The Fear of becoming Aafia Siddiqui...

Narrated Abdullah ibn Abbas,
One day he was riding behind Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) when he said, “Young man, if you are mindful of Allah, He will be mindful of you, and if you are mindful of Allah, you will find Him before you. When you ask for anything, ask it from Allah, and if you seek help, seek help of Allah. Know that if the people were to unite to do you some benefit, they could benefit you only with what Allah had recorded for you, and that if they were to unite to do you some injury, they could injure you only with what Allah had recorded for you. The pens are withdrawn (from writing Fate) and the pages are dry.” [Al-Tirmizi]

I, as an individual, fear or am told to fear, speaking for and participating in socio-political-religious causes today. The fear is that I might end up like Aafia Siddiqui too.

It comes to my mind the story of Fatima, an Iraqi girl. Fatima became a victim of rape, molestation and outrageous torture, along with twelve other unmarried girls, simply because they happened to be in Iraq when America decided to descend upon them, along with their army and Blackwater (which, by the way, has already entered Pakistan), to give them peace and freedom and security.

Fatima wrote out a letter from Jail Abu Gharaib, Baghdad, back in 2004, reporting this one incidence out of many. Many of us may have read it at that time, felt aggrieved but also thought…what a faraway world such kinds of happenings are…

It also comes to my mind about Bosnia, of back in the 1990’s. It was no religious fanatic state. There was no Osama bin Laden hidden in its mountains and no Taliban roaming around in its state. There women were liberals in skirts with no involvement with Al-Qaeda. Yet, here are a few reported incidents1 of what happened when the Serbs invaded them,
• The bellies of pregnant women were torn apart, their unborn babies ripped out and kittens sewn back into their bellies.
• A twelve-year-old girl was caught hold of and subjected to repetitive oral sex until her tonsils burst.
• Two girls were made nude and locked up in a cage placed in a public place. A placard was placed on the cage, ‘Free Sex’, and any passerby had the liberty to do so.

I wonder what the crime of all these women was…what had they done in line with what Aafia Siddiqui is supposed to have done?

I conclude that one must do the right thing, at the right time, while abiding by the governance laws as well as the Divine Laws and then trust Allah SWT for the outcome.

Please, speak and write for the wrong things that are happening in our country today and in the Muslim world and anywhere in the world for that matter. Visit www.musawemeen.org and find out how you can play a positive role in current affairs.

“The fact is that Allah never changes the condition of a people until they intend to change it themselves.” [The Holy Quran, Surah Al-Raad, Excerpt from Verse 11]


[1] Book: Bosnia ke Jihadi Maedanon mae

Colonial Pakistan

The 1800's saw the sub-continent become a colony of the British sometime after the advent of the East-India company, which provided trade opportunities to the native India, i.e. economic benefit.

Today, Pakistan is being offered economy boosting packages too. However, in the world of capitalism, nothing comes free...!

What price are we expected to pay in return of foreign aid packages?

While Allah says,

"The Jews and the Christians will never be pleased with you, until you follow their faith. O' Muhammad, tell them: 'Allah's guidance is the only guidance...' and if after all the knowledge you have received, you yield to their desires, there shall be none to protect you or help you from the wrath of Allah."
[The Holy Quran, Surah Al-Baqarah, Verse 120]

While faith here does not necessarily mean turning into a Christian or a Jew, but to adopt their lifestyle in effect.

Some high points of this lifestyle would be,

1. Credit card, mark-ups and usury culture.
2. Exposing, illicit affairs and abortions culture.
3. Slavery to man and man-made laws rather than God and God-made laws.

To round up, it means enslavement to foreign aid, culture and lobbies.

Is Pakistan and Pakistanis willing to go back to enslavement?

If yes, it is indeed a slap on the freedom struggle of Allama Iqbal, Quaid-e-Azam and our ancestors.

An Enforced Umrah

Asma Dua, the second daughter of Maulana Abdul Aziz, chief cleric of Lal Masjid, Islamabad, was in the middle of her third year of Bachelor's of Islamic Studies at Jamiya Hafsa. Her father got released from political imprisonment on April 17th, 2009, just before the beginning of her second trimester exams. Of course, she met the news of her father's release with great jubilation.

It came as a surprise to some that the family decided to go for an Umrah by making her skip her exams. After all, jubilation and thanksgiving does not call for an individual to neglect his or her mainstream commitments.

The surprise changed to indignation for many when the Swat military operation started and yet the family did not decide to come back despite the crisis at home. It seemed like a rerun of the Lal Masjid operation whence all the political leaders had gone out for APDM conference in London while the capital was set on fire. Only, this time, the Lal Masjid folks themselves were playing the questionable role.

However, the Lal Masjid folks had an interesting story to tell. According to them, Maulana Abdul Aziz did not wish to go for an Umrah at this time of the year because of his daughter's academic commitments which would have completed close to Ramadan. However, he was pressurized to take the opportunity of Umrah that the government was offering him. He and his family felt a bit skeptical about the insistence but nevertheless took up the offer. The Swat operation started just a few days after their departure. When they sought to come back, the government insisted that they must complete their tenure and not waste the money spent. The initial date of their arrival to Pakistan was May 17th, 2009. It has now been extended to May 24th, 2009. Let us see when they actually make it back to Pakistan.

Is the presence of clerics and politicians within the country a threat while a national issue is going on? How about taking them on board? If the nation, the religious leaders and politicians are all in unison, why to work so hard to keep a few away? Is not enforcing away a few key figures against freedom of speech and thoughts which is the proud claim of the times?

Pakistan, Iran or Iraq ?

The great debate is going on about what to do about the Taliban. Agreed that perhaps they should not have picked up the gun to implement Shariah ...

Nevertheless, it is actually not the gun which is irritating us but the idea of reverting to Islam.

We were comfortable with our tailor-made Islam as opposed to the God-scribed Islam.

Perhaps we are so in love with our bygone lifestyles that we would rather turn into Iraq today than have an Islamic revolution like that of Iran brought by Khumeni.

Remember, Iraq was also America's friend and ally for a long time, before America completed its use with it and dusted it off into a pile of burning ashes.

Remember, that if the Taliban happen to be the right ones in the Eyes of Allah SWT (no harm in imagining and giving it some percentage of possibility) then we are in for trouble, for there is no distance between the curse of the oppressed and Allah SWT.

Hold on the military operation and the resistance to Shariah and the propaganda about Taliban and think carefully ... hold on before you make the wrong choice ... and you have to make one, there is no more sitting on the fence ... hold on before another friend, Pakistan, turns into Iraq.

Boundless Freedom of Expression

It is the belief and desire of some that there should be complete freedom of expression. We should not sit on the fence, they say, either it is free or not free. Hence is the promotion of freedom of expression.

Not so long ago, President Musharraf supported the same ideology. Soon enough the language, dresses and moves of our artists changed on the television screens. There was a hue and cry upon it by the religio-oriented of the society. However, the seculars welcomed the change with much applause.

Not long after, in a matter of five to six years, the freedom of expression turned into a monster for its own champion, Pervaiz Musharraf. This was the year 2007 and the free media was hailing Pervaiz Musharraf for his tyranny. In a desperate attempt, Pervaiz Musharraf imposed the Emergency of Nov 3, and banned the transmission of free media channels.

People were forced to tune to the government channel PTV for news update. There sat three to four people discussing morality and how the idea of rein-free freedom was absurd and nowhere in the world did freedom exist without some moral guidelines.

Pervaiz Musharraf was right this time in the message he was sending out, only he had applied it topsy-turvy. The moral guidelines are due where God has defined morality, i.e. in language, dresses, moves, etc. However, the morality protection that he was seeking for himself, would in fact not support him, for the morality defined for a tyrannical rule is one and only, the straight forward truth, though in respectable words of course.

"The best of Jihad is to speak the true word in front of a tyrannical ruler." [Hadith]

This was what the media had done, for which it was punished.

'My best friend is one who tells me my bad points.' [Quote of Caliph Umar RA]

And see how the women of Prophet Muhammed SAW's times were liberated enough to speak their thoughts. Caliph Umar RA once gave instructions to limit the amount of Haq Mahr given to brides by the husbands to a certain amount and not beyond that. Upon this a woman stood up and said 'O'Umar RA, Prophet Muhammed SAW set no limits for it, then why are you limiting it?' And she quoted "...even if it be a heap of gold" [Surah Al-Nisa, Verse 20].

Hence, Islam very much supports freedom of expression, but neither rudeness nor vulgarity as part of it.

If this is backwardness in the eyes of some, they should keep in mind that their idea of freedom of expression will certainly turn around on them from whichever direction whatsoever, like it did on Pervaiz Musharraf, who used to address the religio-oriented flippantly and say 'If you do not like what you see, change the channel...'. Why could not he do the same then when he came in the view of this freedom?

May Allah SWT guide him and forgive him, the objective is not to demean Pervaiz Musharraf, but to give a visible example from the recent past.

The thoughtless pursuit of boundary-free freedom of expression by some may bring around those times very soon when we hear children telling their parents 'To go to hell...' when they chide them and draw nude pictures of their parents in art classes.

Why not? It is freedom of expression.

Truly Barbaric

A woman laid down on a hospital bed for an abortion. She suddenly felt the baby kick. It was then that it dawned upon her, that a baby is a living being, even inside the womb. She got up suddenly, and chose to have the baby in respect of the life it had just claimed.

A nurse was standing beside an abortion bed. The abortion was in process. She was asked to pull out the half-formed baby from the womb. She tells in her experience that as she put in her hand to pull the baby out, the baby crouched back as if in an attempt to save itself. She said she was amazed that even an unborn baby had the instinct to protect itself.

A male nurse was participating in an abortion operation. The baby was pulled out, and given in his hands to dispose off. The male nurse said that he was shocked that an unborn baby had so much life and it was thrashing about. Stunned, but doing his duty, he threw him in a basin, where it's movements diminished to death before his very eyes. He said he felt sick for a long time.

What should be the recompense of a man and a woman who commit adultery and then do away with its result in such a barbaric manner?

Lashing and stoning-to-death is yet a kind a punishment in view of the above barbarism.

Chaddar and Chardewari ?

Women must certainly be respected for their 'right' of Chaddar and Chardiwari. However, what has surprised me in the recent days is the indignation upon the violation of Chaddar and Chardiwari by the very people who themselves refute the concept of Chaddar and Chardiwari.

In general, the seculars deny the need of Chaddar and Chardiwari for women. They say that since men and women are absolutely equal (in physique as well?), women should not be asked for any different set of social rules and regulations from men. If men do not do Hijab, niether should women, and likewise parables...

Then why were they upset when the police intruded upon Tahira Abdullah in the middle of the night during the Long March '09 round-ups and specifically call it a violation of Chaddar and Chardiwari? Why did they want special consideration in terms of her being a woman now? The police intruded upon many homes, why was the case of Tahira Abdullah highlighted with respect to the fact that she is a woman?

Then again, in the present case of the lashing of a seventeen-year-old girl in Swat. The secular were continuously exclaiming upon the fact that a 'woman' was publicly punished. Why cannot she be? If a man can be punished publicly, so can a woman. The secular want an equal treatment of man and woman, so why should she be given any special consideration in punishment with respect to her being a woman?

They also touched upon the fact that non-Mehrams were touching her. Why should the seculars mind that? Not long ago some secular analysts said that we should be cool about the fact that Zardari gave Sarah Palin a hug. Hence, the issue of touch should not be raised here either, because 'touch' is not an issue in the secular world, rather it is considered very backward to make it an issue.

To conclude, the debate should be upon the validity of lashing as a punishment in conviction of adultery and not of any other issue. For the seculars never agreed with the idea of Chaddar and Chardiwari for women and Islam no longer holds it valid for a woman who has chosen to violate it herself by committing adultery.

As far as the issue of lashing in conviction of adultery is concerned plus the issue of false accusations, please read The Holy Quran, Surah'e Noor [V. 2 and 4], and please read the whole of it, not just a verse and a half. Else, you may suffer from the same disease as those who have read and memorized just half a verse from Surah'e Baqarah and go around telling people,

"There is no compulsion is religion..."

while the complete verse says,

"There is no compulsion in religion; True guidance has been made clearly distinct from error. Therefore, whoever renounces 'Taghut' (forces of Shaitan) and believes in Allah has grasped the firm hand-hold that will never break. Allah, Whose hand-hold you have grasped, hears all and knows all." [The Holy Quran, 2:256]

Those who would like to believe that Allah SWT has sent down a code of life with the caption, 'There is no compulsion in religion (Full stop) ', is analogue to the scenario that a school prints out its prospectus and adds a line at its end, 'There is no compulsion in our rules and regulations, whosoever wishes to follow it, they may and whosoever wishes to defy it, they may, both ways it is okay with us...'.

Is that correct ?

Is it sensible ? Is it believable ?

Disowning Honor

About the seventeen-year old girl of Swat; if she was innocent of committing Zina, Allah Subhaan'o wa Ta'ala himself Speaks out the punishment against the perpetrators as follows,

"Those who accuse a chaste woman of fornication and do not produce four witnesses to support their allegation, shall be flogged with eighty lashes and their testimony shall not be accepted ever after, for they are the ones who are wicked transgressors."

It would not just stop at this. The Islamic Jurist would probably sentence some further punishment as well because the above punishment is simply upon verbal accusation, while this girl was even punished upon the accusation.

However, if the girl has truly committed Zina, then also Allah Subhaan'o wa Ta'ala himself Speaks out her punishment as well, as follows,

"As for the fornicatoress and the fornicator (a female and a male guilty of illegal sex), flog each female and a male guilty of illegal sex one hundred lashes and do not take pity in enforcing the law ordained by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day, and let a party of the believers witness their punishment."

A point to be noted here is that if the accused pair admit the crime or the woman is found pregnant, the need for four witnesses is no longer there.

Islam has pampered woman a lot.

Prophet Muhammed SAW said,
"Give equal to your children. If I had it upon me, I would give more to the daughters, but Allah SWT says to give equally (i.e. love, attention, education, gifts, things)"

A woman is free from the responsibility of bread-winning in her entire life. She has the right to independent money and inheritance while she does not have the responsibility of spending. She does not have any chore as her responsibility (Surprised?). She is asked to cover her beauty so that other 'women' are not faced with competition and the possibility of extra-marital affairs is exempted, again a protection for women themselves. She is asked to obey her husband so that the consequence of any mishap is not made her responsibility. The husband is bound to feed her, cloth her, shelter her, to the best his finances allow him. The husband is instructed to maintain her in the lifestyle she was used to in her parents’ home. The husband is encouraged to entertain her to keep her happy.

Prophet Muhammed SAW said,
"The best among you is one who is good to his wife"

and he said,
"This world is 'Mata', and the best part of it is a good wife"

After all this pampering and protection, if a woman exhibits ungratefulness and crosses protective boundaries and ends up committing Zina, she incurs upon herself the Anger of Allah SWT.

And why should not Allah SWT be angry with her? He made life so indulging and protective for her, but she chose to cross the protective boundaries and choose the hard way and the indecent way.

When she rejected Allah SWT's protection, Allah SWT no longer protects her either. Hence, she is lashed and stoned in public, and is no longer entitled to the special treatment of being a woman.

Comfortable Conspiracy Theory

The news channels had not ceased to buzz with the shocking news that attack on the Sri Lankan team had already been pre-warned by the intelligence agencies of Pakistan. This report had been issued on January 22, 2009 to all relevant security and administrative departments, as reported by Sir Ansar Abbasi, Senior Journalist, The News on Hamid Mir's Capital Talk aired on March 3, 2009.

The government had to fumble with the explanation of two issues,
1. Was the imposition of Governor Rule followed by the replacement of key administrative officers responsible for the warning report going unseen?
2. Was the following whirl of political horse-trading responsible for the warning report being ignored?

Governor Salman Taseer says that he had no information of such a report while Ms. Sherry Rehman says that the report had been fielded for the Sri Lankan team's first visit to Pakistan this year in which they had not been attacked. I do not know how the government assumed that the threat was for Sri Lankan team's initial visit only and the terrorists would not seek to play it out in any other visit.

However, despite the existence of warning reports pointing fingers at RAW, India, the government's investigations are suddenly leading towards some Islamic Activist group from the tribal areas. Now this would be very convenient for (almost) everybody. If the attack is proved to be done by the Islamic Activists, the following results are achieved,

1. The government will no longer be answerable for the issue of pre-hand warning reports and not acting in accordance.
2. The War-on-terror western coalition would also be very happy, now they have all the more reason to send in drones in our tribal areas.
3. Pakistan will not have to face the tension of accusing India and seeking to take an international stand like an honorable nation. Also, confrontation with India calls for our army to be moved from the Western border to the eastern border as a preemptive. Since we are not allowed to do that by the War-on-terror western coalition (and neither is India allowed), it is better to avoid a confrontation with India.

Hence, it is in everybody's benefit, except the Muslim Ummah and our graves (but who cares about them?), that the blame of the March 3 Lahore attacks lie with Islamic activists.

Democracy and Kufr

Sufi Muhammed's statement that 'Democracy is Kufr' will obviously be met with unbelievable disbelief.

But, suppose a bunch of male chauvinist, lousy-character men got into the parliament and passed a Bill in majority. The bill said that the punishment of rape is not death, as decreed by Islam, but just some pitiful fine. What would we say to such a democratic resolution?

Islam does not allow anyone to play with just and fixed society rules on the personal whims and inaccurate decision of somebody who happened to get into power.

To play with the rules of Allah Subhaan'o wa Ta'ala, is in effect to negate them. Hence, the word, Kufr, i.e. to disbelieve.

The slogan of democracy is, By the People, For the People, To the People. Not to mention the fact that it has no mention of The God Who happened to create the very people and the very minds who are today trying to devise error-free rules and regulations. However, suppose the parliament members were really selected by the people, which at least does not happen in Pakistan, for over here entire villages are sold out for vote to a single party. Then, it is natural and experience has proved that people change with time. They have a different ideology before the elections and a different outlook after the elections. What should the people do now? Run after them?

No. Majority of the governance laws relating to education, health, human rights, deployment of resources, economics and international policy are predefined by Islam and Ijtehad, called the Shariah. There will be no voting upon it. It is for the own safeguard of the public and to counter the possibility of corruption emerging into a now-elected ruler's mind.

The decision may be to choose among who can best serve as a learned, brave and capable leader, just like the rules of cricket are fixed, one just looks for the best player.