Another theatre controversy
Zila Nazim Riaz Hussain Qureshi has reportedly constituted a committee to probe the allegations levelled against some of the district government officials by stage and TV actress Zara Akbar. Malik Amer Dogar, the Naib Zila Nazim, has been designated convener of the committee. President of the Lahore High Court Bar Association, Multan Bench, and the Multan Press Club president are among the members of the committee.
The actress was banned by the executive district officer (community development) along with four of her co-artists to perform at a private theatre house under the charges of ‘obscenity’. The actress and the theatre director however had alleged that the official wanted Zara Akbar to perform at a ‘private function’. They also accused the district government officials of being selective in their so-called campaign against ‘obscenity’.
Apart from the Multan Arts Council, there are seven private theatre houses operative in the city. They are Dawn, Baber, Sangam, Starlit, Meraj, Noshab and Jehanzeb. They all stage ‘musical dramas’ having eight to 10 dance performances by female artists in each of the plays.
Ghazal-singer Jerry captivated the audience at the jam-packed hall of the Multan Arts Council (MAC) with his rendition of carols at a ‘Christmas Milan Show’ celebrated here the other day.
District coordination officer Ijaz Chaudhry, Rev Fr. Zafar Iqbal (OP) and Brother Lawrence were prominent among the audience. The show started with readings at the stage from the holy Bible followed by tableau presented by the students of LaSalle Public School about ‘Christ’s birth’.
Fr Zafar Iqbal threw light on the need of inter-religion tolerance and harmony and expressed his pleasure over the presence of a large number of Muslims in the audience to attend the show. The 625-seat MAC hall was packed to its capacity with scores of people sitting on the stairs.
Main attraction of the show was Jerry who first sung carols with choirs of St Marry School and LaSalle Public School. The audience were spell-bound on the rendition of famous numbers, such as, ‘Silent Night’, ‘Joy to the world’ and ‘O come all ye faithful’.
Later on, he sung some five numbers from his forthcoming album of Biblical songs and won thunderous applause after every number from the audience. Others who performed in the show were Goshi, Anjum, Aftab, Shaneela, Aneela and Mehnaz.
Jerry has already an album of ghazals titled ‘khaab’ to his credit. He told Dawn that he was also working on the ‘arifana kalam’ of Muslim Sufi poets to pay tribute to them for their universal message of humanity and humility.
Gas consumers here are facing these days a different kind of trouble as some organized gang(s) are stealing their gas meters. The ‘meter thieves’ are operative in almost all the localities of the city, but the residents of the dwellings of lower-middle and middle classes are their special targets.
Both the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited and the police have so far been unable to make a breakthrough to track down the culprits who are nothing but adding to the ‘gas troubles’ of the people in the face of already existing problems of low pressure and load shedding.
There is no second opinion that after water and air, wheat and its flour are the most sought-after ingredients of life, at least, in Pakistan. Increase in their price affects all and sundry.
The price of a 20kg bag of wheat flour has been maintaining a firm trend between Rs 220 to Rs 250 since the month of Ramazan here in Multan despite tall claims by the district government to make it available at Rs 203 to Rs 208 in the retail market.
It is ironical that the government is releasing wheat to the flour millers at Rs 335 per 40kg and their grinding cost is not more than Rs 40 for the same quantity but yet the price of wheat flour in the open market is Rs13 per kilogram.
Someone suggested that the upward trend in the prices can be arrested if the government starts selling a fixed quantity from its stocks every month directly to the consumers on the official rate of Rs 335 per 40kg.
The Political Universe of Islam
War and Peace in Islam is a publication of the Delhi Policy Group. It contains the proceedings of a seminar held in India in February last year. One of the papers presented at the seminar was contributed by Mr Asghar Ali Engineer. The paper was titled The Political Universe of Islam. I am reproducing it here because Mr Engineer is a known intellectual in Lahore. He belongs to the Centre for the Study of Society and Secularism in Mumbai. He was a frequent contributor to the weekly View Point which used to come out from here until it ceased publication in early 1992. Mr Engineer begins:
THE political universe of Islam has never been a fixed entity. It has been continuously changing depending on locale and time. Also, it is difficult to trace any fixed notion of the Islamic state either in the Quran, in Hadith literature or in any political theory propounded by any Muslim theologian. It is believed popularly that in Islam, state and religion cannot be separated. This is more of a theological and historical construct rather than a scriptural injunction. It is true only in the sense that Islamic values must be associated with the state.
It is a well-known fact that there was no state structure in pre-Islamic Arabia. The tribal chiefs of Mecca led by the tribe of Quraysh made all important decisions. These tribal chiefs constituted a council of their own called mala (senate) and all decisions had to be unanimous; else they would not be implemented by the dissenting tribal chiefs. Also, there were no institutions like the police or the army for law enforcement as only the tribal customs prevailed. In pre-Islamic Arabia, wars were generally inter-tribal and all adult male members of the tribe participated in it. There were no wars with other countries outside the jazira al-Arab, i.e. Arabian peninsula.
Outside rulers had to deal with tribal chiefs as there was no head of state. Again, for outside rulers, the need for invasion of the peninsula did not exist; hence no army was needed. Thus both the institutions of army and police (shurta) came into existence only in the post-Islamic period when a primitive state structure came to be established. The state structure which came into existence after the death of the Holy Prophet is best described as proto-democratic. As long as the Prophet was alive, all decisions were made by him, whether political or civil. He, of course, consulted his companions when the need arose. The Quran also exhorts him to consult his companions. (3:159)
On the death of the Holy Prophet of Islam, Muslims differed on the issue of succession, with the Sunnis maintaining that he had left no successor nor any will. The Shiahs, on the other hand, maintained that he did appoint his successor; and that both in a spiritual and political sense the successorship would vest in the progeny of Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law, and Fatima, his daughter.
Thus, it will be seen that there were not agreed views about the Prophet’s successor, much less its mode. There is today no pre-Islamic model to follow. The Sunnis followed the pre-Islamic tribal tradition, and elected the chief of the state in the manner that the tribals used to elect a successor to a deceased chief. But the election process was not smooth, there being many claimants and each claimant laying claim on the ground of some or other merit. The Quraysh laid their claim on the basis that theirs was the most experienced tribe in a diplomatic sense and that the Prophet was from amongst them. The Ansar, on the other hand, maintained that they were the first to help the Prophet and thus had a greater claim to being his successors. Some even suggested that let there be one co-ruler from the Quraysh and one from the Ansar.
Since there was no institution of monarchy in pre-Islamic Arabic and all decisions were taken with mutual consultation, there being no authority like the Prophet any more, all decisions were taken by the succeeding caliphs through mutual consultations with the senior companions of the Prophet. There was no clarity about the powers of the caliph nor about the duration of his regime. However, one thing was clear that the caliphs had to rule according to the Quran and Sunnah and the Prophet’s companions had to assist him in discharging these duties.
Both the Quran and Sunnah were the most progressive and liberating sources of legislation at the time. Islam itself had come as a liberator of the weaker sections of the society, including women. And the people embraced it in large numbers. Not only this, history tells us that the poor and unprivileged people of the Roman and Sassanid empires even welcomed Muslims as conquerors. They opened the doors of the forts and even guided them through secret routes to enter into the city. Thus the Islamic state of the time was a revolutionary state.
Even the first caliph, Abu Bakr, is reported to have said while assuming charge, O People! Behold me - charged with the cares of government, I am not the best among you; I need all your advice and all your help. If I do well, support me; if I make a mistake, correct me. To tell the truth to a person commissioned to rule is a sign of faithful allegiance; to conceal it is treason. In my sight, the powerful and weak are alike; and I wish to render justice to both. As I obey God and His Prophet obey me; and if I neglect the law of God and the Prophet, I have no more right to your obedience. (Syed Athar Hussain, The Glorious Caliphate, Lucknow, 1947, p-19).
This was an excellent doctrine of governance for a revolutionary state. To dispense justice to the weak and powerful alike and to ask the governed to speak the truth to the ruler and treat this as true allegiance. The Quran laid maximum emphasis on justice to the weak, to bring about redistribution of wealth in favour of the poor and the needy, and to create the institution of bait-ul-mal (state treasury) to achieve such redistribution. And the early caliphs tried to follow the spirit of the Quran as rigorously as they could.
However, this was possible in a small territory with a more or less homogeneous population as Mecca and Madina of the time were (although, it now transpires, there were not as homogeneous as one was led to believe). But as the Islamic empire spread to Egypt, Syria, Palestine and other parts of the Roman Empire on the one hand, and Iran and Central Asia on the other, territorial diversity of the peoples increased tremendously, besides, the size of population. Also, the diverse customs and traditions of peoples were not always compatible with Islamic teachings, nor were these acceptable to all particularly to the former ruling classes.
Thus, it was no longer possible to enforce the Islamic doctrine of justice and redistribution of wealth in favour of the weak as rigorously as it had been within a small territory with a more or less homogeneous population. Fissures first began to appear with the increase in size of the Islamic empire. Here, before we proceed, I would like to deal with what was important for an Islamic state.
Muslim ideologues who fervently advocate the establishment of an Islamic state in our times have to seriously reflect on the question whether it is possible to establish an Islamic state like the one established immediately after the death of the Holy Prophet. Firstly, there was no unanimity among the early Muslims as to the question of succession, as pointed out above. The community was vertically divided on the question of succession. Secondly, within less than thirty years of the establishment of the caliphate, civil war broke out among the Muslims leading to a great deal of bloodshed.
The first caliph, Abu Bakr, had clearly stated the principles of transparent governance which (as I mentioned) were applicable to a limited area and for a limited period. Also, present day Muslim rulers who claim to establish an Islamic state hardly ever refer to the principles laid down by the first caliph for governance. They only apply certain parts of the sharia law, and that too as it developed during the mediaeval ages without any fresh thinking on it. Such mechanical application of the law creates anomalies difficult to resolve. No rulers of present day Islamic state follow the Quranic values of adl, ihsan, rahmah and hikmah (justice, benevolence, compassion and wisdom) not to talk of the values of equality, human dignity, and brotherhood. It is these values that are more fundamental to an Islamic state than anything else. No Islamic state in our times has been able to establish a welfare state, let alone bring about a system of redistributive justice for the poor and needy. (59:7)
An Islamic state cannot be based merely on some select aspects of sharia law, like the dress code for women and other restrictions suggested for them, or hudud laws (laws of punishments), the law of blasphemy, personal law and so on. Those laws were based on the interpretation of Quranic verses in the then-prevailing cultural ethos, and hence need to be rethought to accommodate modern problems. Also, in mediaeval political theory, there was no concept of citizenship, not to mention citizens’ rights. The values of governance, as developed by the first caliph on the basis of the Quran and Sunnah, were soon abandoned by the Muslim rulers. The third caliph was murdered apparently because he did not apply the principles of justice very rigorously; and the fourth caliph suffered the same fate because he applied them too rigorously. The character of the Muslim ummah had changed drastically due to Islam’s speedy conquest of large areas of the Roman and Sassanid empires, and it was very difficult in these circumstances to apply an coherent political theory, let alone its fundamental principles and values.
Here, I would like to deal briefly with the concept of ummah. This concept has also undergone change from its early usage in Islamic history. According to the Quran, it is not limited to the human community; even birds belonging to the same group can constitute as ummah (6:38). The Qur’an describes the whole of humanity as the ummat-ul wahidah (2:213( (i.e. a single community). (See Mufradat al-Qur’an, Lahore, 1971, under ummah).
The Quran also expresses (5:48) that, if Allah so desired, He would have created all human beings as one community. It also says that there should be a group (ummah) from among you who should be a role model of goodness for others (3:104). Thus, we see that the Quranic usage for ummah is not only for Muslims: it is much wider scope.
The concept of ummah, in the sense of the Muslim community alone, became current much later. The Prophet of Islam drew up Mithaq-i-Madina which included various Jewish and pagan tribes besides Muslims tribes, and this conglomeration was also referred to as ummat-ul-wahidah, i.e one community. It is important to note that Maulana Husain Ahmed Madani of Jamiatul-Ulema-i-Hind opposed the two-nation theory on the basis of the Medinese covenant which pointed to the fact that the Prophet called this composite community ummat-ul wahidah. Then, how could Jinnah describe Hindu and Muslims as two separate nations?
Thus, it is only in the spiritual and religious sense that Muslims can be described as one ummah, and not in the political sense. In the political sense, Muslims constitute a separate ummah along with others, be they Hindus or Christians or Buddhist. Today, the majority of Muslims live as minorities in various Asian, African and Western countries, including Europe and North America. How can these disparate groups living in different countries constitute one ummah in the political sense? Culturally, linguistically and ethnically, they are closer to non-Muslim groups with whom they live in these countries.
In the mediaeval ages, countries were not divided into nations. Today’s political realities are very different from those of the mediaeval period. And, even during the mediaeval period, all Muslims were not under one caliph. The political theory of early Islam had proposed only one caliph, but this state of affairs did not last more than a century. Gradually, a number of rulers came into existence in the Muslim world and that reality had to be accepted by theorists of Islam.
Also, there was no single method by which even the first four caliphs, called khulafa-i-rashidun, could be elected. What is more, the fourth caliph, Muawiyah, belonging to the Ummayad clan, had seized power without popular sanction. He nominated his son, Yazid, to succeed him thus introducing the monarchical institution in the world of Islam. Many prominent companions of the Prophet refused to acknowledge Yazid as a legitimate successor, and the Prophet’s grandson, Imam Husain, gave his life but not his allegiance to Yazid. He emerged as a result as one of Islam’s greatest martyrs in the cause of the faith.
Thus, we see that no single political theory worked in the world of Islam. Drastic changes have taken place in political institutions from the caliphate to monarchy to army dictatorship to democratically elected governments. Of all these, only democratically elected governments can be said to be close to the spirit of Islam.
(To be concluded)