|
| December 08, 2006 | Friday | Ziqa'ad 16, 1427 |
Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
A good move
Another karo-kari case
Theocracy alien to Islam
RELIGION is an amazing phenomenon which plays contradictory roles in the life of human beings. It destroys and revitalises, puts to sleep and awakens, enslaves and emancipates and teaches docility and revolt. The history of the Muslims reflects these contradictory roles among various social classes. Islam as a dynamic ‘Deen’ or way of life urges Muslims to move on with the times. The Muslims on the other hand have stuck to the deviant and decadent version of their concept of Islam.
FINALLY, the Bush administration is now going to talk to the two remaining members of the ‘axis of evil’. North Korea, the third member of the “axis”, saw to it that the US talked to it over its nuclear programme. But Syria and Iran were another matter. Both were anathema to Israel, and there was no charge that the Bush administration did not choose to hurl against them. These ranged from helping terrorism and interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq and Lebanon to planning to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. While Tehran was alleged to be working on nuclear weapons, Damascus supposedly had secret plans for manufacturing biological weapons. Thus the standard policy line for Washington — and Tel Aviv — for the last many years has been to threaten both from time to time with military action. The results of the mid-term congressional elections and the Democratic Party gaining control of the two houses have upset the Bush apple cart. The vote was a resounding victory not just for the Democrats but for all those Americans who wished to see peace in Iraq and wanted their boys back home. Now a bipartisan group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton, has set the first quarter of 2008 as the deadline for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.
Saying that the situation in Iraq was “grave and deteriorating”, the Iraq Study Group has recommended that the role of the American troops be confined to training the Iraqi security forces. More awkwardly for an administration that has been pandering to the Zionist lobby so brazenly, the Baker-Hamilton committee has pleaded for engaging Syria and Iran because both were in a position to “influence” events in that country. This is a better way of putting the two countries’ role in Iraq than describing it as “interference”. How the Republican administration goes about implementing the recommendations remains to be seen. President George Bush’s initial reaction after receiving the report on Wednesday was to say that it constituted “a tough assessment” of the Iraqi situation and that he would probably not agree “with every proposal”. Nobody expects the White House to accept the report in its entirety, but the key point which represents the views of a majority of the American people is its insistence on troop withdrawal by the first quarter of 2008.
The report is based on the harsh truth that more than three years after the fall of Baghdad, Iraq is nowhere near peace. The anarchy now has given way to a situation bordering on civil war. The Iraqi people now have neither peace nor freedom — which were the declared aims of the invasion launched in March 2003. An estimated 600,000 civilians have been killed, and the American casualty toll is approaching 3,000. A continuation of the status quo will only mean more misery for the Iraqi people and more US casualties. The report also pleads for resolving the Palestinian conflict and correctly notes that peace in the Middle East is not possible without a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This point is as important in the context of America’s role in the Middle East as the report’s recommendations about Iraq. Regrettably, the Bush administration has made no attempt to revive the roadmap, which the president himself had unveiled in April 2003, and has consistently supported Israel’s refusal to talk to the elected Hamas government.
WITH the country now firmly in the grip of winter, lower LPG prices would deliver timely relief to consumers who rely on cylinder gas for cooking and heating purposes. This is particularly true of consumers in the north of the country, where winters are the harshest, and especially those trying to rebuild their lives after last year’s earthquake. Despite massive price hikes in recent years, liquefied petroleum gas remains the fuel of choice in many areas where piped natural gas is unavailable. LPG is cleaner than wood, coal and other smoke-emitting sources of fuel that can damage human health in the long run. Besides improving the quality of life within homes, gas-fired stoves also aid afforestation efforts by reducing the demand for firewood. Seen in this light, the decision to abolish the import duty on LPG is to be welcomed. It remains to be seen how much consumers will ultimately benefit from this move, but an increase in supply should — at least in theory — help stabilise prices. As things stand, the cost of locally-produced LPG increases by nearly 100 per cent between the production and retail stages. This profiteering by middlemen, which the government has promised to check, could conceivably be reined in by cheaper imports and a resulting increase in supply. Given that the oil industry and the World Bank have been urging the government to remove the price ‘distortions’ between LPG/CNG and petrol, it is also unclear how long the duty-free facility will remain in place. Some analysts believe that import duty on LPG may be reinstated once winter is over. However, election-year imperatives may well postpone what would doubtless be an unpopular move.
Also on Wednesday, the cabinet’s Economic Coordination Committee exempted imported CNG buses from sales tax. This too is a positive step which may make transport cheaper for commuters in these inflationary times. In addition, CNG buses with a large passenger capacity can help ease traffic congestion and lower pollution levels in major cities. There is, however, one fly in the ointment. The ECC also approved sales tax exemptions for ‘purpose-built taxis’ in both completely-knocked-down and built-up forms. The word, unfortunately, is that ‘purpose-built taxis’ may just be a fanciful makeover for the infamous black cabs.
THE brutal murder recently of four women in Shikarpur in an incident of karo-kari is a grim reminder of how laws need to be strictly enforced if such abhorrent crimes are to be eradicated. In that incident, a group of armed men barged into the house of one of the slain victims one night and shot her and her three sisters-in-law to death. It is alleged that the girl’s father was behind the crime as he suspected the women of having illicit affairs. An accused woman hardly gets a chance to defend herself and the karo (the man) rarely gets the same punishment as the kari (the woman). These are the tragedies that women in this country have to contend because the existing laws do not offer them the kind of protection they deserve. The point is that penal laws are hardly any deterrent in the rural hinterland, nor are they enforced as strictly as they should be. Jirgas continue to be held in Sindh in spite of a law that prohibits their penal powers — an indication of what little importance is given to laws. The same is true of the karo-kari law which was passed in Dec 2004 but is not properly implemented. It doesn’t help when those in the government condone such practises or defend them as part of the culture.
Civil society organisations have protested against the Shikarpur incident and are demanding that the perpetrators be brought to justice. The authorities must not cave in under any pressure from the area’s influential and prosecute the killers under the law. Meanwhile, the government must reconsider the provision of the honour killings law that allows for the families to reach a compromise. This provision is grossly misused in committing crimes against women and should be abolished altogether.
A profound scientific movement based on research oriented Ijtihad is the need of the hour. The main objective of such a movement would be to present the real truth and the original face of Islam; to raise the level of understanding and religious awareness and to familiarize the education stratum and the younger generation with the true Islamic values and culture.
In the early history of Muslims, the present-day gap between the intellectuals and the masses did not exist. The great Muslim jurists, the dialectical theologians and the interpreters of the Quran, the philosophers and the literalists had close bonds with the general public. In modern times the new intelligentsia pursue life while living in an ivory tower, without having any understanding of their own social values. On the other hand the uneducated masses are deprived of the wisdom and knowledge of those intellectuals who owe their position to them.
The struggle between right and wrong is a never-ending process. The lack of education and the consequent failure to reassess Islamic values has led to the caste and class system in Muslim societies,. Those occupying the higher stratum of society place hindrances on the basis of might and withhold God’s gifts from His creatures and avail them personally. This leads to what the Quran calls the struggle between right and wrong. There is no such struggle in nature as Islam holds sway in the entire universe, but has to face stiff opposition in the human world.
It is generally observed that a large number of rich, powerful and successful people have adopted the wrong path and as a result tyranny, oppression, exploitation, dishonesty and fraud are rampant. This leads one to think that the true Islamic values are weak and cannot face the onslaught of evil in society. This misunderstanding is due to the slow process of the divinely ordained system. Allah says that if He were to punish the evil doers on the spur of the moment, no one would be alive in this world. “We hurl truth against untruth and it crashes its brain and the untruth vanishes away”(21:18). Muslims may fail, Islam does not.
The deeds of the Nabi (SAW) and those around him accelerated the pace of Divine laws and achieved in a matter of days what would normally take years to materialise. This pace slowed down after a while and the Divine law resumed original speed. The sublime quality of Islam is the respect, honour and dignity it gives to all humans. In an age in which the whole world believed and worshipped the rulers and the kings as God’s shadow on earth, the Quranic call that no one has the right to thrust his will on another and that human affairs should be settled by mutual consultation, must have sounded very strange.
Those evaluating the role of Islam in contemporary times should know that the prophets emerged from among the masses and were able to communicate with them projecting a new vision and injecting new energies. They were able to mobilise the frozen, static and stagnant societies to change their directions, life-styles, outlooks, cultures and destinies.
The Muslim societies need enlightened, educated and research oriented souls whose most important objective and responsibility is to bestow the great God-given gift of ‘self-awareness’ to the general masses. Knowledge means neither religious knowledge nor temporal knowledge. It is a combination of both which leads to awareness unique to a man; a Divine light and a source of consciousness of the social conscience. The failure of a large majority of Muslims to understand and practise the true Islamic values is due to the lack of efforts that is required.
Another important feature of Islam’s outstanding quality is its rejection of man’s slavery in any form. The human mind could only recognize families, tribes and nations, but not the universal brotherhood of man. With the passage of time, man will progress and will appreciate more and more the provisions of the code of life which encourages the evolving features of life. We must remember that any positive movement launched anywhere in the world during the last fourteen centuries for the liberation and advancement of humanity is a ray from Islam’s shining sun. In America when battles were fought for the emancipation of slaves, in India when the Harijan movement was launched, these were manifestations of Islam’s eternal truth.
The UN decision that conflicts be resolved through mutual counsel is nothing but the adoption of the Islamic value system. The low state of Muslims in every field of human endeavour carries over into the present depressing situation of the individual Muslim as compared to the individual non-Muslim in whichever country the two groups are living side by side.
According to Von Grunebaum (Islam — Essays in the nature and growth of a cultural tradition) ‘The spiritual qualities of the combatants had no influence on the result of World War II. Similarly America’s superiority over the Muslim lands is clearly not due to her religious and spiritual qualities, but rather to her economic, technical and scientific qualities.’
Muhammad Abduh, the Chief Mufti of Al-Azhar and undoubtedly the greatest and most influential of Islamic reformers, was aware of the shortcomings of present-day Muslims and throughout his life he laboured to remedy them. An ardent follower of Jamaluddin Afghani (1839-97), the philosopher of Pan-Islamism insisted that Islam, if correctly interpreted, will, in the words of Rashid Rida (1865-1935),’provide the only adequate solution for modern social, political and religious problems’.
Syed Amir Ali (The Spirit of Islam) believes that ‘the strength of Islam is supplemented everyday by its intellectual vigour. It does not rely on obscurantism and encourages the searching mind. Wherever Islam was followed in its true spirit, a civilisation of unequal richness sprung up. It was only when extraneous elements attached themselves to the Divine message that Islam ceased to be the zealous ally of intellectual freedom and lagged behind in the race of progress’.
Theocratic and monastic conceptions are not only foreign to Islam but are a complete negation of it. Islam never established a church with an hierarchy of clergymen. Since man is an integrated composition of permanence and change, laws governing the social order wherein his development takes place, should also be a combination of permanence and change. This point has been beautifully elaborated by Iqbal in his sixth lecture in the series on the Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam.
He says, ‘a society based on such a conception of reality must reconcile, in its life, the categories of perpetual change. It must possess eternal principles to regulate its collective life. But eternal principles when they are understood to exclude all possibilities of change which, according to the Quran, is one of the greatest signs (Ayats) of God, tend to immobilise what is essentially mobile in its nature’.
All the matters of the world have been left at the whim of the religious oligarchy which itself has depended on blind following and negation of reasoning. The resultant failure has always been that of the Muslims and not of Islam. That is why Islam does not encourage theocracy. In Islam the obedience is essentially due only to the laws of Allah as embodied in the Quran.’Shall I (Nabi) look to a judge other than Allah. He who has revealed to you a book defining all things clearly (6:115).
The present century is definitely the century of Islam. According to Akbar S. Ahmed (Islam Under Siege) The hijackers of the four American planes killed thousand of innocent people. This terrible act also created one of the greatest paradoxes of the 21st century: Islam, which sees itself as a religion of peace, is now associated with murder and mayhem. There are about 1.3 billion Muslims living in 55 states. The Muslim world population is one of the fastest growing. And Islam is the one world religion which appears to be on a collision course with the other world religions. The consequences of what happens within Muslim societies will be felt by societies everywhere.
No one is immune from the debates that now rage around Islam. So long as Muslims follow the commands of Allah firmly, their efforts will bear fruit. Their glory and their fall are both determined by God’s laws and not by any one’s whims. It is the way a people adopt which determines their fate. When they give it up, it is not the way (Islam) which fails; it is the people who fail. The Quran says,’ Man is at loss, save those who believe in God’s way of life and by their healthy deeds help the way’. (103:1-3)