[Reader-list] Reg: Set - 9

[Rakesh Iyer]

Article Theme: Terror in the nations: India and Pakistan

Source: Outlook

Link: http://outlookindia.com/article.aspx?266157

Date: 9th-16th July 2010

Article:

pakistan: terror
Just Who Is Not A Kafir?
The Islamic faultlines in the state widens with extremists attacking
minority sects
Amir Mir <http://outlookindia.com/peoplefnl.aspx?pid=4114&author=Amir+Mir>

*War On The Kafirs*

*The broad Sunni-Shia division does not explain all of it*

   - Most Sunnis adhere to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. Only 5 per
   cent of the country’s population belongs to the Ahle Hadith sect or Wahabis.
   - The Sunnis are subdivided into the Barelvi and Deobandi schools of
   thought
   - The Deobandis and Wahabis consider the Barelvis as kafir, because they
   visit the shrines of saints, offer prayers, believe music, poetry and dance
   can lead to god
   - Barelvis constitute 60 per cent of the population. Deobandis and
   Wahabis together account for 20 per cent
   - Another 15 per cent are Shias, again considered kafir and subjected to
   repeated attacks
   - Since 2000, the Sunni-Shia conflict has claimed 5,000 lives
   - Others considered kafir are the religious minorities—Christians,
   Ismailis, Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Ahmadias, etc, who account for 5 per cent
   of the population
   - So, 20 per cent of the population effectively considers the remaining
   80 per cent as kafir

***

When two suicide bombers exploded themselves in the shrine of the revered
Sufi saint Hazrat Data Ganj Baksh in Lahore, the ensuing devastation—in
which at least 50 people were killed and scores injured—rendered meaningless
the promise of Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah to the Constituent
Assembly on August 11, 1947. Jinnah had said, “You may belong to any
religion or caste or creed...that has nothing to do with the business of the
state. You are free, free to go to your temples; you are free to go to your
mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan.” These
stirring words were then perceived as an explicit assurance to the religious
minorities of their rights in a country where Muslims constitute over 95 per
cent of the population.

Six decades later, as Pakistan remains trapped in the vortex of violence,
even the Muslims are in desperate need of assurances such as Jinnah’s.
Mosques and shrines of saints are targeted regularly, votaries of different
Muslim sects are subjected to suicide bombings, and just about every mullah
seems to enjoy the right of declaring anyone who he thinks has deviated from
Islam an apostate, a non-Muslim, whose killing is religiously justifiable.
In the darkness enveloping Pakistan, it won’t be wrong to ask: who isn’t a
kafir or infidel, beyond even the religious minorities of Christians, Sikhs
and Hindus?

Shrapnel from every explosion strains the social fabric, tears its rich
tapestry, and undermines the traditional forms of devotion inherited over
generations. Take the twin suicide bombings of the Data Ganj Baksh shrine of
July 1, which has been blamed on the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) even
though it has vehemently denied its involvement. This Sufi shrine defines
the spirit of Lahore, which is often called Data ki nagri (Data’s abode).
Here lies buried Syed Abul Hassan Ali Hajvery, popularly known as Hazrat
Data Ganj Baksh, whose shrine is mostly visited by members of the Barelvi
sect of Sunni Muslims. The shrine, famous for mystical dancing by devotees,
is a Lahore landmark.

However, the adherents of the Deobandi school of thought, to which the
Taliban belongs, are opposed to the idea of Muslims visiting Sufi shrines
and offering prayers, a practice known as piri-faqiri. The Deobandis deem
piri-faqiri to be heretical, a gross violation of Islamic doctrine; ditto
mystical dancing. The Deobandis, therefore, consider the Barelvis as kafir
whose neck can be put to sword, no question asked.

A week before July 1, the TTP had sent a letter to the Data Ganj Baksh
administration threatening to attack the shrine, claiming its status was
equivalent to that of the Somnath temple in Gujarat, India. The symbolism
inherent in the comparison wasn’t lost—the Somnath temple had been
repeatedly raided by Sultan Mehmood Ghaznavi, ‘the idol destroyer’, who
believed his marauding attacks would sap the fighting spirit of the Hindus.
The attack on the Data Darbar was, similarly, aimed at demoralising the
Barelvis, besides striking at the root of Lahore’s religious and cultural
ethos. *The Daily Times* pointed out, “For 1,000 years, the city has been
sustained by the cultural openness and tolerance that Data gave us. For
1,000 years, the shrine has fed Lahore’s hungry, clothed its naked and given
shelter to the shelter-less. All that was brought to a halt when the night
jackals in straitjackets struck like the cowards they are. Pakistan’s
Islamic pluralism is now the target.”




“Labelling others infidel has become a preferred task of mullahs. The Quran
is wrongly used to disprove others’ faith.”



This isn’t the first time Barelvi Muslims have been targeted. On April 12,
2006, for instance, a Barelvi conference organised to celebrate the
perfectly orthodox occasion of Prophet Mohammed’s birthday at Nishtar Park,
Karachi, witnessed a suicide bombing that claimed 70 lives. Last year, the
Taliban attacked the shrine of the 17th century Sufi saint-poet, Rehman
Baba, who is said to have withdrawn from the world and promised his
followers that if they emulate him, they too could move towards a direct
experience of god. He also believed god could be reached through music,
poetry and dance. But then music and dance are unacceptable to the
Deobandis, and the Taliban extensively damaged the shrine of Rehman Baba
with explosives. Soon, they used rockets to ravage the mausoleum of Bahadar
Baba, and then directed their wrath against the 400-year-old shrine of
another Sufi saint, Abu Saeed Baba, both located near Peshawar.

Renowned Islamic scholar Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, a member of the Council of
Islamic Ideology (CII), which furnishes legal advice on Islamic issues to
the Pakistan government, laments, “Labelling others infidel and kafir has
become a preferred task of the mullahs. It’s clear that every sect considers
others heretical, kafirs and dwellers of hell. Even verses of the Quran are
wrongly used to disprove others’ faith and sects.”

In a way, a minority of Pakistan’s population has taken to declaring the
rest as kafir. Look at the figures—95 per cent of the Pakistani population
are Muslim, of which 85 per cent are Sunni and 15 per cent Shia. But for the
five per cent belonging to the Ahle Hadith (Wahabis), the Sunnis prescribe
to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. They are further subdivided into the
Barelvi and Deobandi schools. Most agree on the following composition of
Pakistan’s population—60 per cent Barelvis, 15 per cent Deobandis, 15 per
cent Shias, 5 per cent Ahle Hadith, and the remaining 5 per cent
constituting Ahmadis, Ismailis, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists,
Parsis, etc. This means only 20 per cent of Pakistanis (15 per cent of
Deobandis plus 5 per cent of Ahle Hadith) strictly consider the remaining 80
per cent as kafir, even willing to subject them to death and destruction.

Renowned Pakistani writer Khaled Ahmed points to the irony: “Within Sunni
Islam, the Deobandis and the Barelvis are not found anywhere outside India
and Pakistan. The creation of these two sects was one of the masterstrokes
of the Raj in its divide-and-rule policy.” He says the Deobandi school took
roots in India in 1866 as a reaction to the overthrow of Muslim rule by the
British. This school believes in a literalist interpretation of Islam, and
apart from Wahabis, considers all other sects as non-Muslim who must be
exterminated. “That’s why they work side by side, from politics to jehad,”
says Ahmed, adding that though the Barelvi school of thought is the dominant
jurisprudence in Pakistan, “it is not as well politically organised as the
Deobandi school.”

It was the Deobandi-Wahabi alliance, says Rehman, which pressured President
Gen Zia-ul-Haq to declare the Ahmadis as non-Muslims. At a stroke of the
pen, thus, a Muslim sect was clubbed with other religious minorities. Under
the Constitution, they can’t call themselves Muslim or even describe their
place of worship as a mosque. Wary of disclosing their identity publicly,
the Ahmadis were dragged into the spotlight following devastating attacks on
two of their mosques in Lahore that killed over a hundred people.

But ‘Muslim’ status doesn’t insulate even mainstream sects from murderous
attacks. Ask the Shias, whose Muharram procession in Karachi was bombed in
December 2009, killing 33. The Deobandis regard Shias as kafir, claiming
their devotion to the clerics and grant of divinely inspired status to them
as heretical. The history of Sunni-Shia conflict is as old as Islam, but
this has become increasingly bloody in the last decade—over 5,000 people
have been killed since 2000—because of the war in Afghanistan. Since Iran
had backed the Northern Alliance there, the Deobandis have taken to
retaliating against the sect in Pakistan. They also accuse the Shias of
assisting the Americans to invade Iraq.

Says historian Dr Mubarak Ali, “One consequence of the war in Afghanistan is
the fracturing of Pakistan’s religious patchwork quilt. Whereas once the
faultlines lay between the Shias and Sunnis, these have now spread to the
Barelvis and Deobandis, who are both Sunni.” Since the Barelvis are moderate
and against the Taliban, the Deobandis look upon them as the state’s
stooges, who as heretics should be put to death anyway, Ali argues.

Perhaps the complicity between the state and the Deobandis deterred the
latter from targeting the Barelvis till now. Lawyer and columnist Yasser
Latif Hamdani says, “There is this potent mixture of Pashtun nationalism and
Deobandi Islam. Somehow, there is something intrinsic to the very nature of
Deobandi doctrine which the Pakistani military establishment is promoting to
advance its so-called geostrategic agenda.” Yet, simultaneously, under US
pressure, the state had to crack down on the TTP, which, in pique, has taken
to wreaking vengeance on the hapless Barelvis.

As long as powerful sections in the establishment persist with their goal of
bringing the Pashtun Taliban back to power in Kabul, they will continue,
says columnist Imtiaz Alam, “digging the grave of a democratic Pakistan”.
Sectarianism and jehadi terrorism will be its consequent wages, he insists.
No doubt, the enraged people of Lahore took to the streets protesting
against the attack on the Data Darbar, but what’s of greater urgency is that
the state must do some really deep thinking.