War, martyrdom & just war

Hassan thinks soldiers dying for Pakistan are not martyrs because he believes state is not fighting a legitimate war.

Jamaat-e-Islami’s Munawwar Hassan’s recent declaration that soldiers dying in the war on terror are not martyrs has drawn reaction from the military. Notwithstanding the fact that a strong reaction should have come from the political government instead of the ISPR, the above statement reflects critical ideological contestation over the legitimacy of the state, the issue of just war and means employed by the state to fight its wars.

The last issue first; while the ISPR finds the JI chief’s statement hurtful, hopefully it should make the military leadership ponder more on the cost versus benefits of using non-state actors as an irregular force to fight for the state. The JI-military linkage dates back to the late 1960s and early 1970s when the JI’s al Badr and al Shams were used to unleash terror against the Bengali population in then East Pakistan. The relationship had further consolidated during the 1980s when the JI was used to muster support for an American war and sell it as ‘Islamic Jihad’ in Afghanistan. The religious party also recruited members to be dispatched for war in Afghanistan and has continued to do so.

The approach has huge opportunity costs for the army, as the JI or any other religious force’s ability to give ideological colour to issues which can create dissent within its ranks, cannot be undermined. Indeed, the Lal Masjid clerics had given a similar fatwa in 2004 in response to a query by a retired army officer, Lt Colonel (retd) Mehmoodul Hassan. The Lal Masjid-JI fatwa has tremendous potential in confusing ordinary soldiers and officers regarding the legality of the war they have been fighting for the last 11 years.

The danger of discontent in the army and the nation at large will increase as Pakistan further consolidates into what it is at the moment: a hybrid-theocracy. This fact means that some segments of the society and its polity will examine issues of war and peace in the larger context of justum bellum or what is just war according to sharia. This issue, in turn, is linked with an even larger but old question of what is a legitimate state according to Islam. The reason Munawwar Hassan thinks soldiers dying for Pakistan are not martyrs is because he believes that the Pakistani state is not fighting a legitimate war and is, in fact, not a legitimate state. In this, he parrots the position of the founding father of the JI, Abul A’la Maududi. In a 1940 JI manifesto document, Maududi had given the individual the right to fight especially if the government and the state was not according to sharia. In that same manifesto, he declared the JI not any ordinary religious party but ‘partisans of Allah’ whose key task was to create a legitimate Islamic state based on Maulana Maududi’s interpretation of sharia and system of governance according to the Holy Quran, an understanding which was contested by many, including Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi and many others. Maududi’s critics accuse him of wrongly making politics the central theme of religion and confusing orders meant for individuals versus what was intended collectively for the community of Muslims.

However, Maududi’s interpretation of the sharia of an ideal Islamic state echoes the views of the 13^th century Islamic scholar, Ibn Taymiyyah. Both argue for launching a ‘legitimate’ revolution to bring about a state and society based on sharia. The conceptualisation of an Islamic state by both these theologians, who lived during turbulent times, reflects the deeper contestation within Islam on the shape of the state, which in turn, has undergone major shifts through centuries. The Islamic state has evolved from its earlier expansion in the times of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) and the four caliphs to Islamic empires, and finally to nation-states. However, the ideology regarding the state has not evolved at an equal pace.

The earlier expansion of territory under Islam for which jihad (or war) was waged was a systematic programme at regime change that would help establish a just society. Initially, the ruler was expected to be of good character, health, mind and proper ancestry who would govern according to sharia. Thus, some of the early violent murders like that of the Caliphs Hazrat Umer (RA), Hazrat Usman (RA) and Hazrat Ali (RA) denoted the inner contestation on many issues including understanding of sharia. The first fitna or civil war in Islam represented the deep chasms on how the state of God should be governed. Over years, the debate took several dimensions such as what should an Islamic state be like and who should have the authority to determine what the scripture and other sources said about how it was meant to be. Increasingly, religious theologians gained more significance. Each one had his own style such as the 8^th century scholar Hassan alBasri, who questioned legitimacy of the Ummayad dynasty based on his power of knowledge to interpret the text. Due to an inability to develop consensus on who should have the right to rebel and to what extent, many scholars including alShaybani, who is considered as the Hugo Grotius of Islam, gave varied interpretation on the Abbasid ruler alMamun’s right to punish the rebel with whom he had signed a peace accord once the latter re-engaged in violence against the state. To cut it short, Msulims scholars have, through the ages, not developed a consensus on the shape of a legitimate Islamic state and system and the legitimacy of those engaging in revolution and war. It was in the early 1920s that a young but learned scholar from al Azhar in Egypt, alRazik, interpreted various sources of religion to argue that neither the Holy Quran nor Hadith of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) provide any concept of an ideal Islamic state. Thus, alRazik argued that any political system would do as long as it brought justice to people.

The long and arduous debate in Islam is varied and based on the nature of inner conflict. Therefore, the threat could be that Munawwar Hassan and Abdul Aziz Ghazi’s fatwa’s denote just the tip of the iceberg. It requires serious debate and not a statement by the ISPR on defining the Pakistani state to silence these troublesome theologians.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 14^th, 2013.

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