27 May 2010, NewAgeIslam.Com
Faisal Shahzad’s e-mail to the
“peaceful ummah” as published in the New York Times
(http://documents.nytimes.com/e-mail-from-faisal-shahzad#text/p1) leaves no
doubt about Shahzad’s state of mind. It was his association with Islamic
organisations in the West that transformed him into a global jihadist in the
classical Qutbian mould. His language, his denunciation of the West and of
hypocritical governments in Pakistan, his appeal to “Khilafah” had all the
fingerprints of a campus or a local Islamic body, possibly one infiltrated by
the Hizb ut-Tahrir and/or global activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). --
Yasser
Latif Hamdani
By
Yasser Latif Hamdani
Pakistan will have to undo the Maududian
infiltration of its state and society. It means liberating our campuses of
organisations like the IJT. It means purging the state and its machinery of
elements that are furthering the Jamaat’s hate-filled
agenda
My article last week on Faisal Shahzad’s
radicalisation elicited unprecedented response on the issue of Islamic
organisations operating in the US, thereby necessitating this sequel. There are
things that need to be said before it is all too
late.
Faisal Shahzad’s e-mail to the “peaceful ummah”
as published in the New York Times
(http://documents.nytimes.com/e-mail-from-faisal-shahzad#text/p1) leaves no
doubt about Shahzad’s state of mind. It was his association with Islamic
organisations in the West that transformed him into a global jihadist in the
classical Qutbian mould. His language, his denunciation of the West and of
hypocritical governments in Pakistan, his appeal to “Khilafah” had all the
fingerprints of a campus or a local Islamic body, possibly one infiltrated by
the Hizb ut-Tahrir and/or global activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI).
All this however should not mean that we should
shut ourselves off from the reality of religious extremism in our own neck of
the woods. The lashkars and the mujahideen Pakistan’s cynical and wretched
establishment prepared against the Soviets, with American blessing, are
obviously one part of the overall story. Religious extremism in Pakistan has a
sordid history, one of the state’s constant retreat in the face of religious
parties — the same religious parties that had opposed the very creation of
Pakistan — and horrible compromises with extremist and fascist elements.
To recap, Islamic religious organisations have
been part of the political landscape of the subcontinent ever since Indian
independence leader Mahatma Gandhi brought them into politics under the guise of
the Islamist ‘Khilafat Movement’. It bears repeating that when Gandhi first
encouraged Islamic religious clerics for his own anti-imperialist goals, the
lone dissenting voice of reason was that of Pakistan’s founding father Jinnah
who told Gandhi not to bring “unwholesome elements into public life”. Yet it is
Pakistan — ironically — that has come to be associated with the same unwholesome
elements today.
After partition, religious extremism in Pakistan
reared its ugly head when Majlis-e-Ahrar, a vociferously anti-Pakistan Islamic
party during pre-partition days and an erstwhile ally of Gandhi, in 1953 started
its campaign of terror against a hapless sectarian minority with the help of
another witchdoctor of dubious history, i.e. Maulana Maududi, who till then had
become completely irrelevant after his opposition to Jinnah and the Muslim
League. To the credit of Pakistan’s judiciary, it swiftly handed down a death
sentence for the person who is singlehandedly responsible in providing the
ideological foundations for not just the Islamisation in Pakistan but the global
Islamic jihad.
Nevertheless the Maulana’s sentence was commuted
and it is Pakistan that has suffered as a result. Subsequent to commutation, his
book, Islam and Communism, was picked up, reprinted and distributed allegedly by
CIA’s JI desk all over the Muslim world. The idea was to use Maududian extremism
to stiffen resistance against Soviet expansionism. It is therefore ironic that
the JI, Maulana Maududi’s enduring creature, which in 1977 received funds from
quarters in the US to overthrow the increasingly pro-Soviet Bhutto, is today the
bastion of anti-Americanism. Wonders never cease.
The fountainhead of religious extremism in our
country is Mansoora, the headquarters of the JI, in Lahore. Unless Pakistan and
the US seriously take a look at the activities of the JI, any meaningful
progress in stopping extremism feeding this terror will be impossible. The JI
actively works on Pakistan’s largest university campuses to spread its doctrine
of hate and bigotry not just against other countries such as the US but
religious and sectarian minorities in Pakistan. Its student wing, the Islami
Jamiat-i-Talaba (IJT) is modelled after the National Socialist Party. The JI
seeks to infiltrate the army, the air force and the civil bureaucracy to weaken
the state’s resolve against extremism in Pakistan. Key members of the JI sit in
departments such as education introduce nothing but poison in Pakistan’s young
minds.
The JI’s mouthpiece, the Daily Ummat, is full of
(fifth) columnists who advocate not just extremism but open violence against
minorities. Maududi has inspired a generation of Islamists globally. His
exegesis of the Holy Quran is widely read and followed by the Salafi Islamic
order, predominantly found in the West and the main source of terrorism in the
name of religion. Along with Sayyid Qutb of Egypt, Maududi remains the most
widely read Islamist ideologue for relatively more affluent Muslims in the west.
Within Pakistan too, the target audience is the middle class. It is, therefore,
not uncommon to find inter-city bus services advertising during their in-coach
entertainment the publications containing “sagacity and wisdom that defeated
Communism, Secularism and Capitalism, which flowed from the pen of Sayyid Qutb
and Sayyid Maududi” (direct translation). In the triumphalist Islamist
narrative, Qutb and Maududi are prophets without parallel.
Pakistan — if it is serious about tackling
terrorism — will also have to undo the Maududian infiltration of its state and
society. It means liberating our campuses of organisations like the IJT. It
means purging the state and its machinery of elements that are furthering the
Jamaat’s hate-filled agenda instead of doing their job. The time has come to
take stock of the damage this body of conspiratorial and bigoted men has done
repeatedly to the body politic of Pakistan.
It must be remembered, for those who still care
about the reasons why we made this country in the first place, that Jinnah’s
Pakistan and Maududi’s Pakistan are mutually exclusive. Pakistan must decide
here and now: do we wish to make Pakistan a prosperous and democratic state,
which is at peace home and abroad ala Jinnah? Or do we wish to make Pakistan a
violent dystopia run by maniacs and religious extremists with twisted ideas
about religion ala Maududi?
The former route shall save us a lot of
heartbreak and humiliation. The latter will ultimately lead to our
destruction.
Yasser Latif Hamdani is a lawyer based in
Islamabad. He can be reached at
yasser.hamdani@gmail.com
Source: The Daily Times,
Pakistan
9:49 PM
Sultan Shahin
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