Taxation and the Shariat

AT THE time the Shariat was formulated governments did not go out to borrow money, abroad or at home, to meet their obligations. A large proportion of its resources came initially from “booty,” but as conquests slowed down and systems of governance stabilized, state funds consisted mainly of the proceeds of taxes.

The taxes were: (1) zakat, (2) ushr, (3) Khums, (4) ushur, (5) dara’ib, (6) jizyah, and (7) kharaj. The ones other than those which are specifically Islamic, and which a Muslim state may impose because it needs additional funds, fall in the category of “dara’ib.” Suffice it to note that the state does have the authority to levy them, the opinion of some medieval jurists to the contrary notwithstanding.

Khums is one fifth of the “booty” Muslims capture in battles against non-believers, which is to be turned over to the state. Pakistan army is not known to have brought home any booty in the wars it has fought to date, and there is no likelihood of its doing so in the foreseeable future. No further consideration of “khums” would then seem to be necessary. Ushur refers to taxes levied on gains in commerce and industry undertaken by citizens regardless of their religion. Little is said of it in the sources I have seen, but it sounds like a tax on income.

Ziaul Haq imposed zakat and ushr in Pakistan and these taxes are still being collected. Zakat is a 2.5 per cent tax on savings and several other belongings, such as precious stones and metals (for instance, diamonds, gold, and silver) held in bulk or in the form of jewellery. One of the Prophet’s (pbuh) sayings has it that of the forty grazing camels one has to be given in zakat, which is taken to mean that herds of cattle owned by a Muslim are subject to this tax.

Some writers on the subject include a businessman’s “merchandize” among things on which zakat is payable. This would seem to refer to the whole array of goods stacked on the shelves, or in the warehouse, of a supermarket or a department store. Before going further, we should take note of three conditions relating to zakat. First, it is not due on possessions that amount to less than the current value of 85 grams of gold. Second, the object in question must have remained in the owner’s continuous possession for a whole year. Third, the proceeds of the tax are to be devoted exclusively to helping the “poor and the needy, widow, orphan, and the wayfarer.” They are not to be spent on buying weapons for defence.

Zakat on monies lying in a depositor’s bank accounts is easily collected. But the payment of zakat on funds kept in the home, jewellery that Muslim women keep in addition to the items they wear every day, the inventory that has remained in a merchant’s store for a whole year, cattle that someone is raising on a farm, will have to be left to each individual. It will be simply beyond the resources of any government to keep track of all taxable assets in the possession of every Pakistani Muslim and collect the tax due.

Individual Muslims will voluntarily pay all of the zakat they owe if they are anxious to meet the obligations the shariat places on them. Such Muslims are not likely to be found in Pakistan in any great number. It may then be best to leave the collection of zakat where it is at the present time and not attempt to extend it beyond bank deposits.

Ushr is a ten per cent tax on the produce of rain-fed land (five per cent if the land is irrigated), and it is already levied in Pakistan. I don’t know if the law allows any exemptions. If it doesn’t, it should, for surely the shariat does not contemplate tax burdens on peasants who live close to the poverty line. One other consideration may be suggested. From time to time we have heard proposals for the levy of an agricultural income tax. It should not be levied as long as ushr is being collected. In addition to ushr, zakat, and all the other taxes that are in force, the proposed income tax would be punitive toward farming as an occupation.

Two of the taxes the shariat prescribes relate to non-Muslim persons living under Muslim rule. These are Kharaj and jizyah. Kharaj is a tax on the proceeds from land owned by non-Muslims who, it is important to note, are not subject to ushr. Neither the Quran nor the Sunnah requires this tax. It was first levied, presumably, during the pious caliphate when conquests proceeded rapidly and non-Muslims in substantial numbers came under Muslim rule. The levying of the tax, and its amount, lay in the government’s discretion.

Non-Muslims constitute only about three per cent of Pakistan’s population, and probably most of them do not own agricultural land. No significant loss of revenue would result if we simply ignored this tax. Alternatively, ushr (under the same or another name) might be levied on non-Muslim farmers. There is nothing in the shariat which says non-Muslims cannot pay ushr if they would rather do that than pay kharaj.

On first reading the shariat seems to require non-Muslims to pay jizyah, an annual poll tax, because they don’t pay zakat, even though they are entitled to the same protection of life and property that the state owes to Muslims, and because they are, in addition, exempted from military service. But there is more to this matter than a simple quid pro quo. The relevant verse in the Quran says: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day ... until they pay the jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” (9:29). We will come back to this verse shortly.

The Quran does not prescribe an amount a non-Muslim must pay. Nor does the Sunnah settle it. The second pious caliph, Umar bin Khattab, fixed the jizyah at 48 “dirhams” for the wealthy, 24 for the middle classes, and 12 for the poor. Class delineations were made according to local understanding in the region or the community concerned. Imam Abu Hanifa retained Hazrat Umar’s determination. (Imam Shafi’i recommended one dinar per person per year.) Aurangzeb adopted Abu Hanifa’s rate when he reimposed the jaziyah on the Hindus in India.

It should be noted that in Muslim historical experience the rate varied from time to time, depending on the ruler’s discretion. Exemptions were granted to the old, sick, unemployed, indigent, women, children, monks, and hermits. Referring to jizyah and kharaj in his well-known work, A Short History of the Saracens (1898), Syed Ameer Ali notes that some “special cities, provinces and tribes were exempt from these burdens.” Note also that, strictly speaking, a government is obligated to refund the jizyah it had collected if it fails to protect the non-Muslim resident’s life and property. (A common failing in Pakistan.)

We have not heard resounding demands for the imposition of jizyah in Pakistan. But, given half a chance, the ulema will most likely raise the issue. It may then be appropriate to see what kind of case, pro and con, regarding this tax can be made. The Quran, Sunnah, and actual Muslim practice can be cited to justify it. The case against it calls for unconventional interpretation and thinking.

In the verse quoted above, the Quran is referring to people who had been hostile to Muslims, sometimes at war with them. They were to be vanquished and made to feel “subdued.” Jizyah was an acknowledgment of their defeat, submission, and subordination. The same may be said of the people on whom jizyah was imposed during the pious caliphate.

But the non-Muslims in Pakistan are not a conquered people. They are “sons of the soil” as much as the rest of us. They are not at war with us, or even hostile to us. They are our brothers in Pakistani nationhood. There is no call whatever for us to make them feel “subdued.” It may then be argued that the Quranic injunction and the Prophet’s (pbuh) sunnah with regard to jizyah do not apply to the non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan.

Consider now the ruler’s discretion at work. He could settle the amount of this tax as he deemed fit, and he could exempt not only certain categories of individuals but whole tribes and communities from paying it. Considering the attachment of our non-Muslim citizens to the country, it would not be improper if our government gave all of them an exemption. Jizyah worked out as an important source of revenue for certain Muslim governments during the medieval period. That surely is not the case in Pakistan. Our non-Muslim population is small and, for the most part, downright poor, and therefore entitled to exemptions even for that reason.

Apart from being ineligible for the offices of the president and the prime minister, non-Muslims have all the same rights under our Constitution as do Muslims. They are equal citizens in all other respects. Jizya would single them out for discriminatory treatment and would, therefore, come into conflict with the Constitution.

Lastly, there can be little doubt that jizyah will severely alienate our non-Muslim citizens (as it did the Hindus during Aurangzeb’s time) from the rest of us and further weaken our national cohesion, which is already fragile. That would be a loss far greater than any gains that jizyah might bring us. Consider also that we Muslims are currently, and for the foreseeable future will remain, a beleaguered people. Many in the outside world have come to think that we are extremist, intolerant, militant, and combative in our approach to non-Muslims. In this climate of opinion even proposals to impose jizyah will further estrange them from us.

We will take up the matter of distributive justice next Sunday.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA.

E-mail: syed.anwar@comcast.com

Caught in a political limbo

THE world generally views Pakistan as a fundamentalist state which would have become bankrupt but for a giant heaving given to it by the IMF-World Bank-US combine and, above all, by 9/11. The leaders of the country, by their everyday bizarre and contradictory utterances, are now also making it into a laughing stock.

As if the chiefs of the parties in power and those laying a claim to it and a variety of their spokesmen were not enough for this task, now Mr Rafiq Tarar has thrown his hat into the ring as well — only to add amusement to the muddle. Unlike the other contenders, Mr Tarar’s contention is simple — he and not Pervez Musharraf is the president of the country. But like the other contenders he too wants a political and not a judicial settlement of his claim. He has good reasons to be wary for he was once a judge of the Supreme Court and later ran the rumoured Quetta shuttle that allegedly subverted it.

The judicial merit of Mr Tarar’s claim to presidency apart, the undisputed fact is that he was nominated by the Sharif clan. The election that followed was merely to conform to the letter of the Constitution. Pervez Musharraf was nominated by the army. The rest, like Tarar’s election, too was a formality completed under the same Constitution with its letter amended.

The factor common to the two presidents thus is that both were nominated and not elected. Musharraf’s nominating constituency, as events have shown, is much bigger and stronger than Tarar’s. The popular base of Tarar’s claim is also much weaker than Musharraf’s. Its legal strength can be tested only in the Supreme Court, which neither he nor Musharraf is inclined to do.

Profound silence was the hallmark, and a redeeming feature, of Mr Tarar’s presidency. So it should have been in his retirement. Had he vacated the office, or protested, when his benefactor Nawaz Sharif was toppled, imprisoned and tried, he would have made some political capital out of the process. By hanging on for more than a year till he was forced to leave, albeit with all the show of courtesy by Gen. Musharraf, must have been viewed by the Sharifs as a betrayal. Now by his unexpected outburst in the midst of an opulent and protected retirement safe from tax inspectors and bandits alike, he must have annoyed, or may be just amused, Musharraf. To the public and politics it makes no difference either way. Rafiq Tarar’s entry into the political fray may go altogether unnoticed or soon forgotten, but the politicians continue to bicker or huddle to bargain as if the country and its future belong to them and not to the people. Poised to grow economically, the country is trapped in a political limbo for almost a year now while the administration is engaged in perpetual in-fighting.

It is not a confrontation between Musharraf’s government and his opponents alone but a bedlam all around which has brought all activity but political squabbles to a standstill. Everybody is trying his hand, or exerting his guile, in his own way to retain power or to grab it.

Musharraf’s own men speak in different voices, each to suit his own interest or ambition. His chief confidante Chaudhry Shujaat, untrammelled by party discipline (for he himself sets its tone) and unconcerned about the repercussions it might have for the prime minister, has proclaimed from Paris that the LFO and the president’s uniform both are settled issues and cannot be reopened in the talks for which Jamali is knocking at the door of every opposition leader.

Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat says the talks with the opposition can be only on the question of running the new system and not on changing it, and yet hopes the MMA would join the government. Sheikh Rashid seems to be duping the opposition and pleasing Musharraf at the same time when he says the talks will be within the bounds of the Constitution. To Musharraf LFO is part of the Constitution, and to the other side that is what the dispute is all about.

It is left to Zafarullah Jamali to play safe and ambivalent to save his government. In political negotiations, he says, one has to be flexible at all times on all issues; there is no last word spoken in politics; the speaker’s ruling on the legality of the LFO should be no hindrance to a rapprochement. The common guess, however, is that rigidity and not flexibility will mark the government’s attitude in the next round of talks (if at all it takes place) for it is Shujaat who speaks the president’s mind and not Jamali.

If dissonance is the rule in the ruling coalition, divergence of views is no less marked in the opposing parties though they are all vowed to act in unison in seeking an accommodation with the government. To the sage of them all, Nawabzada Nasrullah, there can be no compromise on the LFO; it must go in full and at once. To Javed Hashmi, Musharraf is not acceptable as president with or without the uniform — not even for a day. Makhdoom Amin Fahim has objections to the LFO but the chief anxiety for the PPP is the return of Benazir Bhutto to put the party together to negotiate to coexist with the army from a position of strength once the other contenders, principally the MMA, are put out of the way.

The MMA, or at least its JUI component, has conditions less stringent for collaboration with the government for more than one reason. It wants the parliament to survive for the religious parties do not expect to do so well if elections were to be called again. Further, enormously tantalizing it must be for the alliance’s secretary-general to become the deputy prime minister. That offer, besides the inherent power of the office, will give its government in the NWFP much greater freedom in managing the provincial and tribal affairs.

Whatever the outcome of the negotiations and whoever the prime movers might be, a disturbing thought remains that their sole objective would be to get the parliament inaugurated and going. That might justify the existence and remunerations of a thousand or so parliamentarians, central and provincial, but it would not give the country a government which is cohesive and, at the same time, is able to win the confidence of its own people and of the world at large in dealing with terrorism, Afghanistan, India and a host of complex issues arising out of the evolving economic and political order. Neither the people at home nor those abroad, for instance, would accept a government which sponsors jihad but rejects the modern banking or monetary transactions which are the foundation of economic prosperity.

That is the danger inherent in seeking a settlement with the religious right but not with more moderate and centrist parties which, once the personal rancour is overcome, would get along better with Musharraf’s thinking and policies at home and honour his international commitments as well.

The lurking danger in collaborating with MMA is made imminent by Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s advice, more of a warning, to the government not to help the US forces in haunting down the Taliban/Al Qaeda fighters operating or sheltering in the vicinity of the Durand Line. The opposition of the religious parties to the war on terror in Afghanistan is understandable for its victims are mostly the youth who grew up in their nurseries. But a potential deputy prime minister articulating it at a time when the militants are regrouping can only further worsen relations with the Afghan government, and lessen the American goodwill Pakistan so badly needs in negotiating with India.

In dealing with the current internal problems (with unemployment and sectarianism topping the list) and regional tensions and in fulfilling its international responsibilities, the advisable course for the Musharraf-Shujaat-Jamali power axis would be to reach an understanding with the PPP and Muslim League. If the central role of these parties in the politics of the country is recognized, their big leaders may agree to mark their time out of the country till the wounds are healed.

The current stalemate in which the parliament is unable to function, the governments are expanding but not performing, the ministers and nazims are at each other’s throats, the civil services are broken or demoralized, the economic environment has improved but investors are not coming forth is bound to give way to mass unrest if the remedy to be applied is not both quick and effective.

A transparent decision? — II

THIS follows on from my column of last Sunday, on the topic of a perceived scam in Pakistan Steel Mill. All one has to do is to write such a column and one is snowed under with e-mail messages, letters, copies of documents, tape recordings and telephone calls — mostly from persons who are either anonymous, or who give their names but say that they do not wish to be quoted or named.

After having read the column, several persons sprang into action — middlemen, brokers and sellers of PSM’s products who tried to convince me that the chairman, Lt Colonel Afzal Khan, was not corrupt and had performed wonders at the mill. Re-read the column, they were told, Afzal Khan has not been accused of corruption. It is no fault of his that he now has to serve under Minister Liaquat Jatoi, who is famed for his blatant corruption. The responsibility for whitening and resurrecting Jatoi lies firmly with President General Pervez Musharraf. However, to the credit of the general, he has admitted that he had no option but to make ‘compromises’ against his better judgment while democratizing the government. We ask: at whose and at what cost?

Then there was a spate of Afzal Khan’s well-wishers who visited - looking to the right, to the left, before whispering ‘Do you know that Afzal is a close friend of Musharraf? He was his batch mate at Kakul.’ Of course I knew, having met many, many men who have conveyed one way or another that they were his kindergarten mates, his school mates, his college mates, his mates at the PMA, his regimental mates, his division mates, his corps mates, and those who had served with or under him in the army — if totalled, they would come to a few hundred thousand.

And finally, four irate senior retired, gainfully re-employed officers of the Pakistan army, all men of the artillery, rang to object to the fact that I had mentioned that Afzal Khan was a former gunner. Not at all so, they said, and demanded an apology. The man was a ‘paidal’. These braves also requested that they not be identified.

Colonel Khan is a remarkable man. He has been able not only to survive, but also to thrive, in a government organization for almost twenty years, under over half a dozen corrupt, incompetent governments. He joined PSM in the mid-1980s amongst the ranks of some 25 general managers, was sacked and reinstated three times, on the last occasion with a promotion elevating him to the top of the ladder — and he has the gall to claim that he ‘sacrificed’ his career in the larger PSM interest. He has successfully rid the mill of some 5,000 unwanted personnel, many of them ‘ghost’ employees who existed merely on the payroll — no mean achievement.

He has a myriad of court cases filed against him for wrongful dismissal and other issues, which he is valiantly facing. One complaint of the buyers is that under Colonel Khan the mill has shown comparatively outstanding financial results, though lately it has somewhat decreased the quantum of production. What he has done is to impose an indiscriminate increase and to manipulate the prices of the products he sells, the import of some of which is banned or restricted, and by doing so he is thus hurting the country’s economy. The manufacturers and users in some cases have to pay excessively above what they would have otherwise had to pay. We, the buyers of the final product, have to suffer in silence — just one of the many misfortunes we must bear because of our government’s incompetence.

The colonel holds a high-risk job, and he is in need of luck. One of his predecessors, Sajjad Hussain, was murdered as he was about ‘to spill the beans’. The politician suspected of having committed the crime is still under trial. Another predecessor, Usman Faruqui, made millions for himself and his bosses but now languishes in Karachi’s Central Prison.

Now, to get to the ‘core issue’ — the following questions remain unanswered:

1) For the 2003-2008 supply contracts, why were bids invited in November 2002 on the basis of the well-tested 20-year old criteria of evaluation?

2) Why were the criteria of evaluation changed on March, 9, 2003 after the bids had come in and had been evaluated?

3) Why were the previous tenders, which had come in, not scrapped and fresh bids re-invited to suit the new criteria?

4) When tenderers, who had won according to the old criteria, made protests, and General Mohammed Mohsin’s committee was appointed to examine these contentious issues, why were the existing contracts not extended?

5) When the committee asked for bids to be reinvited, why were the old contracts not extended? (The fact remains that the old contracts had to be extended in order to give PSM time to re-invite tenders on the basis of altered criteria.)

7) Why was this done only five days before the contracts were to expire? Transparency? Hardly, rather foul play to accommodate a new unreliable supplier of untested worth.

8) What was the compulsion that required circumstances to be engineered to sign up a dubious untested supplier?

9) Why is the nation thereby being made to lose tens of millions of dollars?

10) And, most pertinently, why has General Mohsin’s report not been made available to the board of directors, the men responsible for the management of PSM?

Many more questions arise. An ‘insider’ has sent me a detailed note, a copy of which I am forwarding to board member Ali Raza, who heads the nation’s largest bank, the National Bank of Pakistan, and to board member Tariq Kirmani, who heads the nation’s largest organization, Pakistan State Oil, neither government servants but both private sector men of eminence, with the request that they requisition a special board meeting to consider General Mohsin’s report and the ensuing devious manoeuvring.

This is no longer a perceived scam — it is an actual one. But the loss can yet be salvaged.

Standards for detainees

FIGHTING the war on terrorism has forced the US government to confront profoundly vexing questions concerning the people it captures. Are Al Qaeda members criminals who should be prosecuted, members of a strange species of foreign army, or somehow both?

And if, as U.S. authorities quickly concluded, they are both, when should they be treated as criminals in civilian courts, when should they go before military tribunals and when should they be held with no trial at all and under what circumstances?

We would have hoped that nearly two years after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration would have made a stab at addressing these questions. And in a sense, it has: It is claiming the authority to unilaterally decide how any captive is legally designated and held — and to unilaterally change that designation at any time. This system is convenient for the government, offering all of the legitimacy the criminal justice system can confer without any of its discipline. As a legal regime, however, it is unacceptable.

Consider, for example, the disparity between the way the government handled its two big recent terrorism arrests. The Justice Department reached a plea deal with a man named Iyman Faris, a naturalized American truck driver living in Ohio who looked into destroying the Brooklyn Bridge and conducting an attack in Washington on behalf of Al Qaeda.

Mr. Faris was prosecuted in federal court in Virginia. Federal court, however, was too good for a Qatari student named Ali S. Marri. Like Mr. Faris, Mr. Marri is a suspected Al Qaeda operative; he arrived in this country the day before the 9/11 attacks. And like Mr. Faris, he was initially prosecuted using the normal criminal system for lying to the FBI and for credit-card fraud. —The Washington Post

Israel: yes or no?

“THE debate should be serious. There should be no emotionalism of the extremists. What is our dispute with Israel? We should think”. These were the words of President Musharraf , as reported by a leading London newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, in calling for a discussion on the merits of recognizing Israel.

Let us try to marshal the arguments fairly and realistically. Let us for the present not be prejudiced by the fact that this was said two days after the recent meeting with President George W. Bush at Camp David, and the promise of three billion dollars over five years.

Pakistan and Israel were founded almost simultaneously over 50 years ago as two states based on religious ideologies, and are the only states founded on that basis. Throughout this period, Pakistan has consistently opposed Israel on almost all issues. It holds the record for the longest diatribe when speaking against Israel at the UN. It is now being asked what Pakistan has gained in return for its uncompromising stance.

Several arguments are being put forward to justify a change in our nation’s attitude towards Israel, and in particular the recognition of that state. Mainly it is said that for all the support Pakistan has extended to Muslim, particularly Arab, causes, we have received little reciprocal support. This is not correct.

When Pakistan’s cause was seen as just, as in the 1965 war with India, several Muslim countries offered military and financial assistance. They included Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. In 1971, however, because of the civil war and killing of fellow Muslims in East Pakistan, there was little or no support. In financial terms, Pakistan has benefited considerably from both Arab and non-Arab Muslim states. Over the past many years, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Abu Dhabi, among other countries, have extended generous assistance.

On the ‘core issue’ of Kashmir, despite our own failings, the Muslim world has frequently supported our cause in the past and continues to condemn India’s oppressive rule and abuse of human rights. This backing has been maintained in the face of massive pressure from India.

It is said that Israel, a formidable power, is close to the US, and Pakistan would be viewed more favourably by the US if we improved our relations with Israel. The Jewish lobby is undoubtedly by far the strongest in America and is actively involved against Pakistan. We would possibly benefit from more American largesse and defuse the antagonism of the Israeli lobby. More recently, another concern has been advanced, namely that Israel has considerable economic, military and intelligence contact with India, and is supplying our neighbour with sophisticated weaponry.

Finally, why should Pakistan not recognize Israel when that country is a reality and has been recognized de facto or de jure by some Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan, and even the Palestine Liberation Authority, as well as Turkey and several African Muslim states. This argument is, as we shall see, at best specious.

The most ‘pragmatic’ argument advanced among those mentioned above is the improvement in relations with the US, and the reduction in Israel’s lobbying activities against Pakistan. It is not possible to be precise about the extent and nature of this benefit, but there would certainly be some.

However, even viewed pragmatically, would there really be a commensurate gain in so readily complying with this US request? Experience has shown that Pakistan has derived little advantage from acceding to American demands. During the 1962 Sino-Indian border war, Pakistan was told not to take advantage of India’s vulnerability by moving into Kashmir, but the promised settlement of the issue did not materialize once the war was over. Pakistan helped in the US-China rapprochement of 1971, only to incur the wrath of the Soviet Union, resulting in its support for India’s dismemberment of Pakistan.

Pakistan partnered the US against the Soviet Union in the 1980s in Afghanistan, only to be left with the devastating legacy of that war. Pakistan ditched the Taliban on US dictation, and the result is there for all to see. The US military Central Command, which conducted operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq, put out on its website that the loss suffered by Pakistan post-9/11 has been over $10 billion - though the news item was rapidly withdrawn. We have received little in return.

If we are to accede to the US request to recognize Israel, we should at least pragmatically ensure that the benefits are commensurate. It should not, as in the past, result in Pakistan paying the price.

As for India, will Israel curtail its close ties with that country because of our single act of recognition? This appears to be wishful thinking. Israel is not likely to rest content merely with Pakistan’s recognition. As the only nuclear Muslim state, Pakistan will continue to be viewed as a threat, and Israel will undoubtedly persevere in its efforts to control Pakistan through the US, India and anyone else willing to play such a role to the detriment of Pakistan. The anti-Pakistan lobbies in the US would not be contained. On the other hand, while non-recognition has no immediate pragmatic benefit, it nevertheless deeply inlfuences Pakistan’s position and future role.

Ironically, pragmatism is the very reason why every time Pakistan is viewed as being in a weak position, the question of recognition or dealing with Israel is raised by the US, either directly or indirectly. For example, during the 1971 war with India, Pakistan was desperately in need of spare parts for its American weaponry, and it was suggested that we could obtain these through Israel.

Then, too, the Shah of Iran argued the case for Israel. Now again, when Pakistan is vulnerable on two borders, with India and Afghanistan, and relations are not easy with Iran, this proposal is being advanced once more. We are urged to be pragmatic by those who seek to take advantage of our weakness. To suggest that pragmatic benefits can overcome weakness is promising a false dawn.

There is always a time for pragmatism, but it cannot be at the expense of principle or ideology. Pakistan was founded, in the words of the Quaid-i-Azam, as a homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent, and a beacon of hope for Muslims throughout the world.

Solidarity with other Muslim nations has been a cardinal principle of state policy from the outset, and the Constitution of Pakistan provides that “The state shall endeavour to preserve and strengthen fraternal relations among Muslim countries based on Islamic unity”.

Palestine is the most potent political problem in the Muslim world, followed by the issue of Kashmir. Israel is the main stumbling block to the resolution of the Palestine problem. The vast majority of Arab countries are opposed to the recognition of Israel, as are also such major Muslim states as Indonesia and Bangladesh. Any hasty and ill-considered action on our part would cause further division among Muslims, and might result in other states emulating our example at the cost of Palestine. Apart from this, there is the question of a violent reaction in Pakistan itself.

As to the argument that it would be recognizing the reality of 50 years of Israel’s existence, this might well boomerang. Most of the Arab and Muslim states have much more to gain from friendship with India than Pakistan, which has comparatively little to offer. If Pakistan were to recognize Israel, these countries could readily and hastily accept the reality of 50 years’ occupation of Kashmir by India.

Pakistan should see how the ‘road map’ of peace evolves in the Middle East. The road map says little or nothing about Jerusalem, and Syria’s right to the Golan Heights is not even within its ambit. A long hard road lies ahead and it is doubtful if satisfactory peace can be achieved in the next few years. Even if such a peace is eventually secured, Pakistan should act in concert with the OIC on the vital question of Israel. Already Pakistan’s position in the Muslim world has many critics. The volte face over the Taliban has resulted not only in making the Taliban our enemy waiting to take revenge for their betrayal, but in having an equally hostile Northern Alliance virtually in control of the new government in Afghanistan. It is a signal achievement of our foreign policy that every regime should seek to attack the Pakistan embassy in Kabul.

Relations with Iran, too, have again soured. The repeated killing of large numbers of Shias in Pakistan has aggravated tension. Iran has close links with India and has rapidly established good relations with the Afghan regime.

Fortunately, better counsel seems to have prevailed in Pakistan about sending forces to Iraq at least until there is a UN mandate. India, too, has taken this decision and mutual rivalry has not resulted in stupidity in this one instance.

The non-recognition of Israel should not be construed as anti-Semitism. There is already too much bigotry in Pakistan. Non-recognition is not a part of any fundamentalism or emotionalism. It is a logical and rational step in our own national interest. Pakistan should not succumb to the temptation of temporary pragmatic benefit at the long-term cost to its ‘core issue’ Kashmir and its constitutional principles.

Pakistan should not contribute to further divisions in the Muslim world and should pursue vigorously our goal to “preserve and strengthen fraternal relations among Muslim countries based on Islamic unity” This principle should not be readily sacrificed in the name of pragmatism.

Not only would a fundamental constitutional principle be compromised, but Pakistan would also suffer heavy practical loss of support over Kashmir.