POLITICAL SYSTEM: PART I , Books and Documents, NewAgeIslam.com

Books and Documents

POLITICAL SYSTEM: PART I

by Allama Ghulam Ahmad Parwez

Islam A Challenge to Religion

POLITICAL SYSTEM: PART I

By Allama Ghulam Ahmad Parwez

MAN-MADE SYSTEM

I. Primitive Age

ANTHROPOLOGY does not support the view that man ever lived a solitary life like the tiger or the lion. He was weak and defenceless against the powerful beasts that roamed about him. He could survive only through some form of group life. A band of men could survive under conditions in which a single individual had no chance, so early men naturally lived in groups. Some form of social Organisation is necessary for group life. Men can co-operate with each other only at the cost of their egoistic impulses. The dictates of group life invade individual liberty. The first social ties came from blood relationship. The groups were almost overgrown families. The authority exercised by the father passed into the hands of the patriarch, the head of the tribe. Custom regulated the conduct of the members, of this group. Primitive man believed that the customs of his tribe were unchangeable and inviolable. Patriarchal authority and rigid customs protected the social order and were an effective check to all kinds of anti-social activities in which individuals might be tempted to engage. However, a new authority enlarged in the group—this was the priest. His supremacy was founded on his expert knowledge of the religious ritual, and of correct behaviour in the temple and on solemn occasions. Ritual had gradually become very complex, and the patriarch had to place it in the charge of a professional man. Superstitious, a factor to be reckoned with in primitive life, lent powerful support to the authority of the priest. In a changing world no form of social organisation can be permanent.

http://newageislam.com/political-system--part-i-by-allama-ghulam-ahmad-parwez/books-and-documents/d/1834

Afghan Pashtun tribes and could go a long way towards making

Marshall Plan for FATA

Success in the Pakistani tribal belt can offer an incentive to the Afghan Pashtun tribes and could go a long way towards making the Afghanistan effort a success

By Shaukat Qadir

However, it never ceases to amaze me that so many of our own analysts, even Pashtun tribesmen, accept, even support these conclusions; people who should really know better, accept conclusions far divorced from ground realities and the social psyche of the tribals. Any effort that frontally assaults centuries-old traditions and customs of these tribes is doomed to failure at the outset.

These are people bred in a harsh, sparsely populated region, who live by their traditional code; a land with very little water, where the wealthy have large land holdings and some agriculture, but earn mostly from governmental grants and smuggling, while the poor generally breed a handful of goats and need every available hand to survive; and where women have never enjoyed any rights.

The concept of male superiority is as old as evolution and for people seeped in traditions and who are burning or bombing girls’ schools in their area, any direct attack on their customs and traditions through education will be resisted tooth and nail. It might sound blasphemous to the educated mind, but the truth is that it will take a generation of education for gender issues to be debated and, at least another generation before they can be genuinely implemented. Even in the UK, the pillar of democracy, women’s suffrage was established as recently as 1933.

http://newageislam.com/marshall-plan-for-fata/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/395