| 07 May 2004 | Friday | 16 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425 |
PML: unification or factionalism?
The most effective way of convincing people about the credibility of a message could be by appealing to their conscience. The Quran highlighted the same fact when it said "O prophet, invite to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and excellent preachings and argue with the people in the best possible manner" (16:125).
Appeal becomes most effective and convincing when the person conveying the message is himself worthy of credit. And that is why Allah in His wisdom chose both the methods. The Quran laid emphasis on this aspect while the person conveying the message met all the requirements of credibility. "Allah knows best where and how to carry out His mission" (6:124).
Muhammad (peace be upon him) who was chosen for conveying the message of Islam had neither been given any miracles nor he had any knowledge of the unseen. As the Quran said "Say (O Muhammad) to the disbelievers: I say not unto you that I possess the treasures of Allah nor that I have the knowledge of the unseen: I say not that I am an angel. I follow that which is revealed to me" (6:50).
All that he had besides the message and his faith was his own conduct, the conduct of the highest order indeed. As the Quran said "Verily you stand on an exalted standard of virtues" (68:4).
And it was this conduct that complemented the credibility of his message which ultimately resulted in the successful accomplishment of his mission. Some of the salient features of his conduct were:
Honesty and trustworthiness: Even before he announced his commissioning as the Prophet of Allah, Muhammad (peace be upon him) was very popular for his honesty and trustworthiness so much so that he used to be called by the name Amin (trustworthy) by the people of Makkah. None of the chieftains of Quraish ever said that he did not believe Muhammad because he was dishonest or not worthy of credit.
The main argument that his arch enemy Abu Jahl used to put forward in this connection was that while his own and Muhammad's clans had so far been at par with each other in all virtues and doing of good deeds, then why should there be a prophet in one clan and not in another.
Trustworthiness was the main reason for his employment by Hazrat Khadijah. It was also because of his honesty that any one who knew him closely accepted his message without asking for any proof.
In spite of being the ruler of the whole of Arabia, he left no wealth or property to be inherited by his heirs except what was hardly sufficient for the sustenance of his wives.
Steadfastness: If we have to list the causes of the success of Muhammad in his mission, steadfastness could be second in the order of importance. The first of course was the strength of his faith.
He endured all kinds of pressures put on him and the hurdles created in his way. People threw rubbish on him, spread thorns in the streets through which he sued to pass, had social boycott of his family for full three years but he was not deterred.
He remained steadfast and inspired his companions with the same spirit. Steadfastness by itself could be the proof of the fact that what the person is standing for is true.
Kindness: This was another important feature of the conduct of the Prophet. He pardoned the murderer of a suckling baby of his family i.e. the Prophet's family. He pardoned the Jewish woman who tried to poison him as a result of which one person died and the Prophet himself was partially affected.
He pardoned Wahshi at whose hands Hazrat Amir Hamza was martyred in the battle of Uhud. And he granted general amnesty to the people of Quraish who had let loose all kinds of atrocities on him and his followers for full thirteen years and finally compelled him to migrate to Madinah and fought several battles with him thereafter.
After the conquest of Makkah when the Prophet asked the people of Quraish if they knew how he was going to treat them? They replied with one voice "yes, you would treat us with kindness, because you are kindhearted and are the son of a kind brother."
The Prophet uttered the same words which Hazrat Yusuf had uttered while pardoning his brothers, and granted amnesty to all. As may be seen, it was the kindness of the Prophet in which even his staunch enemies had so much faith that they invoked it in order to seek amnesty.
Wisdom and vision: The Prophet had no formal schooling or education yet he possessed an extraordinary degree of wisdom and vision of which the treaty of Hudeibya could be one of the best examples.
Although apparently seen as a sign of weakness, as it allowed greater number of concessions to the people of Quraish compared to the number of concessions allowed to the Muslims, it proved to be a boon in disguise for the Muslims.
The deadlock and war-like situation between the Muslims and the people of Quraish that persisted for years had not served any useful purpose.
The treaty of Hudeibya provided an opportunity to the people of Quraish to see with their own eyes the lifestyle, pattern of behaviour and the habits that the Muslims had developed within a span of six years.
According to one estimate, the number of converts to Islam during the two years of this treaty was more than the total number of converts till the date of its signing. That's why the Quran termed the treaty as a victory (48:1).
The said treaty, among other things, conveys some important messages to the modern world. One is that the channels of communication should always be kept open, even with the enemies.
The other is that dialogue, based on the principle of give-and-take, could be the best way of resolving even the most thorny issues between the contesting parties. The third is that egoism shall not be allowed to mar the process of dialogue.
And the fourth is that covenants even made with enemies, must be honoured and fulfilled. In fact, Makkah would not have been conquered so easily and without any bloodshed if the treaty of Hudeibya had not been signed.
Unfortunately, some of the critics still portray the Prophet as a war monger. This impression is based mainly on the number of battles fought by him. But they ignore the basic fact that all the battles fought and expeditions sent by him were either against aggression, threatened or actual, or oppression.
During the first thirteen years of his life as Prophet, he was subjected to worst possible oppression and when he migrated to Madinah, he was subjected to aggression from all sides while his followers remaining in Makkah continued to live under the yoke of oppression.
It was here that he was permitted to fight against both aggression and oppression (22:39) (4:75) but subject to the conditions that he would not exceed the limits (2:190) (16:126) and if the enemy inclined to peace, he too had to do so (8:61).
Nothing can be more preposterous than labelling a person, who fought throughout his life against aggression and oppression and that too within well defined limits of fair play, as a war-monger.
The way the Prophet dealt with his worst enemies when he was in an advantageous position, as mentioned earlier, speaks of nothing but kindness of the highest order. He of course displayed requisite degree of promptness, vigilance and valour when there was need for it in the objective conditions.
Balanced approach: In spite of being the exponent of the spiritual message of the highest order, the Prophet never detached himself from worldly affairs. He gave requisite time to prayers and other rites and rituals as well as to the worldly affairs.
He acted as a Prophet, as a mentor, as a reformer, as a ruler, as a general, as a judge, as a companion, as a husband, as a father and as a neighbour at the appropriate time and fulfilled all the obligations arising out of these positions and relationships. That's why the Quran says "Verily in the Messenger of Allah you have ideal example (of conduct)" (33:21).
PML: unification or factionalism?
After weeks of negotiations, five factions of the Muslim League have decided to merge into a single entity to be called the Pakistan Muslim League. It will also carry with it the Sindh Democratic Alliance (SDA), headed by the former civil servant, Imtiaz Shaikh.
The merger, it is said, will be effective next week, coinciding with the expected return home of the former chief minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, living in exile in Saudi Arabia.
Shahbaz, who was installed as head of the provincial administration in Punjab following general elections in mid-1990, may have the ambition to be once again the province's chief minister on his return and also head the provincial branch of the League.
However, at the time of writing, it is not clear whether he would be free to participate in politics because of the various charges filed with various courts of law on account of his alleged misuse of his office as chief minister in the late 1990s.
In view of their respective known ambitions, the heads of the various factions of the League which have agreed to the merger may prefer to have an 'outsider' as the leader. There has also been strong speculation that they would all first want to persuade President Gen Pervez Musharraf to accept the leadership.
It appears that the present head of the PML-Q, Chaudhri Shujaat Hussain, who was largely instrumental in putting together the party which is currently in power, would concede the top slot of leadership to no one else but Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
There is nothing yet to suggest that the president may be inclined to accept a political office once (and when) he steps down from the office of army chief. In the meantime, Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali's offer to serve the unified Muslim League could be an indication that he too cherishes the ambition to head the party.
The disintegration of the Muslim League into factions is not an unprecedented phenomenon. Signs of this began to manifest as early as 1948, immediately after the Quaid-i-Azam's death, when a veteran Pathan Leaguer Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar was duly elected as the PML president.
However, he could not function as such for too long. He was replaced by Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan who had been the party's president under the Quaid-i-Azam. This too did not last too long.
While Iftikhar Hussain Khan of Mamdot was elected chief minister of Punjab, as he was leader of the provincial parliamentary party, Mian Mumtaz Daultana, who was reputed to enjoy Mr Liaquat Ali Khan's support decided not to be cooperative.
This seriously impaired the working of the League in Punjab, and many prominent Leaguers left the party and the central government decided to dissolve the provincial government, handing over all powers to the provincial governor.
The resulting uncertainty was yet to be sorted out when Mr Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated while addressing a public meeting in Rawalpindi on October 16, 1951. In the meantime, Mamdot chose to establish his own faction of the Muslim League, which was thus the first breakaway faction of the PML. It assumed an identity of its own as the Jinnah Muslim League.
Simultaneously with these developments, the Muslim League leadership in the then East Pakistan also developed serious differences amongst themselves, as well as against the centre.
This led to the creation of the Awami Muslim League, headed by Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani. It later transformed itself into the Awami League and ultimately campaigned for the separation of the eastern wing from Pakistan. The Awami League succeeded in establishing the independent state of Bangladesh in December 1971.
The process of disintegration of the PML as it was formed under the leadership of the Quaid-i-Azam became an almost unending process. Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan, widely known as the strong man of the Frontier province, set up the militant Muslim League National Guards in 1956.
He also declared that if the League was 'prevented' from winning in the elections scheduled for 1958, "a civil war could break out and rivers of blood would flow."
The central government, at the time headed by the anti-Muslim League Republican Party, retaliated by placing a ban on all paramilitary organizations including Qayyum Khan's Muslim League National Guards.
The working committee of the League took the feud a step further by adopting a resolution which inter alia said that the government would be dislodged if needed by "unconstitutional means."
Within a little over a week, Gen Ayub Khan imposed martial law which he justified by saying that it was aimed at removing the prevailing "confusion and imbalance in the social and economic life of the country."
The Muslim League which from the outset had been the establishment's party now came out in its true colours functioning as 'the King's party'. It is feared that the role which the reunited five factions are now seeking for themselves is something very similar. They want to recapture the lost glory.
What could perhaps have been the first step (by Chaudhri Shujaat Hussain) in this scenario was the quiet, seemingly surreptitious way in which he devised his one-to-one meeting with the president on Tuesday.
In fact all that he said after the meeting of the five factions on Sunday was meant to get the leaders of the factions to thrash out all issues so that "we are well prepared when we meet the president."
It was also decided to convene another meeting of the faction leaders to work out the arrangements for a meeting of their joint council when the reunification of the five factions was also to be formally announced.
According to reports, it remained undecided as to whether the chief executive of the country (i.e., President Gen. Pervez Musharraf) should "also be allowed to become the party chief."
The reports made no mention of a private or exclusive meeting between Chaudhri Shujaat and the president. The meeting when it took place lasted an hour and the Chaudhri Sahib apparently apprised the president of the methods to be adopted for the reunification of the five factions.
If the Pakistan Muslim League in its new setup actually makes a move to involve the president in politics, the latter, one hopes, would be duly circumspect in his response.
With the experience of three martial law regimes of the past, the people would not want another military chief to follow the path which brought Ayub Khan, Ziaul Haq and Yahya Khan in their time to their none-too-enviable an end.
The three could not said to have been able to establish any credibility with the people regardless of how they played games with the system. It is there for everybody to remember that they only succeeded in getting the army's image tarnished.
Ayub Khan's Basic Democracy is remembered only for the maimed form of democracy which he gave to the nation. Ziaul Haq by his so-called Islamization programme which was transparently designed to prolong his stay at the top only led the nation farther and farther away from the goal of a progressive, modern, liberal Pakistan which the Quaid had visualized.
The distortion will perhaps never be removed. About Yahya Khan and the horrendous experience which Pakistan suffered under his command, the less said the better.
As the eminent scholar Dr. Hasan-Askari Rizvi has said, in reality all this irretrievably tarnished the army's image. As a result of the successive martial laws, the military establishment is now widely seen as "a contending group in the political arena."
Ironically, all three army rulers cited the Quaid-i-Azam as a model of leadership and claimed that they would follow in his footsteps. In reality, they forgot that the Quaid was very emphatic about the fact that Pakistan was achieved through a transparent political and democratic process.