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| Terror Networks |
| Islam: embracing inquisition? |
| 2004-03-08 |
| Long editorial by Imtiaz Alam in Hi Pakistan, edited for length, interesting read: This Muharram, perhaps the bloodiest after the slaughter of House of Imam Hussein or the immediate family of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and 1801 invasion of southern Iraq by the Wahabi armies who desecrated the most revered shrines at Karbala, has pushed the world of Islam close to the dark ages of Inquisition. The sectarian divide is now almost unbridgeable across Muslim frontiers. The more you get into the literalist and rigorous recourse to the original, the greater is the divide. The cause is within, that can be exploited by ‘others’. But the Islamic world is adamant in accepting the guilt, although it is engaged in a bloody war of declaring each other as infidels. Is there a cause left worthy of Islam by our Mullahs? From Quetta to Karbala, on 10th of Aashura, the Shias became the target of suicide-bombers resulting in the murder of hundreds of innocent people. Clerics from all sects were unanimous in their response, barring one militant section within Wahabi-Sulfi-Ahle-Hadith sects who remained conspicuously silent, that this is the dirty work of the Americans or enemies of Islam. Really? Why should the Americans be digging the quagmire deeper in Iraq? And when had we become so tolerant of each other’s sectarian differences? Hasn’t the Shia cultural resurgence at the centre of their reverence, after decades of Saddam’s repression, irritated the anti-Shia fanatics? Hadn’t thought of that, the shrines in Iraq are the holiest place for Shia muslims. Being able to worship there is a boost to Shias everywhere, that must upset the Sunnis. Or could it be the handiwork of those who could thrive on anarchy and wanted Americans to exhaust in an internecine conflict in Iraq? Is there any dearth of sectarian terrorists who would not like to fish in the troubled waters? What about Abu Musab al-Zarqavi’s sectarian terrorist group and the likes of him here? Weren’t those who have been engaged in a bloody battle against the Shias in Pakistan trained in al-Qaeda and Taliban camps in Afghanistan and also fought on the side of Taliban? Didn’t Saudis and Iranians finance and backed theses sectarian outfits? That would be a yes. Ironically, appeals have been made to the Ulemas to bring harmony in the Umma they have been destroying as a lucrative profession. Can any cleric worth the name in the world of Islam be named who has had not professed sectarianism in recent times? Is it not a hard fact that all schools of fiqah, seminaries and clerics flourish in the profession of heretical indoctrination against one another? Are we not well aware that all sects declare the other as infidel and liable to murder? Haven’t we seen resurgence in anti-Shia sentiment among the Sunnis after the Kohmeini-led revolution in Iran and will Shia domination in Iraq not irritate the most irritable among the Wahabis, Ahle-Hadith and Sulfis? What did the Taliban do to Shias when they took over Bamiyan and Mazar-i-Shairf? They just slaughtered them. And, not to forget, how intolerable the Shia revolutionaries were towards other sects and religious minorities in Iran. Islam: a equal oportunity oppressor. The Shia-Sunni conflict is the most dangerous of all that has the potential of ripping the Muslim countries apart, especially those with a sizeable Shia minority, such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. If the Sunnis cannot tolerate Shia domination in what was once part of Abbasid Empire, from 8th to 13th century, how would Shias tolerate the Sunni minorities where they are in majority, such as Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Bahrain? But how would Sunni Arabs throw out almost 120 million Shais living in the Middle East without fuelling a civil war, in each country, and across the Muslim nations? There will be no end to it. After cleansing of Shias, will the Sunnis, divided by sectarian beliefs, not cut each other’s throats? What else, then, the Inquisition is? What indeed. Is there a religious solution to this sad state of affairs of the world of Islam whose exports, excluding oil, are less than Finland’s? With pain, anguish and shame, this author who is very concerned over a lack of reformation and enlightenment in the world of Islam, tried to ask about a possible way out from various scholars of Islam. Unfortunately, they either don’t recognise it as an endogenous illness or have such scholastic solutions that are far from the reality of our times. The fact of the mater is that there is no solution to get out of the quagmire of Inquisition visiting Islam, except the way the European nations got out of it through reformation, enlightenment and, finally, separation of religion from the business of state and education. There is no half-way. Amen. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #4 somebody who gets it, writing an editorial in what i take is a mainstream Pakistani paper. That alone is progress. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2004-3-8 1:07:53 PM |
| #3 Besides, I think the Irish have copyrighted "sectarian turmoil". |
| Posted by: BH 2004-3-8 12:24:47 PM |
| #2 His use of the word "inquisition" is inapt. I suggest "religious warfare." |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-3-8 11:54:48 AM |
| #1 ...1801 invasion of southern Iraq by the Wahabi armies who desecrated the most revered shrines at Karbala... The Arabians came visiting, before they turned into Arabs, let alone Saudis. Europe was busy with Napoleon at the time, and didn't notice. |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-3-8 11:44:20 AM |