractive and to confuse the people). They said that it was purely in the nature of a donation, and that it was a kind of the co-operation enjoined by Allaah in the aayah (interpretation of the meaning): “Help you one another in Al-Birr and At-Taqwa (virtue, righteousness and piety)…” (al-Maa’idah 5:2), and that the aim was to co-operate in alleviating the overwhelming disasters that may befall people. But in fact what they called co-operative insurance was just like any other kind of insurance; the only difference was in the way in which it was set up, not in its essential nature. It was far from being any kind of simple donation or co-operation in righteousness and piety; in fact it is a kind of co-operation in sin and transgression. It was not aimed at helping to relieve the distress of calamities, but at depriving people of their wealth by unjust means, which is absolutely haraam, as are other kinds of insurance. Hence what they proposed to the ‘ulamaa’ is not even insurance at all.

With regard to the claim made by some, that part of the premium (money paid to the insurer) is returned, this does not change anything and does not free insurance from the taint of ribaa, gambling, transactions based on uncertainty, unjust consumption of people’s wealth and going against the principle of trusting in Allaah (tawakkul), and other kinds of haraam actions. Insurance is deceit and confusion.

3- Banking

Riba is emphatically forbidden in Islam. Allaah has condemned the one who does that and has declared war on him, and spoken of his bad end on the Day of Resurrection. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):


“Those who eat Ribaa will not stand (on the Day of Resurrection) except like the standing of a person beaten by Shaytaan (Satan) leading him to insanity. That is because they say: ‘Trading is only like Ribaa,’ whereas Allaah has permitted trading and forbidden Ribaa. So whosoever receives an admonition from his Lord and stops eating Ribaa, shall not be punished for the past; his case is for Allaah (to judge); but whoever returns (to Ribaa), such are the dwellers of the Fire — they will abide therein.

Allaah will destroy Ribaa and will give increase for Sadaqaat (deeds of charity, alms). And Allaah likes not the disbelievers, sinners”

al-Baqarah 2:275, 276]

“O you who believe! Fear Allaah and give up what remains (due to you) from Ribaa (from now onward) if you are (really) believers.


And if you do not do it, then take a notice of war from Allaah and His Messenger but if you repent, you shall have your capital sums. Deal not unjustly (by asking more than your capital sums), and you shall not be dealt with unjustly (by receiving less than your capital sums)”

[al-Baraqah 2:278, 279]

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) cursed the one who consumes riba, the one who pays it, the one who writes it down and the two who witness it, and he said, “They are all the same.” Narrated by Muslim, from the hadeeth of Jaabir (may Allaah be pleased with him).

And he (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “A dirham of riba consumed knowingly by a man is worse before Allaah than committing zina thirty-six times.” Narrated by Ahmad and al-Tabaraani, classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh al-Jaami’.


nd there are other texts which point to the enormity and abhorrent nature of this crime.

The Islamic financial system does not approve of any transaction that includes riba, rather the sharee’ah forbids certain transactions so as to prevent the means that lead to riba.


Secondly:


The banks that exist nowadays are all riba based banks, with a few rare exceptions. Just because a bank is located in a Muslim country does not mean that it is an Islamic bank. Most of these banks are connected to Jewish and Crusader banks overseas. It is most regrettable that in the Muslim lands which are home to more than a billion Muslims there is no Islamic bank that is free from riba, apart from a few institutions.

So the decision makers among the Muslims have to pay due attention to this matter and establish an independent Islamic banking system. There are scholars and people who are able to work in this field, and there is a great deal of capital, praise be to Allaah.

Thirdly:

The true Islamic financial system is a system that is free of riba, because it is a system that is derived from the Book of Allaah and the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).

4- Adult Franchise and Voting Power:

Democracy is a man-made system, meaning rule by the people for the people. Thus it is contrary to Islam, because rule is for Allaah, the Most High, the Almighty, and it is not permissible to give legislative rights to any human being, no matter who he is.


Undoubtedly the democratic system is one of the modern forms of shirk, in terms of obedience and following, or legislation, as it denies the sovereignty of the Creator and His absolute right to issue laws, and ascribes that right to human beings. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“You do not worship besides Him but only names which you have named (forged) — you and your fathers — for which Allaah has sent down no authority. The command (or the judgement) is for none but Allaah. He has commanded that you worship none but Him (i.e. His Monotheism); that is the (true) straight religion, but most men know not” [Yoosuf 12:40]

“The decision is only for Allaah” [al-An’aam 6:57]


Secondly:

The one who understands the true nature of the democratic system and the ruling thereon, then he nominates himself or someone else (for election) is approving of this system, and is working with it, is in grave danger, because the democratic system is contrary to Islam and approving of it and participating in it are actions that imply apostasy and being beyond the pale of Islam.


It is not permissible for a Muslim to nominate himself in the hope that he can become part of a system which rules according to something other than that which Allaah has revealed and operates according to something other than the sharee’ah of Islam. It is not permissible for a Muslim to vote for him or for anyone else who will work in that government, unless the one who nominates himself or those who vote for him hope that by getting involved in that they will be able to change the system to one that operates according to the sharee’ah of Islam, and they are using this as a means to overcome the system of government, provided that the one who nominates himself will not accept any position after being elected except one that does not go against Islamic sharee’ah.

The Muslims in a country that is not governed according to Islamic sharee’ah should do their utmost and strive as much as they can to bring about rule according to Islamic sharee’ah, and they should unite in helping the party which is known will rule in accordance with Islamic sharee’ah. As for supporting one who calls for non-implementation of Islamic sharee’ah, that is not permissible, rather it may lead a person to kufr, because Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):


“And so judge (you O Muhammad ) among them by what Allaah has revealed and follow not their vain desires, but beware of them lest they turn you (O Muhammad) far away from some of that which Allaah has sent down to you. And if they turn away, then know that Allaah’s Will is to punish them for some sins of theirs. And truly, most of men are Faasiqoon (rebellious and disobedient to Allaah).


Do they then seek the judgement of (the days of) Ignorance? And who is better in judgement than Allaah for a people who have firm Faith” [al-Maa'idah 5:49-50].


Hence when Allaah stated that those who do not rule in accordance with Islamic sharee’ah are guilty of kufr, He warned against helping them or taking them as allies or close friends, and He commanded the believers to fear Him if they were truly believers. He says (interpretation of the meaning):



“O you who believe! Take not as Awliyaa’ (protectors and helpers) those who take your religion as a mockery and fun from among those who received the Scripture (Jews and Christians) before you, and nor from among the disbelievers; and fear Allaah if you indeed are true believers” [al-Maa’idah 5:57]

http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1161

Stay away from yoga camps: Cut off your nose to spite your neighbour’s faith! Syed Raihan Ahmad Nezami

Islam and Pluralism25 Jan 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com
Stay away from yoga camps: Cut off your nose to spite your neighbour’s faith!


Ever since I read about some Mullahs asking Muslims in India and Malaysia to stay away from yoga camps, I was wondering what could be so threatening about Yoga. Is our faith so brittle that we would cease to remain Muslim if we just learn to do yogic exercises, now recommended by doctors, particularly cardiologists and surgeons after heart by-pass surgery or to those with high blood pressure? In fact Yoga is useful to patients of an assortment of illnesses, and also as a preventive health-care technique. If practised regularly yogic meditational techniques can lead to beautiful and extremely rewarding spiritual experiences too.

Now the cat is out of the bag. Maulana Nadeem-ul-Wajidee tells us: “Muslims must abstain from Yoga Camps as the Faith cannot be endangered for the sake of physical fitness. After all, the protection of Faith is more important than the health and physical beauty.”

Now how does our faith get endangered by Yoga? Well, the yoga teacher makes us occasionally chant “Om” and at least one teacher sometimes recites verses from Islam’s earliest scriptures, the Vedas.

I have no cure, at least in the short run for our Mullah’s cave mentality, their deep-seated prejudices, amounting to hatred of Islam’s earlier scriptures. If Allah and the Holy Quran cannot make them respect His earlier prophets and their revealed books, despites repeatedly, scores of time, instructing them to do so, who am I to presume these people can be taught to do so. But learning Yoga may be an urgent requirement for some Muslims. So some of us could learn it from Nastik Hindu teachers and then ourselves teach it to our people. Having leant Yoga after my surgeon’s advice following a heart by-pass surgery, I can assure you that chanting Om is not at all necessary. You may do yoga without a chant altogether or you may supplant it with the word Allah or Allahu or whatever and it would work equally well. Reading from religious scriptures is not at all necessary, but if you wish you can very well read verses from the Holy Quran while teaching Yoga. Islamise Yoga, if you have to, but learn it, practise it and teach it to fellow Muslims, and of course, to fellow human beings.

Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam
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Stay away from yoga camps: Cut off your nose to spite your neighbour’s faith!

A Point of View by Maulana Nadeem-ul-Wajidee
Translated from Urdu by Syed Raihan Ahmad Nezami

“Yoga is not prohibited.”
The news is published in the newspapers with the reference to some of the renowned Islamic scholars.

In the opinion of the Maulana Waheedud-Deen Khan, “only the positive side of anything should be considered, not the negative side-that is against the spirit of Islam”.

According to him, “The survival of life is based on the realities and truth, ignoring its life cannot be led successfully. Yoga is an exercise so it should be considered with this point of view.” As it is his habit, he has transferred this trifling matter into a philosophy. How can one believe that Yoga is such a great necessity and reality of life that the existence of life is not possible without it?

As far as this opinion of Maulana Waheedud-Deen Khan is concerned-that the positive points of anything should be considered, not the negative side, this theory cannot be applied to everything. On certain occasions, in certain things, the negative side is more important and so the positive side is ignored.

For example, in Islam, alcohol and gambling are banned on the basis of its negative effects notwithstanding the positive side of its benefit and profits.

I do accept that yoga is a kind of exercise and many physical disabilities and diseases can be cured by the function of right breathing, rhythmic physical movements and by meditation. Unfortunately, in recent times, it is being associated as a symbol of a particular religion. The way some of the communal organizations have introduced yoga in recent years and the way it is being propagated by the “Aastha” channel for the global recognition, forces us to feel that it is being publicized as an integral part of the life of a particular religion.

Baba Ramdev, who is travelling far and wide for the attainment of this purpose, is busy with full zeal and energy in the publicity of his religion as well, though he imparts yoga lessons as well. One can watch his programme on the “Aastha” channel where he keeps on reciting the “shlokas” of the Hindu scriptures and talking about the Hindu gods and goddesses and makes the audience repeat the word “Om” time and again during his endless long speeches.

Actually, by laying emphasis on the word “Om”, he wants the audience to believe that the effectiveness in the physical exercises and meditation comes from the recitation of this word from Hindu scripture. If he is a genuine well-wisher of the nation and wants his countrymen to lead a healthy life without any discrimination of caste, creed and religion, he should not use his yoga camps for the propaganda and publicity of his religion and stop this absurd activity immediately.

He looks more like a representative and mouth-piece of the Hindu religion and less a scholar of Ved Shashtra – that is quite clear from the vast support he is obtaining from the fundamentalist and communal outfits like the RSS. Quite often he looks like a fanatic sycophant and mentally sick person.

His poisonous feelings and ugly design were obviously exposed when he attended the final of a musical reality show as a judge – where his speech based on the denouncement of terrorism spoiled the fun of the whole show of the entertaining programme. Not contented with this he went to deplore and condemn terrorism by naming Muslims and Islam. After this, no one should have any doubt and dare to call him a well-wisher of the nation and the community that he always propagates himself to be and is being labelled also by some filthy minds.

The yoga camps organized by Baba Ramdev are being used for the publicity of the medicines being produced in his pharmacy that’s why he talks less about the physical training and mental peace and more about his products. Apparently he claims that pure herbs are used in the medicines but this far from the reality.

In 2005, a bitter incident took place when about 1500 employees of his pharmacy were dismissed. A great hue and cry was raised by the communist leader Brinda Karat. Later, she went to Haridwar for the talks with the authorities and came to know from the dismissed employees that they were dismissed as they had opposed to mix the powder of human and animal limbs in the medicines. This accusation was found correct when Brinda Karat got the samples of the medicines examined.

The central minister A. Ramadoss had also mentioned in an interview at that occasion, “The sign of human and animal bones and limbs are found in the samples of the medicines examined.”

In this connection, the famous Ayurveda scholar Dr. R .P. Prashar says, “In Ayurvedic literature, some medicines are mentioned in which the powder of the human and animal bones and limbs are used. So, Ayurveda should not be considered as limited to the herbs only”.

Can it be believed that the body parts of the “Halal” animals only are being mixed in the medicines produced in the pharmacy of Babaji?

As an assumption, in case, the body parts of “Halal” animals alone are used even then, what is the guarantee that the animals are sacrificed in the proper Islamic way? In the light of the facts given, can the Muslims be given full liberty to use such doubtful medicines?

In my opinion, the Muslims should not be allowed to participate in the yoga camps of Baba Ramdev and use the medicines being produced in his pharmacy. The participation is the yoga camp may be good for the physical fitness and charm but its negative side-effects on the Faith can’t be ignored.

Generally, the people, who are unaware of the Islamic teachings about health and fitness, are inclined towards yoga. Harqul, the Emperor of Rome, had sent an expert doctor/physician to the prophet Hazrat Muhammad (peace be upon him) so that he should stay in Medina Monawwarah to treat the ailing people. It is narrated in the history books, the doctor stayed there for a month but not a single patient contacted him. Ultimately, in distress, he appeared before the prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) and said, “O, Messenger of the Almighty Allah Kareem, what is the reason that the people of Medina Monawwarah don’t fall sick so they don’t need a doctor?

Obviously, for the perfect physical growth and the attainment of complete physical fitness, the things or the actions which were taught to the Sahaba Karam (May the Almighty Allah Kareem be Agreed with them) during their spiritual training and Islamic learning are responsible for it. After the infinite treasure of “Eman” the healthy body is the greatest gift “Ne’mat” of the Almighty Allah Kareem to the people.

According to a “Rewayat” the prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) asserted:
“The one among you who greeted the dawn of the day with his family and children in peace, his body is in perfect condition, if he has the food for the day also, the entire world is gathered for him”.
(Saheeh Muslim Part-4 Page 252, Al-Hadeeth 2664, printed in Beirut)

According to another Hadeeth Shareef, “The stronger Muslim (Momin) is better than the weak Muslim (Momin) and is more favourite near the Almighty Allah Kareem, and the welfare is in everything”.
(Saheeh Bukhari, Parat-7, Page 218, Hadeeth 6412)

According to one more Hadeeth Shareef, “Two gifts of the Almighty Allah Kareem are such as many people are ignorant to them i.e. “Health and Leisure”.
(Saheeh Bukhari, Parat-7, Page 218, Hadeeth 6412)

With the above-mentioned Ahadeeth Shareef, it is crystal clear that health is a great gift and the precious “Ne’mat” of the Almighty Allah Kareem for the people of the world. So the people must safe-guard it.

The prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon Him), the messenger of the Almighty Allah Kareem not only enlightened the souls of the Sahaba-e-Karam (May the Almighty Allah Kareem be Agreed with them) with the Islamic teachings, spiritual and worldly learning but also, He (Peace be upon Him) cared a lot for the physical training and fitness efforts. For the attainment of the same, He (Peace be upon Him) ordered the five practices being given below.

Complete and balanced diet
Physical cleanliness and purity
Physical exercise
Preventive measures
Use of medicines in illness

A man can be perfectly healthy and fit if he leads his life in the light of above teachings of the prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon Him), these were the hidden secrets adopted by the Sahaba-e-Karam (May the Almighty Allah Kareem be Agreed with them) which helped them to maintain their perfect health and peace of mind throughout their lives so they (May the Almighty Allah Kareem be Agreed with them) rarely needed a doctor. That’s why the doctor was ultimately forced to return from Medina Monawwarah dejected and depressed after a patient wait for the sick people for a month.


Now, it’s a bare truth, if the Muslims follow the Islamic rules to maintain their good health, there is no question that they need to visit Baba Ramdev’s yoga camps and accept his discipleship.

It doesn’t mean that yoga exercises are against Islam, absolutely not, but the ways and means adopted by Baba Ramdev for the physical exercise are, of course, against Islam.

The Muslims must abstain from it as the Faith cannot be endangered for the sake of physical fitness. After all, the protection of Faith is more important than the health and the physical beauty.
Courtesy: Hamara Samaj, 14-1-2009
Translated from Urdu by Syed Raihan Ahmad Nezami
URL: http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1145

Demolish Kafir/ Mushrik/ Munafiq-manufacturing factories, says Sultan Shahin, defending New Age Islam against Talibani onslaught

Ijtihad, Rethinking Islam22 Jan 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com
Demolish Kafir/ Mushrik/ Munafiq-manufacturing factories, says Sultan Shahin, defending New Age Islam against Talibani onslaught
As a community we are more reactionary and obscurantist that positive and progressive. We live in fear and denial. There is noting wrong with us; it’s all Jewish conspiracy, Hindu conspiracy, Western imperialist conspiracy, etc. etc. We love living in the past, in the land of pointlessness. So our discussions too are not so much about issues of today as about the bygone past. We revel in discussing ad infinitum the dirty politics of seventh century Arabia and taking sides with one or the other party. We have no present and no plans for the future. As a community, that is. Some individuals, of course, do have plans for themselves as well as for the community and a vision of regeneration for Islam and the Muslim community. But they are reviled for thinking of this word rather than the other world where 72 houris are waiting for them impatiently in a land of milk and honey and of course, plenty of liquor. (In the case of poor women, of course, only their husbands, if any, would be waiting there, and yet some of them become suicide bombers, for some reason.)

Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam
-----------------------------

Demolish Kafir/ Mushrik/ Munafiq-manufacturing factories, says Sultan Shahin, defending New Age Islam against Talibani onslaught

Dear Mr. Yousaf,

This site is not about me and I am not the only writer, though I would like to write more. Unfortunately running a site is a rather demanding job, more demanding than I had thought when I started it. This is a platform for all Muslims to participate in discussions on any subject relevant to the state of Islam or Muslims. I do indeed consider myself a forward-looking person and find it fruitless to live in the past and engage in mostly pointless discussions about the dirty Arab politics of the past. For me, the definition of a Muslim is simply any one who says, just says, - for we have no right to speculate about his or her motives and there is no way we can divine his or her intentions – that God is one and Mohammad (PBUH) is His prophet. So, as you can see, I do have a rather individualistic view of things, but as an editor, I never try to impose these views. Yes, these views maybe affecting my choice of the articles I print and the subjects I raise for debate. But the reader is absolutely free to comment within the bounds of decency. Some readers cross this boundary and sometimes I find it difficult to delete offensive expressions like “Lanati” and “Yazid ke aulad”, etc. as they are interspersed in the thoughts of those readers. I truly suffer from a horror of censorship, though, that may become necessary in some cases, but only to remove offensive, unseemly language.

By the way, I learned these offending expressions only on the site. It shows the depth of hatred we carry in our hearts against one another. If the believers in Allah and followers of Prophet Mohammad are not safe from us and our sectarian mean-spiritedness, what can followers of previous prophets like Hindus, Biddhists, Jains, Christians, Jews, etc. expect from us? With what face do we indeed go to them and claim to be followers of a religion of peace and forgiveness, amity and total surrender to the Almighty.

Coming back, if you have an issue with any views expressed by any writers, you are free to take them up and if your views are censored you my have legitimate cause for complaint. God has not appointed you a commissar, however, as far as I know, and you should be a bit careful in calling people kafir or munafiq, etc. This merely shows that you have no arguments. You might be displeasing Allah too by doing so. For He alone is the Judge. Even the Prophet never called the munafiqeen abusive names, never restricted them from prayers and even participated in the funeral prayers for the salvation of the soul of the chief munafiq. All this when Allah had warned him about them and the Prophet knew they were harming the religion at a very crucial point in its history, actually in its infancy, when even its survival may have appeared difficult to some.

As far as the Muslims of today are concerned, we may have our own ideas about who is a kafir or a munafiq or whatever but we shouldn’t be expressing them as this only makes us a kafir or a munafiq. It is for God to judge. Not you. Don’t assume divine powers, please, even if you think, you are gifted with a third eye and can divine people’s intentions and motivations just by going through their editorial work.

I do even publish the views of people I disagree with, not too often, of course, but occasionally I do give representation to people whom I consider having obscurantist and fundamentalist views as well. Only recently I went to the extent of getting translated from Urdu an article I thought defended fundamentalism and obscurantism rather well, just so people like you do not feel left out on the site. Please see:
In defence of Islamic fundamentalism - Maulana Nadeem-ul-Wajedi
http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1099

You are welcome to suggest any well-written, well-argued articles that go against the basic thrust of the site and I will carry that. In fact in the comments section of most articles you must have found more retrogressive views than progressive. The reason is not difficult to see. As a community we are more reactionary and obscurantist that positive and progressive. We live in fear and denial. There is noting wrong with us; it’s all Jewish conspiracy, Hindu conspiracy, Western imperialist conspiracy, etc. etc. We love living in the past, in the land of pointlessness. So our discussions too are not so much about issues of today as about the bygone past. We revel in discussing ad infinitum the dirty politics of seventh century Arabia and taking sides with one or the other party. We have no present and no plans for the future. As a community, that is. Some individuals, of course, do have plans for themselves as well as for the community and a vision of regeneration for Islam and the Muslim community. But they are reviled for thinking of this word rather than the other world where 72 houris are waiting for them in a land of milk and honey and of course, plenty of liquor. (In the case of poor women, of course, only their husbands, if any, would be waiting there, and yet some of them become suicide bombers, for some reason.)

So, Mr. Yousaf, pick up a pen, well, more likely a keyboard and enlighten us with your views on the issues covered on the site. You can even write in defence of Talibani/Jihadi brutality or against Muslim girl’s education, in defence of beard as most vital Islamic institution, whatever, and the site will not deny you space. You will find a lot of applause too. New Age Islam has many readers who express their retrogressive, reactionary views regularly. As I told you before I learned several terms of Islamic abuse on the site. We welcome both those who call Dr Zakir Nayak a kafir and those who warn against the kafir-manufacturing factories rampant in Muslim lands. You will find here people who call Yazid Lanati (accursed) and also those who call him Rahmatullah Alaih, both arguing and contesting each others’ points of view fiercely. Personally I would like to demolish all kafir/Mushrik/Munafiq-manufacturing factories. I consider them highly offensive and completely against the Islamic ethos. But as they constitute a significant and influential section of the community, I do not even deny them space. So welcome, Mr. Yousaf. Just remember, New Age Islam is not about me; it is about you. I am merely a moderator in the discussions. I do give you subjects to discuss, but you as free to add your own subjects, as many readers do. As for my Imaan, let Allah judge that; think a little about yourself.
Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam
http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1143

--------------------------------------------

yousaf
20/2009 8:32:05 PM
Mr. Sultan Shahin

Suddenly I came across your website. since then in last three four days I have gone through it and these are my comments
You write a Muslim name and pretend to be as such as your website name suggest, but let me tell you that in the time of holy prophet there were certain people who by face pretended to be Muslims where as actually they were not. These were the people who had extreme hatred for the religion but they were cowards, greedy, mischief-mongers, followers of Satan. They were called munafiqs or munafiqeen. They had no moral guts to show their true faces. About them ALMIGHTY ALLAH says in holy book that they will be in the worst and deepest part of hell. So I have no doubt about you. you are like a hungry and lusty Dog to acquire the world by your this deceit nature. I do not have a doubt that you are not a Muslim but at the same time I don’t know who are you and what is your mission. as it seems that like a Hindu about whom it is said that ' munh mein Ram Ram aur baghal mein churi" means "Say Ram Ram from the mouth while hiding knife under his arm to stab you when get an opportunity. I can assure you people with deceit nature have no respect in any religion or any society.

http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1143

Muslims and Jews: Some vital comparative statistics

Letters20 Jan 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com
Muslims and Jews: Some vital comparative statistics

Dear Sultan Shahin Saheb,

Could you please publish this vital information on New Age Islam? Vital facts and figures are relevant for those who don’t leave a single opportunity to curse Jews. Let us assess their power first and then try to peep into ourselves and know where we stand before them?
We are known for maximizing the numbers (Quantity) on this planet rather than producing Quality and feel proud while throwing population data throughout the world but what is the relevance of this BLOCK on this planet? Have we ever produced anything productive in our modern times which could be useful for mankind? Our so-called universities are just pumping engineers, doctors, clerks but we have failed to produce Scientists. WHY? Actually we don’t have that bent of mind which can produce a pioneer. What are the stumbling blocks for the development of this community? I am sure, the new generation would try to find out the reason and strive for a better future.
Thanking you in advance.

Shamshad Elahee Ansari, Dubai, UAE
-----------------------------------



o World Jewish Population. 14 million
7 m in America
5 m in Asia
2 m in Europe
100 thousand in Africa
o World Muslim Population: 1,500 million
I, 000 million in Asia/Mid-East
400 M in Africa
44 M in Europe
6 M in the Americas
o Every fifth human being is a Muslim. 20%
o For every single Hindu there are two Muslims 1 : 2
o For every Buddhist there are two Muslims 1 : 2
o For every Jew there are 107 Muslims 1 : 107
Yet the 14 million Jews are more powerful than the entire 1,500 million Muslims.
Why?

Here are some of the reasons.

Movers of Current History
o Albert Einstein
o Sigmund Freud
o Karl Marx
o Paul Samuelson
o Milton Friedman
Medical Milestones
o Vaccinating Needle Benjamin Ruben
o Polio Vaccine Jonas Salk
o Leukaemia Drug Gertrude Elion
o Hepatitis B Baruch Blumberg
o Syphilis Drug Paul Ehrlich
o Neuro muscular Elie Metchnikoff
o Endocrinology Andrew Schally
o Cognitive therapy Aaron Beck
o Contraceptive Pill Gregory Pincus
o Understanding of Human Eye G. Wald
o Embryology. Stanley Cohen
o Kidney Dialysis Willem Kloffcame
Nobel Prize Winners
In the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 180 Nobel prizes
whilst 1.5 billion Muslims have contributed only Eight Nobel winners
Nobel Prize Winners
In the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 180 Nobel prizes whilst 1.5 billion Muslims have contributed only Eight Nobel winners

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Ahmed Zewail, 1999

Nobel Prize in Literature

Naguib Mahfouz, 1988
Orhan Pamuk, 2006

Nobel Peace Prize
Anwar El-Sadat, 1978
Yasser Arafat, 1994
Shirin Ebadi, 2003
Mohamed El Baradei, 2005
Muhammad Yunus, 2006

Inventions that changed History
o Micro- Processing Chip. Stanley Mezor
o Nuclear Chain Reactor Leo Sziland
o Optical Fibre Cable Peter Schultz
o Traffic Lights Charles Adler
o Stainless Steel Benno Strauss
o Sound Movies Isador Kisee
o Telephone Microphone Emile Berliner
o Video Tape Recorder Charles Ginsburg


Influential Global Business

o Polo Ralph Lauren Jewish
o Coca Cola Jewish
o Levi's Jeans Levi Strauss Jewish
o Sawbuck's Howard Schultz Jewish
o Google Sergey Brin Jewish
o Dell Computers Michael Dell Jewish
o Oracle Larry Ellison Jewish
o DKNY Donna Karan Jewish
o Baskin & Robbins Irv Robbins Jewish
o Dunkin Donuts Bill Rosenberg Jewish



Influential Intellectuals/Politicians

o Henry Kissinger US Sec of State Jewish
o Richard Levin President Yale University Jewish
o Alan Greenspan US Federal Reserve Jewish
o Joseph Lieberman Jewish
o Madeleine Albright US Sec of State Jewish
o Casper Weinberger US Sec of Defense Jewish
o Maxim Litvinov USSR Foreign Minister Jewish
o David Marshal Singapore Chief Minister Jewish
o Isaacs Isaacs Gov-Gen Australia Jewish

o Benjamin Disraeli British Statesman Jewish
o Yevgeny Primakov Russian PM Jewish
o Barry Goldwater US Politician Jewish
o Jorge Sampaio President Portugal Jewish
o Herb Gray Canadian Deputy - PM Jewish
o Pierre Mendes French PM Jewish
o Michael Howard British Home Sec. Jewish
o Bruno Kriesky Austrian Chancellor Jewish
o Robert Rubin US Sec of Treasury Jewish



Global Media Influential

o Wolf Blitzer CNN Jewish
o Barbara Walters ABC News Jewish
o Eugene Meyer Washington Post Jewish
o Henry Grunwald Time Magazine Jewish
o Katherine Graham Washington Post Jewish
o Joseph Lelyeld New York Times Jewish
o Max Frankel New York Times Jewish
Global Philanthropists

o George Soros Jewish
o Walter Annenberg Jewish
Why are they powerful?
So why are Muslims powerless? Here's another reason. We have lost the capacity to produce knowledge.
o In the entire Muslim World (57 Muslim Countries) there are only 500 universities.
o In USA alone, 5,758 universities
o In India alone, 8,407 universities
o Not one university in the entire Islamic World features in the Top 500 Ranking Universities of the World
o Literacy in the Christian World 90%
o Literacy in the Muslim World 40%
o 15 Christian majority-countries, literacy rate 100%
o Muslim majority - countries , None

o 40% in Christian countries attended university
o In Muslim countries a dismal 2% attended.
o Muslim majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims
o The USA has 5000 per million
o The Christian world 1000 technicians per million.
o Entire Arab World only 50 technicians per million.
o Muslim World spends on research/development 0.2% of GDP
o Christian World spends 5 % of GDP

Conclusion.
The Muslim World lacks the capacity to produce knowledge.
Another way of testing the degree of knowledge is the degree of diffusing knowledge.

o Pakistan 23 daily newspapers per 1000 citizens
o Singapore 460 per 1000 citizens.
o In UK book titles per million is 2000
o In Egypt book titles per million is only 17

Conclusion
o Muslim World is failing to diffuse knowledge

Applying Knowledge is another such test.
o Exports of high tech products from Pakistan is 0.9% of its exports.
o In Saudi Arabia is 0.2%
o Kuwait , Morocco and Algeria 0.3%
o Singapore alone is 68%

Conclusion
Muslim World is failing to apply knowledge, even though they have ways & means but is there anyone who will take the initiative?

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/controlpanel/AddArticles.aspx?Article_ID=1135

Please credit Americans with some intelligence, Mr. Kanchan Gupta!

Radical Islamism & Jihad18 Jan 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com
Please credit Americans with some intelligence, Mr. Kanchan Gupta!



Like Muslims in the mainstream, Hindu fundamentalist ideologues too oppose and point to the dangers of Saudi-isation or Talibanisation of Pakistan and other Muslim societies around the world with the financial help and military backing of the United States and other Western powers. But unlike Muslims, the Hindutva ideologues ascribe the American or larger Western involvement to mere stupidity on their part. They just rue the tragic mistake America is making. Mr. Kanchan Gupta, for instance, laments in the article being reproduced below: “Tragically, the Americans refuse to read the writing on the wall. If the Bush Administration erred in trusting Pakistan, the incoming Obama Administration has compounded that error by promising to treble aid to a criminal state whose ruling elite, both military and civilian, is a complicit partner in promoting a particularly virulent form of radical Islamism.”
I wonder if it would take a little more than mere tragic stupidity to become a super-power, indeed the sole super-power of a planet in the solar system, the only system known in the entire universe to have intelligent beings. I wonder where our analysis would lead us if, instead of merely ruing our intelligent planet being ruled by the stupidest among us, we were to credit the Americans with some intelligence and sought to understand what this mighty power is trying to do to our planet.
May I request Mr. Gupta, to credit Americans with some intelligence and study the subject of spreading Talibanisation and Saudi-isation of Pakistan and the rest of Muslim world with American financial and military backing in one of his next columns with this angle! Let us suppose American strategists were an intelligent breed like the rest of us and were creating and sustaining Islamic radicals and terrorists with some purpose. What could that purpose be? Where might we be heading?
These questions are particularly important for us here in India. For we are the ones who have been bearing the brunt of US-Pakistani-Saudi-sponsored Islamic radicalism, terrorism and so-called Jihad. Early indications are that during President-elect Barack Hussein Obama’s term this trend is likely to gain in strength and we are probably going to be an even more frequent target of these accursed “Jihadis”, while the US and the West continue to fund and protect their sponsors.
Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam
URL: http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1129
------------
Nourishing terror with US dollars by Kanchan Gupta
The Saudi-isation of Pakistan: A stern, unyielding version of Islam is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis in Pakistan by Pervez Hoodbhoy
For Pak kids, 'J' is for jihad - PTI
India, Pak aren't neighbours; they are worlds apart by MJ Akbar
Explaining away terror by Vir Sanghvi
US will not redress Mumbai for us by Kanwal Sibal
-----------------------
Nourishing terror with US dollars
Kanchan Gupta
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Commenting on America’s response to the multiple terrorist strikes of 9/11, the most spectacular of which was Mohammed Atta and his fellow jihadis flying two passenger jets into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York and reducing the glittering chrome-and-glass symbol of American power to twisted steel and rubble, Gen Pervez Musharraf writes in his memoir, In the Line of Fire, “I was chairing an important meeting... when my military secretary told me that the US Secretary of State, Gen Colin Powell, was on the phone. I said I would call back later, but he insisted that I come out of the meeting and take the call. Powell was quite candid: ‘You are either with us or against us.’ I took this as a blatant ultimatum... I told him we were with the United States against terrorism, having suffered from it for years, and would fight along with his country against it.” Gen Powell’s pronounced pro-Pakistan bias was no secret in the first Bush Administration. It is possible that his colleagues were not too sure whether he had been blunt enough while delivering what Gen Musharraf was to later correctly describe as a “blatant ultimatum” to Pakistan. So a follow-up message was sent, this time through a person who had little time and lesser patience for niceties. “When I was back in Islamabad the next day, our director-general of Inter-Services Intelligence, who happened to be in Washington, told me on the phone about his meeting with the US Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage. In what was to be the most undiplomatic statement ever made, Armitage added to what Colin Powell had said to me and told the director-general not only that we had to decide whether we were with America or with the terrorists, but that if we chose the terrorists, then we would be bombed back to the Stone Age.”
It is anybody’s guess as to whether the Americans would have carried out their threat had Gen Musharraf cast Pakistan’s lot with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But being the crafty man that he is, Gen Musharraf decided to play along with the Bush Administration by pretending to be a ‘staunch’ and ‘steadfast’ ally in the war on terror, and thus get the West to acknowledge Pakistan as the ‘frontline state’ deserving of military and civilian aid, which has since run into billions of dollars, most of it contributed by the US. Seven years after Gen Powell asked Gen Musharraf to choose between America and the terrorists, and Mr Armitage made sure Pakistan chose to support the US, there is little or nothing to show for the military and non-military aid. Oversight audits have revealed that much of the money meant to modernise the Pakistani Army to fight terrorism in that country’s badlands has been pocketed by its top brass through the rampant use of bogus vouchers and fake bills.
As for non-military aid, it is obvious that generous cash transfers from Western capitals to Islamabad have not helped prevent Pakistani society’s descent into Islamic fanaticism and jihadi bloodletting. Gen Musharraf had promised to reform the education system by cleansing school curriculum of the regressive elements introduced during the Islamisation drive of Gen Zia-ul-Haq, shutting down non-registered madrasas run by rabid mullahs, and modernising those seminaries which are recognised by the Government. For all his talk about “enlightened moderation”, Gen Musharraf did nothing on this front; by the time he ordered his troops to storm Lal Masjid and its two madrasas, including Jamia Hafza, in the heart of Islamabad on July 8, 2007, thousands of clones of this Deoband-inspired seminary of hate had sprung up across Pakistan. Many more have mushroomed in the last two years and each one of them preaches a simple, one-sentence message: “Jihad is your salvation.”
Distinguished Pakistani scholar and columnist Pervez Hoodbhoy, in an article, “The Saudi-isation of Pakistan”, published in the latest issue of Newsline, laments how radical Islamism and mullah-driven Arabisation are furiously gnawing at the innards of a tottering Pakistani state. He says although the Government admits to the existence of only 13,000 madrasas with 1.5 million Taliban, the real number is likely between 18,000 and 22,000. That would mean millions of Taliban being indoctrinated by hate-mongers for whom Islam means being in a state of constant war with those who refuse to submit to oppressive Islamism that militates against human liberty, equality and dignity.
The preaching of hate and the teaching of ‘virtues’ of jihad are not limited to Deobandi madarsas alone. Such has been the all-pervasive influence of state-sponsored Islamisation since the days of Gen Zia’s dictatorship — contrary to popular belief Benazir Bhutto did nothing to reverse the trend after the dictator met a justly deserved fiery death (those with an evil mind insist the CIA did him in), nor did Mr Nawaz Sharif bother to halt the onward march of radical Islam while Gen Musharraf tricked the Americans into believing he was working on education reforms but it would require a few more million dollars, please — that private schools have now begun adopting offensive textbooks. Rezaul Laskar of PTI has filed a report from Islamabad which is worth quoting verbatim: “Thousands of Pakistani schoolgoing children are growing up learning that the Urdu equivalent of the letter ‘A’ stands for Allah, ‘B’ for bandook (gun) and ‘J’ for jihad. Though not officially prescribed for pre-schoolers, books printed by Iqra Publishers are being used in several regular schools and madrasas across Pakistan. The three examples of Allah, bandook and jihad are not the only ones which sound like a ‘blueprint for a religious fascist state’. The Urdu letter for the ‘T’ stands for takrao (collision), ‘K’ for khanjar (dagger), H for hijab (veil) and ‘Z’ for zunoob (sins) which include watching television, playing musical instruments and flying kites.
Which takes us back to Peerbhoy’s lament: “Left unchallenged, this education will produce a generation incapable of co-existing with anyone except strictly their own kind. The mindset it creates may eventually lead to Pakistan’s demise as a nation state.” Not given to grand pronouncements, Peerbhoy has been cautious with his words. For, Pakistan has not only set itself on a self-destructive course, it is also headed for a catastrophe whose victims shall not be Pakistanis alone. Tragically, the Americans refuse to read the writing on the wall. If the Bush Administration erred in trusting Pakistan, the incoming Obama Administration has compounded that error by promising to treble aid to a criminal state whose ruling elite, both military and civilian, is a complicit partner in promoting a particularly virulent form of radical Islamism. Little does the Pakistani elite realise that it too shall be devoured by the beast it is nourishing with American dollars.
--kanchangupta@rocketmail.com
http://dailypioneer.com/150623/Nourishing-terror-with-US-dollars.html
---
The Saudi-isation of Pakistan
A stern, unyielding version of Islam is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis in Pakistan.
By Pervez Hoodbhoy
The common belief in Pakistan is that Islamic radicalism is a problem only in FATA, and that madrassas are the only institutions serving as jihad factories. This is a serious misconception. Extremism is breeding at a ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan’s towns and cities. Left unchallenged, this education will produce a generation incapable of co-existing with anyone except strictly their own kind. The mindset it creates may eventually lead to Pakistan’s demise as a nation state.
For 20 years or more, a few of us have been desperately sending out SOS messages, warning of terrible times to come. In fact, I am surprised at how rapidly these dire predictions have come true.
A full-scale war is being fought in FATA, Swat and other “wild” areas of Pakistan, resulting in thousands of deaths. It is only a matter of time before this fighting shifts to Peshawar and Islamabad (which has already been a witness to the Lal Masjid episode) and engulfs Lahore and Karachi as well. The suicide bomber and the masked abductor have crippled Pakistan’s urban life and shattered its national economy.
Soldiers, policemen, factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals and ordinary people praying in mosques have all been reduced to globs of flesh and fragments of bones. But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak out against these atrocities. Nor do they approve of the army operation against the cruel perpetrators of these acts because they believe that they are Islamic warriors fighting for Islam and against American occupation. Political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan have no words of solace for those who have suffered at the hands of Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved exclusively for the victims of Predator drones, even if they are those who committed grave crimes against their own people. Terrorism, by definition, is an act only the Americans can commit.
What explains Pakistan’s collective masochism? To understand this, one needs to study the drastic social and cultural transformations that have rendered this country so completely different from what it was in earlier times.
For three decades, deep tectonic forces have been silently tearing Pakistan away from the Indian subcontinent and driving it towards the Arabian peninsula. This continental drift is not physical but cultural, driven by a belief that Pakistan must exchange its South Asian identity for an Arab-Muslim one. Grain by grain, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a magnificent Muslim culture in India for a thousand years. This culture produced Mughul architecture, the Taj Mahal, the poetry of Asadullah Khan Ghalib, and much more. Now a stern, unyielding version of Islam (Wahhabism) is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years.
This change is by design. Twenty-five years ago, the Pakistani state used Islam as an instrument of state policy. Prayers in government departments were deemed compulsory, floggings were carried out publicly, punishments were meted out to those who did not fast in Ramadan, selection for academic posts in universities required that the candidate demonstrate a knowledge of Islamic teachings and jihad was declared essential for every Muslim. Today, government intervention is no longer needed because of a spontaneous groundswell of Islamic zeal. The notion of an Islamic state – still in an amorphous and diffused form – is more popular now than ever before as people look desperately for miracles to rescue a failing state.
Villages have changed drastically; this transformation has been driven, in part, by Pakistani workers returning from Arab countries. Many village mosques are now giant madrasas that propagate hard-line Salafi and Deobandi beliefs through oversized loudspeakers. They are bitterly opposed to Barelvis, Shias and other sects, who they do not regard as Muslims. The Punjabis, who were far more liberal towards women than the Pukhtuns, are now beginning to take a line resembling that of the Taliban. Hanafi law has begun to prevail over tradition and civil law, as is evident from the recent decisions of the Lahore High Court.
In Pakistan’s lower-middle and middle classes lurks a grim and humourless Saudi-inspired revivalist movement that frowns on any and every expression of joy and pleasure. Lacking any positive connection to culture and knowledge, it seeks to eliminate “corruption” by regulating cultural life and seizing control of the education system.
“Classical music is on its last legs in Pakistan; the sarangi and vichitraveena are completely dead,” laments Mohammad Shehzad, a music aficionado. Indeed, teaching music in public universities is violently opposed by students of the Islami Jamaat-e-Talaba at Punjab University. So the university has been forced to hold its music classes elsewhere. Religious fundamentalists consider music haram or un-Islamic. Kathak dancing, once popular with the Muslim elite of India, has few teachers left. Pakistan produces no feature films of any consequence. Nevertheless, the Pakistani elite, disconnected from the rest of the population, live their lives in comfort through their vicarious proximity to the West. Alcoholism is a chronic problem of the super rich of Lahore – a curious irony for this deeply religious country.
Islamisation of the state and the polity was supposed to have been in the interest of the ruling class – a classic strategy for preserving it from the wrath of the working class. But the amazing success of the state is turning out to be its own undoing. Today, it is under attack from religious militants, and rival Islamic groups battle each other with heavy weapons. Ironically, the same army – whose men were recruited under the banner of jihad, and which saw itself as the fighting arm of Islam – today stands accused of betrayal and is almost daily targeted by Islamist suicide bombers.
Pakistan’s self-inflicted suffering comes from an education system that, like Saudi Arabia’s system, provides an ideological foundation for violence and future jihadists. It demands that Islam be understood as a complete code of life, and creates in the mind of a school-going child a sense of siege and embattlement by stressing that Islam is under threat everywhere.
On the previous page, the reader can view the government-approved curriculum. This is the basic road map for transmitting values and knowledge to the young. By an act of parliament passed in 1976, all government and private schools (except for O-level schools) are required to follow this curriculum. It was prepared by the curriculum wing of the federal ministry of education, government of Pakistan. It sounds like a blueprint for a religious fascist state.
Alongside are scanned pictures from an illustrated primer for the Urdu alphabet. The masthead states that it has been prepared by Iqra Publishers, Rawalpindi, along “Islamic lines.” Although not an officially approved textbook, it is being used currently by some regular schools, as well as madrasas associated with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), an Islamic political party that had allied itself with General Musharraf. These picture scans have been taken from a child’s book, hence the scribbles.
The world of the Pakistani schoolchild remained largely unchanged, even after September 11, 2001, the event that led to Pakistan’s timely desertion of the Taliban and the slackening of the Kashmir jihad. Indeed, for all his hypocritical talk of “enlightened moderation,” General Musharraf’s educational curriculum was far from enlightening. It was a slightly toned down version of the curriculum that existed under Nawaz Sharif which, in turn, was identical to that under Benazir Bhutto who had inherited it from General Zia-ul-Haq. Fearful of taking on the powerful religious forces, every incumbent government has refused to take a position on the curriculum and thus quietly allowed young minds to be moulded by fanatics. What may happen a generation later has always been a secondary issue for a government challenged on so many fronts.
The promotion of militarism in Pakistan’s so-called “secular” public schools, colleges and universities had a profound effect upon young minds. Militant jihad became part of the culture on college and university campuses. Armed groups flourished, they invited students for jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan, set up offices throughout the country, collected funds at Friday prayers and declared a war which knew no borders. Pre-9/11, my university was ablaze with posters inviting students to participate in the Kashmir jihad. Post-2001, this ceased to be done openly.
Still, the primary vehicle for Saudi-ising Pakistan’s education has been the madrasa. In earlier times, these had turned out the occasional Islamic scholar, using a curriculum that essentially dates back to the 11th century, with only minor subsequent revisions. But their principal function had been to produce imams and muezzins for mosques, and those who eked out an existence as ‘maulvi sahibs’ teaching children to read the Quran.
The Afghan jihad changed everything. During the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, madrasas provided the US-Saudi-Pakistani alliance the cannon fodder they needed to fight a holy war. The Americans and Saudis, helped by a more-than-willing General Zia, funded new madrasas across the length and breadth of Pakistan. A detailed picture of the current situation is not available. But according to the national education census, which the ministry of education released in 2006, Punjab has 5,459 madrasas followed by the NWFP with 2,843; Sindh has 1,935; the Federally Administrated Northern Areas (FANA), 1,193; Balochistan, 769; Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), 586; the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), 135; and the Islamabad capital territory, 77. The ministry estimates that 1.5 million students are acquiring religious education in the 13,000 madrasas.
These figures appear to be way off the mark. Commonly quoted figures range between 18,000 and 22,000 madrasas. The number of students could be correspondingly larger. The free boarding and lodging plus provision of books to the students, is a key part of their appeal. Additionally, parents across the country desire that their children be “disciplined” and given a thorough Islamic education. The madrasas serve this purpose, too, exceedingly well.
Madrasas have deeply impacted the urban environment. Until a few years ago, Islamabad was a quiet, orderly, modern city different from the rest of Pakistan. Also, it had largely been the abode of Pakistan’s elite and foreign diplomats. But the rapid transformation of its demography brought with it hundreds of mosques with multi-barrelled audio-cannons mounted on minarets, as well as scores of madrasas illegally constructed in what used to be public parks and green areas. Now, tens of thousands of their students, sporting little prayer caps, dutifully chant the Quran all day. In the evenings they swarm the city, making women minus the hijab increasingly nervous.
Total segregation of the sexes is a central goal of the Islamists, the consequences of which have been catastrophic. For example, on April 9, 2006, 21 women and eight children were crushed to death and scores injured in a stampede inside a three-storey madrassa in Karachi, where a large number of women were attending a weekly congregation. Male rescuers, who arrived in ambulances, were prevented from moving the injured women to hospitals.
One cannot dismiss this incident as being just one of a kind. In fact, soon after the October 2005 earthquake, as I walked through the destroyed city of Balakot, a student of the Frontier Medical College described to me how he and his male colleagues were stopped by religious elders from digging out injured girl students from under the rubble of their school building. This action was similar to that of Saudi Arabia’s ubiquitous religious ‘mutaween’ (police) who, in March 2002, had stopped school girls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing their abayas – a long robe worn in Saudi Arabia. In a rare departure from the norm, Saudi newspapers had blamed and criticised the mutaween for letting 15 girls burn to death.
The Saudi-isation of a once-vibrant Pakistani culture continues at a relentless pace. The drive to segregate is now also being found among educated women. Vigorous proselytisers carrying this message, such as Mrs Farhat Hashmi, have been catapulted to the heights of fame and fortune. Their success is evident. Two decades back, the fully veiled student was a rarity on Pakistani university and college campuses. The abaya was an unknown word in Urdu. Today, some shops across the country specialise in abayas. At colleges and universities across Pakistan, the female student is seeking the anonymity of the burqa. And in some parts of the country she seems to outnumber her sisters who still “dare” to show their faces.
I have observed the veil profoundly affect habits and attitudes. Many of my veiled female students have largely become silent note-takers, are increasingly timid and seem less inclined to ask questions or take part in discussions. They lack the confidence of a young university student.
While social conservatism does not necessarily lead to violent extremism, it does shorten the distance. The socially conservative are more easily convinced that Muslims are being demonised by the rest of the world. The real problem, they say, is the plight of the Palestinians, the decadent and discriminatory West, the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Kashmir issue, the Bush doctrine – the list runs on. They vehemently deny that those committing terrorist acts are Muslims, and if presented with incontrovertible evidence, say it is a mere reaction to oppression.
The immediate future does not appear hopeful: increasing numbers of mullahs are creating cults around themselves and seizing control of the minds of worshippers. In the tribal areas, a string of new Islamist leaders have suddenly emerged: Baitullah Mehsud, Maulana Fazlullah and Mangal Bagh. Poverty, deprivation, lack of justice and extreme differences of wealth provide the perfect environment for these demagogues to recruit people to their cause. Their gruesome acts of terror are still being perceived by large numbers of Pakistanis merely as a war against imperialist America. This could not be further from the truth.
In the long term, we will have to see how the larger political battle works out between those Pakistanis who want an Islamic theocratic state and those who want a modern Islamic republic. It may yet be possible to roll back those Islamist laws and institutions that have corroded Pakistani society for over 30 years and to defeat its hate-driven holy warriors. There is no chance of instant success; perhaps things may have to get worse before they get better. But, in the long term, I am convinced that the forces of irrationality will cancel themselves out because they act at random whereas reason pulls only in one direction. History leads us to believe that reason will triumph over unreason, and the evolution of the humans into a higher and better species will continue. Using ways that we cannot currently anticipate, they will somehow overcome their primal impulses of territoriality, tribalism, religiosity and nationalism. But, for now, this must be just a matter of faith.
The author teaches physics at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.
http://www.newsline.com.pk/NewsJan2009/cover2jan2009.htm
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For Pak kids, 'J' is for jihad
16 Jan 2009, 0110 hrs IST, PTI
ISLAMABAD: Thousands of Pakistani schoolgoing children are growing up learning that the Urdu equivalent of the letter A stands for Allah, B for
'bandook' (gun) and J for jihad.
Though not officially prescribed for pre-schoolers, books printed by Iqra Publishers are being used in several regular schools and madrasas across Pakistan.
The three examples of Allah, 'bandook' and jihad are not the only ones which sound like a "blueprint for a religious fascist state". The Urdu letter for the T sound stands for 'takrao' (collide), K for 'khunjar' (dagger), H for 'hijab' (veil) and Z for 'zunoob' (sins) - which includes watching television, playing musical instruments and flying kites.
According to the National Bureau of Curriculum and Textbooks, Class 5 children are expected to "acknowledge and identify forces that may be working against Pakistan", "make speeches on jihad and shahadat (martyrdom)", "understand Hindu-Muslim differences and the resultant need for Pakistan", "India's evil designs about Pakistan" and "demonstrate by actions a belief in the fear of Allah", said a report in Newsline magazine.
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India, Pak aren't neighbours; they are worlds apart
MJ Akbar
18 Jan 2009, 0043 hrs IST,
1947 divided us, but did not separate us. We still met, through family and media. Separation came with war in 1965, instigated by fantasists like General Ayub Khan and Z A Bhutto. It extinguished the flickering embers of trust. Walls of regulations were raised to block knowledge, and then vision. If you do not see a neighbour he is not a neighbour. There are no neighbours in the huge apartment blocks of Mumbai, only adjacent numbers.
The middle class Indian's true neighbour is America, sharing culture, language, consumerism, celebrity-worship and an insatiable desire for upward mobility. He knows more about the intricate processes that make Obama president than it does about the hop, skip and jump that Zardari used to acquire the same title.
India and Pakistan share a past but not a present; the future is vulnerable to imagined realities. Those with goodwill sell notions of excessive, even emotional hospitality. Those with ill will, the preponderant majority, provoke images of demonic horror. The young Pakistani men sent to Mumbai on a killing spree were fed on lies salted with evil; they had no independent reality check.
For four decades an investment in ignorance has nurtured an incremental interest in hatred. Pakistan has become a breeding ground for permanent war against India. Indians have developed a deep aversion for Pakistan. If a poll were taken in India asking whether Pakistan should be relocated in Latin America, the answer would be an unanimous yes.
Neighbours do not need to be permanent friends. France and Germany fought each other with a deadly bitterness that was once synonymous with Europe, but there was always individual, social and intellectual discourse between the two. Neighbours do not need to be equals. The US and Britain have been the best of neighbours since 1918, dining and hunting together. They have replaced each other as Emperor of Most of the World Worth Ruling, and the relationship has survived the trauma of self-appraisal. Neighbours may not share the same language, but they must know how to communicate, to understand what the other is doing, and why. Peace is impossible without understanding. The fog of ignorance only induces conflict through the illusion of victory. Ironically, the real deception is that the deceiver never knows how much he has deceived himself.
Knowledge of the other is impossible without free flow of media.
Newspapers and television stations may be terrible, but they are not terrorists. They may occasionally bore you to death, but they do not actually kill anyone. Indians and Pakistanis can see CNN at the flick of a finger but not each other's channels. So what if media sometimes gets hysterical: it never takes too long for hysterics to make fools of themselves. Sadly, hysteria can also influence policy, so it is important to know what the other is ranting about. Moreover, information cannot really be kept in solitary confinement; it always dribbles out as misinformation. It makes sense to offer it as information.
I saw the January 10 issue of Pakistan's most important English newspaper, Dawn, purely by accident. Page 1 had a report from Lahore about five low-intensity explosions that ripped through five theatres. This was the work of the same fundamentalist minds that sent terrorists to India; their enemy was not just India, but any sign of modernity in Pakistan. No one accused these bombers of being RAW agents.
From Kohat came a story of heavily-armed Sunnis attacking a Shia procession with rockets. Five died. Communal riots do not necessarily need men of different faiths.
The edit page had a brilliant piece by Shandana Khan Mohmand. It asked Pakistan to get real, and acknowledge that terrorist organizations were sustained by popular funds. It also noted, calmly, that "Pakistan needs to accept a very harsh reality - it is not India's equal."
Far from being banned, Dawn should be made compulsory reading in India.
The United States and the Soviet Union also blocked information during their Cold War and paid good money to mislead. But distance reduced flashpoints to a minimum. India and Pakistan have become enemies cursed by a common frontier.
The ground has been frozen on the frontier into a glacier, but the air is still free, albeit polluted. If we want to clear the air - if - we have no option except to use that inconsistent broom called media.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/The_Siege_Within/India_Pak_arent_neighbours_they_are_worlds_apart/articleshow/3995349.cms
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Explaining away terror
Vir Sanghvi, Hindustan Times
January 17, 2009
Are you as fed up as I am by attempts to explain away the Mumbai attacks? Ever since the attacks occurred, the Western press has informed its readers of the terrible condition of India’s Muslims and suggested that minority frustration led to the terrorism.
Islamabad made a futile attempt to disown Kasab before being shown up by Pakistan’s own media. Within Pakistan, it is now fashionable to argue that there must have been extensive local involvement and that the attacks were an essentially indigenous operation. And now, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has claimed that the world has double standards. Why go on and on about the Mumbai attacks when so little is said about innocent children dying in Gaza, etc. etc.?
Some things need to be said clearly. First of all, the attacks were not carried out by India’s Muslims. They were carried out by trained terrorists from Pakistan. Secondly, even if it is true that Indian Muslims have been involved in terrorism, it does not follow that they have been forced to turn to violence because of the hostility of India’s Hindu majority. Thirdly, there are no parallels at all between Gaza and Mumbai, and the attempt to draw them reveals the hollowness of Pakistan’s position.
Let’s start with the identity of the attackers. Does anyone seriously doubt that they were Pakistanis? Islamabad made a futile attempt to disown Kasab before being shown up by Pakistan’s own media. Despite a certain amount of double-talk (including the sacking of the National Security Advisor for owning up to Kasab), the official position of the government of Pakistan, as expressed by Information Minister Sherry Rehman, is that Kasab is in fact a Pakistani.
Once we accept that Kasab is who he says he is — a young man from Faridkot, brainwashed and trained by Pakistani jihadi elements — many other things also follow. Clearly, there are outfits active in Pakistan that pick up people like Kasab, train them in mayhem and then export them around the world. The extent of the jihadi brainwashing can be gauged from a statement that Kasab’s father made to the Pakistani media. He said his son left home after quarrelling with him. Young Kasab had wanted his father to give him money to buy new clothes for Id. When the old man refused, his son stormed out of the house.
How much must a hot-headed youth who was prepared to abandon his family over a set of new clothes been brainwashed to reach the stage where he was ready to give up all worldly possessions, and even his own life, in the pursuit of jihad?
That gives us some idea of the strength of the jihadi machine in Pakistan. Young boys are picked up and encouraged to give up their lives for the cause. They receive military training — judging by the expertise the terrorists demonstrated in Mumbai. And they have access to sophisticated arms.
You can argue that all this tells us something about the condition of Pakistani Muslims. But it says nothing about the state of Indian Muslims. So, all attempts to link the Mumbai attacks to the so-called ‘anger of India’s Muslim minority’ are no more than lazy, knee-jerk journalism.
Secondly, let’s accept that even if there was no real Indian involvement in the Mumbai attacks, there have been other cases where the terrorism has been home-grown. So, yes, some Indian Muslims have turned to terrorism.
But there are many kinds of terrorism and violence. The kind we are used to is the variety that uses assassinations and attacks on civilian targets in pursuit of a political goal. Such as, say, Al Fatah or the Sikh militants of the 80s.
The distinguishing characteristic of 21st Century jihadi violence is that, unlike much of what has gone before, it has no clear political aim. When Osama bin Laden sent the planes into the twin towers, he did not think that America would collapse as a result. The British-born Pakistani, who carried out the London bombings did not think that Tony Blair would step down because of their actions.
The new kind of jihadi terrorism is random. It seeks to do no more than inflict pain and suffering on those who are identified as enemies of Islam. And it has found adherents all the way from England to Indonesia.
In this situation, it is not realistic to expect that India, with the world’s second largest Muslim population, will entirely escape this trend. Even if 0.1 per cent of India’s Muslims catch the jihadi bug, the number of potential jihadis could run into lakhs.
Fortunately, we have seen nothing on that scale. Even the Intelligence Bureau’s own estimates limit the numbers of jihadis and their sympathisers at a few thousand. In the circumstances, we have been luckier than any other country, luckier certainly than Britain, where jihadi sympathisers form a far higher proportion of the Muslim population.
Nor does it make any sense to claim that the reason we have some indigenous Muslim terrorists is because they are discriminated against by Hindus.
If that is so, then what about Britain? And what about Muslim majority countries that are the actual breeding grounds of jihad? Surely, nobody is claiming that Muslims face discrimination in countries where they are the majority?
Nobody disputes that India’s Muslims face discrimination. Nor do I deny that they are under-represented in government, in the top echelons in industry and in the police. I concede, too, that they have less access to education than they should.
But two points are worth making. The first is that even in Muslim majority countries, education remains a problem. In last Sunday’s Times of India, M.J. Akbar provided some interesting statistics. There are only 500-odd universities in the Muslim world. India has nearly 8,500. Literacy in the developed world is 90 per cent as against 40 per cent in the Muslim world. High-tech goods and services constitute only 0.90 per cent of Pakistan’s exports. They add up to 68 per cent of Singapore’s exports. Azim Premji, one of India’s high-tech gurus, is a Muslim — no Pakistani has reached that level.
Secondly, as long as we continue to make a link between so-called grievances and terrorism, we will never successfully fight the terrorists. Pakistan wants to have it both ways. It says that political violence in India comes from disaffected Muslims. But it argues that Pakistan is also a victim of terror.
Why do Pakistanis try and kill their own President? Is it because they are discriminated against? Clearly not. Jihad has nothing to do with grievances, or with any kind of political objective. And that is as true of India as it is of Pakistan.
I’ve always said that Pakistan is the greatest enemy of Indian Muslims, shedding crocodile tears over their fate and trying to forge a bogus pan-Islamic unity. Its response to the Mumbai attacks has once again demonstrated this.
When Pakistani politicians go on TV and say that the terror strikes were indigenous, they are — in effect — saying that Indian Muslims are terrorists, something that no responsible Indian politician would ever consider saying.
And when the likes of Gilani compare the Bombay attacks to the Gaza operation, they are playing a dangerous game, by seeking to forge some pan-Islamic sense of victimhood.
Pakistan’s basic problem is that it is a country based on nothing more than religion. But religion has not proved strong enough to hold it together (as Bangladesh’s secession demonstrated), or to provide a basis for democracy. And now, religion has come back to haunt Pakistan in the form of jihad.
The Pakistanis think they are being clever by manipulating the jihadis into attacking India. But ultimately, jihad always backfires on those who sponsored it. That is the lesson Pakistan is learning the hard way.
We, in democratic, secular India, on the other hand, may have our own problems. But our society is not built on religion or torn apart by religious violence.
In the short run, this may leave us at the mercy of a ruthless neighbour. But in long run, it will ensure we flourish, while Pakistan slides deeper and deeper into chaos.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=ViewsSectionPage&id=6e16ba65-2bab-4dbe-80e1-c809b7e89ba3&MatchID1=4879&TeamID1=1&TeamID2=3&MatchType1=2&SeriesID1=1231&PrimaryID=4879&Headline=Explaining+away+terror
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US will not redress Mumbai for us
By Kanwal Sibal
www.mailtoday.in
INDIA has been a victim of state- sponsored terrorism by Pakistan for years. The United States too has been targeted for long by international terrorism with a Pakistani connection in many instances. Despite the obvious community of interest between them to end Pakistan’s terror links, India and the US have not been able to forge a common understanding of the problem, much less develop a common strategy to deal with it.
At the core of US reluctance to address Pakistan’s terrorist affiliations frontally has been its longstanding policy of balancing India and Pakistan and maintaining political “ even- handedness” between the two. Artificially equating countries so different in physical size, population, economic potential and political values inherently meant a pro- Pakistan bias. Parity in approach distorted realities in Pakistan’s favour and resulted in flawed US policies in the sub- continent. The US linked our demands for pressure on Pakistan on terrorism to a “compensating” point of pressure on us to satisfy Pakistan.
Accordingly, it pressured India on human rights in J& K, alongside its muted cautioning of Pakistan on terrorism.
Epicentre
An unambiguous recognition of Pakistan’s complicity in terrorism would have compelled the US, politically and legally, to cease tolerating Pakistan’s conduct and impose sanctions.
To fudge the issue, it adopted the posture that Pakistan’s terrorist onslaught against India was an extension of the Kashmir problem and India’s failure to adequately address the grievances of its Muslim minority. Such violence therefore fell outside the category of “ international” terrorism, the target of US action globally. This contradicted the broader US position, developed to politically shield Israel against Palestinian terrorism, that no cause, political, religious, ideological or economic, justified recourse to terrorism. Moreover, if India’s mishandling of Kashmir justified jihadi terrorism against it, did US policies in Palestine and elsewhere in the Islamic world then justify terrorism directed against it? In recent years the epicentre of international terrorism has moved into the Pakistan/ Afghanistan borderlands.
Our geographical proximity to it has not led to greater practical US receptivity to the enhanced terrorist danger we face as crucial US dependence on Pakistan to deal with increased US vulnerabilities in Afghanistan has off- set it. Pakistan has garnered almost $ 10 billion in assistance from the US in recent years, much of it military. Another $ 15 billion is in the offing, with a military component. Under the cover of acquiring greater capability to combat terrorism, the Pakistan military is strengthening itself against India with US help. President Bush has for years invariably applauded Pakistan’s strong contribution to the global combat against terrorism, rebuffing Indian complaints, even as he, otherwise, de- hyphenated India and Pakistan on the nuclear front.
The crux of the problem is that while India sees Pakistan as an adversary, the US does not. US policies towards Pakistan will reflect this difference in posture, and will be grounded in its own larger regional interests, whether or not congruent with ours. Our respective attitudes to Pakistan’s involvement in terrorism cannot be the same, even if the US chafes at Pakistan’s behaviour at times. We see a malevolent Pakistan using terrorism against us as an instrument of state policy. The jihadi organizations participate not only to provide official deniability, but also to further the agenda of dismembering India that Pakistan cannot openly espouse officially. Pakistan has no such destructive agenda against the US at the governmental level. It cooperates with the US in fighting Al- Qaida elements straddling its border areas, but, for longterm strategic reasons, withholds full support in combating the Taliban forces targeting the international forces in Afghanistan from its soil.
The US values Pakistani support, stinted though it is, because it is indispensable to its combat in Afghanistan, even as it continues to prod Pakistan to do more to suppress the activity of extremist groups across its western frontier. US frustration at Pakistan’s ambivalent response surfaces publicly at times in official statements and press briefings, but their import is limited for us.
Interest
The US has dealt pragmatically with Pakistani footprints in some terrorist attacks against US targets, blaming rogue elements or non- state actors for them rather than the government.
Even in instances where the evidence of involvement of state agencies in terrorist attacks against Indian targets has surfaced, as in the case of the blasting of our embassy in Kabul, the US has sought to shield the Pakistan government from responsibility. When India blames Pakistan for terrorism, the US tries to exculpate its government, blaming rogue elements within the system or extremist groups outside the control of the authorities. The outgoing US Ambassador has indirectly chided the Prime Minister for accusing state agencies in Pakistan for Mumbai. Terrorist attacks against General Musharraf for doing its bidding against the Al- Qaida gave the US additional reason to propagate the thesis that Pakistan itself, like India, was a victim of jihadi terrorism, a line that we short- sightedly adopted later. The quantum of cooperation the US gets from Pakistan on terrorism, added to all the other ways that Pakistan is important to US interests — its geo- strategic location bordering India, China, Iran and Central Asia, its diplomatic weight as a major Islamic country, its possession of nuclear weapons- means that the US— Pakistan relationship will continue to pose challenges to us even as our own ties with the US improve. Pakistan has mastered the art of extracting unmerited benefits from its US relationship through a combination of strategic services and strategic blackmail.
Expectation
In this background, our post- Mumbai policy of relying almost exclusively on the US to deliver satisfaction to us is perplexing. Past experience and an objective assessment of various elements of the current situation go against the assumptions underlying this policy. Our expectations from an outgoing US Administration seem unrealistically high. Can we really expect them, in their dying days, to drastically alter course on Pakistan simply because the Mumbai attack took place? More so when President- elect Obama has repeatedly spoken of a more robust Afghanistan policy based on increased pressure on Pakistan to perform on the western front and increased pressure on India on Kashmir to ease the situation for Pakistan on its eastern flank — a continuation of the old policy of developing parallel points of pressure on both countries in order to maintain political even- handedness. Mumbai may have been traumatic for us, but for the US and others it is another bloody blip on the terror screen. The argument that because six Americans were killed, the US will extract justice from Pakistan overlooks the loss of many more American lives to terrorist attacks in Afghanistan mounted from the Pakistani soil and US inability to cow down the Pakistani establishment.
Pakistan Premier Geelani’s gall and insensitivity in questioning the fuss being made about Mumbai shows the hard- headed assessment Pakistan has made about the limits of US and Indian pressure on it. Pakistan knows that India, lacking the stomach to take hard decisions, has chosen the soft option of outsourcing the problem to the US, which gives cushion to Pakistan as the US will perforce place those Indians who perished at the hands of Pakistanis in Mumbai within the cold calculus of wider US- Pakistan relations. Alas! (The author is a former foreign secretary)
URL: http://www.newageislam.com/controlpanel/AddArticles.aspx?Article_ID=1129