"Pakistan was NOT created for Islam, but for"

[maruf]

This was an article I had been meaning to post.

Col. Jafri confuses the understanding of what an Islaamic State is. Can an Islaamic State allow other than Islaam in its rulings and systems? In order to perform Ijtihad, must the individual satisfy certain requirements such as knowledge of Arabic, Qur'an, Sunnah, Reality, Tafsir, etc.? If ijtihad was allowed to be dictated by the ignorant whims, it would be Democracy not Islaam. What is he talking about? When he talks about Pakistan was created for social-economic problems and not religion. Is not Islaam a comprehensive Deen that solves the economic and social problems when implemented. History will tell us that the Hindus came to Islaam because it provided social justice something that the Hindu system denied to many due to caste system. If a Muslim denies another Muslim due to color, gender, race, occupation, this is not just a social injustice, this is a religious issue that he will called to account by Allah on the Day of Judgment. Islaam does not separate life from Allah and his laws. If it did it would not be Islaamic.

Indeed the founders as he said, never established Pakistan for Islaam. Al Hamdulillah that this is admitted. What the Ummah needs and is looking for is the Khilafah State that will tear down the borders in the Ummah unite it,and provide justice and enlightenment, something you do not hear about in Pakistan today. Col. Jafri, what country is advanced today in the Muslim world without Islaam? For Muslims are oppressed and poor all over our lands as a result of not living under Islaam holistically.


Any comments are welcome.

was-salaam

Ma'ruf




Islamic Pakistan



Saturday June 05, 2004 (0454 PST)
Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)


www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=66919

The Objectives Resolution passed by the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in March, 1949, was made a substantive part of the Constitution of Pakistan by P.O (Presidential Order) .No.14 of 1985, Art.2 and Sch.item 2 (with effect from March 2, 1985). It apart from having many highly laudable, far reaching and significantly democratic clauses has the following article as well:

Wherein the Muslims shall be enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with the teachings and requirements of Islam as set out in the Holy Quran and the Sunnah; which has been grossly misconstrued and has somewhat changed the complexion of the type of the constitution and consequently the type of the government that should govern the country. Though it has been many a time amply clarified that, “No law repugnant to Qura’n and Sunnah will be incorporated by the parliament”, yet it stays short of satisfying the religious parties’ leaders (fundamentalists and obscurantist) who insist that, “Only Qura’n and Sunnah will be implemented in Pakistan”. Not only, that on the top of it they also insist upon their interpretation of the Qura’nic injunctions and Sunnah on discussable matters. They invariably, come up with the argument that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and for the enforcement of Islamic Shariat.

An effort is, therefore, made here to give the correct perspective for the creation of Pakistan and what kind of Islamic values and socio-economic systems its founding fathers had visualised.

Pakistan was NOT created for Islam, but for the Muslims of the Sub-continent. Islam was never in danger in the pre-partitioned India. As a matter of fact Islam was (and probably still is) in Deoband, Breilley, Lucknow (for the Shia) and Qadian (for Ahmedis). Akora, Okara, Mansoora, Karachi, Satellite Town Rawalpindi, Rabwah (Chanab Nagar), not any one of them has not been able to attain the stature of their pre-partitioned alma-maters.

It was for the improvement of the socio-economic condition of the Muslims of India more than their religious need that Pakistan was created. Iqbal wrote to reluctant Quaid in 1937, reluctant to return to India to lead the Muslims, that ,”The problem of bread is becoming more and more acute The Muslim has begun to feel that he has been going down and down during the last 200 years. ------ ------- The question therefore is: how is it possible to solve the problem of Muslim poverty? ---- ---- If you do not come back the Muslims of India will be deprived even of the single morsel that they have now”.Muslim emancipation needed a social democratic order in India offering equal opportunities to all which was not possible in Brahmanic cast ridden society of India. He wrote, ”It is clear to my mind that if Hinduism accepts social democracy it must necessarily cease to be Hinduism”. Iqbal convinced Quaid that such an emancipation was only possible in a free and separate State or States for the Muslims of India, where they will not face domination by the Hindu in every field.

A socio-political movement had to be launched and Muslims had to be given a separate identity of a nation. The Two Nation theory was born and Islam was its platform. In 1941, the Quaid told the students of the Punjab;

“Can’t you see that a Muslim, when he converted more than a thousand years ago, according to Hindu religion and philosophy, he became a Malechaa (untouchable) and the Hindus ceased to have anything to do with him socially, religiously and culturally or in any other way? ----- ----- Can you possibly compare this with that nonsensical talk that mere change of faith is no ground for a demand for Pakistan? Can’t you see the fundamental difference?”<br>

[maruf]

Part II

Slogans like “Pakistan ka matlab kia? La ilaha illilah”. “Lay kay rahaingain Pakistan, Butt kay rahega Hindustan”, etc. were more to identify Muslims’ culture and identity as a separate nation demanding a separate country and to counter the Hinduistic Band-e-Matram of the Akhand Bharat than a demand for an orthodox Islamic country.

Had the Pakistan movement any religious overtones, then how could almost all Ulema oppose it, or call its leader Kafir-e-Azam? It is yet another matter that most of them chose to stay behind and did not migrate to the ‘Land of the Pure’ till after quite some time of its inception?

I do not recollect any of the Muslim League political gatherings, Executive Committee meetings or other functions commencing their proceedings with the recitation from the holy Qura’n or even a Na’at or a Hamd by a Maulvi or Maulana. It was always an appropriate poem befitting the occasion read out by a political worker. There was no display of religiosity in the religious sense any where during the Pakistan movement and yet the Islam and the Muslim nation hood was its political plank and platform.

Once Pakistan achieved the Quaid in his very first address of 11 August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly said,

”From here on Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense but in the political sense. We are all Pakistanis first and then Muslims and Hindus”.

Nothing could be more unambiguous about Quaid’s vision of Pakistan. It wasn’t that Quaid was against Islam in any way. Far from it. He had on many an occasion said categorically that Pakistan will be governed in accordance with the injunctions of Islam and Qura’n. Speaking at a broadcast speech from All India Radio Bombay on 13 November 1939, he said:-

“All social regeneration and political freedom must finally depend on something that has a deeper meaning in life. And that, if you will allow me to say so, is Islam and Islamic spirit --- --- In the pursuit of truth and cultivation of beliefs we should be guided by our RATIONAL (capitals mine) interpretation of the Qura’n and our devotion to truth is single minded, we shall in our own measure, achieve our goal.”<br>
Similarly replying to a correspondent’s question in 1946 at New Delhi, as to what type of the constitution Pakistan will have? The Quaid had replied, ”I cannot say as to what type of the constitution Pakistan will have, as it is a matter for the future Constituent Assembly of Pakistan to decide, but we have our 1400 year old constitution – the Qura’n with us to draw from”.

Now, Quaid was no doubt largely influenced by the thought of Allama Iqbal, who first conceived the idea of separate Muslim state(s) as the only political solution of the tangle in India. Analysing the problems facing Islam in the modern times, he also re-defined the true basis of a resurgent Islam in the modern world. Being an ardent believer in Ijtehad , he gave the dynamic solution to the problem of interpretation of Islam in the present age by observing;

“The teaching of the Qura’n that each generation, guided and unhampered by the work of its predecessors, should be permitted to solve its own problems.”<br>
And to solve the problems, solutions to which were not clearly defined by Qura’n or Sunnah, Iqbal leans heavily upon Ijma – collective opinion. Ijma not necessarily by the Ulema, the scholars and the jurists only but by the common people also. This obviously refers to the Qura’nic injunction of “amruhum shoora bainahum”. He thus infers that the modern parliaments and legislatures can take place of the bodies competent to express the collective will of the people in deciding matters of immediate import.

Quaid, too, like Iqbal believed that Qura’n could be a complete source of inspiration for the Muslims to help them guide their life according to the true spirit of Islam. However, Qura’n was to be interpreted rationally and scientifically which could only be done by the scholars, jurists and enlightened moderates. Quaid distinctly differentiated between an Islamic Social democracy and the Theocracy and stated categorically that Pakistan will not be a theocratic state where the lives of the people could be entrusted to a few ‘custodians’ of religion who could impose their own brand of Islam on the masses. Islam to him, as universally accepted, is a complete code of life. A religious, social, moral, military, commercial, judicial, criminal and penal code; it regulates everything from the religious ceremonies and rituals to those of daily life; from the salvation of the soul to the health of the body; from the rights of all those to the duties of all to the individuals; from morality to crime; from punishment here to reward here-after. Islam is not merely confined to few spiritual tenets and doctrines and rituals and ceremonies. It is a complete code regulating the entire Muslim society, every department of life, collectively and individually.

This is all what Pakistan was created for. A country to be ruled in accordance with the Islamic injunctions for the amelioration of the economically and socially down trodden Muslims of pre-partitioned India, and not to save Islam or impose Islam of a specific brand and breed, embroiling the masses in the trivialities such as; how long should one’s beard be; or at what height the Paincha of the shalwar should be; or could a woman work in an office along with the male workers? Islam is much above such petty matters. And Quaid wanted Islam of all ages, an Islam interpreted in the light of modern, scientific and technological age. An Islam emancipating the masses and opening to them vistas of the modern and fruitful advancement they could make and play their important role among the comity of the nations.


End.