THE Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) was the first person to accord dignity to the labour in the light of Divine injunctions. The Islamic doctrine of brotherhood eliminated all discriminations between masses and classes.

“Innamul Momenoona Ikhwatun” — “By the blessings of God, you have become brothers to one another” said the Quran, while the Prophet lauded the one who carried a load of firewood on his back.

These doctrines were translated into action with meticulous detail. In the battle of Ahzab, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was seen working, digging the ditch, breaking stones and removing the debris to the extent that his whole body was covered with dust. And also in the building of the Prophet’s Mosque at Madina, he participated in lifting bricks and mortar and raising the walls.

The Prophet in the farewell Address in the year 10 A.H. rejected all distinctions of caste, colour, creed and race which divided humanity into hostile groups. “All men are sons of Adam and Adam was of dust. Neither the Arab has any superiority over the Ajam, nor the Ajam has any superiority over the Arab, neither the white has any superiority over the black, nor the black has any superiority over the white. They are all brothers and equal in the eyes of God, the Lord of the universe.

“Then, O my people! You have certain rights over your wives, and so have your wives over you... They are the trust of God in your hands. So you must treat them with all kindness. And as regards your slaves, see that you give them to eat what you yourself eat, and clothe them with what you clothe yourselves.

“O people! Listen to what I say and take it to heart. You must know that every Muslim is the brother of another Muslim. You are all equal, i.e. enjoy equal rights and have similar obligations. You are all members of one common brotherhood. So it is forbidden for any of you to take from his brother what the latter should not willingly give. So do not tyrannise over your people, i.e. do not usurp their rights.”

It was the result of this universal teaching that Belal, the black African Negro, Suhaib, the Roman, and Salman, the Persian became the relatives of the Quraish.

Historians have recorded the fact that when the Prophet entered his home and found people preparing food he at once began to help them by kneading flour or doing other sundry jobs. When he dropped his lash while rising he never asked the passerby to pick it up but always alighted to pick it. He used to do his own shopping and while doing so he asked his neighbours if they needed his help in their work. A number of old women of the locality used to get this service regularly from the Prophet. It was the effect of this precept and practice that the companions and followers of the Prophet also upheld the dignity of labour.

Domestic servants rising to become mighty monarchs and receiving allegiance from men of the noblest stock are not uncommon in the Muslim history. One such humble person married the cousin of the Prophet, a woman of a proud clan of the Quraish, while another “slave”, Belal, was addressed as most venerated by the companions of the Prophet.

Another example is of the Prophet’s slave, Usama Ibn-Zaid, who was given the command and leadership of an army. No order before the advent of Islam went so far, in creating and establishing a classless community and society in which the humblest was given equal opportunities to rise to the highest position, and the distinctions of birth and occupations were completely obliterated.

The Prophet of Islam is described by Allah as Rahmatul-lilalamin. No wonder we find that the liberalising and exalting effect of the doctrine preached by the Prophet reigned supreme. And nowhere perhaps it will be felt with greater emphasis than in raising the status of the working class.

Islam does not subscribe to the concept of untouchables and outcasts and, instead, elevates man to a new social status. The glorious Quran emphasizes the value of noble deeds and productive activity as the criteria of nobility — “Inna Akramokum Indallahi Ataqakum, — i.e. he alone is most noble in the eyes of Allah who performs righteous deeds and is conscious of his responsibilities and duties to God and man. Wealth, power and position are no hallmark of his greatness. The great legacy of Prophet Muhammad’s teaching is that no man is the property of anyone.

The Prophet evolved a new social order based on equality of man. He rejected the institution of slavery, demolished the feudal set-up and ushered in a society where men of all vocations and professions were equally respected and had an equal opportunity to serve the mankind.

Who can deny that it was the teaching of Islam that cast considerable influence on the minds of the thinkers of the West and men like Martin Luther (founder of Protestantism) Goethe, Voltaire and Rousseau (creators of the French Revolution). Carlyle who came out vehemently preaching the gospel of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” found Prophet Muhammad as the hero among Prophets and underlined the fact that “work and work alone is noble.”

AFTER a six-week operation in upper Sindh costing about four million rupees, Sukkur AIGP Nayar Hussain Haider ‘revealed’ on March 29 that they had busted a gang of bandits belonging to Bachloo Teghani. He also spoke of other ‘achievements,’ claiming that travel in Shikarpur, Sukkur and Jacobabad districts had become safer. How much the claim matches the results can be verified from newspaper reports which show the rate of crime has shot up steeply.

For example, on April 21 a leader of the All-Pakistan Clerks Association, Deedar Hussain Jiskani of Larkana, was shot dead by bandits at his house. The same night, a labourer was shot dead in the Lal Chajjan village, Mirpur Mathelo, in a similar situation. Down in Hyderabad, jeweller Mohammad Saleem Abdul Sattar Memon was kidnapped and later his body was found about 15km away. In the provincial metropolis, Karachi, a doctor, Amir Ma’awiya, was killed near his clinic. All these in one day, while other similar and petty crimes go unreported every day.

Whether such operations can end lawlessness is a question debated every time when crime is on the rise. When the February operation was being discussed at various levels, many had expressed their doubts about its outcome. Perhaps the police have their own compulsions to launch such operations.

But what mars our policing system is the worn-out concept of punishing the guilty instead of looking into the causes leading to the commission of the crime and then trying to remove these. If a person commits the same crime more than once and punished for that, in most cases he becomes be a hardened criminal.

There have been operations galore since Independence but neither banditry has come to an end nor has its growth stopped. On the contrary, newer means have come into being and it appears that our police force is not prepared to come out of the traditional perception of crime, and handle the issue scientifically.

In fact, crime has never been taken as a subject of social and behavioural study in our society. Until Independence, the Britishers treated us as a colony and being afraid of any political uprising their whole thrust was to maintain peace at all costs. Even Independence campaigns like Hur Movement and Khilafat Movement were treated as banditry and were dealt with sternly.

Taking a cue from the mediaeval perception of ‘justice’, entire communities were imprisoned in concentration camps, and villages were fined collectively. Every voice that was raised for rights and freedom was termed seditious and silenced with capital punishment. Thus, they followed a policy of ad hocism. No permanent solution was offered to solve the issue of crime, specially the banditry.

After Independence, the perception had to be changed. But the irony is that the people in power — the feudals and tribal chiefs — retained the institution of crime to perpetuate their hegemony. They enriched the nurseries of crime and used the law enforcers as their main instruments. This became so institutionalzed that whenever any honest reformer tried to break the ice, he suffered badly. This is where the root cause of our present state of crime lies.

How can this trait be broken is not difficult to understand. Our policymakers will have to understand the state of crime and its various forms, trace down its causes, understand the social fabric, its customs, traditions and finally the means to prevent its occurrence. We all know that landlords, police, jails, faulty and lengthy legal procedures, social customs, tribal traditions and economic injustices all these contribute to the growth of crime in sour society. Take the case of any bandit. He has a tale of woes to tell — he is a victim of social disorder.

Thus the solution lies not in punishment but in reformation. A beginning has to be made to remove social disparity and, thereby, preempt commission of a crime. Unemployment being a source of crime has to be tackled squarely by the government.

Moreover, our feudal and tribal system serves to promote crime. Time is witness how some of our rulers with feudal background groomed and sheltered the bandits, trained their minions to kidnap their rivals or others to settle score or to mint money or to bring a bad name to the government.

Our policymakers always try to look at things in isolation, treat an incident as an act of an individual or a group of individuals and never bother to peek into the social disorder generating the crime. This attitude deepens the people’s sense of frustration, and instead of helping to rectify the situation it leads to recurrence of crime so much so that it becomes the order of the day. A vicio