 Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, prominent Islamic scholar known for pleading Islam as a progressive religion, said on Sunday there was no concept of Qazi courts in Islam and such courts in the Tribal Areas would create a mess there. “It is the law that matters, and not the court,” he said.
| Ghamidi, despite his name, appears to be that rare voice of Muslim sanity. |
| He said the plan regarding such courts was a bad example of curing a disease with another disease, and this would give rise to more confusion and sectarianism, dividing the people. |
Ghamidi, who is also a member of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), was talking to Daily Times on a proposal by the government to promulgate regulation for law enforcement in the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA) which includes Swat, Dir and Chitral, through Qazi courts. He said that it would be another bad experience, as it had been tried previously. Terming it a parallel judicial system, he said there was no concept of Qazi courts in Islam. He said there never was a concept of Qazi courts during the Holy Prophet (Peas Be Upon Him)Â’s era. He said the plan regarding such courts was a bad example of curing a disease with another disease, and this would give rise to more confusion and sectarianism, dividing the people.
| Which, along with oppressing them, is pretty much the whole idea, isn't it? |
Ghamidi said people must realise who Maulana Fazlullah – who has now become a “monster” for security agencies in Swat – in actuality is. He asked why such elements were not dealt with when they started proselytising through radio broadcasting and increasing their circle of followers. He spoke of the Lal Masjid incident when clerics carried out horrendous acts in the name of Islam with, reportedly, the complete knowledge of certain government officials, yet suddenly ‘Operation Silence’ was begun against them.
| It's the same pattern over and over again: The blowhard mullahs puff themselves up, bullying and browbeating those in their immediate vicinity, and their sympathizers in the halls of power make sure nothing's done about it because they're just so Islamic. The irritation becomes a pimple, which then becomes a boil, which at the last has to be lanced, drained and packed, with the attendant blood and suppuration. But then, Islam's for the most part kinda fond of blood and suppuration. |
Blitzkrieg needed: He said the present situation was so complicated that it needed a ‘Blitzkrieg strategy’ to control the mess created by the security agencies themselves. The solution was to bring the Tribal Areas to the country’s mainstream by improving the infrastructure and providing education to the deprived people there, he added. |