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.
No comments:
Post a Comment