Daily Times Thursday, October 14, 2010
COMMENT: Takfir: the ideology of hate —Dr Mohammad Taqi
An ordinary Salafi may believe in the non-violent call to convert to their version of Islam but the Salafi jihadists are proponents of violent jihad. The doctrinal differences that set the jihadist group apart include practising takfir, i.e. labelling other Muslims as infidels or apostates
“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that is pretty important” — Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
While some in the Pakistani media seem to have bought into Pervez Musharraf’s Facebook flight of fantasy and were focused on his ‘Desperate Housewives’-style, primetime soap performances, the peddlers of the ideology of hate struck again.
There were two major attacks: one against yet another symbol of South Asian religious diversity — the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine in Karachi — and the other before that, which killed the Islamic scholar and practising psychiatrist, Dr Farooq Khan. The assassination of Dr Khan is, by far, the more significant and more ominous of the two because he was a person who had dedicated his life to preserve and promote pluralist thought, which shrines like Shah Ghazi’s have epitomised for centuries.
However, the news media, especially the television networks, covered these two stories for just about 24 hours and after that moved on with the preferred national pastime of Zardari-bashing and betting on his exit date. But, given the open jihadist tirades of certain anchors, anti-Ahmediyya vitriol of a particular televangelist and outlets that air the interviews of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, this is hardly a surprise.
Last week, Ms Gulmina Bilal Ahmad, in her article ‘Historical distortions’ (Daily Times, October 8, 2010), has written eloquently about Dr Farooq, his thoughts and work and has alluded to those who are out to counter this thought. I did not know Dr Farooq except from a conversation we had at the humble yet dignified guest room of the late Professor Saeedullah Qazi, the then Dean of Sheikh Zayed Islamic Centre, Peshawar. His words are rather vague in my mind, but it is hard to forget his soft-spoken mannerism. What Farooq has done in his death — and Ms Ahmad has taken up in her column — is to open the debate about a virulent ideology hell-bent on eliminating anyone who does not conform to it.
In recent times, the biggest manifestation of this ideology has been the suicide bombings or the so-called ‘martyrdom missions’. While we focus on suicide bombings as the dastardly acts that have killed thousands, we have been somewhat remiss in assessing the role of the doctrine providing the religious-political and psycho-social ‘rationale’ of this foremost tactic in the global Salafi jihad.
The Salafi jihadists form an extreme fringe, even of the Wahhabiist-Salafist spectrum itself. An ordinary Salafi may believe in the non-violent call to convert to their version of Islam, but the Salafi jihadists are proponents of violent jihad. The doctrinal differences that set the jihadist group apart include practising takfir, i.e. labelling other Muslims as infidels or apostates (kafir) and concluding, therefore, that violence against the latter is permissible (halal or mubaah), condoning acts of violence against civilians and the use of suicide missions. Violent jihad is held at par with the basic tenets of Islam by the Salafi jihadists. The most explicit endorsement of killing Muslim civilians came from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who said in a 2005 audiotape message: “The killing of a number of Muslims whom it is forbidden to kill is a grave evil. However, it is permissible to commit this evil — indeed, it is even required — in order to ward off a greater evil, the evil of suspending jihad.”
Dr Farooq was not the first Islamic scholar to have differed with the hateful ideology of takfir and to have paid with his life for this dissent. Ironically, the grandfather of al Qaeda, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, was killed on November 24, 1989 in Peshawar, in a bomb attack by his own cohorts, for opposing takfir.
The late chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Syed Maududi, had also written against invoking takfir in religio-political polemics. I was told that one cannot find his books in Saudi Arabia and I did find this to be true, as far as the shops around the Holy Ka’aba and the Masjid-e-Nabvi go. This, perhaps, has something to do with his very favourable opinion of Imam Abu Hanifah in doctrinal matters, a tolerant view of the Shiite and a general condemnation of takfir.
Indeed, the key pan-Islamists such as Muhammad Abduhu and Rashid Rida — like Maududi — had tried a selective application of takfir against the relatively newer sects in Islam. They feared that indiscriminate use of the label would lead to endless strife (fitna) within the larger Muslim community and advised their followers that wrongly accusing another Muslim of being an infidel is a major sin in Islam.
However, even this self-serving and rather meek condemnation of takfir is not acceptable to the ardent takfiris who are quick to condemn even Maududi as a kafir. The jihadists and their apologists remain blind to the fact that these attacks, ostensibly against foreign occupiers, have killed more Muslims than any other group, have divided the country deeply and have reinforced the belief that the jihadists consider common Muslims as expendable. Moreover, suicide attacks — though not as common — did take place in Egypt, Algeria and Afghanistan even when there was no foreign occupier.
This suggests that, while challenging the appeal of the takfiri ideology is a crucial component of the counter-terrorism strategy, a scholarly discourse by itself is an insufficient antidote. What is needed is a holistic, multi-pronged approach to stymie the takfiri groups. Civilian law-enforcement officers have made great strides in understanding takfiri terrorism in Pakistan and have apprehended many of its leaders. However, no high profile leader has ever been put on trial or any madrassah shut down — let alone levelled — limiting the deterrence value of counter-terrorism operations.
The trial of the far-right extremist, anti-Islam Dutch parliamentarian, Geert Wilders, resumed yesterday in Amsterdam. He is facing charges of inciting hatred against Muslims. This has some of his friends on the US side of the pond, up in arms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali went on bewailing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the Netherlands, a 21st century democracy, has put free speech on trial. What has actually been put on trial, however, is hate speech.
The Dutch law may not make Geert Wilders love Muslims, but chances are that it will prevent him from inciting hate and potential hate crimes. One may woefully concede that for something like this to happen in Pakistan, many Dr Farooq Khans may be lynched first.
The world's patience with Pakistan is running thin and the establishment's gimmicks will come under increasing scrutiny, followed potentially by retribution. The ISAF action in the Kurram Agency then was not a surprise“Son, do you not know who I am?” said in Urdu the man with a henna-dyed beard and the Holy Quran on his lap. Reading the perplexed expression on the young man’s face, he then answered his own question, “I am Jalaluddin Haqqani — Commander Haqqani.”
It was 1994 and this young sub-inspector of the Punjab Police had stopped a convoy of double-cabin vehicles on Peshawar Road, just outside Rawalpindi. With tens of armed jihadists seated in the trucks, the officer who led a small posse faced the dilemma of whether to insist on the checking that he had originally planned or not. After a short standoff, his problem was solved by a wireless message from ‘higher authorities’ to clear the cavalcade without inspection! The officer later confided that he still did not know who Haqqani was.
Mr Haqqani has since retired from active jihad on account of health reasons and his son Sirajuddin Haqqani has been carrying the mantle from their state-provided sanctuary in North Waziristan. It was multiple conversations of an ISI colonel with Sirajuddin that were tapped by the US in 2008 and led to a surge in the drone attacks ordered by George Bush.
In South Waziristan, the Uzbek terrorist ‘Sheikh’ Tohir Yuldeshev — abbreviated STY in Pakistani intelligence circles — operated with impunity for years before being taken out in a drone attack last year. Scores of Uzbek terrorists led by their Sheikh had remained functioning across FATA and as far as Buner last year.
Hardly forgotten is the 55th Arab Brigade comprising Arab-Afghans and operating from its bases straddling the Durand Line, which fought alongside the Taliban years after the last Soviet had left Afghanistan and six years before any Americans had appeared there. The Afghan-Arab ringleaders like Ayman al-Zawahiri still remain in FATA.
Just last month, the Afghan Taliban — entrenched with their Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) cohorts in the Kurram Agency for three years — were attacking the Shalozan Tangi tribes in the upper Kurram, northwest of Parachinar, at the foothills of Koh-e-Sufaid. The Khaiwas village fell to them days before Eid-ul-Fitr. When the Tangi tribesmen mounted a counter-offensive to retake Khaiwas after Eid, they were bombed by the Kurram militia and army helicopters. Eighty-six Tangi tribesmen died — eight were killed by army gunships.
The Pakistani establishment never bothered for a moment about ‘sovereignty’ when they were pawning away large swaths of FATA to these terror networks, which have harboured and unleashed terrorists that have killed thousands of innocent Pakistanis throughout the country.
I had noted last week that the world’s patience with Pakistan is running thin and the establishment’s gimmicks will come under increasing scrutiny, followed potentially by retribution. The ISAF action in the Kurram Agency then was not a surprise. Pakistan has abandoned its responsibility as a neutral state to prevent its territory from being used against other countries.
In Kurram’s case, the Taliban have been slaughtering Pakistani citizens for almost three years now but the state did not budge. It was the same group of Taliban that had engaged the ISAF forces last weekend. Given the strategic geography, ISAF could no longer ignore Pakistani inaction. NATO has apologised for the deaths of three Pakistani soldiers, and rightly so. It gains nothing tactically by killing foot soldiers. As General Musharraf’s confessions to Der Spiegel reiterate, it is the top brass that continues to nurture the terrorists and has failed to understand that using the jihadist proxies is no longer acceptable to the world at large.
It is only a matter of time before a large-scale terror attack on western and US targets succeeds. One lapse on the part of the counter-terrorism forces and we will have a repeat of 9/11, complete with its aftermath. And all indications are that such an attack would originate from the ‘sovereign’ Pakistani territory. As details about the German nationals killed in the drone attack in North Waziristan earlier this week emerge, the Pakistani state’s credibility as an entity willing or able to tackle the problem within its borders has hit rock bottom.
So what did — what my friend Kamran Shafi calls — the ‘deep state’ do? First, it has ratcheted up the brinkmanship by stopping the NATO supply line and then allowing orchestrated attacks on the idling trucks. This is reminiscent of the November 1979 burning down of the US embassy, while General Ziaul Haq went on with his gingerly bicycle ride in Rawalpindi. The mobs torched the embassy and killed diplomats in the heart of Islamabad, while the security agencies stood by. The idea was to teach the Yanks a lesson so they would do business with the general on his terms.
NATO’s immediate plans will not be affected by several days of supply stoppage and if the same were to continue, it would be forced to take up the expensive but available alternative routes. Any sane government, whose cash reserves are dangerously low and fuel reserves even lower, would not have embarked upon an adventure like this to become an international pariah.
But then again, thinking things through has not been the forte of those used to pushing Pakistan into geopolitical dead ends. And, as always, after painting itself into a corner, the establishment has now turned to the civilians to save its skin. Civilian leaders of all political hues are being coerced to join in the sovereignty chorus. Remember Mian Nawaz Sharif’s frantic dash to see Bill Clinton on July 4, 1999? Roping in the PPP or the ANP leaders like Asfandyar Khan to sing hymns of sovereignty is no different.
When Nadir Shah invaded India, he embarked upon an elephant ride. Seated on the elephant he told the mahout: “Anaanash ba dastam bideh” (hand over the reins to me). The mahout responded that it was he who drove the elephant. Nadir Shah declined the ride, one that he did not control himself.
Despite debacles at home, the international credibility of the Pakistani civilian leadership is still better than that of their khaki counterparts. There is no declared status of forces agreement between the US and Pakistan about the operations inside Pakistan. The civilian leaders would be ill advised to take ownership of an undocumented enterprise, over which they never had any control. They must refuse to be used as human shields. The world can see through the smokescreen of sovereignty; Pakistani politicians should too.
The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com