The political officer appeared to regret the fact that the various moderate groups lacked financing in comparison to their radical counterparts. — Photo by AFP

KARACHI, Sept 9: Anti-US sentiment may be strong in Pakistan but the country’s religious leadership, regardless of sect, view or approach, have been eager to get their hands on American aid, says a confidential cable of the American consulate in Lahore, released by WikiLeaks.

The cable sent in May 2009 by Principal Officer Bryan Hunt — the gregarious US official who was a familiar sight in Lahore's social scene dressed in his voluminous shalwar kameez — was rich in detail. It discussed the various sects of Muslims in Punjab, including Barelvis, Deobandis, Shias, Sunni Tehrik and Ahle Hadith.

Hunt had been talking to some religious leaders and had planned several “outreach efforts to this community to explore possible strategic communication programmes to engage moderate voices”.

Clearly the Americans also realised the importance of money and how it could help win the moderate hearts and minds.

Perhaps this is what Hunt had in mind when he said that “in a religious environment in which the ability to distribute patronage in the form of ‘charity’ is directly tied to influence, moderate clerics are slowly but steadily losing ground to their oftentimes better funded radical counterparts”.

According to the US official, Punjab’s Barelvi community is broadly divided into two categories: the Ulema — who serve in mosques as prayer leaders and sermon givers — and the Pirs. He added that even the most extreme Barelvis rarely engage in violence — Sunni Tehrik being the notable exception.

The cable explains that in reaction to Sipah-e-Sahaba’s (SSP) forcible occupation of Barelvi mosques in Karachi and its assassination of Barelvi clerics, a group of radical Barelvi Ulema had formed the militant organisation, Sunni Tehrik. Sunni Tehrik aimed to use violence, including targeted assassination, to ‘defend’ the Barelvi community from Deobandi advances. At its height, it was most powerful in Karachi and Hyderabad with a lesser influence in Punjab.

Like the Barelvi, the cable said, the Shia are divided into two primary groups — the Ulema and the Pirs. However, he notes that most Shia Pirs have effectively abandoned their religious role and have become traditional feudal landlords, leaving the Shia Ulema to dominate the sect. The Shia Ulema, however, have no overriding structure. The Shia political party, Tehrik-e-Islami-Pakistan, and its madressah board are disparate organisations, although they are united in their opposition to the Taliban and can play a crucial role in the anti-Taliban movement.

Hunt did not think that Iran controlled these organisations much.

Predictably, the political officer held Deobandi sectarian ideology largely responsible for the birth of the Taliban though he noted that a small but influential number of moderate Punjabi Deobandi leaders opposed radicalisation and were in favour of the democratic process.

The centre of moderate Deobandi thought in Punjab, the report says, is in Lahore at the Jamia Ashrafia and the Badshahi Mosque. Both of these institutions and their leaders — Maulana Abdul Qadir Azad and Maulana Fazl-ur-Rahim — have shown a willingness to work with the US government.

About the Ahl-e-Hadith, Hunt was of the opinion that they were the most radical of Pakistan’s Islamic sects. The community, however, is fractured between violent extremists linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, and their more moderate but less well-financed opponents.

The opposition to Lashkar-e-Taiba in Punjab is split between three personality-driven Ahl-e-Hadith organisations, the Markazi Jamaat Ahl-e-Hadith, the Jamaat Ahl-e-Hadith Ropri of Abdul Wahab Ropri, and the Jamiat Ulema Ahl-e-Hadith of Qazi Abdul Qadir Khamosh.

Hunt mentions this because he suggests that the Markazi Jamaat Ahl-e-Hadith jointly headed by Allama Sajid Mir and Allama Hafiz Zubair Ahmed Zaheer was the most effective way to reach the Ahl-e-Hadith leaders. Hunt concludes this because Allama Zaheer has had a long-standing, positive relationship with the US government.

The political officer appeared to regret the fact that the various moderate groups lacked financing in comparison to their radical counterparts.

“For moderates to stem effectively this growing tide of radicalisation, they will need access to greater cash reserves than are currently available to them,” the political officer said, adding that these groups all welcomed engagement with the US government, and believe that association with and financial support from the United States would increase rather than undercut their influence. “All moderate clerics consistently highlight the need for financial assistance.”

The US official said he planned to outreach the moderate community to explore possible strategic communication programmes to engage moderate voices.