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India-Pakistan
Maulana Abdul Aziz demands enforcement of Islamic laws
2007-07-22
The former chief cleric of Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdul Aziz, reiterated his call for the enforcement of Islamic laws in Pakistan on Saturday.
It was the first public statement made by Aziz since he was arrested in a womanÂ’s burqa on July 5 while trying to flee the governmentÂ’s siege against the mosque.
It was the first public statement made by Aziz since he was arrested in a womanÂ’s burqa on July 5 while trying to flee the governmentÂ’s siege against the mosque.

Aziz has defended his and the mosque’s students’ actions by saying, “we were only demanding enforcement of Islamic law” and saying they did not commit any crimes. “Those sacrifices were for Islam,” he told reporters, referring to the death of his son, brother and other students of the madrassa. Aziz made his comments at a court near Islamabad when police produced him before a judge in connection with the killing of a soldier near his mosque before the operation.

The judge allowed police to hold him for questioning until August 4, according to defence lawyer Hashmat Habib. Aziz had been using Lal Masjid as a base for sending out radicalised madrassa students to enforce their Taliban-like version of Islamic morality, including the abduction of alleged prostitutes, since January.
Posted by:Fred

#6  
Posted by: John Frum   2007-07-22 15:56  

#5  
Posted by: John Frum   2007-07-22 15:56  

#4  Aziz has defended his and the mosqueÂ’s studentsÂ’ actions by saying, “we were only demanding enforcement of Islamic law” and saying they did not commit any crimes.

Which handily ignores how "enforcement of Islamic law" is a crime.

“Those human sacrifices were for Islam,”

A little clarification was in order.
Posted by: Zenster   2007-07-22 12:50  

#3  "shaddup and get back in the bag, beeotch!"
Posted by: Frank G   2007-07-22 10:21  

#2  The Messiah and The Promised Land

Margaret Bourke-White wrote in 1947:

The note of personal triumph was so unmistakable that I wondered how much thought he gave to the human cost: more Muslim lives had been sacrificed to create the new Muslim homeland than America, for example, had lost during the entire second World War. I hoped he had a constructive plan for the seventy million citizens of Pakistan. What kind of constitution did he intend to draw up?

"Of course it will be a democratic constitution; Islam is a democratic religion."

I ventured to suggest that the term "democracy" was often loosely used these days. Could he define what he had in mind?

"Democracy is not just a new thing we are learning," said Jinnah. "It is in our blood. We have always had our system of zakat -- our obligation to the poor."

This confusion of democracy with charity troubled me. I begged him to be more specific.

"Our Islamic ideas have been based on democracy and social justice since the thirteenth century."

This mention of the thirteenth century troubled me still more. Pakistan has other relics of the Middle Ages besides "social justice" -- the remnants of a feudal land system, for one. What would the new constitution do about that? .. "The land belongs to the God," says the Koran. This would need clarification in the constitution. Presumably Jinnah, the lawyer, would be just the person to correlate the "true Islamic principles" one heard so much about in Pakistan with the new nation's laws. But all he would tell me was that the constitution would be democratic because "the soil is perfectly fertile for democracy."
Posted by: John Frum   2007-07-22 08:19  

#1  "Everyone, except those who are ignorant, knows that the Quran is the general code of the Muslims. A religious, social, civil, commercial, military, judicial, criminal, penal code, it regulates everything from the ceremonies of religion to those of daily life; from the salvation of the soul to the health of the body; from the rights of all to those of each individual; from morality to crime, from punishment here to that in the life to come, and our Prophet has enjoined on us that every Musalman should possess a copy of the Quran and be his own priest. Therefore Islam is not merely confined to the spiritual tenets and doctrines or rituals and ceremonies. It is a complete code regulating the whole Muslim society, every department of life, collectively and individually."

- Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Founder of Pakistan

Posted by: John Frum   2007-07-22 08:15  

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