Zahir
Ebrahim | Project
Humanbeingsfirst.org
Sunday,
February 24, 2013 11:02 pm | Last Updated February 27, 2013
01:00 pm
In
reaction to the ongoing targeted Shia
killings in Pakistan as the new “kafirs” (see Some
Context for Shia Killings in Pakistan
and The
New SAVAK in Pakistan),
while researching the role of fanatical Sunni sects in condemning the
Qadianis previously as the original
"kafir" in 1973-74 under ZA Bhutto's
Islamization drive to neutralize the American sponsored religious
right, I stumbled upon the following gem. Watch this video clip, at
time 1m 55 sec:
Chicken
coming home to roost for the Shias of Pakistan?
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=RSFVxga9iJs#t=1m55s]
Caption
Quoting the late Pakistani Shia scholar, Allama Irfan Haider Abidi,
(translation is mine): “All
the Muslims in the world would not have been able to declare Qadianis
kafir if 'Ali Waale' were not present!”
(Allama Irfan Haider Abidi, Qadiyani Aur
Sunni Main Farq?, 1990s, time
1m 55s, translated by Zahir
Ebrahim)
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=EowV-izVLb4#t=43m55s]
Caption
Quoting the late Pakistani Shia scholar, Allama Irfan
Haider Abidi, why the Shia pulpit is
protected from officially being declared 'kafir' in Pakistan; which
perhaps explains the psychology behind why it was easy for the 'Ali
Waale' (video above) to team up with the fanatic Sunni
pulpits against the Qadianis' political disenfranchisement
orchestrated by ZA Bhutto in 1974 –– when they could have
just as easily recused themselves from the
political charade even if no one rationally dare declare Shias
'kafir' (translation is mine):
“I
am speaking from both Shia and Sunni point of view. In Islam, there
is no concept of majority and minority. In Islam only non-Muslims are
called minority. (Some instructions to the listeners to pay close
attention and to stop sloganeering) In Islam the Muslims are always
in the majority (by definition); even if among 200 non-Muslims there
are only 2 homes (that are Muslim). And minority is 'scheduled
caste'; the non-Muslims are called the minorities. And responsible
citizens are sitting here. Our Mr. Shah sahib participated in the
formation of the 1973 Constitution, and he knows better; he is also
an advocate, and he is very experienced; he has studied
constitutional law. Our Mr. Qizalbash sahib
is also sitting here; and he also knows. And other law experts must
also be present here.
The
1973 Constitution had clearly written the words “non-Muslim
minorities” in reference to Personal Law. Meaning, those
minority communities which are not Muslim. Personal Law was only for
them. We don't except the Western terminology of Personal Law and
Public Law.
The
1973 Constitution made it clear-cut that
Personal Law will only be for minorities. After that, during the
military dictatorship rule when the 1973
Constitution was disfigured, this clause
was removed. And then every (Muslim) sect
was given freedom to do whatever they want under Personal Law. Every
sect does not need freedom in Personal Law to do whatever they want.
I am not going to bury my dead by asking the government first. It is
my right.
Pakistan's
1973 Constitution was subverted and
disfigured through amendments during the
military era. Go pick up copies of the Constitution and examine it.
This reference to Section 227 that is often made; it was subverted,
disfigured. Where other aspects of the Constitution
have been disfigured, this has also been disfigured.
Personal
Law is only for minorities. And the term "minorities" in
Islam is exclusively reserved for kafirs. Until such time that
someone does not declare us (shias) kafirs, we don't accept any
Personal Law. And there is no such brave person, 'mai ka lal', born
to any mother, who can dare declare those who follow Ali as 'kafir'.
I swear by God. (cheering).
Writing
on doors and walls nothing happens; just writing "kafir kafir",
dear listeners, nothing can happen.
Because, and this is our only main
advantage (or superiority), that no one can ever declare those who
say "ya Ali" to be 'kafir'.
And
the reason no one can declare that, is because we also say "la
illaha illallah", we also say "Muhammad-un rasool ullah",
and immediately after that we say "Ali-un vali ullah". And
after saying "Ali-un vali ullah", it becomes an automatic
announcement (a declaration of faith) that now no more messengers
will come, because now Ali's Imammate has commenced! (cheering) Are
you paying attention? Reflect again.
As
for declaring the Shia-an-e-haidar-e-karar 'kafir', friends, if you
ask me my personal opinion, I pray to Allah, someone should really
declare us 'kafir', just one time. By just someone's proclamation one
of course does not become 'kafir'. And a kafir declaring someone else
'kafir' cannot make the momin (Shia) 'kafir', obviously. (laughter,
sloganeering).
But
I would like to say at least this little thing, that God willing, it
should come into someone's mind to declare Shia-an-e-haidar-e-karar
'kafir'.
Remember,
it is from our beliefs that the existence of Pakistan is intimately
associated (or dependent). Pay attention, I am stating a very
important sentence. And this voice should be spread if the news
media representatives whom I had especially invited are
present here. My message should be spread, and very responsible
citizens are present here.
In
all their presence I am stating: it is with our beliefs and (our)
Islam that the future of the entire country is intertwined. I am
saying just try it – if we are declared 'kafir',
constitutionally, Pakistan's Resolution,
the 1940 Resolution, the 1945 Convention, the 1930 Allahabad
Convention (Sir Muhammad Iqbal's 1930 Presidential Address,
Allahabad, 29 December 1930), all these will automatically become
null and void!
The
entire conception of Pakistan will become null and void. Because,
if we are declared 'kafir', then the founder of Pakistan also becomes
'kafir'!” (Allama Irfan Haider
Abidi, 8th Muharram 1990 at Karachi, time
43m 55s to 49m 18s, translated
by Zahir Ebrahim)
When
a people are not very principled, when their rulers' and leaders'
politics is based on expeditious reasoning, and political expediency
is the foundation of rule of law, as it has been for the entire 65
year history of Pakistan, what goes around comes around. The fact,
according to the Shia scholar in the first video above, that the “Ali
Waale”, meaning the Shia scholars, participated in conferring
that epithet of official kafirdom upon another peoples, the
Qadianis, leaves the ongoing Shia killings today in the name of their
own kafirdom, with the tail wagging the dog. The logical
invincibility proclaimed in the second video not being all that
effective in protecting the ordinary Shia
peoples from the daily targeted wrath of the barbarians. Someone
evidently forgot to inform the murderous barbarians and their
manufacturers and handlers that the Shias are invincible!
If
there is substantive truth to this matter
of the Shia pulpit being instrumental in clinching the theological
argument for condemning another people to political
disenfranchisement, I hasten to reason with all fairness that before
the Shias (and the Sunnis who also will not escape being made victims
in similar numbers) can claim any sanctuary from these manufactured
barbarians, they must first apologize to
the Qadianis. All Muslim peoples of Pakistan must together endeavor
to collectively end this long beleaguered
minority's political dispossession in order to save their own
respective skin. So long as the Qadianis remain “kafir”
-- that precedent-setting fault-line among Islam's followers will
eventually be made to devour all Muslims.
For
each one of you, well, except for the few who are converts to Islam,
your religion is your inheritance, just as it is for me. There is
absolutely no merit in you being born a Shia,
or Sunni, or demerit in being born a Qadiani, and for that matter a
Dalit or any other. We were all born in our respective homes and
socialized into our worldviews, our faith, our beliefs, our loves,
and also our hates (see Islam
and Knowledge vs. Socialization).
Being condemned and dispossessed of political rights, marginalized
and killed, because of one's beliefs – that used to happen in
the Dark Ages in most parts of the world, and still happens in
Palestine today for the Palestinians under occupation. But why does
that still happen in Pakistan? It is easy to point to effects and
think them to be the cause. Cause and effect are two different
things. Blood-drenched sectarianism
is the symptom, like the ugly boil on the syphilis
ridden new bride's lip. What is the cause? The principal first cause
is the directionless-ness of the nation;
carved from blood and dispossession, never
forging an independent national destiny, and preferring
to continue as the newly freed but still emotionally dependent
slave of the massa.
We
don't even have a sensible understanding of what is likely obvious to
even intelligent first graders in the West. One is criminalized in a
civilized society only for one's acts of crime – and beliefs
are not a crime in a civilized society. Except, when it becomes
Orwellian; when even thought-crimes can be defined
by the fiat of law to carry the death penalty. In such a dystopian
society, no one is immune from being made kafir, terrorist,
or even classified as suffering from a psychiatric illness such as
the newly coined “oppositional defiant disorder”
and locked away for life --- once that cat of marginalizing a people
based on their beliefs is let out of the bag!
So
why were the Shia and Sunni Muslim public in Pakistan silent in 1974
when their respective scholars were condemning another minority to
kafirdom? When many good people remain silent to the travails
of others, the few bad people take over and screw each good people in
turn. Duh! It is for this reason that Solon, the ancient Athenian
law-giver, advocated for social responsibility as not just a moral
requirement, but a legal requirement. When asked which city he
thought was well-governed, Solon said: “That city where
those who have not been injured take up the cause of one who has, and
prosecute the case as earnestly as if the wrong had been done to
themselves.”
To
overcome that banality of evil has been the principal teaching of all
religions, but specifically Islam (see Islam:
Surah Al-Asr of the Holy Qur'an
and Path
Forward: Impacting Muslim Existence).
We turned that lofty religion
into a bunch of rituals, and my sect's is bigger than your sect's
childish rivalry among the few which continued to spread by way of
socialization into self-righteousness. Its natural culmination is the
barbarianism now being visited upon those
previously silent and too busy pursuing their own “Pakistani
Dream” – both in and out of the mosques – to give a
fck about anyone else's blood being shed. It isn't my blood, my
child, my wife, my brothers and sisters, my parents – phew.
Let's move on to the next channel see
what's playing.
What
share should we apportion to ourselves for our public apathy and
silence for this carnage that is now Pakistan? We hasten to blame our
national misery on the rampages of the pirates, on the greed of the
politicians, and on the emperor's armies and think-tanks playing the
new great game on the grand chessboard. What has been our tacit role
in rubber-stamping their rampages with our indifference, with our
abiding signatures, and with our quiet compliance?
Just
because you are a Shia, or a Sunni, or a Christian, or whatever other
minority peoples exist in Pakistan, and your erudite turban or
shalwar-kameez excretes poison for others,
especially when you are a majority, you don't have to go along with
your tribe “United We Stand”. Have the courage to instead
“United We Stand” with moral decency, with civic
mindedness, with fairness, with justice, diligently applying the
Golden Rule “do unto others as you
have others do unto you” to adjudicate upon any
and all matters; and today the Shia ass would not be in the line of
fire of these antediluvian manufactured
barbarians – because the Qadiani ass would also never have been
in that line of fire.
To
be effective in stopping this carnage for any one sect, the carnage
must stop for all citizens regardless of their sect and religion.
Given the state of narrow parochialism the mass Pakistani mind has
been reduced to today, only a firm separation of religion and state
with all citizens accorded the same rights and privileges
irrespective of religion; the adoption of the principle of amicable
co-existence derived from verse 5:48
of the Holy Qur'an as mandatory for all sects and religions accorded
recognition by the state (see Path
Forward: Impacting Muslim Existence);
and the elimination of religion identification from the Pakistani
national identity card and passport; remain the core national first
course of action before the country disintegrates completely. Many
people all across Pakistan have reached this conclusion of separation
of state and religion which all the political founders of Pakistan,
without exception, advocated, and the Muslim public who supported
them with their own blood, expected. If a referendum is taken today,
it should not surprise anyone that the overwhelming majority of the
ordinary Pakistani public even three generations later, despite the
national dysfunction, will also still agree with it.
The
problem is not [the lack of] abstract theory. It is the intertwining of political
will and the power nexus in Pakistan that is still entirely beholden
to the same white
man's burden now merely wearing the indirect
“liberal” garb of democracy instead of the iron fisted
one of direct colonial occupation. Here is the pertinent text of the
founder of beleaguered Pakistan, Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah's first
Presidential Address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, August
11, 1947. Excerpted from G. Allana, Pakistan Movement Historical
Documents, University of Karachi, 1969, pp. 407-411 (via source):
“[[7]]
I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that
spirit, and in course of time all these angularities of the majority
and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim
community -- because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans,
Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on, and among the Hindus you have
Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalees, Madrasis and so on --
will vanish. Indeed if you ask me, this has been the biggest
hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence,
and but for this we would have been free people long long ago. No
power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400 million
souls, in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it
had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any
length of time, but for this. Therefore, we must learn a lesson from
this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free
to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State
of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed -- that
has nothing to do with the business of the State. As you know,
history shows that in England conditions, some time ago, were much
worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and
the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States
in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed
against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those
days. We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination,
no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination
between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this
fundamental principle: that we are all citizens, and equal citizens,
of one State. The people of England in [the] course of time had to
face the realities of the situation, and had to discharge the
responsibilities and burdens placed upon them by the government of
their country; and they went through that fire step by step. Today,
you might say with justice that Roman Catholics and Protestants do
not exist; what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an equal
citizen of Great Britain, and they are all members of the Nation.
[[8]]
Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal, and you
will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus, and
Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense,
because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the
political sense as citizens of the State.
[[9]]
Well, gentlemen, I do not wish to take up any more of your time; and
thank you again for the honour you have done to me. I shall always be
guided by the principles of justice and fair play without any, as is
put in the political language, prejudice or ill-will; in other words,
partiality or favouritism. My guiding principle will be justice and
complete impartiality, and I am sure that with your support and
co-operation, I can look forward to Pakistan becoming one of the
greatest Nations of the world.” --- Muhammad Ali Jinnah's first
Presidential Address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, August
11, 1947.
Unfortunately,
to undo the Gordian knot of provincialism tied on Pakistani politics
since its very inception is gonna take more than a few wise
men, regurgitation of theory, and referendum; and isn't
that the truth!
There
are many lessons to be learnt from history, but the one that
continues to impress me is the fact that once a Gordian knot is tied
upon any matter, or any nation, a thousand wise men may not be able
to untie it. When Imam Ali "inherited" the caliphate due to
the people finally pleading with him to take up the reigns of the
Muslim nation after the third Muslim Caliph's assassination when a
Gordian knot had already been tied upon the rapidly emerging new
ruling-state that was reaching the shores of the Roman Empire, Persia
and India, even the singular “gate to the city of knowledge”
was unable to undo the civil wars that besieged his 4-1/2 years in
power.
Perhaps
the lack of the many wise men in Pakistan who can even begin to
tackle the Gordian knot tied upon the nation can be made up by every
ordinary man woman and child in Pakistan screaming NO to their own
banality of evil; they can stop being silent bystanders while
waiting for their turn to become the next victim of the barbarians –
both the pirate and the emperor; and stand up to have their presence
felt in society. What that means for the upcoming 2013 elections can
be read in Some
Context for Shia Killings in Pakistan.
Source
URL:
http://faith-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2013/02/role-of-shias-in-qadianis-kafirdom.html
Alternate
URL:
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2013/02/role-of-shias-in-qadianis-kafirdom.html
Mirror
URL:
http://bloghumanbeingsfirst.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/role-of-shias-in-qadianis-kafirdom-by-zahir-ebrahim/
What
Role did Shias Play in Condemning Qadianis to Kafirdom in Cahoots
with Sunni Scholars in 1974?
