From the shrine to the seminary

Speakers call for equal rights to be afforded to citizens

LAHORE:

The Pakistani state must not enshrine yet another version of Islam but remove privileges one gets by virtue of being Muslim, speakers holding forth on Saturday at the first day of the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) posited.

They made the remarks while speaking at a session titled From Mazaar to Madrassah. The speakers said the state had no option but to afford equal rights to all citizens irrespective of their religious confession, caste or sect. Speaking on the occasion, veteran rights activist IA Rehman said the mazaar was an extremely accommodating construct during the British era. In contrast, he said, the madrassah was a concept that remained at odds with the establishment. Rehman said both were anti-imperial forces however.

“The madrassah in Pakistan has evolved over the last 20 years. It used to be accepting of other sects but this has disappeared now. The madrassah was always political as it used to legistimise the rule of Muslim monarchs in the name of Islam. After independence, it has monopolised the function of interpreting the Sharia,” he said. Rehman said Jinnah had attempted to lay the groundwork for a secular state in his August 11 speech.

He said this had not proved enough. “He could have succeeded had his successors followed suit but they did not,” he said. Rehman said 1974 was a watershed in this regard with the influx of Islamism patronised by Saudi Arabia and the holding of the Islamic Summit Conference in Lahore. I remember a time when there were protests in the city following the demolition of Jannatul Baqi, he said. In contrast, Rehman quipped, how many people staged protest demonstrations following the attack on Data Darbar?

Historian Farzana Sheikh stressed the need to afford equal rights to all citizens to place the nation on the right trajectory. She said Jinnah had tried to alter the rhetoric employed during the struggle for Pakistan but this had not proved enough. Sheikh said a steady erosion of pluralism had been witnessed following the emergence of a narrow national identity. She said the conflict between liberal and archaic interpretations of Islam was rooted in the quest to wrest control of interpreting the Sharia rather than difference of opinion.

Lawyer Salman Raja said there had been a myriad of instances where a consensus had emerged between the Barelvi and Deobandi schools of thought. He said what constituted the ideal Islamic way of life had also been debated within the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI).

Columnist Khaled Ahmed, who moderated the session, said there had been a transition at the level of the state from mazaar to madrassah. He said the nation’s relationship with Saudi Arabia had resulted in the state patronising Wahhabi madrassahs.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 21^st, 2016.