The hard-liners among them had called it a “conspiracy” hatched by non-Muslims to stop Muslim women from bearing children. People in Swat are now questioning the hypocrisy of clerics.
“Today’s mullah is caught in the splitting hair over scholastics. He has strayed away from the essence of Islam,” said Hamayn, a resident of Mingora. “If he was against polio vaccination, it wasn’t that he was able to reflect but rather because it was the demand of the day in a Taliban-ruled Swat,” he told The Express Tribune.
“Today if one notices a 180-degree shift in his stance, it is purely under the influence of the army,” he added.
Most people in Swat are of the view that the role of religious scholars during the insurgency was of wholly negative because they responded to the tumult in Swat either with silence or justified the “illegal and un-Islamic” deeds of the Taliban by favouring them.
“Actually the main cause behind this dual policy of clerics or ‘mullahs’ is their state of fear. In order to avoid harsh consequences, they tried to be in the good books of the Taliban. And now they are toeing the official line to favour with the ‘other party,’” Dr Sultan-i-Raum, a renowned scholar and historian, told The Express Tribune.
Dr Raum said that he was disappointed with the role of these religious scholars, because they did not dare to challenge the Taliban to protect their religion while they were bringing bad name to the religion.
Shilmani, a noted lawyer from Swat, also questioned the role of these clerics. “They had cold feet and then to avoid reprisals from the Taliban. They blindly followed the Taliban’s directives. And now they are openly flouting their own edicts against polio vaccination,” Shilmani told The Express Tribune.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 10th, 2010.
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