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Pakistan's religious tragedy
Dr Muzaffar Iqbal

Pakistan's true tragedy is not its endless raw violence, political chaos, or military-mullah confrontation. The real tragedy is the betrayal of its leaders.

During the heyday of the Nizam-e Mustafa Movement, when General Ziaul Haq was in the process of becoming a self-styled enforcer of Islam in Pakistan while struggling to legitimize his coup d'etat by courting the country's religious elite, he invited religious leaders to the President's House for a sumptuous meal. He was humble and all ears, as was his mannerism on such occasions. At prayer time, he invited them to pray together by choosing any one of them as their Imam. These exponents of Islam, however, could not agree on a single person. Dismayed and amazed, the insomniac General narrated the episode to his close associates during his regular midnight meetings. "How can I enforce Islam in this country," he said with that soon-to-become-famous laugh.

It is not, however, the double irony behind this anecdote that is worthy of reflection, but the terrible fallout of false doctrinal divisions among Pakistan's religious leaders; the rise of secularism; a tragic drift away from Pakistan's raison d'etre; and sectarian violence that claims hundreds of innocent lives every year. Borne out of a violent self-righteousness and quick judgments of others' apostasy, these foundational divisions among Pakistan's religious leaders are the worst in the Muslim world. They are not the product of informed scholarship, but of narrow-mindedness, which morphs into ignorance about
Islam's basic teachings, especially in the blind followers of these self-styled Ulema.

Built into this tragic reality is yet another double irony: those who nursed
this now deeply engraved facet of religious life often leave their own ranks
for ephemeral gains, playing into the hands of generals who use them only to
discard them once they have served their purpose and their moral degeneracy
exposed to the masses.

The second facet of this irony is the lasting hold of these so-called religious leaders on their blind followers. The lack of proper religious education, illiteracy and poverty have left people with no means to distinguish between a scholar and a pseudo scholar, especially when both support similar beards, don similar clothes and use similar language. This catastrophic lack of genuine Islamic leadership has made a mockery of Islam's sublime teachings, and produced a reaction among the educated segment of society that mistakes these sellers of religion for true representatives of Islam, and based on this model falls
into the seductive lap of secularism. This reaction is obviously not based on any solid principle but is merely an error in judgment which first chooses a poor model and then revolts against it.

One cannot truly blame the "educated" class of this country, because the education system does not train them for critical thinking and objective analyses; they can only react with emotional rage against the maulanas. Most do not entirely leave Islam because that final step entails consequences which they cannot bear, so thus left paralyzed between a dormant faith and a secularized existence, they -- who should have provided effective leadership to their illiterate fellow citizens -- become a silent suffering mass.

Millions of these educated men and women hold post-graduate degrees, they work as professionals and have a general understanding of the betrayal of the religious leadership, but are unable to take charge of their society because they
are don't have leadership qualities. Their religious education is so poor that they cannot even perform the essential rites of birth, marriage and burial - for these basic rituals they are beholden to men with beards. This dependency leaves them with no choice but to suffer the moral degeneracy of the religious leadership.

Pakistan's true tragedy is not its endless raw violence, political chaos, or military-mullah confrontation -- for these are the consequences, not the causes, of the real dilemma faced by the millions in this country. A country whose only reason to exist as a separate entity is its claim as a Muslim homeland where citizens could build an Islamic polity -- Pakistan's real tragedy is the betrayal of its leaders: a betrayal so deep it reaches to the foundational principle of its existence, so clearly stated in the Two Nation Theory.

It is because of this denial of its life-force that contemporary Pakistani society is continuously sliding into self-destruction. It is the religious leadership that is most to be blamed for this chaos, as they are responsible for the rise of sectarianism, as well as secularism in reaction to their false religiosity.

The educated must realize that Islam cannot be reduced to the behavior of human beings, no matter what their claims may be. Enshrined in a well-guarded Book and the Sunnah of the Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him), Islam remains accessible to all who wish to follow this Divine path.

Those who ignite the fire of sectarian violence bear equal responsibility for each murder committed from the blind hatred they inculcate. The consequence of killing another Muslim is the everlasting Fire, as the Prophet Muhammad (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) has likened such an act to returning to the state of Kufr. In a hadith narrated in both Sahih al-Muslim and Sahih al-Bukhari, the Prophet's Companion Jareer (RA) reported that during the Farewell pilgrimage, the Prophet (SAW) asked him to silence the people, whereupon he (SAW) said: "Do not return to kufr after me by killing one other." Another Companion of the Prophet (SAW), `Abd Allah bin `Umar (may Allah be pleased with him), narrated that the Prophet (SAW) said that when one calls his brother a kaafir, one of them becomes a kaafir.

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