Some thoughts on Iqbal and Jinnah's legacy

Over the course of the last several years, my news feed on the birth anniversary of Jinnah, has always been full of discussion on what the legacy of Quaid-e-Azam is. There are arguments from both the left and the right. For some Jinnah wanted a secular state and those behind the Objectives Resolution have hijacked his vision and the Pakistan state has only kept going in the wrong direction since, particularly during the Zia era. Others argue that the whole point of partition would be defeated if Pakistan was secular, and point to other sayings of Jinnah which could be interpreted to mean he didn't necessarily oppose an Islamic state either. Some in this side of the debate go to the extremes to suggest that the movement to paint Jinnah as a secularist is nothing short of a grand conspiracy to turn Pakistan into a secular state.

As such I am by default skeptical of any grand conspiracy theories especially as many in Pakistan associate everything with them, but my own take on the debate is that I don't really know what Jinnah wanted and may be, he didn't really know either because its not really clear. He said different things at different points in his life and you could sit down and interpret those things to mean a whole lot of different things. Some evidences from both sides of the debate are equally valid, so I really don't want to open up at that hornet's nest here. May be Jinnah did want a secular state, or may he didn't, may be at one point he thought a secular state would be best, but later he realized it would not work out and changed his mind. I don't think either side of the evidences are conclusive.

It would be really nice if there wasn't so much confusion. In fact its almost tragic that in 60 years since independence we haven't even been unable to form a unified national discourse on the kind of state the founder wanted us to become which is no surprise we aren't any kind of state to write home about. That's why I think we should move on. Jinnah played an important role in founding the state, but we shouldn't have to stick to his vision if that's not what we want to be today or if it isn't what is morally correct.

Although I understand and appreciate everything Jinnah did for Pakistan, there's one man from Pakistan's history that inspires me way more than Jinnah and that's Iqbal. This post is actually about him, not Jinnah. To be specific, its about how his legacy compares to that which the liberals claims to be Jinnah's legacy.

For starters, Iqbal's vision is much less ambiguous compared to Jinnah's; he wanted Muslims to peruse an Islamic revival of their community, wrote of the dangers of blind nationalism (noting where it led Europe to), and wrote volumes upon volumes in Urdu and Persian why westernization wasn't going to take Muslims back to their glory days. He spoke passionately of a Muslim identity and of the supremacy and timelessness of Islamic Laws. He was not apologetic but he acknowledged where Muslims had gone wrong, but he didn't spare the West from any blame where they deserved it. 

The most recurrent theme of his poetry is Islam and it is very difficult if not outright impossible to suggest that he was a secularist. Contrast this with the never ending debate about Jinnah which continues to polarize people in Pakistan today (Ansar Abbasi and co. on one hand and Nadeem Paracha and co. on the other hand). In this sense Iqbal's ideas are diametrically opposed to how the liberals of today in Pakistan interpret Jinnah's legacy to be.

Although Iqbal's poetry has been a integral part of Pakistani popular culture (inspiring everyone from the likes of classical singers in Tani Sani to sufi rock artists in Junoon) there are a fair share of Pakistani liberals for whom Iqbal isn't even a considered worthy of being a national hero. In February this year Pervez Hoodbhoy, for example, wrote in an opinion ed in the Tribune that Iqbal's "prescriptions for reconstructing society cannot help us in digging ourselves out of a hole", arguing that Pakistan was much better looking into the legacy of Sir Syed for its revival, who for him was "modernist".

I don't know to what extent Jinnah was influenced by Iqbal, but it was Iqbal who brought him back to India and it was Iqbal who first suggested that idea of Pakistan. I personally find it difficult that he would have been swayed into action  by someone who he would be ideologically in disagreement with. If we should bother finding out what Jinnah's legacy is, we should also bother with what Iqbal believed. Although Iqbal and his poetry are well known amongst the masses most people do not know that Iqbal was skeptical of (although not completely opposed to) democracy, laid emphasis on spirituality and was staunchly opposed to blind westernization; he said that we should search for our renaissance from within our own unique religious, spiritual and cultural traditions (that's why he's not liked by those who want to put forward the idea that Jinnah was secular).

Personally, I am big fan of Iqbal. I will forever be grateful to the people who made me realize the worth of Iqbal's poetry. His work isn't just a literary masterpiece, but a timeless and remarkably accurate critique of the state of Muslims in the world everywhere, not just in Pakistan. I was reading the translations of some of his Persian works today and I suddenly found my self wishing I knew farsi. My Urdu, to my shame, isn't much home to write about either, so I wish had I had a better grasp of the language so I'd be able to appreciate and understand his work more. I'd like to end with these brilliant verses Iqbal wrote on the state of those Muslims who are blinded by their love of the west. I don't know who Iqbal had in mind when he wrote this, but it seems so true to this day for people like Hoodbhoy and their ilk (many of whom seem to write for the Tribune):

Tera wajood sarapa tajal-e-farang
ke to wahan ke imarat garon ke hai tameer
magar ye paiker-e-khaki khudi se hai khali
Faqat nayam hai to zar nagaro be shamsheer

Immunity or Impunity?

Just how little importance America ascribes to International Law and how shallow her cries to other members of the international community are with to respect to obeying international law is often ignored by those who like to champion America as the leader of the free, just and developed world. Here are some related but not identical recent high profile events involving American claims and counter claims of how and where diplomatic immunity is or is not applied:

1. In 2012, An American Civil judge rejected former IMF-head Dominique Strauss-Kahn's s claim of diplomatic immunity in his effort to dismiss a civil suit filed by a hotel housekeeper who claimed that the French leader had sexually assaulted her. The charges against him were eventually dropped by the prosecution it self.

2. Summer of 2013, BBC quoted then British Foreign Secretary William Hague as saying that U.S. Embassy had yet to pay 63,000 congestion fines; American officials claimed diplomatic immunity shielded them from the charges.

2. Hillary Clinton her self received a parking ticket in London in the same year for $125 after her security detail parked her limo near an event but failed to pay the required fee for the spot.

3. This is the same Hillary Clinton who as as a junior senator from New York wrote of her outrage at $21.3 million in unpaid traffic (mostly parking) violations by diplomats who were stationed at the United Nations in New York. She argued that their diplomatic immunity should be revoked but later on as the Secretary of State, she insisted on invoking diplomatic immunity for Mr. Raymond Davis, who murderer two young innocent men in Lahore in broad daylight. Davis was at best a contract employe of American diplomatic staff in Pakistan and had a very weak if any legal basis for claim to diplomatic immunity.

4. After Davis incident, an American diplomatic vehicle which came to escort Davis from the scene of the crime killed another innocent person because of driving at high speed in the wrong direction.

5. Now the American administration is claiming that a much more senior diplomat, in Indian Deputy Counsel General Devyani Khobragade, who they recently arrested on charges of visa fraud (she was not paying her nanny the minimum wage as required by US Law) is not protected by diplomatic immunity, but simply by consular immunity which only gives her protection from crimes she may have committed in the course of her work as a diplomat, but not at any crimes she may have committed outside of her work. This time they may actually have a legal basis.

My point here is not just in highlighting the American double standards in invoking and revoking diplomatic privileges irrespective of the nature of the crimes involved, but I'll make that point first in any case. In more than one example from recent history American officials have insisted on revoking immunity or denying it where it applies for crimes committed on American soil by diplomatic staff of other countries, whether they are as minor as parking violations or more serious as rape or labor abuse . On the other they have insisted that their diplomatic staff and even those who aren't really staff members (but anyone who is involved with American diplomatic staff in anyway) should be protected and forgiven for even the worst kind of crimes such as manslaughter.

My second point here is to assess the whole point of immunity. As International Law students we were told that diplomatic immunity as originally conceived was meant to facilitate the work of a diplomat without undue interference from the host country, and especially to protect them from any kind of persecution if the relations between the states involved turns bitter. It was never meant as license to flagrantly violate universal principles of justice and morality (forget local and international law). But that's exactly how diplomats seemed to have behaved in these examples of abuse of these privileges.

And its not just the Americans really, the abuse of immunity privileges is so rampant every where in the world that you could rack up tons of examples (for a quick glimpse just wikipedia diplomatic immunity for a lengthy list of abuse cases). Although parking violations and car accidents are the most well documented form of immunity abuse, other diplomats have used immunity to get away without paying rents, for smoking in aircraft, domestic abuse against children, physical assault, rape and a host of other fairly serious crimes.

In theory such abuses are against both the letter and spirit of the Vienna Convention which quite explicitly states that "without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State.". But in practicality it seems diplomat treat their immunity as more akin to impunity.

It is high time for some of these absurd and excessive privileges to be either be completely revoked or seriously re-assessed in the light of these abuses, especially as they seem to be applied only selectively by countries and nearly always result in situations where diplomatic back pressure is used to either completely bypass legal protocols and technicalities or overlook or even change the facts of any case. The victims of such crimes (where they exist) are left with very little hope.

No country, America or otherwise, should be in a position where it has to tolerate a criminal amongst its ranks and wait for the whim of the host country before it can persecute it (especially more so if it involved a crime they committed against a citizen of the host state). The idea in theory is that states do this on a reciprocity basis; i.e. you give diplomats of a country these privileges so that your diplomats can enjoy the same privileges in other countries (but the selective way countries, an in particular the Unites States, apply this law) is making a mockery of the whole notion of diplomatic immunity.

Is international law no longer relevant?

Have been trying to do some independent research over the past few months to make sure whatever I learned in four years of university isn't quickly forgotten and here's the one thing I realized, hardly anyone cares about international law.

One of the sources of international law is what is known as "customary practice". In non legal terms this mean that what states normally do can be considered a source of law even though its not written down anywhere. Increasingly, the customary practice of states has been to violate the very laws that have been so painstakingly agreed upon by the international community.

Whether it is the Geneva Protocols or the UN charter, it seems they're only there to be applied when its in favor of the powerful international law flouting countries. Otherwise these laws are just there as documents that international law students should study and memorize and quote in hypothetical examples.

The customary practice of states suggests that its no big deal to carry out extrajudicial killings during war, to subject of prisoners of war to inhumane treatment, or to wage illegal wars themselves, or to give repeated threats of use of force or to negate the doctrine of sovereign equality of all states. All of these things though illegal under international law, are rampant in the practice of states.

So it begs the questions, is international law no longer relevant? Has it been rendered obsolete by the utter disregard of it by most states of the international community? And by extension does the customary practice of states (that you can disregard international law whenever it is convenient) the new default?

Islam NOT banned in Angola

News has been around that Islam has supposedly been banned by Angolan government officials. However not only has the government denied this but now some of the leading Muslim figures from Angola community have come out and said that this news is not correct. The government has not closed or demolished all the mosques there and the religion is certainly not banned.

The government had simply started a crackdown on all religious buildings build without proper documentation and proceeded with the demolishing all of those that had not followed the due protocols. Amongst the buildings that were destroyed there were also a couple or so of mosques and even Muslims scholars in Angola admit and accept that these destroyed mosques were build on land not allotted for a mosque.

The way this news has spread like wildfire is a BIG reminder again to everyone out there that everything we read and see on the internet is not true and must be fact checked and verified before it is shared (especially when it has got anything to do with a sensitive topic that can lead people to react emotionally). This is not just moral obligation but a Quranic requirement, mentioned explicitly in Surah Hujrat.

It is equally sad that Muslims continue to abandon the great legacy our Prophet (saw) about due procedure being followed for constructing a mosque. When the Prophet came to Medina he bought the land on which Masjid Nabawi was built, although being the Prophet of Allah no one would have challenged him if he had build the mosque ANYWHERE, but he set the precedent so future generation of Muslims would do the same.

Yet through out the Muslim world, the trend of Muslims erecting mosques in non-designated areas and sometimes even illegally acquired land is rampant. And when these illegal mosques are later brought down a huge hue and cry is raised in the name of "disrespecting houses of worship". Surely building it illegally in the first place is much greater disrespect? When will Muslims learn?

The hoor pari and doctor/engineer bahu syndrome

I’m sick of all the sisters and aunties in the world wanting minimum five feet five inches, fair complexion and thin doctor, engineer, MBA daughter-in-laws for their average looking, averagely qualified and sometimes even below average job-holding/jobless sons and brothers, some of whom will even request that the girl be a “foreign passport holder”.   Are you ladies looking for actual human beings, or just a flesh and bones to exhibit as a bride in front of your extended family? This might offend some people on my list too but this has got to be said AGAIN and AGAIN for this stupidity to end. 

Half of my family members are doctors, but STILL, I’m sick of this false sense of social prestige attached to being a physician. Medicine is a noble profession, but so is teaching, so is fine arts, so is accountancy, so is geography, history, economics, chemistry and every other subject in the world. Ditto for engineers or business graduates, no profession is superior or inferior, and in any case what degree you have should only be ONE barometer for gauging your overall level of education and civilization. People could be PhDs and still be terrible human beings. The purpose of education is to reform and civilize, to open and broaden minds, not to close them, if you think marrying a doctor or engineer is superior, your education has failed in my opinion to open your mind to that fact that it is not.  

And to all the parents who made their daughters study medicine because this would bring them good proposals, seriously, what on earth where you thinking? You are part of the problem. You have been telling your daughter that it’s okay that someone wants to marry her because of a piece of paper that says she’s a doctor. That’s the worst thing you can teach her. Instead teach her to take pride in whatever she studies, and study it well. Teach her that whoever will marry her will marry her because of the qualities that make her a good human being. Strive to make your daughters good humans, not good “rishta material” for god’s sakes. 

Same feelings on the whole deal about searching for the ultimate hoor as your spouse. Sure you have the right to get married to someone you are reasonably attracted to, but stop looking for Katrina Kaif and Mahira Khan. They’re exceptions. Besides, if the media wasn’t here to bombard you with images of these women all the time, you wouldn’t even know what they looked like and would be more easily attracted to women of less then hoor-standard. And please look at your own self in the mirror! Are you Fawad Khan? If no, then stop expecting Mahira.  The girl has the right to look for someone SHE will be reasonably attracted to too, you know. She too is HUMAN BEING after all.

I know that might seem difficult to remember in your quest to find the perfect spouse, but please do. Human beings have feelings, and when you reject people simply because they’re not tall enough or fair enough, those feelings are hurt, fear Allah with respect to hurting people’s feelings about things which are not in their control. When you sit and criticize the way girls look, you’re actually criticizing Allah who made them this way.

And whatever happened to looking for inner beauty? Where are all the girls with more tanned complexions suppose to go? Majority of the sub-continent is not naturally supposed to be fair skinned you know.  And who in the world said fairness equals beauty?  Why can’t we appreciate that everyone is beautiful in their own special way?  And to all those dark skinned boys looking for gori bewayan so that their children can be gore, give it up already, you could get married to a woman with milk toned skin but if Allah doesn’t have it in your qadr that you children are light toned, they won’t be. In any case, being light toned does not make you a better person in the eyes of Allah, piety does. Look for piety, look for character, look for inner beauty …not degrees, not a specific colour of the skin or a specific height/age/weight group! ACT and think like you are educated, not just degree yafta.  There is a word for people who think fair skin is superior, its RACIST. Yes, gulp this down!

Oh and yeah, please be courteous. This business of meeting the prospective bride cannot always be avoided, but don’t turn into ordeal for the poor girl, this is not a job interview.  Oh and yeah, don’t bring along your entire extended family to meet the girl, whilst conveniently forgetting the boy. The girl and her family would probably have some questions for your son too.  Have the basic table manners to finish whatever eateries you took and respond with a courtesy call if you think things will not work out, don’t leave the girl’s family wondering on for weeks on end what you’re thinking.

And to the girl’s family, don’t invite over someone whose looking for a hoor in the hope that they might, just might, still like your dark toned daughter. Frankly they don’t deserve your daughter if the only thing they’re looking for in a bride is light skin tone (because your daughter is more than a hoor, a hoor which their stupid limited vocabularies of beauty cannot encompass).  Give your daughters confidence about how they are and how they look. Do not make them feel guilty; it is not their fault that our society has sick double standards and false definitions of prestige.

I know every parent tells their daughters they’re not a burden on them, but when you worry sick over any delays in their marriage, that’s not how they feel. There is a time and place for everything.  Stop acting desperate and don’t stop everything in your daughter’s life just because she is waiting for the right proposal. If she wants to go do a job in the meanwhile, let her. If she wants to study more, let her. If she wants to just spend her time at home, let her.

Let her live her life. And the other aunties, please get a life! Remember how it was when you were behind the trolley, when it was your daughters turn or your turn, put yourself in her shoes. Be kind. Show mercy.

In the end, when relationships spawn out, when people begin to live with each other, it is the character traits of human beings that help nourish the relationship, not the skin colour, their height, weight or degree. Relationships break down because people don’t get along, because there is lack of compassion and compromise, lack of understanding and patience, a lack of love. Look for a girl or boy who has all these qualities, who can love your child, respect him or her, keep her or him and your family happy and raise a good family. Not a showpiece. PLEASE think.

On Hakimullah's death and finding the middle ground

It is really disappointing although not surprising to see people like Munawar Hassan and Fazal-ur-Rehman terming Hakimullah a martyr. I am relieved that the more learned and virtuous of the scholars in Pakistan, the likes of Mufti Rafi and Taqi Usmani (who also responded to recent events with statements that condemned drones) have not done the same.

Martyrdom unfortunately is a really abused term in the Muslim world, especially in Pakistan. Everyone from Bhutto to Benazir to MQM’s target killers to the suicide bombers are termed martyrs by people of different socio-political and ideological backgrounds. Strictly speaking, a martyr is someone who died in the field of battle, but more generally, anyone who is unjustly killed while upholding the truth, the good, or their rights can also be considered martyrs of the Hereafter (based on Prophetic narrations which allude to this). Based on this criteria, does Hakimullah qualify as a “shaheed”?

While it may be true --as the international community has generally affirmed with respect to the illegality of using drones--that the way he was brought to justice and killed was unlawful, and ultimately harmful to the situation on the ground in Pakistan -, it would appear to be a stretch at best, and a travesty of justice at worst, to consider him a "martyr" or any kind of Islamic hero.  Let alone, every one killed by America, not even every act of defiance makes one a hero or a man of honor,  it is what you stood for defending and how you defended it that qualifies you to be a hero.   

Those who believe that Hikumullah was a hero should really sit down and evaluate their definition of a hero. He may have wanted to enforce the Shariah, but that alone does not make him a hero.  How he interpreted the Shariah, and how he went about enforcing it, killing anyone who opposed him, was a clear misconstruction of the ideals Islam upholds. How can a religion in which Allah equates the killing of an innocent soul (any soul, not just a believer) with killing all of humanity sanction or endorse the kind of mass murder TTP have been involved in by their own admission?

However, it is equally disappointing to read just how many people have fallen to the level of the Taliban and prayed (or more accurately) cursed Hakimullah to "burn in Hell forever" or for a same fate to befall his community and his family that he has been responsible for inflicting upon scores of innocents in Pakistan.

Why you might ask? What could be wrong in hoping that someone is punished by God for their evil actions (and yes of course they were evil)? This is wrong because our Prophet stopped us from doing this. When the early Muslims in Makkah had asked the Prophet to pray to Allah swt to curse the Quraysh idolaters who were persecuting them, the Prophet had responded by saying that he was sent not as a curser, but as a mercy. One of his alqab is that he is "rehmatullill alameen", a mercy for all of the universe, all its creatures, believers, nonbelievers, even animals. In the same way, Allah swt says in the Quran, that he loves those who restrain their anger and pardon the people, both in times of ease and difficulty (3:134). Yet we feel compelled, even with our weak emans, and even weaker record of good deeds, to chastise and curse others for retribution in Hell!

By Allah, He is neither unjust, and, nor is He cruel, whoever does an atom's weight of good, or bad, shall see it. It is just that the punishment for some is delayed, and for others it is immediate, and in this too there is wisdom, which only Allah knows. Similarly, Allah alone knows the state Hakimullah died in (whatever anyone might say). But the fact is that Hakimullah is gone, we gain nothing by playing God and saying that “all his sins are forgiven”  or that “he will burn in hell forever”.  It is Allah’s position alone to decide his fate. How he will be judged by Allah is a matter of ilm ul ghaib, and we should refrain from commenting on it (so yes, we shouldn't pray that he burn in Hell, because we shouldn't pray that for ANYONE, even if they have killed many people).

The Prophet said that believers are not those who curse, and cursing the dead is even worse then cursing the living.  The way of the Prophet and of his righteous companions, is that we hate the ACTIONS of the people, not the people themselves. So our hate should be directed at the injustice, the cruelty and the misrepresentation of our faith, not at Hakimullah, the individual.

I know this requires a lot of effort and may even sound absurd to many, but this is what Sunnah is. I myself have strong feelings for a lot of individuals (Altaf Hussain for example) but then when I read these things about how the Prophet dealt with his worst enemies, I just felt like my reaction was totally uncalled for. If the Prophet could forgive Hindh, if he could forgive Abu Sufyan, if Ayesha and Abu Bakr could forgive those who had wrongly thrown mud at the noble stature of our mother, then who are you and I to say that Hakimullah should burn in hell, irrespective of whatever wrongs he did. Nothing can surpass the sin of claiming Divinity for oneself. Yet when Moses (alaihe-assalaam) was sent for the guidance of Pharaoh, he was ordered thus: "And speak unto him a gentle word." (20:44) And what did Allah swt say to the Makkans, "And let not the hatred of a people, who (once) stopped your going to the Sacred Mosque, incite you to transgress." (5:2)

Yet WE do transgress, whenever we hate something or somebody, we want the worst fate to befall them. Supporting drones because you oppose Taliban is a transgression. Not condemning the wrongs of the Taliban because we oppose American imperialist designs in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world is also a transgression. There is a middle way, and we must reflect on what it is.

The tide of extremism in our society is across both spectrums of religious and political thought. On the one hand you have the right wing extremists like Taliban, who will use the kafir and munafiq label to kill anyone who disagrees with their methods of establishing Allah’s dean in the land.  On the other hand you have liberal extremists who argue that death penalty should be abolished or at least put on a moratorium, but simultaneously advocate drones, which not only gives capital punishment, but that too without due process of law (one person or group identifies someone as a potential terrorist, that person gets no chance to defend himself, no trial, no lawyers, and just guilty verdict followed by immediate death penalty by drones). 

All those numbers we see in reports of “suspected militants”, none of them were ever put through a proper trial to ascertain those claims. While the high profile causalities are usually those who have publicly confessed to their crimes, the majority of the numbers are made up by the word “potential” or “suspected”. For the liberals in Pakistan, it is right to kill these people even if they are simply “suspected” of being terrorists by a third country, because some people who belong to their tribe or who live amongst them killed others without any reason.  If all criteria for justice and liberalism (which is what they’re trying to uphold) are ignored in the process, so be it. For the Taliban, it is right to kill anyone even if they “suspect” they give any kind of support to any kind of ideology apart from their own, or even if they have nothing to do with either them or the people who oppose them. If innocent men, women and children are killed (which is prohibited in the religion they want to uphold) so be it. There is clear hypocrisy at both ends of the spectrum.

Indeed we are living in times of great fitnah, and this is one of them, where the boundary between good and evil, between right or wrong, is blurred. The Prophet is reported to have said in a sound hadith that there will come a time when holding on to your deen will be like holding on to a piece of hot coal. Unfortunately, for Muslims, I think with fitnas like these, those times have come already. 

 May Allah swt make it easy for everyone of us to hold firm on to the deen in these troubled times.

Ya Allah, you are the Haqq, the one Truth of this life and the next, you message is true, your deen is true, your Prophet Mohammad was true and the Quran is true. Ya Allah swt make the truth about the affairs of our ummah clear to us, as clear as the sun is on a cloudless day. Ya Allah enable the haqq to succeed over batil, and give us the capacity to understand, accept and support the haqq, and reject, oppose and defeat the batil.