[Reader-list] On Lal Masjid, Islamabad

[Ajmal Kamal]

By Ajmal Kamal

The happenings at the Lal Masjid at Islamabad have been reminding Pakistani
commentators of the 1984 saga of the Golden Temple at Amritsar. But apart
from the obvious parallels, the history of the Lal Masjid-Madrassa complex
gives brings to fore some significant trends and distortions in the
Pakistani society. One of the most striking fact is the spread of huge
masjid-madrassa complexes which were simply not there thirty years ago.

The traditional madrassa used to be a neighbourhood level institution,
typically attached to the local mosque. Both the madrassa and the mosque was
supported by the Auqaf deprtment and the local community, which had a high
degree of knowledge and control over what went on there. The size of the
masjid-madrassa building was also in line with the size of the neighbourhood
houses and provided modest accommodation to the small staff comprising the
imam and the mo'ezzin.

The new kind of masjid-madrassas typically have huge, imposing buildings,
with teams of armed guards manning the main gates. It has a large mosque,
and the full-fledged seminary with boarding and lodging facilities for
students, madrassa offices and a spacious and luxurious living quarters for
the imam and his usually large family. The members of the family treat the
whole complex of buildings as family property. Since the masjid-madrassa has
its own sources of funding (usually located abroad), it is in no way
dependent on the community around it, and as a result the community has no
knowledge of or control over what goes on inside. The resendents of the
sector G-6 in Islamabad, for instance, did not know that there are bunkers
and stockpiles of arms inside Lal Masjid. The history of the mosque is
illustrative of the relatively new trends in the country.

It was the first Pak army chief turned president Ayub Khan who moved the
capital from Karachi to first Rawalpindi (the northern command centre in the
British times as against Poona which was the centre for Southern India) and
then built Islamabad as the new capital. In the planning of the new city a
plot of 500 sq. yds. was reserved for the city's main Jama Masjid (in
addition to smaller mosques in each sector). Mulla Abdullah (the father of
what is being called these days the pair of "Lal Ghazis") was appointed as
the Imam of the Masjid owned by the government's Auqaf department.

Abdullah shot to prominence during the 1977 movement against Bhutto, which
ended with the takeover by yet another military ruler Gen Zia. The 1977-1988
was a period of rapid growth both for the dictator and the mullah who had
become one of Zia's favourites. Abdullah was very active when a fundamental
change was taking place in the local institution of madrassa in Pakistan.
With his active involvement many plots of land lying vacant in the capital
were encroached upon and turned into mosques, the first step in the process
of further encroachment which would result in the construction of a
masjid-madrassa complex like the one currently being fought for.

As for his own little Lal Masjid (LM), it had grown to 14 times its initial
size by the time Abdullah's patron-in-chief was killed in the 1988 air
crash. The adjoining public land had been converted into a huge madrassa,
Hafsa, for girl students while another plot of similar size located a couple
of km from LM houses boys' seminary, Faridiya. The LM complex included the
well-equipped living quarters for the Imam's family members who inherited
the property when Abdullah was killed in a shootout. His elder son, Aziz,
became head of Faridiya and his wife Umme Hassan took over the charge of
Hafsa.

The students living and studying in the seminary constitute one of the
sources of power for the masjid-madrassa establishment. The teaching and
indoctrination makes them ideological slaves and militant training turns
them into a local militia which could be used as the masters wish. It is
usual to bring them out on the streets against the latest outrage of the
west or any negative policy of the country's government.

The masjid-madrassa establishment acts as the intermediary for the charity
and funds received from different sources and its intended recipients, the
students or the cadre, with each one spending a decade of his or her life
under their strict control. The families of the students are either too poor
and intimidated to interfere or they are staunch supporters of the
madrassa's ideological and political stand.

Another group in LM's case, there is an added element comprising the widowed
women and orphaned children because of the 2005 earthquake who have been
housed inside the huge LM complex using the large charity funds that the LM
establishment received. And these women and children form the most
vulnerable group, with no family members waiting anxiously outside while the
bloody clash goes on, which is providing the human shield to those holed up
inside motivated by the militant jihadi ideology.

(Written on 6 July 2007, before the final operation at Lal Masjid. Published
in DNA, Mumbai, 8 July 2007)

-- 
Ajmal Kamal
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