Nasir Khusraw was an Ismaili preacher, scholar, and Persian poet. However, it is also a fact that his travelogue has been more popular than his religious, literary, and worldly writings. In one of his travels to Mecca and Egypt, he writes that while he was staying with a cobbler in the bazaar of Khorasan to repair his shoes, a crowd began to gather in one part of the market.
There was noise, and most of the people started running towards it. The cobbler also stopped working and ran to the same place. Khusraw waited. When the cobbler came back a while later, he had a piece of fresh meat in his hand while the blood was dripping from the meat.
When the Persian poet inquired, Cobbler proudly replied that it was Nasir Khusraw’s disciple who was caught by the Muslims. People gathered and killed the man with the intention of reward and Islamic spirit, his body was dismembered. Intending to prove his faith and blessings in the court of Allah Almighty, he was also able to get this piece of the student’s body. Nasir writes, “I kept thanking God in my heart that he did not know that Nasir Khusraw himself is also present here. Otherwise, if this is the condition of my student, what would have been the consequences for me?”
Like the people of other religions, Muslims also have a history of killing and lynching in the name of religion. Over time, Islamic Jurisprudents legalized orthodoxy and the so-called blasphemy law. Many Pakistanis and Muslims of this age consider things like Blasphemy law and implementation of Sharia a reaction towards imperialism while history tells us that facts are different.
Abbasid Caliph Haroon Ur Rasheed once questioned Jurisprudents why the Taghlib tribe wasn’t killed when Caliph Umar Bin Khatab had ordered them to make their future generations Muslims and the specific tribe hadn’t kept the promise. Jurisprudents said the punishment can’t be awarded as the caliphs after Umar hadn’t emphasized this punishment.
In the 11th century, Imam Ghazali punished many free-thinkers and philosophers on the charges of apostasy and blasphemy. Future empires used his theorization to punish anyone who was deemed a threat to the Orthodoxy. Almost all the schools of thought and sects of Islam agree that the punishment of blasphemy is death. Moreover, if someone rejects Islam for atheism or any other religion, Sharia has no order except death penality for this apostate. If you tell even African villagers that we will kill you if you leave our religion after accepting it, how many of them are supposed to pronounce Kalma e Tayyiba? 200 years ago, Muslims would have either killed or enslaved such a village even if they won’t agree to turn Muslims.
In the Sub-Continent, Islamic religious clerics had ordered the king of the time to kill all the Hindus and other infidels who weren’t willing to turn Muslims. In the era of Akbar, Non-Muslims were forgiven Jizya, a tax that was specified for the Non-Muslims living in an Islamic country. Akbar introduced his religion that was quite soft and acceptable for all religions. Religious clerics opposed these reforms and challenged the Mughal kings.
When the Mughal empire was so weakened that any chance of its revival looked like the dream of a madman, Shah Wali Ullah invited Afghan King to rule over Sub-Continent because, in Shah’s view, his monarchy was better than the rule of a Non-Muslim. In Islamic jurisprudence, if a Non-Muslim rules an Islamic country, it can’t be considered to be an Islamic country anymore. Perhaps, therefore, it is in the constitution of Pakistan that a Non-Muslim can’t become the President or Prime Minister of the state. You would never like such a law if you were a born citizen of the country but the law stops you from becoming the Cheif Executive of your motherland.
The movement of Pakistan was a religious movement as it used the slogan of Islam. Therefore, all the religious clerics believed that there would be the true implementation of the Sharia laws as Jinnah had already declared that Muslims wanted Pakistan to practice Islam with its true spirit. In 1949, Objectives Resolution was passed by the National Assembly while the country was declared to be the Islamic Republic in the constitution. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto required the support of Abu’Ala Maududi to pass the constitution so he had to compromise on a lot of things with him. Maududi considered it a great achievement of him and Jamat e Islami. In his view, they had changed the course of history by turning Pakistan into the Islamic Republic.
It was Zulfi Bhutto’s government when Ahmadis were declared Non-Muslims and they were banned from performing any of their religious activities. Ahmadis were killed by Sunnis and Shias in many parts of the country and these incidents helped Qadianis find asylums in Europe and their office in London. In 2016, when Pakistan hanged Mumtaz Qadri who had killed Governor Punjab Salman Taseer five years ago, many Islamists took to the streets in the favour of the former. Next year, in 2017, the same people killed Mashal Khan in Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan. The young man was speaking against his university administration and conservative groups. He was accused of blasphemy but there were no shreds of evidence in favour of the arguments of the mob. A lot of people were arrested but you can punish individuals or individuals, not mobs.
For the last 4 to 5 years, Tehreek e Labbaik Pakistan is a reality of the politics and religious movements of Pakistan. The state’s inability to counter them and other terrorist organizations like TTP and ISIS is another truth. The state can punish some people, but it can’t open its guns on its public. In the case of TLP, there were thousands of people on the streets, and there are millions who support their cause. Recently when Priyantha Kuamara was lynched by a factory mob in Sialkot, it was chanting the slogans of TLP. It is impossible to write everything about the weaknesses of the state and the threat laying in this country in the form of religious fundamentalism, but people can now understand why the Sialkot factory’s mob killed Priyantha Kumara, and why plenty of such incidents will take place in the future as well. The issue is in the political interpretation of our religion.
The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect The Asian Mirror’s editorial stance.
