| 27 August 2004 | Friday | 10 Rajab 1425 |
Quaid's concept of Pakistan
Future of Muslims in Europe
There is an impression in some quarters that the knowledge contemplated and highlighted by the Quran means religious or spiritual knowledge only and that the holy book does not advocate the acquisition of any other kind of knowledge or learning. But let us see what the Quran and Sunnah say in this regard.
The Quran says "Read: and thy Lord is the Most Gracious who taught knowledge by pen: taught man that which he did not know" (96:4,5). These two of the first five verses of the Quran revealed to the Prophet (peace be upon him) besides highlighting the importance of knowledge, also tell us what knowledge actually means.
Knowledge, as explained by the above two verses, means knowing that which one does not know. For example, Adam did not know the names of the things before they were taught to him, and for him getting to know the names of those things was knowledge.
Even now, the process of acquiring knowledge starts from knowing the names of things first. Thus, knowing all that one does not know could be knowledge in the Quranic sense.
This definition has, in fact, far-reaching dimensions. It, inter alia, implies that knowledge has no bounds. In other words, starting from knowing the names of things, knowledge can have no limits or boundaries.
There can be no better and more appropriate definition of knowledge than the one revealed by the Quran. This fact is evident from another verse which says "My Lord advance me in knowledge" (20:114).
The verse, among other things, tells us that no one can attain the limits of knowledge. One has to continuously strive for it. That's why the Prophet emphasized the acquisition of knowledge from cradle to grave.
The Quran further says: "Do not follow that of which you have no knowledge, for you will be questioned about the use of your ears, eyes and hearts" (17:36). In Arabic idioms, heart is considered as the centre of affection and intelligence.
Hence, the word "heart" occurring in relation to knowledge in this verse is to be understood as having reference to intelligence or mind and affection. Ears, eyes and mind are the three possible means or channels of the acquisition of knowledge. The mind gives us the ability to think, understand, comprehend, conceive, assimilate, preserve, plan, guide and analyze.
The object of the above verse is not merely to prevent us from doing or following something evil. If we have a look at this verse from another angle, it would follow that it also emphasizes the acquisition of knowledge about anything one does or follows.
Telling a person "don't drive the car without a licence" has the same effect as telling him "learn driving but get the licence first." Likewise telling a person "don't follow that of which you have no knowledge" means the same thing as telling him to "do or follow a thing only when you have enough knowledge about it" or "acquire the knowledge about something before following or doing it."
By following or doing something without requisite knowledge one may wrong or harm himself or he may wrong or harm others. That's why the Quran says that "you will be questioned about the use of your ears, eyes and heart." From the above verse it follows that the knowledge contemplated by the Quran does not mean mere religious knowledge.
This is further evident from the fact the Muslim scholars played a pivotal role in the development of nearly all branches of knowledge. According to the German scholar Professor Joseph Hell "it goes to the credit of Islam that it neither slighted nor ignored other branches of knowledge, nay it offered the same safe home to them as it offered to theology."
Knowledge could be of several kinds and may be acquired for several purposes. But the Prophet specifically laid emphasis on the kind of knowledge that should be acquired by the believers when he said that "knowledge which does not yield any benefit to the people is like wealth that is not spent in the way of Allah."
It means, knowledge to be acquired must have the potential of being used for the benefit of the people and must be used for that purpose. For example, even nuclear science has the potential of being beneficial to the people.
Thus, knowledge contemplated by the Quran could include many forms of knowledge including religious knowledge that can promote, directly or indirectly, human welfare or the process of human development.
The Quran not only indicates what knowledge should actually mean but also tells us how it is to be acquired and disseminated. The best way of acquiring and disseminating knowledge, according to the above verses (96:4,5), could be the use of the pen or through reading and writing.
This fact is also spelled out by another Quranic verse (68:1). In this verse the role of pen in the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge is highlighted but in a different way i.e. through the Divine Oath.
Besides, the Quran indicates another source through which one can acquire knowledge. When one of the two sons of Adam killed the other, he did not know how to dispose of the dead body.
In the meantime a raven came and started scratching the earth from which he drew the conclusion that the dead body had to be buried (5:27,31). He came to this conclusion through observation.
Likewise, when Moses and Khizr walking together reached a river, they boarded a boat passing in front of them. Meanwhile a bird came, and, sitting on one side of the boat, dipped her beak twice in the river.
Seeing this Khizr told Moses that all he could gather from what the bird demonstrated in front of them was that whatever knowledge both of them had acquired, as their share from the knowledge of Allah, was like what the bird could have picked up in her beak from the river.
The above event, partly narrated in the Quran (18:65-82) and partly in Hadith (Bokhari), among other things, tells us about another way of acquiring knowledge. The bird dipped her beak twice in the river. Each time she might have drawn in a drop of water which means that she took in only two drops of water in all.
The drops of water were from the flowing river (something small from something very big). Moses and Khizr were the two knowledgeable persons in the boat before whom the demonstration took place.
Hence, the logical conclusion could have been that what the bird demonstrated was that the knowledge each one of them had acquired was like a drop of water from the flowing river. They should, therefore, not be proud of their knowledge but should rather strive to acquire more of it.
Observation, as may be seen, was the starting point in the above process. But observation by itself is not enough. It has to be complemented and followed by reasoning and analogy to draw the correct conclusion and make the right use of it.
And that is exactly what happened in the above cases. That is why the Quran repeatedly emphasizes pondering and reflecting over various objects and signs in the universe (45:13).
Thus, observation and use of reasoning and analogy could be another way of acquiring knowledge. One may learn a lot from observing a phenomenon, analyzing and pondering over the chain of events involved therein, drawing his own conclusion therefrom and applying the same to another appropriate situation.
Quaid's concept of Pakistan
The participants of a seminar in Peshawar on democracy and good governance only stated the obvious when they maintained that Pakistan had failed to emerge as the state visualized by its founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Indeed, there could be nothing more remote than the concept outlined by Jinnah at the outset.
Speaking at the inauguration of the Pakistan Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947 - four days before Pakistan was proclaimed as an independent state - he explicitly said that he expected the homeland of the Muslims to adhere to the concept of democracy and to make no distinction among its citizens on the basis of caste, creed or social status.
In reality, over the years since Jinnah's death and the assassination of prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan has been anything but what the Quaid visualized.
But for short breathing spells of democracy, by Pakistan has been ruled by autocrats, dictators and usurpers, motivated move by their own whims than by any constitution.
As it was said in no uncertain terms at the Peshawar seminar, successive civil and military rulers have managed over the years to completely throw overboard the ideals outlined by the Quaid and almost throughout its existence the state has been marked by distinctions of caste, creed and social status and democracy has remained largely elusive.
Not much may be known about the Liberal Forum Pakistan, which sponsored the Peshawar seminar, but what it identified as the basic malaise behind Pakistan's political failure can hardly be disputed.
It aptly maintained that those who have come to the helm of Pakistan's leadership have been more concerned about preserving their own position and much less about how Pakistan is governed.
The constant theme of Jinnah's statements and speeches that Pakistan would not be some kind of a theocracy but a modern progressive state has also been all but forgotten. Responsible leaders in Pakistan have even pretended that the speech of August 11, 1947 was never made.
There was even an attempt to delete the speech from the collection of Jinnah's speeches. A minister once tried to publish an official collection without it. All this could have been laughable but for the fact that it has serious implications for Quaid's legacy.
What seems to bother the present generation of Pakistani politicians is the unqualified stress that Jinnah laid on what may be called the secular values of governance which he hoped would be adopted by Pakistan.
In his inaugural speech, he exhorted the people to rise above "the angularities of the majority and minority communities - the Hindu community and the Muslim community - and hoped that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense because that is the personal faith of each individual but in the political sense as citizens of the state..."
While one may argue that the construction of his statement is not as clear as it might have been, there is no doubt that what the Quaid preferred was a secular dispensation for the future constitution of Pakistan.
His biographer, Stanley Wolpert, has observed that what he said suggested a remarkable reversal, almost as if the Quaid was reverting to his old image of "ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity" which is how the great nationalist leader, Mrs Sarojini Naidu, had once described him. Wolpert's observation is that "his (Quaid's) mind was racing too swiftly for logical coherence."
However, a significant section of Pakistani leadership would have wanted Jinnah not to have made these remarks at all and appear uncomfortable whenever these words are recalled.
It is significant that a great deal else that Jinnah said in the same speech and is a challenge to the traditional values of the people, is hardly ever regarded as controversial.
For instance he said "Black marketing is another ruse... A citizen who does black marketing commits, I think, a greater crime than the biggest and most grievous of crimes.... I think they ought to be very severely punished because they undermine the entire system of control... and cause wholesale starvation and even death." In fact black marketing is a way of life with quite a significant section of the Pakistani society.
Jinnah also condemned the evil of nepotism and jobbery and said that "this evil must be crushed relentlessly." However, jobbery and nepotism are generally regarded as part of the art of governance. With equal severity Jinnah condemned the interference of bureaucracy in the governance of the state. Pakistan is hardly ever free of they evil.
It is sometimes suggested that Jinnah and Iqbal in their quest for partition were inspired by an idea floated by Choudhury Rahmat Ali and some other students in a pamphlet published in January 1933.
However, as Prof Khalid bin Sayeed has pointed out in his "Pakistan: The Formative Phase", the idea of forming a separate state in India was mooted as early as December 1883 by a British civil servant, Wilfred Scawen Blunt, who suggested that "in his view practically all the provinces of Northern India should be placed under Muslim Government and those of southern India under Hindu government", which would mean that the British would continue as the controlling power drawing their support from the British troops stationed in each of the provinces.
Sayeed maintains that "this created a feeling of uneasiness among the Muslims as regards their share of power." Muslim reaction to the Nehru Report in 1928 also has what Sayed calls "another glimpse of Muslim apprehensions and their separatist tendencies."
In his presidential address at the Allahabad session of the All India Muslim League in December 1930, Iqbal presented a conception which Sayeed says was not only clear but also comprehensive in the sense that it was "based on both geographical and ideological factors."
Iqbal proposed that Punjab, the NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan should be amalgamated in a single state "with self-government, within British Empire or without British Empire." He regarded this proposed consolidation of "North-West Indian Muslim state as the final destiny of the Muslims."
Iqbal went on to explain that there need be no fear that the "creation of autonomous Muslim states would mean the introduction of a religious rule in such states." As Sayeed has quoted him, he went on to assert that in certain cases a Muslim state could adopt such a flexible approach as to impose no restrictions on the realization of money loaned.
Iqbal also said rather significantly that the formation of a consolidated Muslim state means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power, for Islam to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism is forced to give it, to mobilize its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times.
It is sometimes argued that Iqbal did not demand a complete partition of India, between Muslim India (Pakistan) and Hindu India (Hindustan) and this demand was formally formulated only in the 1940 Muslim League resolution.
The word 'Pakistan' was certainly coined by Choudhury Rahmat Ali when he published his pamphlet, Now Or Never in 1933. The pamphlet was also co-signed by Mohammad Aslam Khan, shaikh Mohammad Sadiq and Inayatullah Khan.
'Pakistan' as conceived by Rahmat Ali was intended to demand for the recognition of the Muslims of five provinces and the name of the state as proposed by him represented the first letters of the provinces viz: Punjab, Afghania (NWFP), Kashmir, Sindh and Balochistan.
The authors of the pamphlet insisted that their scheme was basically different from the scheme proposed by Iqbal. the British government found Rahmat Ali's proposal worthy of an enquiry by a parliamentary committee which among others included Sir Michael O'Dwyer, who had ruled Punjab at the time of the massacre in Jallianwala Bagh.
Abdullah Yusuf Ali was asked for his opinion about the scheme. His response was "As far as I know it is only a students' scheme, no responsible people have put it forward."
When some newspaper comments suggested that it was the same scheme as that of Iqbal, the latter promptly contradicted it. In fact, the philosopher-poet wrote to several of his friends in India and in England to write to newspapers making it clear that he (Iqbal) had nothing to do with the idea as put forward by Rahmat Ali.
Future of Muslims in Europe
The tragedy of 9/11 had its impact on the Muslim communities in Europe as well. They now suddenly appear to be outsiders. There are persistent reports about the harassment of Muslims as well as physical attacks on individuals, mosques and Islamic schools. There are concerns about the growing size of the Muslim communities in Germany, France, Belgium and Britain.
In Europe, with a population of about 20 million Muslims, Islam has come to be regarded as the second religion. It needs to be noted that there is not one but many Muslim communities in Europe.
In Britain, which has around 1.6 million Muslims, Pakistani Muslims form the largest group followed by the Bangladeshis. In Germany and the Netherlands, Turkish Muslims dominate.
The Netherlands also has a considerable number of Moroccan and Surinamese Muslims. In France there are around 4.5 million Muslims and like Spain and Belgium, most of them are from Maghreb (mainly Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria), with small Turkish and African minorities.
Over the past three decades, Muslim factor has become increasingly visible in Europe's public life. Mosques, 'halal' food, Muslim customs and ways of dress are increasingly common.
It is difficult to know the accurate number of Muslims living in Europe, because the estimates of the legal immigrants vary and little is known about the size of the illegal ones.
Some estimates indicate that Muslims may outnumber non- Muslims in Europe by 2050. One reason for such a happening can be attributed to the low birth rate within the European population and rise in the ageing population.
Of late, a broader Muslim identity has emerged within Europe in the wake of issues like the Gulf war, the Rushdie affair, the situation in the Middle East, the head scarf issue, race riots in Britain and more recently the war against terrorism.
There have been three main models by which the EU states have tried to deal with the migrants in general. First, there is the guest worker model, under which the migrants are seen to have temporary presence as has been the case in Germany and in Austria and Switzerland in some modified form. Second is the assimilation model.
France is the primary example of such a country. Third is the ethnic minorities model, in which there is room for the preservation of cultural identity. This model is followed in the Netherlands, Scandinavian countries and the UK.
The Europe's Muslim scenario is rapidly changing and it will be important to observe how the growth of Muslim communities in the continent takes place. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the situation in the Middle East will definitely shaping the Europe's new perception.
However, the 9/11 has not given rise to a new variant of an old anti-Muslim prejudice in Europe, but there has been less focus of attention on cultural and religious factors and more on political ones.
Also as a reaction to increasing multiculturalism in Europe, in the past couple of years, there has been a visible rise of the far right parties at the national level.
The recent European parliamentary elections also witnessed an increasing support for anti-EU and other far right parties in Europe. This is attributed to anti-immigration policies.
Their share of power at the national governments has also increased in the countries with migrant Muslim population like Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, Britain, France, Norway and Denmark.
The issue of head scarves became important in Europe in the last decade or so, largely because of the way it developed in France and later in Germany. Head scarves have never been an issue in Britain and the Netherlands, as there is a more liberal approach to accommodate Muslim women in workplaces, as well as special considerations for children in schools.
There is need to integrate the Muslims within European society in a democratic fashion. The challenge of terrorism can be successfully met by avoiding a rise in the ranks of disgruntled Muslims.
This can be done by providing for Muslim representation at the political level and creating more space for the Muslims in the parliaments as well as at the local levels.
In both Britain and Netherlands, Muslims are represented at the highest levels. The Germans have not encouraged the minorities to be active in politics even at the local level.
Until recently the Turkish minority was entirely excluded from German citizenship. The Netherlands, by contrast, gave immigrants the right to vote and to stand for offices as early as 1986, and it has been easier to obtain Dutch citizenship than German one.
More dialogue is required to understand the mindset of the Muslim migrants in Europe and to make them feel part of European society rather remain as outsiders. There is need to discuss the status of the Muslims' human and religious rights to make certain that the war on terrorism will not be used as a cover for anti- Muslim abuses.
The problem is that most of the Muslims have the lowest incomes and the largest families. Although they are not very well represented in European politics and social setup, a number of Muslims, mostly business entrepreneurs in Britain, France, the Netherlands and Germany are participating in political activities in order to become part of the European society as well as to project their concerns and problems. The media can play an important role in the integration of the Muslims in European society.
But an effort has to be made by the Muslims themselves for better integration through political participation, creating a better understanding of the societies they live in as well as efforts by the Muslim scholars in Europe to initiate some kind of a dialogue process with their counterparts and to disown the actions and opinions of the extremists.
As European governments step up their efforts to root out the extremists from their societies, the future holds one of the two possibilities: either the continent's 20 million Muslims will integrate smoothly into their countries' economic and political life; or they will remain on the margins, disaffected and potentially dangerous.
The writer is a research fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad.