Ominous show of clerical power
The clerics' coming together could be destabilising for Pakistan, already under pressure to mend its extremist ways.
There is an unprecedented rallying of the clerical parties against any changes brought in the blasphemy law or its procedures by the government. The first glimpse of what the clerics can achieve on December 31 came into full view on December 24 all over the country. It was also an expression of the high degree of discontent, among the men of God, over the nature and function of the state in Pakistan. Looking back over the past years, this kind of rallying of clerical power has rarely been seen.
The target of these post-Friday prayer protests, in various cities of the country, was the PPP and its office-bearers who are seen as minions of their ‘foreign masters’ bent upon allowing infidels to insult the Holy Prophet (pbuh). In the crosshairs was Sherry Rehman who has very courageously tabled a watered-down version of the law in parliament, aimed at eliminating widespread abuse of the blasphemy law in the country. The other target was Governor Punjab Salmaan Taseer who had dared to send a request of pardon for the Christian victim Aasia Bibi to President Asif Ali Zardari. After that the general target were the secularist renegades in all walks of life plotting to turn the state away from its Islamic identity.
The demonstrations were staged in Lahore, Karachi and Multan where the clerics have their strongholds and can mobilise their seminarian youths. The one at Lahore was 1,500 strong, calling aggressively for jihad to save the honour of the Prophet (pbuh). The JUI-F was up front, its leader shouting: “Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and we will not tolerate any attempt to amend the law.” The banned Jamaatud Dawa took out a rally of some 500 people in Lahore, its leader saying: “We will launch a national movement against all those lawmakers who support efforts to amend the law.”
In Karachi, over 2,000 clerics and their pupils came out protesting Ms Rehman’s draft law. In Islamabad, the upfront religious organisation was Tahaffuz Khatam-e-Nubuwwat led by the Barelvis whose tendency to defend the honour of the Prophet (pbuh) had at first put off the more strict Deobandis. But at this point, there is a convergence of interests among all the three schools of thought: Barelvis, Deobandis and Ahle Hadith or Wahhabis. The Islamabad rally was organised in part by the UN-banned Ahle Hadith Jamaatud Dawa whose lead in this campaign introduces a new intensity to the crisis. The Friday wave of protest was the result of an All-Parties Conference headed by the JUI-F’s Maulana Fazlur Rehman in Islamabad. Rawalpindi saw an impressive demonstration of clerical strength based on the mushroom growth of seminaries in the Islamabad-Rawalpindi area. The target was widened to include president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Asma Jahangir, the internationally-known human rights worker under whom the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has produced voluminous literature cataloguing injustice done to minorities under the blasphemy law.
The Jamaat-i-Islami, one of the more organised religious parties in the country, has got the more tribal JUI-F on board finally, to raise the hope of reviving the religious alliance called the MMA which ruled Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa under Musharraf. Now, there is virtually no division among the various schools of thought. And this coming together of the clerics could be very destabilising for Pakistan, already under pressure from the international community to mend its extremist ways. It must be scary to the outside world to hear the deputy commander of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Maulvi Faqir Muhammad of Bajaur say that the TTP will stand behind the nation-wide protest on December 31.
Al Qaeda, the global terrorist organisation that presides over religious extremism in Pakistan, has already pursued the policy of punishing those in the West who commit blasphemy through cartoons and by other means. It is a patron of the TTP and has its embedded cells in all the big cities of the country. The coming week could be an ominous demonstration of the extent to which Pakistan is politically unstable and to what extent its government has lost the capacity to control events that threaten the lives of the people.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 26th, 2010.
The target of these post-Friday prayer protests, in various cities of the country, was the PPP and its office-bearers who are seen as minions of their ‘foreign masters’ bent upon allowing infidels to insult the Holy Prophet (pbuh). In the crosshairs was Sherry Rehman who has very courageously tabled a watered-down version of the law in parliament, aimed at eliminating widespread abuse of the blasphemy law in the country. The other target was Governor Punjab Salmaan Taseer who had dared to send a request of pardon for the Christian victim Aasia Bibi to President Asif Ali Zardari. After that the general target were the secularist renegades in all walks of life plotting to turn the state away from its Islamic identity.
The demonstrations were staged in Lahore, Karachi and Multan where the clerics have their strongholds and can mobilise their seminarian youths. The one at Lahore was 1,500 strong, calling aggressively for jihad to save the honour of the Prophet (pbuh). The JUI-F was up front, its leader shouting: “Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and we will not tolerate any attempt to amend the law.” The banned Jamaatud Dawa took out a rally of some 500 people in Lahore, its leader saying: “We will launch a national movement against all those lawmakers who support efforts to amend the law.”
In Karachi, over 2,000 clerics and their pupils came out protesting Ms Rehman’s draft law. In Islamabad, the upfront religious organisation was Tahaffuz Khatam-e-Nubuwwat led by the Barelvis whose tendency to defend the honour of the Prophet (pbuh) had at first put off the more strict Deobandis. But at this point, there is a convergence of interests among all the three schools of thought: Barelvis, Deobandis and Ahle Hadith or Wahhabis. The Islamabad rally was organised in part by the UN-banned Ahle Hadith Jamaatud Dawa whose lead in this campaign introduces a new intensity to the crisis. The Friday wave of protest was the result of an All-Parties Conference headed by the JUI-F’s Maulana Fazlur Rehman in Islamabad. Rawalpindi saw an impressive demonstration of clerical strength based on the mushroom growth of seminaries in the Islamabad-Rawalpindi area. The target was widened to include president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Asma Jahangir, the internationally-known human rights worker under whom the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has produced voluminous literature cataloguing injustice done to minorities under the blasphemy law.
The Jamaat-i-Islami, one of the more organised religious parties in the country, has got the more tribal JUI-F on board finally, to raise the hope of reviving the religious alliance called the MMA which ruled Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa under Musharraf. Now, there is virtually no division among the various schools of thought. And this coming together of the clerics could be very destabilising for Pakistan, already under pressure from the international community to mend its extremist ways. It must be scary to the outside world to hear the deputy commander of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Maulvi Faqir Muhammad of Bajaur say that the TTP will stand behind the nation-wide protest on December 31.
Al Qaeda, the global terrorist organisation that presides over religious extremism in Pakistan, has already pursued the policy of punishing those in the West who commit blasphemy through cartoons and by other means. It is a patron of the TTP and has its embedded cells in all the big cities of the country. The coming week could be an ominous demonstration of the extent to which Pakistan is politically unstable and to what extent its government has lost the capacity to control events that threaten the lives of the people.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 26th, 2010.