Sinners and the state

Article 62, 63 can be used by opponents or ROs to disqualify a candidate for having “inadequate” knowledge of Islam.

The process of scrutinising the nomination papers of various candidates in the election process has, in some cases, manifested the lacunae in Article 62 of the Constitution dealing with the qualifications for membership of parliament. This Article is a remnant of the amendments made to the 1973 Constitution by military dictator General Ziaul Haq. It can be used to disqualify a candidate by political opponents or a returning officer on grounds of being a sinner or having “inadequate” knowledge of Islam. The relevant clauses 62(d) and (e), respectively, are: “he is of good character and is not commonly known as one who violates Islamic injunctions” and “he has adequate knowledge of Islamic teachings and practices obligatory duties prescribed by Islam as well as abstains from major sins”. In a situation where adequacy of knowledge of Islam is not defined and the distinction between major and minor sins not clarified within the terms of the Article, there have been reportedly cases where candidates have been asked questions pertaining to formal aspects of religious observance and, in some cases, advised to wear a beard. This approach signifies the dogmatism and divorce of religion from its spiritual basis that characterised the cynical use of religion as an instrument of tyranny by General Zia. It also underlies the intolerance and violence of the extremists in the contemporary period. Bereft of love that is essential to religion, the extremist finds no contradiction between intoning words of prayer and wearing a beard while killing innocent human beings.

Suheyl Umar, scholar and religious leader, in an important paper in a forthcoming publication has argued how dangerous the misuse of religion can be: “Each of the wisdom traditions of the world or world faiths identifies idolatry as the most radical distortion and corruption of human life … the most insidious forms of idolatry are explicitly religious, distorted ways of identifying God or trying to harness God to one’s own cause.” He goes on to suggest that Iqbal considered love, tolerance and humanity as vital to an individual’s journey to God. He quotes a verse from Iqbal’s Javid Nama:

“ … The disbeliever and the believer are alike creatures of God/ Humanity, human respect for human reality/ Be conscious of the station of humanity/ The slave of love who takes his path from God/ Becomes a loving friend of both disbeliever and believer”

One of the great sages in the Islamic tradition, Jalaluddin Rumi, says (in a rendering by Andrew Harvey):

“Tell the night our day has no night/ Our religion no law but love/  Love is this shoreless sea/  We drown in saying not a word”

Martin Lings, the great Muslim scholar and shaikh, has argued that religion (containing the letters ‘lig’) is the ligament with God. He suggests that in both Western and Eastern religious traditions, the heart is the instrument of experiencing the transcendent. So, it can be argued that the ligament with God is established through the loving heart. In fact, every sura of the Holy Quran starts with the Bismillah: “In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.” Allah’s Mercy is manifest in all of His creation and the numberless blessings He has bestowed upon humankind. The Mercy of Allah comes not from pity but from love, as Syed Reza has argued in his brilliant commentary on Sura Fatihah.

In Sura Al An’am, of the Holy Quran, we are shown that the very mode of governance inscribed by God is Mercy. So, it is that God connects with humankind through love. Humans, in turn, can connect with God through adoration. God says in Surah Al Baqarah of the Holy Quran to adore Him — He who created us and those before us — so that we may become righteous.

If a person is in a state of adoration of God, righteous action in society will flow naturally from such a sensibility. Thus, love is a means of experiencing the transcendent as well as a form of being in this world. The state cannot intrude into this intimate connection between the individual and God.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 8^th, 2013.