A good if a little simplistic article where Barelvi = good and Deobandi = bad. Essentially the majority of Pakistanis in rural areas symptahise with Sufism, venerate the tombs of saints etc. After Bangladesh split away from Pakistan, their 'Hinduized' Islam was blamed, and so the purist Deobandism was supported by the Pakistan Army, the sect from which the Jihadis are mostly drawn. Saudi oil money has been helpful in this regard.
Three kilometres outside Islamabad, in a small village under wooded hills, is the shrine of Bari Imam, a local saint. If anything is a symbol of religious tolerance, this is. On the portal to the tombs are engraved slogans for both Sunni and Shia Muslims. Outside, women light incense sticks and tie tinsel to a tree. Zaid Ahmed (25) a shop worker from the city, had cycled to the shrine to ask for help with a family problem. "The bombings in London are very bad," he said. "We believe in the brotherhood of man and that Islam does not allow the killing of innocents." Men alongside him nod in agreement. The worshippers at Bari Imam, whose rites would be considered anathema by more orthodox Muslims, represent Pakistan's silent majority: the two-thirds of the country who belong to the Barelvi school of Islam. There are hundreds of shrines like this throughout Pakistan but, as they are not political, few outside the country recognise their dominance.
They, too, know about violence. Earlier this year the head cleric at the shrine was killed by drug dealers after he objected to them selling opium and heroin. Last May a suicide bomber killed 20 people at the shrine gates during a Shia festival Sectarian groups behind the attack are thought to be linked to the second biggest strand of Islam in Pakistan: the Deobandis. The movement, named after the town in India where it was founded, are characterised by their best known adherents, the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan. "They are everything the Barelvis are not," said Ershad Mahmud, of Islamabad's Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank. "Their clerics are very active and very clever, and have successfully pursued a long-term strategy that has made them very fast growing." A critical element in the Deobandis campaign is the madrassas, or religious schools.
Javed Ibrahim Parachar is a tribal leader, cleric and principal of three madrassas where 500 poor children are taught for free. A heavy set man with a large beard and shaven head, Parachar, a lawyer, has represented hundreds of suspected al-Qaeda militants. He says the Taliban in Afghanistan were the "best of all Muslims". "The bombing in Bari Imam was a very good action," he told The Observer at his many-roomed home in the town of Kohat. "So was 9/11 and so were the London bombs. They are killing our wives, our children, our Muslim brothers. Is there any law for Fallujah, Kabul, Chechnya, Palestine and Kashmir? It is all because of the Jews. They control the American and British governments through the economy." Parachar said the crackdown on madrassas "will be unsuccessful. How can they control our minds and our ideas?" he said, before embarking on another anti-semitic diatribe.
The Deobandis are firmly entrenched, particularly in west Pakistan where an alliance of religious parties runs two provinces and is pushing through Taliban-style legislation. It has access to massive funding from sympathisers in the Arabian Gulf which allows the parties to build hundreds of new schools and mosques each year. Many are constructed in Barelvi areas with the express intent of eradicating the more moderate strand. Yet the Barelvis are still 'a bulwark against radicalism' and arithmetic is on their side. The urban middle classes may be critical. Almost every hardline Islamic movement in recent times has been led by frustrated pharmacists, engineers, teachers and businessmen. Though they have made some inroads in cities, most such people remain resolutely moderate. "These things done in the name of Islam are shaming and they are bad for business," a money changer in Islamabad said.
The main reason the Islamists have done so poorly in Pak elections is because the Barelvis don't give them any support, they tend to vote for whoever their land lord tells them too. |