MapleTV Talk with Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy - In response to Ms Tazeen Hassan’s Blog on Express.pk

No doubt Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy’s academic area is nuclear physics but his talk in Calgary and particular interview was about the role of civil society to bring alternate narrative to help Pakistani society to get out of growing extremism. Readers can watch his talk from following link). And the interview Ms. Tazeen is talking about is not yet released by Mr. Jamsheed Qureshi of MapleTV.

Extremism: Alternate Narrative - Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy

As I remember the format set by moderators of that session was - after anchor’s talk with guest - in second part audience supposed to ask questions. Regardless of that Ms. Tazeen interrupted discussion number of times. I guess labelling Dr. Hoodbhoy as ‘media darling’ and audience of that session as “pseudo liberals” is nothing but showing frustration and bashing. I was not expecting that low from her.

I meet first time with the author of this blog Ms. Tazeen Hassan during under question talk with Dr. Hoodbhoy in Calgary, Canada. I got impression that she is strong opinionated personality with open for discussion. After the recording, I had conversation with her and comprehended same issue with her as most of the followers of Islamism (political Islam) are struggling – and that is lack of comparative study of political and legal system lay down by traditional and radical Islamic clergy/scholars/authors. During her discussion, she was keep quoting one or two references from Quran in favor of respect for human life and when I brought the question of the rights of women, minorities, slavery and Jihad/Qatal in traditional and radical Islamic literature of Fiq and Tafseer, I got the answer that these are from illiterate Mullahs and then I asked what scholars we suppose to follow to understand real Islam and answer was read Quran. I remember giving her quotes from Quran, normally given by Taliban and other Islamist, in contrary to collective human wisdom of 21st century on Slavery and the rights of women and minorities (in this case none Muslims in Islamic state). I was glad to see that she was also not agreed on parts of these issues as those Islamist believe. No doubt this wave of terrorism and extremism in Muslim countries have strongest links with American foreign policies and proxy wars in the region but the justification and multiplication to accelerate the problem is coming from Islamist interpretations of scriptures. Jihadists are exploiting that with full strength, ignoring that side by persons like Ms. Tazeen is also a part of biggest problem.

One of her argument: Western civilization did lot of atrocities with indigenous aboriginals in North America and Australia also – I acknowledge and I asked does that give Muslims a justification for doing the same on the name of faith/Allah? Isn’t tragedy for brining this type of counter argument to justify atrocities committed by Taliban and ISIS type Islamist groups in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya etc? I ended my discussion with Ms. Tazeen with promise to having another session with her on these issues. InshaAllah one day we’ll sit and discuss again to clarify our point of view to resolve some of the questions that arise in our and in every Muslim’s mind.

In this blog in one side author is apologetic about Maulvi sb and in the same time giving her opinion that most of the Maulvis are ignorant they don’t know about Islam. The question is not rather Maulvi is ignorant or knowledgeable the issue is directly or indirectly clergy contributed significantly to spread extremism and violence in Muslim society and apologetic rhetoric like under question blog are also a part of problem. This is undeniable fact that most of the Maulvis in Pakistan are spreading hate and dividing humanity by exploiting scriptures. Criticizing Dr. Hoodbhoy or anybody is freedom of expression but I would suggest to build your argument based on facts not on emotions and labeling like ‘media darling’ ‘pseudo liberals’ etc. People like Dr Hoodbhoy are putting their lives in danger to set the narrative that may bring Pakistan back to normal and peaceful society and we should acknowledge them instead of wrongfully labeling them.

Regarding Maulvi’s power in society – I want to share two facts: in last 10 years Jihadi maulvis killed over 70,000 innocent Pakistanis in terrorist and sectarian violence, material losses are immeasurable. Most recently they besieged capital of the country for three weeks and beat up law enforcement personnel and in the end state went on knees to accept their demand, this is the power of ‘maulvi bechara’.

Regarding the issue of population without planning – I guess Ms. Tazeen forgot the legislation and efforts China did to control the population bomb and India is all together different story where large number of population is living under poverty without necessities of living. No doubt uncontrolled and unplanned population is biggest issue for all sectors of Pakistani society.

Asjad Bukhari, Canada

P.S. Link to Ms. Tazeen’s Blog:

Poem for Disappeared Bloggers - Asjad Bukhari

In Pakistan, a new brigade of activists is emerging from the waves of extremism and terrorism. These progressive and liberal activists are trying to set the narrative to combat extremism and keeping the debates about rationality, place of religion in the public domain, civil military relationship alive on social-media and significantly influenced public discourse in the last couple of years. This narrative is much needed for struggling state to encounter extremism. In January 2017 five of those activists / social media bloggers disappeared (kidnapped). Following Urdu poem, I wrote for them.

Sawali Utha Liay

Bhokon ka samnay sa niwalay utha liay

Pyason ka samnay sa piyalay utha liay

Karnay ko qatal koi na qatil ko jab mila

Kuch rahgeer bholay o bhalay utha liay

Roshni ko tergi mein rakhnay ka ha azam

Dil ko laga sawal tu swali utha liay

Ahlay qalam ka hath mein jab dekha hay qalam

Sab Oryanon nay hath mein bhalay utha liay

Asim, Waqas Haider ko khush hein utha kay aaj

Aawaz a haq uthanay hee walay utha liay

God and State: a dangerous mix – Asjad Bukhari

In these days in some of the Muslims dominating countries question about the relation between state and religion is burning issue. Some consider this as war of rhetoric between liberal VS fanatics. In reality in Muslim societies it is fundamental question of our time to decide the domain of religion - rather state can dominate the narrative for or against religion OR it is personal matter. For example if somebody is wearing hijab or growing beard or wearing any religious symbol or practicing any ritual or prayer as per his/her believe that individual should have free option without “big brothers” interference. Same goes with religiously motivated personal morality - as long the person is not breaking the law of land or not hurting or forcing others they should be allowed but state should not make the laws as per somebody’s religion or religious interpretations.

We need to understand that religion by its spirit is voluntarily scheme to setup morality, spirituality and social interaction between individual and society; it can’t be forced by power of government or by militant groups. If God’s plan was to send religious scriptures to force on people by power then he would be appointing kings/warriors and other dominating people as prophets.

Let’s go back to current situation in some of the Muslim countries.... due to variety of reason and predominantly global imperialistic agenda and regional proxies there was political vacuum in countries like Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and tribal areas of Pakistan..... and when religious ambitions and narrative become leading agenda in that vacuum then we saw atrocities and complete devastation by religious groups and that was as per their interpretation of Islam. If we are sincere with Muslim majority countries like Pakistan and its people then we have to oppose spreading religious narrative by power of state or by Jihadi militant groups. If state stays neutral about religion and don’t have any religion then state can treat every citizen equally. State should allow all citizens to practice their religion as long they don’t force on others or don’t break the law of the land.

Professor Abdullahi Ahmed an-Naim’s book “Islam and the secular state: negotiating the future of Sharia” is great reading on this debate.

This is the link of lecture by professor Abdullahi on the same topic:

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eor8H2CkpE8)

We should have this debate on all levels to resolve this conflicting point of mixing of religion and politics once and forever.

Dr. Tariq Ramadan – from Islamist to Reformist - Asjad Bukhari

Tariq Ramadan is prominent Islamic writer and professor of contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University.  He is from high profile religious family with excellent academic credentials. Founder of Muslim Brotherhood Hassan al Banna was his maternal grandfather. His father Said Ramadan was a prominent figure in the Muslim Brotherhood and went into exile during Gamal Abdul Nasser’s time from Egypt to Switzerland where Tariq was born.

As part of his Canadian tour 2017 organized by CJPME (Canadians for Justice and peace in Middle East) he delivered his talk in Calgary under the title “Creating Thriving Societies in Troubling Times” on 18^th January 2017.

Highlights of his talk:

One should not oppose humanity by using spirituality; Don’t accept what is unacceptable; Challenge your politicians as Canadian not as Muslim or some other ethnic or geographic identity;  Muslims should join mainstream politics, raise voice for all injustices whether it is for blacks or for aboriginals or any one; Raise your concern to your elected leaders and argue them not to support dictators and military rulers in other parts of the world; Don’t accept double standard, if human life is important in Europe or North America it should be important in other parts of the world as well. He criticise west for supporting Gulf States and completing ignoring their human rights records.

His talk was full of appealing sentences that would help multicultural society like Canada to come together. My focus was looking for his views about political Islam or in other words Islamism.  Then there were two relevant questions where he touched that:

Answering the question regarding apologetic behavior from Muslims after terror attacks, he said we should condemn those acts as it goes against the basics of Islam but we should put in perspective the motives and causes of those acts of terror as well. For me this sounds typical “but” and this answer would bring us again into apologetic narrative.   

I asked the question: In my view other then imperialistic agenda political Islam is another reason for the uprising and trouble in Muslim World, how important it is to encounter the narrative of political Islam and how we achieve that? He suggested regarding political Islam we have to be careful, we should not classify all of Islamists or political Islam under one list.  Some are reformists and some are legalist. Some want to change into Islamic system peacefully and some are violent. We have to differentiate them. With this answer I comprehend that in his view nothing wrong with political Islam as long the movement is peaceful. 

In my view this is the point where Muslim societies need clear vision to separate religion from power politics. Narrative from Islamists is: Islam is a complete system of morality, justice and governance, whose sharia laws and principles should be the sole basis of governance and everything else in life. Establishment of Islamic state is the ultimate goal of message of Islam.  Until this point every Islamist group is on the same page but when it comes to develop the module and implementing Sharia then every sect and school of thought has its own interpretation and every group is too charged then it is inevitable to avoid armed conflict. That is another debate rather that so called sharia law that allows slavery and too many other controversial things is applicable in this DNA age or not.

Since the Afghan jihad of 80s the destruction of Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq and parts of Pakistan made it very clear that using religion as political ideology is gateway to exploit religion - once you allow the exploitation of religion then nobody has full control on that. This is the most slippery road for societies.  In this regard it is important to recognise that the narrative created by the founders of Muslim Brotherhood and Jamat Islami of Pakistan made huge influence on Islamic insurgence and terrorist groups like Taliban, ISIL etc. Ayman Zawahiri was Muhammad Qutb’s direct student and he was the mentor of Osama bin Laden and other leading members of al-Qaeda and Taliban. Lines between violent and none violent Islamists is very thin and it is only a matter of opportunity and situation and all can jump into violent jihadi armies.

 Tariq Ramadan as Reformist:

In Tariq Ramadan’s writings and lectures one can see two different standpoints and prospects. One for Muslims living in the western world and other about Muslims world and political Islamic movements in that part of the world. For some critics it is double standard that is creating confusion and giving excuses for extremist Islamist groups to exploit Muslims for political and personal agendas. But in Tariq Ramadan’s point of view most of the issues involved religious texts that Muslims take seriously, so simple act to condemn would not change anything in Muslims societies but opening the debate on these issues can lead towards reforms in those rules.

In terms of interpretation of Islamic theology he is reformist. These are the significant areas of difference between his views to traditionalists: He rejects binary division of the world into the ‘house of Islam’ (dar al-Islam) and the ‘region of war’ (dar al-harb). He is against all forms of capital punishment but suggests that Muslim countries could remove such laws after wining popular narrative on this issue and without foreign pressures.  He sees hijab as an Islamic prescription, but he suggests it is against Islam to compel a woman to wear hijab. He is also tolerant about music. He condemns suicide bombing and maintain that terrorism is never justifiable, even though it can be understandable in terms of political resistance.

No doubt Tariq Ramadan is most influential reformist in today’s Islamic theology with large following around the globe.  I hope he realise that the problem with Islamists (political Islam) is: Once they take the power then these reformist ideologies will supersede with classic Shari law that is mostly based on 7th and 8th centuries tribal desert culture and it clearly contradicts in several areas with 21^st century’s basic human values. We witnessed this in Afghanistan of 90s and parts of Iraq and Syria. Separating power politics from religion is the only way to resolve this conflict. Make religion as personal matter for spirituality and morality and public law should made on secular ground.