Mosque activities: Policing the pulpit

Checks and balances on content being delivered in sermons at mosques are limited.

KARACHI: A provocative sermon after Friday prayers may prompt a couple of people sitting in the mosque to question the imam (prayer leader), as MNA Nabeel Gabol is reported to have done at Sultan Masjid in the 1990s, when the imam criticised Benazir Bhutto.

“She had said the punishments - hand for a hand, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth - were cruel. I said that anyone who termed these punishments - which are in the Quran - as cruel would meet their end soon,” the imam told The Express Tribune in an interview earlier this month. Gabol questioned the imam, who was later taken away by the police but released with a mild warning.

These questions may be the only checks and balances on the content being delivered and activities taking place at mosques.

One indicator of the administration of Karachi’s mosques is how they are run in the upscale Defence Housing Authority (DHA). DHA only oversees eight of the 42 mosques in the area. According to it, seven mosques are in the control of resident committees and have been handed over with the commitment that they will not be misused or violate any laws. However, DHA was unable to provide any information on which private trusts or individuals administer the remaining 27 mosques in its jurisdiction. Rumours are rife among residents about mosques funded by Saudi Arabia. DHA’s by-laws do not have any information about how mosques should be run.

The Auqaf department, which controls 31 mosques in Karachi, manages the few mosques in the DHA and Clifton areas attached to shrines such as those of Abdullah Shah Ghazi and Misri Shah. The department’s role is restricted, however, to financial and administrative matters such as appointing an imam, collecting rent from shops next to the mosque and paying the salaries of the imam, khateeb, khadim etc.

The City District Government Karachi says it has no role in the management of mosques either. The home department’s work is limited to issuing No-Objection Certificates for the construction of mosques. The ministry of religious affairs’ Research and Reference Wing says it does not issue guidelines for sermons to mosques either.

This state of affairs is summed up analyst and author of Military Inc Ayesha Siddiqa. “The state has intervened in religion only when it has needed to,” she told The Express Tribune. “There is a lack of capacity of the state and the ruling elite in providing direction to religion.”

Given that no department considers monitoring its responsibility, the job falls to the police and intelligence agencies. A high-ranking Sindh home department official confirmed this. “Intelligence agencies monitor mosques and madrassahs that they have ‘suspicions’ about.”

Police officials receive reports from intelligence agencies and the Special Branch about the sermons delivered after Friday prayers in major mosques. “We have our own informers sitting inside mosques. Regardless of whether the views of the imams or khateebs are neutral or inflammatory, we do monitor what is going on,” said an officer posted in DHA. “Obviously, there is a stronger focus on mosques where we know the peshimams have skewed views or affiliations.” He added that the West Pakistan Regulation and Control of Loudspeakers and Sound Amplifiers Ordinance is in place to control this. “We

also get undertakings from every imam that they will not spread hurtful views or incite violence, otherwise they can be booked.”

As far as activities outside the mosque are concerned, the officer said that mosque officials are also responsible for any hate literature being distributed outside their establishment because only

they are the ones who can permit it.

The imam of Sultan Masjid in Phase V confirmed that representatives of intelligence agencies are present every Friday to record his sermon.

Despite these measures, many residents do have concerns about the views being shared at mosques. A number of them posted comments on The Express Tribune website

describing their issues with Sultan Masjid, which is reportedly financially supported by the Saudi Arabia government.

The police say few official complaints are received about sermons and the DHA residents this paper spoke to said that they would not report incidents

to the police either. Saad Khan*, who lives in DHA Phase V, told The Express Tribune, “Filing a complaint with the police would be a last resort. I would complain depending on the severity of the issue, but I or other people have little faith in what the police can do. I would try to get other people interested in the issue.”

DHA resident Saif Asif said he has stopped going to mosques where “offensive” views are shared. “I’ve attended the mosques near Hilal Park and Park Towers and I was offended

so I don’t go there any more,” he said. “I wouldn’t complain because I’d be scared and I wouldn’t know who to complain to. I know there is very limited potential for change.”

According to a 2009 report by the International Crisis Group, at least 32 mosques in DHA follow the Deobandi school of thought. The report stated that the former head of an imambargah “had formally complained about the Sultan Mosque’s incitements against Shias to the DHA administration, which took no action.”

There is an indication that DHA is in the know to some extent of these goings on. “DHA is aware that there are mosques which receive foreign funding and may be spreading extremism,” one DHA official said. However, he said that taking any action against them is a “challenge”.

In terms of whether the military is aware of these issues, Siddiqa said that as far as mosques in cantonment areas or DHA are concerned, the military “would know who is funding them”. “This cannot happen without the knowledge of state functionaries,” she added.

The supervisor of the large Bait-us-Salam mosque in Phase IV did not allow this correspondent to enter the premises. In a short conversation carried out on the mosque’s steps, he said that the government and Auqaf department play no role in its management or financing, which is done by DHA residents as well as congregation members from across Karachi. He said no issues had been raised about sermons delivered at the mosque, which focused on “Shariah and strictly religious matters, such as covering oneself, not politics”. The imam refused to speak to The Express Tribune.

Given that no government department seems to be responsible for monitoring the content and activities of mosques in an area of DHA’s size, it is highly doubtful that the government can effectively monitor mosques in the entire city, where unplanned mosques built on encroached land have dominated the landscape.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 30^th, 2011.