Loud Thinking

A COLLECTION OF ARTICLES
By
SHAMIM ANWAR
 Loud Thinking
A collection of Articles by Ms. Shamim Anwar

Published by Jehanzaib Publishers at

Kamran Printers, Lahore· Pakistan

All rights reserved.

This book or any part thereof shall not be reproduced without the wotten
permission of the pub"sher.

Firsl Edition: November 2008

 -I- LOUD THfNKING

CONTENTS
CONTENTS 011
PREFACE

PRINCIPLES OF THE EXEGESIS OF THE OURAN

(QURAN "FAHMI') D
GENESIS AND IDEOLOGY OF PAKISTAN IIlI
WESTERNISATION? m
THE INDUS SAGA IS IT THE MAKING OF PAKISTAN? m
"INDUS SAGA" NO, IT IS NOT THE MAKING OF PAKISTAN m
A FEEDBACK TO ISLAM THE ONLY WAY BY IMRAN KHAN m
PAKISTAN AND ISLAMIC STUDIES THE INHUMAN FACTOR IliI
APPROACH TOWARDS CHANGE m
MEN WHO BELONG TO ALL AGES III
THEY WERE ALL SELF-MADE MEN m
IQBAL, THE POET AND THE POLITICIAN
(A REBUTTAL TO RAFIQ ZAKARIA) m
QUAID-E-AZAM AND MULLAH ISM iii
JINNAH REINTERPRETED m
PARWEZ AND THE PAKISTAN MOVEMENT m
A MAN OF SUBSTANCE
(MY MEMORIES OF PARWEZ SAHIB) m
PARWEZ - THE WHOLE MAN m
A TEACHER WAS BORN m
PARWEZ AS I KNEW HIM m
 -11- LOUD THINKING

WHY ARE THEY AFRAID DF HIM?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?

THE BABY BOOM lID

THE WAllS RUNNING AMOK 1m!
IS THE MOMENT OF DEATH FIXED 1m!
PURDAH

MOTHER-IN-LAW SYNDROME

A SHAKEN PSYCHE

IT IS A SHAME

WOMEN'S DIVORCE RIGHT

ODIOUS COMPARISONS

THEIR ROYAL HIGHNESSES

COMMENTARY ON STEPS PRESCRIBED IN VERSE 434

FOR CORRECTING FAMILY mil
MEMORIES OF ALiGAHRH lEI
SOME STRAY THOUGHTS WORTH REMEMBRING 1m
THIS IS MARCH 1996 In)
OMAR DARAZ mil
RAYS OF HOPE IE!I
 -111- LOUD THINKJNG
PREFACE

Once an admirer of Ms_ Shamim Anwar expressed a desire that all her
articles and letters might be collected and then compiled into a book.
She herself greatly liked the idea to compile a book with her articles
and letters, as she was very keen to put her thoughts across to the
readers_ This idea received wide-spread appreciation, and many of her
friends and fans resolved to provide backing to make it a reality. But it
remained in the background for quite some time. However the work on
it got underway at last. Mr. Akbar Mushtaq, now a solicitor in the UK,
and his wife Saima Akbar, insisted they would put in their efforts to
bring it into being. They, along with Mr. Arif Rahman Chughtai
(Director Chughtai Museum Trust), financed this project. Mr. Akbar
Mushtaq also compiled and proofread it. The author is really grateful to
them for bringing it out.

Although the record of all the articles and letters was available with her,
only a few may have been missed. Anyhow every effort has been
made to ensure that each piece of her writings appearing in the print
media is covered here. This is because they do seem to be very useful
also for those doing research on any subject of social sciences, mainly
on the ideology of Pakistan. They can have a lot more useful points in
this book. Furthermore what makes it distinguished is the daring style
she has come up with, all through, to pin down the ailments and
grievances of the society. Sometimes the style sounds superseding
the ideas, and sometimes the other way round. Yet the ideas here are
too loud for us to hear. Moreover they seem to be too mighty for us to
consume as well. This could be due to the very fact that Ms. Shamim
Anwar keeps up with her understanding of the truth and not with the
social norms. She sticks to the norms which according to her can be
found in no source other than the Quran. All this and a lot more is
expressed in each article and letter she has contributed to the print
media from time to time. The major part of her articles and letters also
show that any issue that bugs her, she keenly relates that in
accordance with the Quran. This is clearly revealed in the following
excerpts of her writings:

"Now, one such educated elite is Dr. Muburak Ali. In

the DAWN issue of May 12, in the excerpts reproduced
from his book "Ulema, Sufis and Intellectuals" he
lampoons the 'Two-Nation Theory" and decries it as
the official policy. Before I say anything else, I would
like to paint out that the Pakistani intellectuals have
made no effort to understand the definition and
 -IV- LouD THINKING

meaning of it vis a vis the Quran. That is where the

whole tension and anger arises."

One more excerpt from another piece of her writings goes as follows:

"Why cannot a whole ocean of "Muslims" wipe off a

tiny little island of usurpers in Palestine, called Israel?
if they had only pondered over it (and this is what the
Quran says: Ponder, think, understand, use reason
and intellect in Surahs and verses 8/22,3/191, 5/71,
10/100, 17/36 to mention just a few) they would have
realised that it is not numbers or numerical strength
that matters, what matters is the quality of the mind -
its creativity, its inventiveness, its character, its sense
of adventure and wonderment, and a lot more."

So the aforementioned excerpts clearly reveal how she draws

conclusions along the line~ of the Quranic ideas. That is why she also
contributed several articles to the monthly "Tolu-e-Islam". It may be
mentioned here that she also wrote a few articles on Allama Ghulam
Ahmad Parwez, who according to her, brought about a turning-point in
her life as far as the understanding of islam was concerned.

Moreover she wrote several articles on the rights of women These

articles go along with the struggle she has been carrying out all through
her life in defending the feminine rights. So much so that such struggle
took her to the streets to join various human rights activists. She
always expressively comes out against feudal mindset in the country,
and this too is echoed in her writings. So the 'Loud Thinking'
compresses her thoughts, memories, criticism and a lot more for one to
see. It is now up to the readers to see it not as they are but as the
book is. Agreeing or disagreeing with it lies with them.

An utmost effort and care has been taken all through the compiling,
composing and proofreading processes of this book. However any
error is regretted in advance. The readers are humbly appealed to
point out if they come across any error, so that it is set right for the
future. Above all, the author is really thankful to all those who played
even a slightest role, directly or indirectly, in making it happen.

M. Ashraf
 -1- LOUD THINKING

PRINCIPLES OF THE EXEGESIS OF

THE QURAN
(QURAN "FAHMI")

To the layman and to the prospective research scholar of the Quran,

different and even paradoxical interpretations, is a very baffling and a
discouraging factor. Ordinarily, if any book had as many interpretations
as ther8 are its readers it would not only be devoid of all greatness, but
it would deserve to be thrown in the waste paper basket And yet, it is
taken for granted that the Quran has several and contradictory
meaningsl We never stop thinking whether this is possible or should
be possible, and if it is, whether we should continue to have faith in it
Just imagine the situation if conversation between two people, contract
between two business firms, or treaties between two countries could be
interpreted in different ways! There would indeed be utter chaos,
disorder and disunity. How can the Quran, that came as a challenge to
intellectual confusion, as a solution to all problems, and as a basis of a
stable, homogeneous and peaceful social order be subject to
contradictory ideas, leading to sectarianism and disunity? Surely, there
must be something wrong somewhere in the approach to the Quran; for
the Quran, if it is what it claims to be, cannot have contradictory
interpr"tations.

It is interesting to note that principles of the exegesis of the Quran have

been explained by the Quran itself; they have not been left to every
Individual's discretion for that would have defeated its very purpose.
The Quran guarantees that if these principles are faithfully followed,
there is no possibility of any confusion in the understanding of it.

The first condition that the Quran puts forward is that it should be
approached without any mental reservations. In Verse 79 of Surah 56
it is stated: "None can understand the Quran, save those who have
cleared their minds of all pre-conceived ideas." We are thus asked to
judge the Quran on its merit, and to understand It as it is, and not on
the basis of our own pre-conceived ideas and according to our own
wishes. Quranic laws are not to be judged in the context of man-made
laws_ They are not to be moulded according to and made subservient
to our own likes and disllkes_ Quranic laws may be wholly rejected or
accepted on their own merit, but if they are to be moulded according to
our own wishes, our inclinations and our emotions, then obviously it is
no longer the Ouran For example, there is the idea of "ownership"
The Ouran says that Allah alone IS the owner of the land, and those
men who own land are assuming to be the rivals of Allah or
shareholders in His right to ownership. Now in a man-made social
 -2- LOUD THINKING

order, ownership is its very basis, may its concept be individual or state
ownership, so much so, that ownership has come to be looked upon as
something very natural and indisputable. Of course, if man does not
wish to apply the Quranic idea, he can reject it by all means, but he
certainly cannot interpret and twist it to suit his own emotions and his
own laws, for then it is no longer the Quranic law, By asking man to
approach it without any mental reservation and to judge its laws on
their own merit, the Quran has not asked the impossible. When an
individual studies the "Mercantile Theory" or the "Communist Ideology"
he judges it on its own merit and accepts or rejects it accordingly. In
fact, a human being is naturally expected to do this, he being an
Intelligent rational - being, the characteristics which differentiate him
from the lower animals. A man may not wish to approach a book
without mental reservations, but that is a different matter. The fact
remains that in the capacity of a rational animal, he can study ideas on
their own merit.

Thus the absolute objectivity of the Quran, every word of which is

revealed and does not bear even a shadow of man's subjectivity,
carries no meaning if it IS to be considered subservient to man's
wishes. The meaning of the "Kalima", La fIIah //Ial/ah" is very
significant in this context. The "La" explains the negative aspect, that
is, the complete rejection of all pre-conceived ideas, and the word "fila"
denotes the acceptance of the Quranic.

The second rule pointed out by the Quran is that It is self-explanatory,

and as such describes itself as that is, "clear light" In surah 4, verse
175 the Quran says, "We have sent down unto you a clear light." Light,
as we know, is not only self- illuminating, but the surroundings are also
illuminated by it It does not need the aid of another light to illuminate
it. The sun, for example, does not depend on a lantern or any electric
bulb to make its presence felt. In the same way, the Quran does not
;leed the help of another to make its meaning clear. Its meaning is
self-explanatory. Again and again Quran emphasizes this. At one
place it says, 'Then LOI upon Us rested the explanation thereof'
(75/19). At another place it says: "This is a scripture the revelation
whereof are perfected and then expounded" (11/1). Thus it is clear
that the Quran must be understood from the Quran itself. Just as a
rose-bud must be allowed to open itself by the process designed by the
Creator, or else the petals will fall off if man touched it, in the same way
the meaning of the Quran must be opened by ItS creator by the process
designed by Him.

Furthermore, the Quran does not claim to be merely a book of codified

laws and injunctions, or a book wherein are collected the formulas for
 -3- LOUD THINKING

making the wireless set. the railway engine or the sputnik. It is not just
a book of information, but something much more than that. Its
objective and its method of explanation is that of educating the mind
and changing its attitude towards life. Its aim is to bring about a
revolution inside the man himself, for after all, the external material
civilization is the expression of the internal spiritual condition of man
himself. To serve this purpose therefore, the Quran does not give, like
the man-made books, different subjects' chapter by chapter. The
different subjects are spread out from the beginning of the Book to the
end of it By repetition and from different angles the point is brought
home. At one place the Ouran mentions a point, at another it defines it,
and yet at another place, it first explains it briefly and later in detail.
This process is called, that is, explaining a certain point by repeating It
again and again The Quran says in verse 65 of Surah 6: See how we
display the Revelation by stating it again and again so that they may
understand". As an example of this, you may note that at one place the
Quran speaks of the movement of the various planets, the stars, the
clouds and the various birds and animals, and explains as to how
perfectly they move or live according to the universal laws of Nature
and maintain complete proportion These men are also asked to
maintain this proportion in his life, In this example, the lesson was
drawn from Nature. At another place, the fact that man should
maintain proportion in life is derived from history. Reference is made to
the past nations, who disobeyed Allah's laws and were thus destroyed
in spite of their power and splendour and wealth They had destroyed
proportion in their lives, and so they fell.

The verses quoted above are noteworthy for another reason also. In
one verse (75/19) the Quran had stated that "Upon us rested the
explanation thereof' In another verse (6/65) it had said that the
revelation is displayed by repeating it". From these two verses it is
clear that the verses are explained by repetition. For instance let us
take the meaning of the word In one verse the Quran explains that
when Moses and Aaron invited Pharaoh to accept the Divine Law,
Pharaoh replied scornfully as follows" "should we put faith in two
mortals like ourselves, and whose folk are servile unto us?" (23/47)
The word for "servile" in the original verse is (inseri Arabic word
"Abidoon'). So it is clear here that the word means servile or ruled by
another. Continuing the arguments between Moses and Pharaoh, the
Quran stated in another verse: "And this is the past favour where with
thou reproachest me: that thou haste enslaved the children of Israel?"
(26/22). For the word enslaved again, the original is (insert Arabic
word "Abbadata'). Once again it is obvious that (inseri Arabic word
"Abad') means "servile" or "subordination" to another. In another verse
the Quran says: "That ye serve none, save Allah" (11/26). Here
 -4- LOUD THINKING

again the word (insert Arabic word "A bad') is used for "serve". Yet in
another verse (12/40) the Quran says: "The decision rests with Allah
only, who hath commanded you that ye serve none save Him." Here
the word "Abad" has been used which is self explanatory through
repetition that means "serving" another.

Now to come to the next principle of the exegesis of the Quran. It is to

be taken into consideration that the Quran consists of two parts: A very
small part of it is injunctions for human guidance, given in direct and
succinct manner, while the major part deals with Absolute Truths in
allegorical style, for these truths cannot be described in any other way.
These direct injunctions and the absolute Truths are not to be judged in
the context of history, the Quran transcends all space and time, it is
universal and eternal. It is therefore applicable to all places and all
ages_ At no time or space can the Quranic verses stand back and say
that they have been exhausted and cannot move any further. A man-
made law naturally is local and historical, for it is made in the context of
particular historical needs and .background. On the other hand, the
Quranic laws and Truths are more and more appreciated as human
knowledge and experience increases_ The verses regarding the direct
injunctions for human guidance when practiced, reveal the WHY of
these injunction as accepted on its face value, but as time passes man
is able to appreciate more and more the reason why this injunctions
was laid down. Similarly, the idea that "all mankind is one human
family, is appreciated better today, for through experience, the evils of
geographical, racial and colour divisions have been brought out into
bold relief. So far, those injunctions have been mentioned which Man
has already realized to a great extent. One or two more examples will
be given below which Man has not yet seen through but will in the
future. One of them is that no man has the right to rule over another.
Sovereignty cannot lie with an individual, a group of individuals or
people as a whole. The characteristics of sovereignty, such as
absolute, supreme, indivisible and inalienable cannot be the
characteristics of any human organization. The Quran therefore
explains that "Allah alone is sovereign" (39/61) One day, man will see
its significance, and realize the wonderful results this conception has
on the development of man's character and personality_ Another
injunction is that of the conception of "ownership." The Quran explains
that land has been created for the sustenance of all humankind. Thus
man must not own but use land; he must not arrest its growth but leave
it open for all humankind; he must not possess, but control land. When
man owns land he becomes Allah's Rival and Shareholder. So far,
man has developed the Idea of state ownership to replace individual
ownership, but time and experience will show that the very word
"ownership" is defective.
 -5- LOUD THINKING

These examples suffice for the injunctions for human relationship.

Reference to the outer universe in the Quran UNFOLD their
significance as human knowledge expands and widens. In Surah 41
verse 53, the Quran mentions this very point, 'We shall show them
our portents on the horizons and within themselves until it will be
manifest unto them that it is the Truth." In the following verses
references are made to the portents or signs which will be unfolded as
sCience develops. "Do not those who disbelieve", says the Quran
verse 21/30, "see that the various planets were all of one piece, then
we parted them and we made every living thing of water? Will they not
then believe"? At another place, the Quran says, "He hath created the
heavens and the earth with truth. He maketh night to succeed day, and
He maketh day to succeed night and He constrained the sun and the
moon to give service, each running on for an appointed term" (3915). In
another verse the Quran says" It is not for the sun to overtake the
moon, nor dot the night outstrip the day. They fioat each in an orbit"
(36/39). Again in verse 2/164 the Quran says: "La! In the creation of
the heaven,s and the earth, and the difference of night and day, and the
ships that run upon the sea with that which is of use to men, and the
water which Allah sendeth down from the sky, thereby reviving the
earth after its death, and dispersing all kinds of beasts therein, and in
the ordinance of the winds and the clouds obedient between heaven
and earth; are signs of Allah's sovereignty for people who have sense."
In another verse the Quran says about those gifted with understanding:
"Such are those who remember Allah, standing, sitting and reclining,
and considerate creations of the heavens and the earth, and says; Our
Lord! Thou created not this in vain. Glory be to Thee!" {3/191}

Thus the more the scientists consider, the more they will admire His
sovereignty and glory.

There are many references to ancient history as well in the Quran.

Archaeological discoveries is a field of knowledge that bears concrete
and factual witness to the history in the Quran. Thus as knowledge
increases, the Quranic Truths are unfolded and as such, the last word
on the QUran will have to be left to the last man on earth.

As mentioned above, the various topics are spread all over the Quran,
and are not written chapter by Chapter. Hence, when one particular
subject is under study, all the relevant verses should be first collected
together and then studied as a whole. If the system of studying verse
by verse is followed, the meaning of the individual verse may become
clear but the teaching and education of the Quran does not manifest
itself.
 -6- LOUD THINKING

Also, there is a fundamental unity in the teachings of the Quran, and so

it must be studied as a whole. One verse must not be analyzed
separately from the rest of the Quran; it must be seen in its context
For example if without the conception of the Islamic social order before
us it is mentioned that the Quran does not envisage a coinage system,
and that the word "ownership" is alien to the QUranic Ideology, or that
party system is the very negation of Islamic democracy, it will all sound
impossible, because they were mentioned as isolated units. But when
the whole Quranic Ideology is before us, these very ideas will most
perfectly fit into it In fact, once the Ideology has been fully understood,
then an idea, Of even a mere sentence or sub-heading will indicate and
reflect the whole system, just as one pure clean dew drop can reflect
the whole sun in all its glory.

To its disbeliever, the Quran offers a pragmatic test. One test is that of
past history. Man is asked to study the fall of nations due to
disobedience to Allah's laws. They would not have met this fate, had
they not deviated from the Flermanent, universal laws. The second test
is that of studying the Quran on the basis of contemporary knowledge,
and finding out as to how it solves the various problems. And thirdly, it
suggests that its laws be practiced and experimented upon, and then
judged from the results that ensue, for the objective of the Quran is to
produce results. The pragmatic test thus covers the past, present and
future.

The appeal of the Quran is to reason and intellect. In Surah 7 verse

52, the Quran says; "Verify, We have brought them a scripture which
we expound with knowledge" Again at another place it says: "We
have detailed our revelation for a people who have knowledge and
understanding" (6/98-99). Thus the belief of the Quran is based on
reason, knowledge and understanding. It is possible that in the
beginning there might be a superiicial difference of pinion on some
minor issues, just as there IS among scientists. But after discussion
and exchange of views a unity of understanding is arrived at, with the
help of the Quran itself, for the Quran claims that there can be no two
opinions about the meaning of its verses.

Of course I need hardly point out that alongside with reason and
knowledge sincerity of purpose and disinterested search for Truth are
also needed

The next important factor In the understanding of the Quran is the

Arabic language, the medium of Revelation. How vast, profound and
comprehensive this language is, it can hardly be emphasised.
Scholars have realized in their attempt to translate the Quran as to how
 -7- LOUD THINKlNG
inadequate other languages are to express the meaning of the Ouran.
The Arabic words are deeply rich in concepts, that is, the capacity to
form a concrete image before the mind's eye when a particular word is
uttered. For example, there is the word "weak" or "feeble". When
spoken in Arabic, it conjures the picture of a new-born baby camel that
again and again tries to stand up on its weak and feeble legs. Another
example is that of the Arabic word "Mussali". It is a word used for a
horse that is second in the race. It is so close to the first that its nose
touches the back of the first, but yet it does not go ahead of it. Dr.
Buck, in his "cosmic conscience" states that the German Language
which is also rich in concepts has round about fifty of them, but the
Arabic Language has over six hundred concepts." A language with so
many concepts alone was capable and worthy of being used as a
medium of the Quran, the Book that was to be eternal and universal.
Hence HAR Gibb admits in his "Modern Trends in Islam" that the
Quran cannot be translated, for the original meaning cannot be
properly conveyed. All that we can do is to convey the meaning by
paraphrasing the word, or composing the dictionary of the Quran.

The Quran, however, is revealed in a very simple language. Arabic

literature otherwise may be often very high brow and difficult as the
literature of any other language is, but the Quran says of itself, in Surah
26 verse 195, "It is in plain Arabic speech." In another verse 28 of
Surah 39 it says, "The Quran is in Arabic containing no crookedness".
Yet at another place it says: "And we have made this book easy in thy
language." (44/58) Thus it is clear that there should be no difficulty in
the understanding of it. The words are plain and simple, they have no
hidden spiritual meaning They need no mystical experience in the
understanding of them. They are self-explanatory and accessible to aiL

But of course, the meaning of the words must be those which prevailed
at the time of the Revelation itself. It is ". known fact that in the course
of time all languages undergo great chan~es; words no longer express
the original meaning, they start representing idE:as completely alien to
the original text, and conjure images in our minds that are false as far
as the original is concerned. For example, if in Shakespeare's plays
the word "clerk" meaning "Bishop" when he wrote it, is understood as
clerk in its modern meaning, it IS apt to change the whole idea that
Shakespeare meant to express. In the same way, the Arabic word
"Sabr" today means what the following English proverb aptly conveys,
"what cannot be cured must be endured" But the original meaning of it
is perseverance on a straight and right path. The two meanings can
give completely different and opposite complexion to the Quranic
ideology and the modern meaning of It can influence the whole attitude
of minds adversely. Another example is that of the Arabic word
 -8- LOUD THINKING

"Ibadat". Originally it meant "obedience to a ruler", but today it denotes

"worship". The change in the meaning strikes the very basis of the
Quranic ideology - from a social order Islam is reduced to the private
affair of the individual. Happily, the original meanings are all preserved
in old Arabic poetry. which is to be found in Arabic literature and
dictionaries, so there is really no problem in reviving the old meanings
and connotations.

It is clear from the above discussions that if the Quran is understood

with reason and knowledge, and on the principles laid down by the
Quran itself, the Quran promises definite results. But it is a pity that the
Quran which was to have direct access to man, has been obstructed by
certain later developments. For instance when Syria, Egypt, Persia
and India came in contact with the Muslims, and the people of these
countries overnight embraced Islam, they were naturally bound to bring
along with them their pre-conceived ideas which then infiltrated into
Muslim belief, may they be Magi, Jewish, Christian or Hindu. All kinds
of institutions like hereditar.y monarchy, unlimited private ownership
mysticism, order of "dervishes" sainthood, caste system, and ancestor
worship etc. became part and parcel of Islam, irrespective of the fact
whether the Quran sanctioned them or not. Indeed things came to
such a pass that as long as an individual observed the four outward
rituals of "namaz", "rozah", "hal" and "zakat", he could introduce any
idea he liked in the fold of Islam. H.A.R. Gibb in his book
"Muhammadanism: - A Historical Survey" speaks of it as follows: The
preachers he says, "in the form of sermons or commentaries on
Quranic text, stuffed the minds of their hearers with materials derived
from the vast heterogeneous sources - ancient Arabian legends,
Christian, Zoroastrian, and even Buddhist stories, materials from the
Gospels and Jewish Haggoda, and all the inherited lore of ancient
Syria and Babylonnia" But today, to a Muslim all this is Islam I

Another obstacle is the so-called Traditions of Muhammad (PBUH).

When properly analyzed it becomes, as H.A.R. Gibb says "obvious that
they were forgeries on a large scale. There was no end to fabrication,
and legal maxims, Jewish and Christian materials, even aphorisms
from Greek philosophy were put into the mouth of Muhammad (PBUH)
in the defence of their particular tenets, and as time went on these
became more and more categorical and detailed." To quote an
interesting and classical example of this: Once Khalifa Haroon stood on
the terrace flying pigeons. Beside him stood the Chief Qazi of
Baghdad. To please his master he came out with a most injudicious
flattery. "This is indeed praiseworthy", he says, "for Muhammad
(PBUH) also used to fly pigeons!" And yet when a clash occurs
 -9- LOUD THfNKlNG
between the Ouran and the Traditions, it is the Traditions that
supersede the Ouran!

Ancestor worship is another hindrance between the Quran and man.

Of course the past generations must be applauded for their scientific
and cultura! achievements, but to say that they alone could understand
the Ouran and that the present and future generations must only blindly
follow them, is indeed a dangerous attitude and the very negation of
the Quranie ideology. It reduces the Quran to historical and local level,
when it claims to be universal and eternal.

Last but not the least, Muslim history itself is guilty of keeping man
away from the Quran. It has been raised to the status of a deity, and
placed on a high and sacred pedestal, so much so, that whenever the
Ouran and Muslim history come into conflict, it is the Muslim history
that gets the upper hand. Whenever a Ouranic idea is put forward, it is
rejected not because the Ouran does not sanction it. but because
Muslim history does not prove it! Such is the logic, and it needs no
comment.

Thus, if the Ouran is to be understood, all these obstacles must be

removed, and with reason and knowledge, the Ouran must be
understood from the Ouran itself.
 -10- LOUD THINKING

GENESIS AND IDEOLOGY OF PAKISTAN

(The article" is based on the works of Aflama Parwez, AHarna Iqbal and
AHama Asfam Jairajpuri)

The history of mankind makes tragic reading. Down through the ages,
we come across a series of sequence of the rise, growth, decline and
fall, not only of nations but even of their civilisations and cultures. No
doubt, man has all along shown a remarkable constructive genius,
having attained many an awe-inspiring successes, despite occasional
set-backs and natural catastrophes, but his constructive genius was
always undermined by some inherent weakness underlying his ideas,
or his way of life which ultimately brought about a disastrous end to his
efforts. Nevertheless, there have been some notable exceptions in the
series of sequence when the idea of universal welfare of mankind took
practical shape, but the main characteristic in all those Civilisations,
always remained one of frustration. Man struggled hard to find some
satisfactory solution to his prOblems, but failed. Human intellect, limited
as it is helped him little, because it is not aware of any source of
knowledge other than itself. There was only one guide left for mankind
in this difficult quest; and that confidently proclaimed competency to
lead them to their goal:"

The God that has created all the objects in the universe
has also undertaken to make them aware of their goal and
guide them towards it, (20:50)

1. The guidance which comes directly from God is kown as

"Revelation". It has all along been revealed to humankind
through the agency of various Anbiya. But, unfortunately, due
to the ravages of time and human tampering with it, the text of
the Scriptures, the message delivered via the pre-Islamic
Anbiya, could not be preserved long in their original form.
Eventually, about fourteen centuries ago, the complete and
final version of that Guidance was revealed to mankind through
Muhammad (P.B.U.H.), the last of the series of Anbiya. This
version of the Divine Guidance is embodied exactly in its
original form in the Quran.

2. The responsibility of the Nab!, to whom Divine Guidance was

revealed, was not only to communicate this revelation to
others, but also to establish a socia-economic order in the light
of that Guidance. Our Rasu/---Muhammad (P.B.U.H.) --
established this order which fully recognised dignity of all
 -11- LOUD THINKING

human beings (17:70). The pursuit of individual interest was

replaced by the ideal of the good of the humanity at large.
Oppression and exploitation were abolished and justice and
equity prevailed. The dependence of man and the subjugation
of one over another were brought to an end. Every individual
was assured the proper satisfaction of his or her needs, They,
thereby, led a life full of satisfaction, peace and harmony. They
did not owe obedience to any person(s) or power, except the
Divine Laws enshrined in the Quran. Briefly, that order
completely put an end to the rule of man over man and with it
the eVil of capitalism. This order was called Deen in the
Quranic terminology.

This social order prevailed during the lifetime of Muhammad

(P.B.U.H.) and for some time thereafter, when the forces of
exploitation began to raise their first success with the
establishment of Mulukiyyat·-kingship-·sustained by capitalism.
To ensure their survival and consolidation, these forces availed
themselves of the co-operation of men who appeared in the
robes of piety and spume in the name of God. They posed as
the interpreters of God's Will and thus distorted principles and
tenets of Deen which no longer remained a living force in the
society and were reduced to a set of soul-less beliefs, lifeless
dogmas and realities of life. They framed rules and laws to suit
the purpose of monarchy, and sought to keep the common
man entangled in the labyrinth of these dogmas and rituals,
and the exploiters, religious as well as temporal, were lift free
to maintain their stranglehold upon the defrauded masses. This
was the metamorphosis of Oeen into Mazhab, which word, by
the way, does not occur anywhere in the Quran. The Book of
Allah, however, remained intact, since the responsibility of its
preservation has been taken by '->.lIah Himself, although it was
never allowed to play any part in the practical life of the
Muslims.

This state of affairs prevailed throughout the Muslim countries

for centuries together where Mazhab was accepted as true
Islam. We should, however, consider ourselves fortunate in as
much as a voice was raised in our time and from our own
country, to distinguish between Oeen and Mazhab, and the
Ummah was called upon to revive true Islam in the light of the
Quran. This was the voice of Iqbal, the great thinker, and still
greater scholar of the Quran. This, he said, was possible only
if we had a piece of land in which a State was established
purely on the lines indicated by the Quran, thereby wiping out
 -12- LOUD THINKfNG
completely the rule of man, in any form, be it capitalism or
priestcraft This scheme of his he pronounced in his
Presidential Address of All-India Muslim League Session at
Allahabad, in 1930. Such a State, he said.
Would mean security and peace for India resulting from an
internal balance of power, and for Islam an opportunity to rid
itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give
it, to mobilise its law, its education, its culture, and to bring
them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the
spirit of modern times.
(Speeches and statements of Iqbal--P.15)

Two years later, while addressing the nation at the Annual Session of
the AU-India Muslim Conference at Lahore, on 21-03-1932, he said:

The possibilities of the faith you represent are not yet

exhausted. It can still create a new world where the social rank
of man is not determined by his caste or colour, or the amount
of the dividend he earns, but by the kind of life he lives; where
capital cannot be allowed to accumulate so as to dominate the
real producer of wealth. This superb. ideal of your faith,
however, needs emancipation from the medieval fancies of
theologians and legists. Spiritually, we are living in a prison-
house of thoughts and emotions which, during the course of
centuries, we have woven round ourselves. And be it further
said to the same of us-- men of older generation-- that we have
failed to equip the younger generation for the economic,
political and even religious crises that the present age is likely
to bring The whole community needs a complete overhauling
of its mentality in order that it may again become capable of
feeling the urge of fresh desires and ideals.
(Ibid. p.55)

This point, Le. to get rid of the "manmade Islam" was so basic and
important that he laid emphasis on it time and again. In his famous six
(to be more accurate, seven) lectures, he deliberated the theme in the
words of (the late) Grand Vizier of Turkey, Said Haleem Pasha, who
had said:

During the course of history, the moral and soc'lal 'Ideals of

Islam have been gradually de-Isalmised through the influence
of local character, and pre-Islamic superstitions of Muslim
nations. These ideals today are more Iranian, Turkish or
Arabian than Islamic. The pure brow of the principal of
Tauheed (obedience to the Book of Allah alone) has received,
 -13- LOUD THINKJNG
more or less, an impress of heathenism and the universal and
impersonal character of the ethical ideals of Islam has been
lost through a process of localisation. The only alternative
open to us then is to tear off from Islam the hard crust which
has immobilised an essentially dynamic outlook on life, and to
rediscover the original verities of freedom, equality and
solidarity with a view to rebuild our moral, social and political
ideals out of their original simplicity.
(Iqbal: Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam --pp.
148-49)

This was the purpose to be achieved, for which AHarna Iqbal had given
the idea of acquiring a piece of land to establish therein a State which
could be identified as a true Islamic State -- a State built on the
foundations of the Ouran_ This was to be a unique State amongst
various States of the world_

5. One of the fundamental factors which makes an Islamic State

unique amongst various States of the world, whatever their
form of Government, is its principle of law making. As already
stated, according to the Ouran, all human beings are equal and
worthy of equal respect and dignity. It necessarily follows,
therefore, that no man has the right to exploit another man or to
use him as a means in furthering his personal interests_ If
society were organised on this basis, there would be neither
rulers nor the ruled; none would be permitted to compel others
to obey him. Allah alone would be obeyed_ Says the Ouran:

It behemoth not a man that Allah should give him the Book
of Law, power to judge, and even Nubuwwah, and he
should say to his fellow beings to obey his orders rather
than those of Allah .... (3:78).

The Ouran forbids man to arrogate to himself the right to rule over
other men: and yet it does not advocate a lawless, anarchical society_
What it does is to lay down the principle that Allah alone has the right to
rule over them (12:40) and none has the right to any share in it (18:26).
Sovereignty belongs to Allah alone_

Allah, however, is the Abstract, Transcendental Reality. How can we

obey Him if we cannot contact Him? The answer is by observing His
Laws as given in His Bool< This is why the Rasul was asked to
declare:
 -14- LOUD THINKlNG
Shall I seek other than Allah for Judge, when He it is who
hath revealed unto you this Book fully explained (6:115)?

This book was the criterion to decide whether a State was Islamic or
un~lslamjc. Says the Quran:

Whosoever do not judge by what Allah hath revealed, they

are indeed Kafirs (5:44)

The laws, directives, principles and values given by the Quran are
complete, final, eternal and un-alterable. None, not even the entire
Ummah has the authority to add to, subtract from or make any
alteration therein. But it does not prescribe details thereof. With the
exception of a very few laws, it demarcates the boundary lines of what
is lawful and what is unlawful. These lines no one has the right to
transgress: not even the entire community. Within these lines, the
Islamic State is free to frame such byelaws, as the needs of the time
require. These byelaws are, of course, subject to change and may be
recessed or even abrogated by the Ummah by mutual consultation
A2:38), leaving the boundary lines untouched. This is where an
. _Iamic State differs from the democracy, the people have unbridled
power to frame any laws, whereas, the consultative machinery of the
Ummah can frame SUb-laws only within the boundary lines framed by
the Quran. Iqbal has beautifully narrated this unique feature of the
Islamic State. He says in his Lectures:

The ultimate spiritual basis of all life, as conceived by Islam, is

eternal and reveals itself in variety and change. A society
based on such a conception of Reality must reconcile in its life
the categories of permanence and change; it must possess
eternal principles to regulate its collective life; for the eternal
gives us a foothold in the world of perpetual change. But
eternal principles when they are understood to exclude all
possibilities of change, which, according to the Quran is one of
the greatest signs of God, tend to immobilise what is
essentially mobile in its nature.
(Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Is/am ... P-149)

Iqbal has touched upon this very subtle, yet most important point with
reference to political system of Islam, but it takes us far, far beyond
political horizon. The fundamental principle of the reconciliation of the
categories of permanence and change is not confined to the process of
law making. It is the very essence of Islam and can be appreciated
only when the Quranic concept of human life is thoroughly grasped.
There are two concepts of human life -- materialistic and Quranic. The
 -15- LOUD THINKfNG
materialistic outlook of life treats man as any other animal, whose only
function is to develop and enlarge his physical existence. It functions
under physical laws and is disintegrated and gets extinct with death. It
is subject to perpetual change: every moment millions and millions of
cells, which constitute human body, are destroyed and replaced by
fresh cells. This process of constant change continues till death
overtakes him and he ceases to live, Since, according to this concept
of life, there is nothing permanent in human life, it stands in need of no
Permanent Values, no unchangeable principles, no immutable
boundary lines, and therefore, no necessity for Divine Guidance.

According to the Quranic concept of life, on the other hand, human

body, no doubt develops, flourishes, and eventually disintegrates,
under physical laws, but there is something else in man besides his
body, that is, his Self or Personality, which is neither physical in its
constitution nor is it sUbject to phYSical laws as such. It is endowed to
every hUman child in like measure at his birth, but it is only in an
undeveloped form. To develop it to its full maturity, and to give it a
perfect and balanced shape is the goal of all human activities. Every
act of his, performed in accordance with Permanent Values, contributes
to ItS development, and whatever is done against these values, retards
this process and weakens the Self. An act, it should be noted, includes
thought, wish and desire, as well. The Self or Personality thus
developed easily sustains the shock of death and survives the
disintegration and dissolution of physical body, and goes on developing
further, passing through more evolutionary stages, which we call the
"Hereafter" or the life after death The fact that, not only the actual
deeds of a human being but his thoughts, wishes and desires as well,
act upon human Personality's what is called the "Law of Retribution"
which is as inexorable and immutable as the Laws of Nature.

It is the human personality, which takes decisions, but at the present

level of existence, its decisions are implemented through physical
body. For this purpose, it is essential that human body should also
develop and be in a position to carry out the commands of the
personality. For its development, the needs and requirements of
human body will change from time to time, whereas human personality,
while developing shall remain unchanged. The renowned Polish
;hmker, Nicholas Bereave, has beautifully concentrated this in four
words, by· saying.

Personality is changelessness in change.

(Slavery and Freedom P-B)
 -16- LOUD THINKING

The process of the development of human body and Personality can

take place only in Islamic Social Order (Deen; as already explained)_
This order, generally called "Nizam-e-Rabubiyyah", provides to each
and every individual means for the development of both_ It will be seen
that this system differs basically from all other systems.
6. Reverting to the principle of law-making, Iqbal examined
critically what had been going on in our past history, and said
that

The teaching of the Quran that life is a process of progressive

creation necessitates that each generation, guided but
unhampered by the work of its predecessors, shOuld be
permitted to solve its own problems
(Lectures P-160)

It follows, therefore, that the general notion that the laws made by our
earlier jurists and promulgated in the past are eternal and binding on all
future generations is against-the basic teachings of the Quran This
was thoroughly explained by Iqbal in his "Sixth lecture", entitled -- The
principles of movement in the structure of Islam -- in which he says;

The question which is likely to confront Muslim countries in the

near future is whether the Law of Islam is capable of evolution -
- a question which will require great intellectual effort, and is
sure to be answered in the affirmative; provided the world of
Islam approaches it in the spirit of Urnar -- the first critical and
"Independent mind In Islam who, at the last moments of the
Prophet, had the moral courage to utter these remarkable
words: "The Book of God is sufficient for us" {p.154l_

7. Iqbal accomplished his task and, handing over the torch to

Quaid-e-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, passed away. The
Quaid, during his struggle for the achievement of Pakistan,
reiterated the main features of the proposed Islamic State, as
enunciated by Iqbal. No doubt the British and the Hindus
opposed tooth and nail the proposal for the establishment of a
separate State for the Muslims, but its main opponents were
the so-called "Nationalist Ulema" who were the custodians of
Mazhab, as already explained. Plainly speaking, the struggle
for Pakistan was, in reality, struggle between Deen and
Mazhab. This struggle was started during the lifetime of Iqbal
himself. For want of adequate space, it is not possible to quote
extensively from the speeches and writings of Quaid-e-Azam,
on the subject.
 -17- LOUD THfNKINa
8. It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fall
to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. They are
not religions in the Stacey sense of the word, but are in fact,
different and distinct social orders, and it is a dream that the
Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality.
and this conception of one Indian nation has gone far beyond
the limits and is the cause of moppets of upper troubles and
will lead India to destruction if we fail to recess our notions in
time. The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious
philosophies, Social customs, and literatures. They neither
intermarry nor interline together, and, indeed, they belong to
two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting
ideas and conceptions. Their aspects on life and of fife are
different.

(Speeches and writings of Mr. Jinnah, Vol. I, pp. 177-78).

In his speech at the Frontier Muslim League Conference on 21-11-

1945 he said:

We have to fight a double-edged battle, one against the Hindu

Congress and the other against British Imperialists, both of
them being capitalists. The Muslims demand Pakistan where
they could rule according to their own code of life and
according to their own cultural growth, traditions and Islamic
Laws.
(Ibid. Vol. II, p.333).

In a message to N.W.F.P Muslim Students Federation, in April 1943,

he said:

You have asked me to give you a message. What message

can I give you? We have got the great message in the Quran
for our guidance and enlightenment.
(Ibid. Vol. I, p.516).

In his Eid message to the nation in 1945, he said:

Every Musalman knows that the injunctions of the Quran are

not confined to religious and moral duties. "From the Atlantic
to the Ganges", says Gibbon, "the Quran is acknowledged as
the fundamental code, not only of theology but of civil and
criminal jurisprudence, and the laws which regulate the actions
and the property of mankind are regulated by the immutable
sanctions of the Will of Allah". Everyone, except those who are
 -18- LOUD THfNKING
ignorant, knows that the Quran is the general code of the
Musalmans, A religious, social, civil, commercial, military,
judicial, criminal penal code; it regulates everything from the
ceremonies of religion to those of daily life; from the salvation
of the soul to the health of the body; from morality to crime,
from punishment here to that in the fife to come and our
Prophet (P.B.U.H.) has enjoined on us that every Musalman
should possess a copy of the Quran and be his own priest.
Therefore, Islam is not confined to the spiritual tenets and
doctrines and rituals and ceremonies. It is a complete code
regulating the whole Muslim Society in every department of life,
collective and individually.
(Ibid. Vol. II, p.300).

In August 1941, Ouaid-e-Azam went to Hyderabad (Deccan) and there

gave an interview to the students of the Usmania University. The
replies he gave to the questions asked by the students, explain in a
nut-shell the genesis a,nd the ideology of Pakistan in such a
comprehensive way that, in my opinion, nothing further would be
r~quired to understand these basic foundations. Here are extracts from
""at interview:

Question:

What are the essential features of religion and a religious

State?

Answer:
When I hear the word 'religion', my mind thinks at once,
according to the English language and the British usage, of
private relation between man and God. By now I know fully
weJl that according to Islam, the word is not restricted to the
English connotation. I am neither a Maulvi nor a Mulla, nor do
I claim knowledge of theology. But I have studied in my own
way, the Holy Ouran and Islamic tenets. This magnificent Book
is full of guidance respecting all human life, whether spiritual or
economic, political or social, leaving no aspect untouched.

Question:
What is the distinctive feature of Islamic State?
Answer:
There is a special feature of the Islamic State, which must not
be overlooked. There, obedience is due to God and God
alone, which takes practical shape in the observance of the
Quranic principles and commands. In Islam, obedience is due
 -19- LOUD THINKING

neither to a king, nor to a parliament, nor to any other

organisation, It is the Quranic provisions, which determine the
limits of our freedom and restrictions in political and social
spheres. In other words, Islamic State is an agency for
enforcement of Quranic principles and injunctions.

In a Broadcast talk to the people of the United States of America on

Pakistan, recorded in February, 1948, i,e. in his capacity as Governor
General of Pakistan, he said:

The Constitution of Pakistan has yet to be framed by the

Pakistan Constituent Assembly. I do not know what the
ultimate shape of this constitution is going to be, but I am sure
that it will be of a democratic type, embodying the essential
principles of Islam. Today, they are as applicable in actual life
as they were 1,300 years ago. Islam and its idealism have
taught us democracy. It has taught equality of man, justice and
fairplay to everybody. We are the inheritors of these glorious
traditions and are fully alive to our responsibilities and
obligations as framer of future constitution of Pakistan. In any
case, Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled
by priests with a divine mission.
(Speeches as governor-general, p-65)

have already explained what "democracy embodying the essential

principles of Islam" means in practice: the ways and means for the
implementation of the Quranic laws and principles to be framed by the
Ummah by mutual consultation, within the immutable boundary lines
determined by the Quran. This is what an Islamic State is permitted to
do; beyond this it has no authority.

8. I have stated before that the Quran prescribes a socio-

economic order that is unique in its nature. I have so far dealt
with its social aspect only. So far as its economic side is
concerned, it is a vast subject and requires detailed discussion.
It will not be doing justice to it if it is touched upon enpassant. I
have written exhaustively on the subject and my self-contained
book - Nizam-e-Rabubiyyat - discusses it in detail. Here, I will
confine myself only to its basic principles.

The main object of an Islamic State is to provide the individual with full
scope of self-development, which means development of his physical
body as well as development of his personality. Its basic principles are
that the individual is the focus of value and the society exists to enable
the individual to develop and express himself to the full extent of his
 -20- LOUD THINKING

capacity. It lays primary stress on personal worth. A society based on

these principles will be composed of free individuals, each enriching his
life by working for the enrichment of all life, and each moving onwards
by helping others to do the same. This society should be judged by the
solutions it offers for the social and economic problems that confront all
human groups.

According to the Quran, it is incumbent upon the Islamic society to

provide for the basic necessities of each and all the members
comprising it, and make suitable arrangements for the development of
their human potentialities. Thereafter, it should extend the same
facilities to other human beings and thus make this order universal. A
society that fails in this responsibility does not deserve to be called
Islamic, for, the society that 'IS established in the name of Allah is bound
to proclaim:
We wilf provide for you and your children (61151).

It is paramountly clear from this that no society could discharge this

responsibility unless and until it has the various means of production
under its control and the necessary resources at its disposal. It may be
reiterated, and should in no case be lost sight of, that this society takes
under its control means of production with a view to discharge its huge
responsibility of providing necessities of life for all the members of the
Society. If it fails to do so, it will have to be a clear act of usurpation in
that case.

So far as the members of this society are concerned, the principle

underlying the growth and development of their personality is
expressed thus: an individual should work hard, earn and produce as
much as possible, keep what is basically and essentially necessary for
his own upkeep, and hand overthe rest to the Islamic State for meeting
out the necessities of others in need, as is ordained in the Quran.
And they ask thee as to what should they give (for the benefit
of others)--Say:

"Whatever is surplus to your own requirements"

(2/219)

And in this, their attitude should be such as to declare

We desire from you neither reward nor thanks. (76/9)

Here arises the question: What is the incentive motivated by which an

individual should work, and continue to work, up to his full capacity,
retain for himself only to the extent that fulfils his necessities, and hand
 -21- LOUD THINKlNG
over the rest to the society, for meeting out the necessities of others in
need? Still further:

They prefer others before themselves although there be

indigence among them (59/9).

Prof. Hawtrey has said that:

What differentiates economic systems from one another is the

character of the motives they invoke to induce people to work.
(Quoted by E. H. Carr, in "The News Society" pp. 41-42)

The motives provided by the Ouran are unique, I.e.

Human body develops by what the individual concerned takes,
while his Personality develops by what he gives.

This constitutes the basic motive for the establishment of the Quranie
Economic.Order.

There will thus be no capitalism and no landlordism in an Islamic

Economic Order. Quaid-e-Azam made this abundantly clear during his
struggle for the achievement of Pakistan. In his Presidential Address
delivered at the Annual Session of the All-India Muslim League, Delhi,
on April 24, 1943, he said:

Here, I should like to give a warning to the landlords and

capitalists who have flourished at our expense by a system
which is so vicious, which is so wicked and which makes them
so selfish that it is difficult to reason with them. (Tremendous
applause). The exploitation of the masses has gone into their
blood. They have forgotten the lessons of Islam. Greed and
Selfishness have made these people subordinate to the
interests of others in order to fatten themselves. It is true we
are not in power today. You go anywhere to the countryside. I
have visited villages. There are millions and millions of our
people who hardly get one meal a day. Is this civilisation? Is
this the aim of Pakistan? (Cries of no, no). Do you visualise
that millions have been exploited and cannot get one meal a
day? If that were the Idea of Pakistan, I would not have it.
(Cheers). If they are wise they will have to adjust themselves
to the new modern conditions of life. If they won't, God help
them: we shall not help them. (Hear, hear, renewed cheers
and applause.)

(Speeches and writings of Jinnah, Vol. I, p-554).

 -22- LOUD THINKING

WESTERNISATION?

One cannot say how large a section or cross-section of our society is

"fundamentalist" (We are not attuned to such scientific research and
surveys) but it is definitely very vocal and very organized in reacting to
'new' ideas and institutions. A lot has already been written (of course in
the West) on the historical, psychological and economic reasons
behind such an attitude, that is, reasons for the fear of change and of
treading unbeaten and unfamiliar path. But here we are concerned
about an attitude, which dubs every thing traditionally and historically
unfamiliar as "alien to Islam". Having said this, all doors to criticism,
doubt and argument are banged shut and our forefathers' ways
become sacrosanct to the minute detail. To use someone's words, we
are thereby reduced to a society "that has no options". To many of us,
as human beings, a life Without options is indeed hellish. Hence the
importance of an attempt to unravel this problem we have been
confronted with ever since the attainment of freedom. Ironically, we
seem to have lost freedom just as we attained it.

It is being said at the highest level that it is a small section of

'westernised' individuals (women are specially targeted with this
charge, for after all, major part of legislation in the last decade has
touched women) who are obstructing the "Islamisation" of Pakistan. It
is not realized that this statement in reality is a great tribute to this small
section I At the bottom of it. it is the triumph of the power of ideas as
against the might of physical power. The dynamism of ideas, which are
abstract and intang'lble and know no frontiers, is Nature's inherent need
- the need that the on-going, life-giving ideas must replace those that
have been tried and found dead Ideas alone can replace i('eas. The
physical extermination of individuals cannot kill ideas, that is what the
people said to Pharaoh when he engineered a witch hunt of all those
who had ideas and leadership qualities. They proclaimed their ideas
into the atmosphere as the executioner's weapons flashed down on
them

Now when we talk about "alien" or "western" ideas, we presume that

our traditional ways and historical heritage, in whatever form or shape,
was "Islamic" A mere glance at our past even without the expertise of
a trained historian reveals that everything then was not all-gold In fact,
in time, all kinds of prevalent ideas, traditions, usages, institutions and
superstitions were picked up by the "Muslim" forces as they rolled on
towards the East and the West, from Sin kiang to Spain. And, of
course, the local populallon remamed what it was, only the
nomenclature "Muslim" replaced whoever the exisfmg one was. Thus
 -23- LOUD THfNKING
when we glorify the past. along with whatever was positive, we also
glorify hereditary monarchy, absolute despotism. feudalism and
disparity of wealth, class and caste system (we also have our
Brahumans and our sacred cows) subjugation and humiliation of
women, polygamy, and the harems full of concubines, illiteracy and
ignorance and much more. In this context whenever revivalism of
Islam is mentioned, it is identified with this kind of past heritage. It was
degeneration on these lines which enslaved the "Muslim" society
internally before it was enslaved by external forces The fact that the
"Muslim" society is still enslaved, albeit indirectly and in a hidden way,
is enough of a proof that the above mentioned way of life is inherently
weak and decadent and no life can be pumped into it. A dead body
does not even react, how can it try to replace life force of a living
being? Robert Briffault in "The Making of Humanity" has forcefully
argued thus: "No system of human organization that is false in its very
principle, in its very foundation, can save itself by any amount of
cleverness efficiency in the means by which that falsehood is carried
out and maintained, by any amount of superficial adjustment and
tinkering_"

It is pathetic to see how the "Muslim" world vainly attempts to identify

its emotional fanaticism and upheaval with revolution and jihad in the
way of Allah! (more about it will be said later) its exaggerated
emphasis on the dry bones of rituals as reality; its high sounding Zakat
system (translated and implemented as charity) as a challenge to
capitalism; and its harking back to Ibn Rushd, Ibn 8ina and Ghazali etc.
to prove its superiority without realising that great as they may be, eight
hundred years have elapsed since they lived and the world has
marched on leaving them far behind To this Sir Syed would add that
we couldn't take the credit for what forefathers did. We will be judged
by what we do.

How do we then unravel the problem the "Muslim" world confronts

today? The Quran itself unravels it.

To begin with, the Quran claims for itself an objective, supra-human,

source of wisdom. a sort of a helping hand needed by the humans
because without it human being will perforce be subjective, tending to
be shortsighted, hasty, quarrelsome and motivated by immediate gains,
The Quran primarily, imparts a particular mental attitude and world
view, exhorting humankind to proclaim a loud "YES" to life, thereby
totally rejecting a whimpering "NO" of the mullah and the Sufi. This
attitude itself is half the battle won. The Quran then goes on to give
some guidelines which encompass the total spectrum of the wholeness
of the Individual human being, guidelines that can be compared to the
 -24- LOUD THINKING

boundary lines of the cricket field within which the cricketer negotiates
his strategy, violation of which would be foul, or these guidelines could
be compared to the sign posts on the cross-roads, so that a wrong
turning could be avoided, a wrong turning which could cause
unnecessary pain and exhaustion and time-lag. Perhaps it is in the
exhaustion of this wrong turning that we can discover, in a nutshell, the
cause of decay and fall of a people.

But, and this is a very big but, there is absolutely no compulsion in

following these guidelines, [2:256J for that would negate the very
essence of the SELF of the Human specie, its free will. The initiative is
entirely with the human being. The path has been shown, it is for
him/her to choose [18:29] However, whatever the choice, the
guidelines, like the physical laws of nature, will remain a priori. Human
beings if they reject them, will come under the process of another
source of wisdom, the process of "trial and error". This process, as
mentioned above will be painful and prolonged [the Quran in Iqbal's
words had only attempted to economize the effort and time-the
rationale behind the very need for "Nubawwat" and the series of
"anbiya" who came in every nook and corner of the world] but it will
slowly move in the direction of the guidelines enshrined in the Quran

At this stage it becomes incumbent on us to give a few examples of

these guidelines and signposts, or else the issue will remain
ambiguous:-

(1) Every individual, by virtue of being a human being, commands

respect equally [irrespective of birth race, colour, language,
caste or creed]. (17:70}

(2) Everyone will be judged according to his/her deeds (46:19)

(3) The human race is one human family (2:213)

(4) Only that survives which is beneficial for the whole of

humankind, everything else passes away like scum (13:17)

(5) No one can enslave another. No one has the right to impose
his laws on others and order obedience from them. No man
has the right to rule over other men (3: 78/79)

(6) Every living being must have its basic needs fulfilled (11 :6)

(7) The society must be responsible for the nourishment of people

and their children (6:152)
 -25- LOUD THINKING

(8) Man gets economic security as a matter of right, not charity.

Thus he does not have to say "Thank you" even, for what he
receives (76:9)

(9) All decisions are to be made through consultation (42:38)

These few examples will suffice to present the nature and quality of the
guidelines. The details of the system will have to be worked out by the
people themselves according to the needs and facilities of the time and
place they live in. A basic change in the attitudes of the people is a
prerequisite before any external change can be brought about. Hence
the Quran emphasizes that Allah never changes the condition of nation
until they first change what is in themselves (8:53). But the Muslims of
today think that changes can be brought without the change within. For
centuries they have been stagnating and dependent, cowardly and
lazy, too afraid to think and create, while the world marches on with the
speed unknown before. Many institutions and concepts, embedded in
the guidelines ,and human values listed above, have unfolded
themselves in various evolutionary and revolutionary events, where
nations have dared to live and live dangerously. Crowns have rolled
down the thrones, slavery has been abolished, women have been
clamouring for human dignity, classes and castes have been
challenged, people are being consulted in making deCisions,
absolutism of one man, king or dictator is rejected, people demand
food and housing as a matter of right and not charity, the world
community is moving slowly towards human oneness. As human being
we should all feel proud of this titanic struggle of the varied people of
the world and their achievements. In the words of Iqbal, some of the
concepts and institutions may still be in their incomplete form, (thiS also
accounts for both strong and superficial similarities between Islamic
concepts and modern democracy, individual initiative and communist
economy) but that does not take away the greatness of the
Promethean struggle of the human race. If there has been an obstacle
in the way, it has been us, the so called "Muslim" Society.

I sometimes wonder if our retrogressive tendencies in the name of

Islam are due to our inferiority complex and shame for not doing what
the Quran expected the Muslims to do. We hide our shame and non~
achievement in dubbing those who disagree with us as "Westernized"
thus spreading intolerance and destructive emotionalism in the name of
fighting in the way of Allah. We should learn to debate religious (and
secular) issues and differences dispassionately. Freedom is all we
have and Allah does not need our arms. A French Minister of Justice,
Desiree, once uttered words that are indeed memorable: "what is man,
that feeble and passionate being that he should offer to the Almighty
 -26- LOUD THINKING

the help of his arms? Does he pretend to usurp His strength or to offer
the aid of his own weakness? The vanity of this presumption has been
shown. The centuries that are gone teach in bloody character its
terrible results.

And these terrible results are no injustice from Allah. The Quran says
"Allah does not do injustice to them, it is the people who do injustice to
themselves. (11: 1 01)

Courtesy: "The Last word" of Kinnaird College, Lahore

SHAMIM ANWAR
 -27- LOUD THfNKING
THE INDUS SAGA IS IT THE MAKING OF PAKISTAN?
The Book "The Indus Saga and the Making of Pakistan" by Aitzaz
Ahsan has been launched with much fanfare twice in Lahore, once in
Karachi and then in London at two different places as reported in the
press. The very title balked me, so I had to read it and read I did twice
to properly digest the "new ideas" The basic "new idea" according to
the book is "that there has always existed a "state" or region,
encompassing the Indus and Its tributaries, which was independent and
distinct from India." Thereafter, having stated this, the author continues
to refer to these regions as "Indus" and "India. Before I say anything
else, I must mention something that gnawed me continuously at the
back of my mind: "Indus" is (remembering my history) the Greek
version of the Persian word "Hindus"; it is from this word, that the word
"Hindustan' and "India" were derived. This semantic link has made the
fundamentalists in India foreswear they would not rest in peace until
and unless the ashes of Gandhi, preserved in an urn for this purpose,
is not scatte"red in the Indus, and naturally that can only happen when
Indus and India become one again, that is when Pakistan is conquered
and merged Into India.

Having discovered the "Indus" country, Aitzaz Ahsan talks about the
"Gurdaspur Kathiawar Salient" with River Sutlej as the "International
frontier", the critical dividing line according to him of history and culture.
He exults in the conclusion that "it approximates the border that today
exists between India and Pakistan, thus giving to that border the
sanction and strength of history." That such a statement makes fun of
the Muslim majority areas in East Punjab which suffered the extreme
depths of torture and betrayal by the Radcliffe Award to appease
India's Nehru for his access to his native land, Kashmir through
Gurdaspur, does not occur to him Is the author also appeasing India?
But we will come to that later. At the mvrnent I would like to point out
that if at all we talk about the so-called historical divide (I certainly do
not subscribe to it) my reading of history makes Kathiawar-Ambala-
Panipat Salient more relevant. Again, if historians have talked about
any so-called cultural differences, describing, as the author puts it, "the
essential ways of life, of the whole people" as well as ethnically, the
divide is between the Indo-Gangetic plain and the Deccan, the
"international frontier" being the Vindhya ranges and the non-navigable
rivers, the Narbada and the Tapti.

As a student of history I cannot help pointing out some other historical

discrepancies in the "Indus Saga" While writing about the "primordial
and restless impulse of Indus to be a distinct and independent "nation-
 -28- LOUD THINKfNG
state", Altzaz Ahsan comments; "the number and frequency of Indus-
based rebellions against the Delhi government indicate the centrifugal
impulse of the region towards autonomy and Independence" But then
the same can be said of any region in South Asia, particularly Sonar
Bangia, which the author himself writes about A slight weakness at
the centre could be a signal for revolt; considering Bangia being at a
greater distance, and with its innumerable waterways, was more
difficult to control and it showed greater centrifugal tendencies than any
other region, minus the Deccan. How come that if Indus could be
another country, why not Sonar Bangia and why not the Deccan?
These are more distinct racially, lingually and culturally than any other
part of the Indo-Gangetic plain.

And as for the "Indus" having greater links with Central Asia than
"India" and Delhi does not prove anything, because the issue is not as
simple as this. Until the coming of the Europeans all invasions took
place from the northwest since the Aryans down to the Mughals,
Ghazni, Ghar and Kabul may have been important outposts of the
various empires set up in So'uth Asia, but Delhi was the capital city. In
some cases, for example Mahmud of Ghazni, the centre was in Ghazni
the outpost being Lahore and Multan as a defensive measure for his
Central Asian or Turko-Persian Empire. If a few more such-like cases
can be quoted, many more can be quoted when Indus remained cut off
from Central Asia, It has been so ever since the downfall of the Mughal
Empire and throughout the British Raj till today.

No matter what basis have been projected by the author to prove the
existence of the "primordial nation-state" of the Indus, the history of the
so-called "Indus Saga" as narrated by him revolves round Delhi on an
all India basis, At no point does one get the idea of a separate Indus
history. For example how does the following passage fit into his
thesis? He says: "The Aryans, the Scythians (shakas), Yeu Chi
(kushans) the Selijuk Turks and the Mughals-----entered India,
subjugated its tribes or princes, won or consolidated kingdoms or
empires and made themselves part of its life, They became Indian and
established Indian dynasties, The centre of gravity ------always
remained within India." Then again'''----- (India) herself had conquered
and absorbed her conquerors." Now, where is "Indus" in this scenario?
The centre of gravity was no doubt the Ganges valley or the Delhi
region. Aitzaz Ahsan is proving it himself and thus contradicting
himself. In any case. no conqueror was going to stop at the River
Sutlej, when a vast sub-continent lay before him unexplored.

Coming to the "Arab non-factor", the author says that though

"overwhelming majority of the Indus citizens today are Muslims---they
 -29- LOUD THINKING

are not Arabs." This racial factor will be dealt with later, but whatever
reasons he has given for its being a "non-factor", one important
historical factor has been ignored. In those bygone days it must be
appreciated that for a conqueror a good base or a foothold was
necessary for launching of further conquests. For the invaders from
the northwest, the Punjab, with its river system and flat alluvial plain,
proved to be an ideal base for a take off. Having camped here, there
was plenty by way of water and food. The invaders were able to move
on to the Ganges valley once they were able to win t~e battle in the
narrow plain between the Rajasthan desert in the west and the
mountain ranges in the east. But the Arabs, due to the constraints of
the geographical location of the Arabian Peninsula, as opposed to
Afghanistan and Central Asia, entered from the wrong end Sindh was
no gateway to India. This was the initial setback. The second set back
was the recall of Muhammad bin Qasim due to the rivalries and
hostilities back home at the highest level Qasim's successors were
not of his caliber, and in the long run, though it remained a sphere of
influence of bottl the Ummayads and the Abbasids for sometime, they
lost interest because Sindh did not bring in any revenues. It was not
much of an asset. Talking of a good base for further expansion, the
British, who alone among conquerors came by sea, entered through
Bengal Aitzaz Ahsan himself writes: "Bengal was to become Britain's
launching pad into India. It was well suited and eqUipped for this role.
Bengal was on the route to the rich Coastal shipping trade of the Far
East. It offered Britain a Vast commercial-cum-merchant class and a
navigable river system that was the point of entry and a veritable
"highway" into northern India." So, herein lies the Significance of a
good launching pad, which the Arabs missed. But the author has by
passed this in their case, white recognising it fully in the case of the
British.

Coming to more recent times, the author mentions the Partition of

Bengal In 1905 as a measure to "assuage" and "appease" the Muslims.
I wonder why such a statement has been made. Nearer to truth is the
fact that Lord Curzon, a competent and a through administrator made
administrative divisions to control an unwieldy province (previously
Behar, Bengal and Orissa, all had been lumped together) and secondly
to give Assam access to the sea through Chittagong No doubt that the
Muslims were pleased with the benefits of partition and they pleaded
for its retention, but it was revoked as a surrender to the Hindu
agitation who saw it as a "vivisection" of their motherland. So it had
nothing to do with the "appeasement" of the Muslims. I think it was
necessary to put the record straight.
 -30- LOUD THfNKfNG
Having soughed out some of the historical facts, as r understand them,
I shall now attempt to tackle the conceptual aspect, for which the
historical stance was accordingly adjusted by the author

Ever since the appearance of Alex Hailey's book "Roots", it became

fashionable to dig out ones roots. The poignancy and the agony of the
Black Africans are a unique and incomparable case in history. To be
rounded up like animals and auctioned, splitting families, separating
husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, never
to meet again, reduced to noth"rngness, with no name, no identity,
except to be recognised by the masler's ownership tag. Indeed, such
an experience cannot be generalised. However, there seems to be a
strange hollowness within man that seeks security in the womb of
history. There is usually tremendous exultation and elated spiritedness
at the knowledge that our past goes back to more than five thousand
years! When Mohen-ja-Daro was excavated, there was a sigh of relief
that we are on par with the civilisations of the Nile, the Euphrates and
the Tigris. Along with this the ,Americas has been looked down upon
for who, it is believed, have no history, although, and rightly enough,
President Bush (if I remember right) claimed the Greece-Roman
civilisation as the base of the American society.

Come to think of it, a very glorious and brilliant phase in ones history is
no credit to us; it was the achievement of a bygone generation. Judged
by our own non-achievement, in fact rather a very dismal and shameful
performance has no linkage with the achievers of the past. Let's face
itl Any generation, in any given spaces and time, is responsible for
itself and will be applauded or condemned according to what it has to
show Life is dynamic and it has to move on.

Sometimes I wonder if the load of history on our shoulders in the uphill

task of progress and development is not an impediment. So many
customs, usages, institutions and values gam sanction by the backing
of history. "---But our forefathers never said or did this" is a constant
refrain of an unthinking and inactive mind set. According to the Quran
this is no argument: "what if the forefathers were on the wrong track?"
Humans are encouraged to think and reason out for themselves and
not follow the past blindly and irrationally. This is ancestor worship, a
sign of a dead nation. It would be so much more conducive to progress
to begin with a clean slate without the burden of history. Now, this
does not mean that history is of no importance. On the contrary it plays
a role, a role of a "human laboratory", and as such it forms a very
significant section of the Quran. Through the passage of time, human
behavior unfolds both positive and negative attitudes, both creative and
non-creative living, and this becomes the base of the Quranic
 -31- LOUD THINKING

philosophy and science of history. This is to say that if people behave

in a particular way, it has particulate results, and if it behaves in some
other way, it has other results. And what is more, this cause and effect
study is possible only if it universalises Itself. The study of world history,
the study of varied civilisations confirm the attitudes and values the
Quran projects and chooses for human development and happiness.

So the two key words here are; universalism and human development;
the former challenges "nation-states" based on geographical, racial and
lingual differences and the laUer challenge secularism, divorced from
human values where ends justify the means. In fact this was the
challenge thrown by every Nabi in every nook and corner of the world
This did not suit the narrow loyalties or the animalistic existence based
on sheer accident of birth and hence passive; neither did it suit those
who ruled over others, or those who had grabbed land and those who
controlled peoples thoughts. They fought back to maintain the statue
quo, and they did it In the name of the Nabi concerned, be he
Abraham, Moses, Jesus or Muhammad This was the clever strategy
of the vested interests and they ended up by completely perverting the
revolutionary and humanizing ideals Into what is today described as
"religion" and "theocracy" These institutions are the very antithesis of
the Quran The intellectuals of Pakistan do not for a moment stop to
think that when decrying Islam and identifying it with religious leaders
and parties, they are linking them with Muhammad (PBUH)I Not for a
moment do I suggest that they must comply with the Nabi, but if they
could "only connect", the tragedy of it all would dawn upon them. They
have lost the battle by default. By giving the Quran into the hands of
the religious leaders or theocrats, the revolutionary light has been
extmguished into the darkness of hell. It may come as a surprise to
Aitzaz Ahsan that secularrsm is Mullah's triumph because In the
compartmentalisation that ensues from it, he not only survives but also
continues to exercise power In a most lethal way. The Mullah is clever,
he knows that Quran is his death-knell. And the vested interests are
supportive of him, for it is their death-knell as well. This is the basis of
Pharoah+Qaroon+Hamaan combine against Moses. This alliance has
existed m all ages and climes, and it has consolidated itself in Pakistan
with a vengeance.

At this point, I perforce have to make a statement that Aitzaz Ahsan

and other intellectuals are using the same age-old strategy, namely,
propagating "nation-state" and "secularism" in the name of Iqbal and
Jinnah, the very two stalwarts of the Pakistan Movement, who
consistently and courageously fought against these very concepts.
Great human beings that they were, they could not bear the suffering of
humanity and they sought a piece of land where they could establish a
 -32- LOUD THINKING

system as a role model for the rest of humankind. This is the method
that the Quran enjoins, because no ideas and systems can be forced
on anyone; that is a negation of the free will of human beings, the
Creators' gift to them, a gift that makes them unique and supreme of all
creation. So Pakistan was a means to an end and there are copious
passages and quotes from their speeches and statements that have
been ignored in the "Indus Saga". Restricting to Iqbal's Allahabad
Address of 1930 only as he did (for Aitzaz Ahsan thinks that "in the
form of poetic expression, there is always room for varied
interpretation) I reproduce the Incomplete passage that has been
quoted by him "Nor should the Hindus fear that the creation of
autonomous Muslim States will mean the introduction of a kind of
religious rule in such states," Here the author stops, I continue from
the very next sentence. "I have already indicated to you the meaning
of the word religion as applied to Islam, The truth is that Islam is not a
church. It is a state conceived as a contractual organism long before
Rousseau ever thought of such a thing, and animated by an ethical
ideal which regards man not as an earth-rooted creature, defined by
this or that portion of earth, but as a spiritual being understood in terms
of social mechanism. and possessing rights and duties as a living
factor in that mechanism." Earlier on in the same address Iqbal says:
"The proposition that religion is a private individual experience is not
surprising on the lips of a European-----The nature of the Prophets
religious experience, as disclosed in the Quran, however, is wholly
different. It is an individual experience creative of a social order,"
Another very relevant quote is as follows: "In Islam God and the
universe, spirit and matter, church and state, are organic to each other.
Man is not the citizen of a profane world to be renounced in the interest
of a world of spirit situated elsewhere To Islam matter is spirit realising
itself in space and time." These are the words of Iqbal, which speak for
them and need no comment Many more could be quoted but for the
sake of brevity and pressure on space, I suffice it to these alone.
Moreover, some quotes from Jinnah's speeches must 81so be
presented to the readers hoping this will induce them to read for
themselves in more detail. To the Muslim League session Karachi,
1943, Jinnah said: 'What was it that kept the Muslims united as one
man, and what was the bedrock and sheet-anchor of the community,"
asked Mr, Jinnah, "Islam", he said and added: "It is the Great Book
Quran, that is the sheet-anchor of Muslim India I am sure that as we go
on and on there will be more and more of oneness--one God, one
Book, one Prophet and one nation" In his Eid Message in 1945 he
said: "Every Musulman knows that the injunctions of the Quran are not
confined to religious and moral duties-----. It is a complete code
regulating the whole Muslim society, every department of life
collectively and individually" Then again in his speech at the Sibi
 -33- LOUD THfNKlNG
Darbar, 1948 he said. "Let us lay the foundations of democracy on the
basis of truly Islamic ideas and principles." In his broadcast to the
people of U.SA 1948, talking about the constitution of Pakistan he
said,"----I am sure it wi I' be a democratic type, embodying the principles
of Islam. Today, they are as applicable in acluallife as they were 1300
years ago." To the students of Islamia College, Peshawar, 1948, he
said that demand for Pakistan was not merely acquisition of a piece of
land, but a place where Islamic principles could be experimented. It is
interesting to see that, as if in direct answer to Aitzaz Ahsan's thesis
that "Indus nation-state" has always been there Jinnah said to the
students of the Muslim University Aligarh 1944, "Pakistan was not the
product of the conduct or misconduct of Hindus. It had always been
there-----Pakistan started the moment the first non-Muslim was
converted to Islam in India long before the Muslims established their
rule.

All their quotes not only vindicate Iqbal's and Jinnah's adherence to the
Quran but tl;lat Quranic principles are the bedrock of human
togetherness. As if in response to Aitzaz Ahsan's theory that primordial
Indus country is an answer to the "fragile syndrome" of his compatriots,
Jinnah has constantly used the word "bedrock and anchor" for Islam,
and Iqbal has described it---" as a people-building force---" It is a great
pity that while our Maker and the Creator of the universe wished to see
us as a universal phenomenon soaring high in the realm of values and
justice where no one would be left unprotected; and where everyone
would feel proud of the varied civilisations that have evolved in
response to the beautiful earth planet that beckoned us, not exclusively
as Chinese or Arabs, Europeans or Americans, but as human beings.
But no, we are getting bogged down in the narrow and locally exclusive
ruins of Mohen-ja-Daro and Harrapa. The earth-bound human, the
manner in which his feet are thrust into the Indus soil on the cover page
of the book is frightening and dehumanismg Even if seen in terms of
footpr"lnts, the journey is supposed to be limited to the Indus country.
The author is welcome to thiS earth-bound identity, but please do not
describe Jinnah as "the Indus person incarnate." We gave him no
peace when he was alive; now at least let him be at peace in his grave.
Far from being an "Indus person", he was a "universal person". He
was committed to a philosophy that spoke to humankind at large and
urged to traverse the length and breadth of the earth planet. The
system that it intended to establish was not restricted to any locale or
anyone set of people. All this has been mentioned above, but it can
bear repetition for the sake of clarity. And when it comes to harmony
and toleration and liberalism I shall reproduce here an anecdote that
says enough. When lord Mountbatten came to Karachi for the
inaugural ceremony of Pakistan he remarked that he hoped that with
 -34- LOUD THINKING

reference to minorities, Pakistan would emulate the tolerance of Akbar.

Qaid-e-Azam said "why emulate Akbar? We will follow in the footsteps
of our Holy Prophet who thirteen hundred years, not only by words but
by deeds treated the Jews and Christians with the utmost tolerance
and regard and respect for their faith and beliefs," At this reply Lord
Mountbatten was silenced, and he changed the topic of talk. Thus it
was this "universal person", inspired by Muhammad (PBUH) who spoke
as he did on August 11, 1947, It is this Islamic polity which has no
concern with religion, and whose every concern is with the good of
humanity, Indeed, Islam has nothing to do with "religion"----- that is the
way of the fanatic, the obscurantist, the intolerant; this is the only way
that feudal cum Mullah can maintain the status quo. So they
resurfaced and we all know or rather are living Its consequences,

I cannot understand how Altzaz Ahsan concludes that Indus rejected

fundamentalism. True, at the time of the Aryan invasion, Mohen-ja-
Daro was a priest-ridden society and one of the direct causes of its
destruction. But did it really learn a lesson of tolerance from this early
experience? It was followed by the worse kind of priesthood,
Brahaminism, worse because it was acquired at birth, hence one could
not become a Brahman by choice The whole VICIOUS caste system
was woven into the transmigration of the soul. The system was so well
entrenched that Buddhism, as Aitzaz Ahsan himself admits," was
banished from the land of its birth," It may be pointed out here that
Buddha's crime was that he had rejected the caste system of
Brahaminism! So where lies Indus or Indian tolerance? Indeed, time
will tell who has indulged in "dehistorification."
In the concluding paragraph of the book, I see the real purpose of this
whole exercise The author may sincerely believe in it, but that is
another matter. He concludes: 'These objective accounts wili lay the
basis of a stable relationship of understanding and mutual respect
between the peoples of Indus and India Only that will provide the
foundation for lasting peace in Pakistan and India and ensure the future
prosperity of both the nations." So the main bone of contention is Islam
and Muslims. Once you get them aside the pathway to India is clear.
This point apart, J contend that you may bend backwards to appease
them, its not going to work. Why should this be so is a subject by itself
and needs to be treated on a global scale. This subject is worth
studying and beneficial for peace, stability and survival of the human
race.
 -35- LOUD THINK.NG

"INDUS SAGA" NO, IT IS NOT THE MAKING OF

PAKISTAN

On September 7, I read the retort on my comment on the "Indus Saga"

by a writer who prefers to remain anonymous. That does not bother
me, the important thing is that "The Nation" has beg un the debate on
an important issue of our identity as Pakistanis_ This should continue
and more and more readers should participate in it This is essential for
healthy political evolution, provided it is not acrimonious. It is issues
and ideas that have to be debated; personalities and egos should be
out of it. What matters is the betterment of the country and humanity at
large, and not who wins and who loses. The question of "jealousy" is
irrelevant. Each individual is unique, even though the "core of all
human beings is the same" as Eric Fromm puts it.

The strange thing is that I have been bracketed with fundamentalists

and obscurantists, when I have severely condemned Mullahism; it has
been stated that 1 give no importance to history, when I have described
it as a "human laboratory", and as for a "nation - state" I have described
Pakistan or any territory important as a means to an end, I will only be
repeating myself if I reply to these unwarranted charges, so I request
my readers who are interested, to juxtapose the two articles and make
their own decisions after reading through.

However, certain angles have been thrown open on an issue or two,

which need clarification One of them is that the "nation-state", and in
our case the "Indus Country" as a "new idea" is unacceptable to me.
The wnter says. "It is, however, true of all new ideas that the orthodox
and the conservatives resist them but the world would not have
progressed had new ideas, and new perceptions even of old realities,
not been born. Merely because this 'new idea' has not occurred to
Shamim Anwar's ilk does not mean that It should be rejected". My
contention is that the idea of a "nation - state" is not new. At best, it is
an extension of tribalism, a change in quantity rather than quality. The
tribal origin - families, -clans, tribes - is rooted in race, language and
soil, and of course, this was a natural primitive development, but as
Eric Fromm describes it, (to quote him once again) such an existence
is based on a passive and accidental birth. This is animal existence.
Man has to be reborn to be human that is to touch the world of values
and justice. This is where the role of the Anbiya emerges, and since
European experience and the resultant concepts dominated the rest of
the non-European world, we must perforce make a reference to it.
During th.e medieval age, Christianity was an 'idea' to whatever level it
may have been reduced since the days of Jesus. A Christian, wherever
 -36- LOUD THfNKlNG
"he might be, traveling in far off land, his identity was the multiracial,
continental Christian~Dom. [t was a world of values, whatever they may
be. Along with this there was the universal imperial system, again all-
inclusive, be it the Roman Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire,
Byzantine Empire or even the Ottoman Empire. When that imperial
system in Europe became outdated and Christianity became the
personal affair of the individual, there was an identity crisis. Gradually
and painfully, this was again replaced by territory, language and race,
crystallizing itself in "nation-states". This change is regressive, not
"new", albeit larger in scale. If medieval Christian idea did not help and
universal imperial system was rejected rightfully. it should have been
replaced by some other set of values to form a new identity, yes,
territory is important, but as a means to an end. The feet have to be on
the ground, but humankind has to rise high and tall to be able to touch
the world of values. Yes, language is important, but again it is basically
a means of expression and communication. It is important to place
every thing in its rightful place. Any unnatural shifting around unhinges
the life pattern. Auden has well said that while everything in the
universe moves and lives within its pattern, the humans have lost
theirs. No wonder that "nation-states" became the major cause of
world war one and two. I know the inevitable backlash will be that there
have been "religious" wars as well. Sure, these have taken place but
readers will agree when I say that if there has to be a confrontation
then let it be a battle of ideas and concepts, but pray, not because my
soil is more sacred, my hair is kinky or straight, my nose is sharp or flat,
my language is superior and so on and so forth. It is the mighty combat
between Moses and Pharaoh, Jesus and Caesar, Muhammad and the
Khusroes and the Emperors of the day which decides whether we are
animals or humans, a combat wherein one says 'Yes' and the other
'No' to God. It is a combat that God also would salute. There have
been perversions of these situations also, but that is another story.

Now to say that the "Indus Country" or Pakistan was always there and
its coming into existence was inevitable raises certain queries. For
instance where do we place the struggle of the people, theirs sacrifices,
their pain and suffering and their ultimate achievement? Wherein lies
the towering leadership quality and heroism of those who led the
struggle? Wherein then lies human free will and' choice? I for one, and
I am sure Aitzaz Ahsan himself would not want to be a toy, a plaything
in the hands of history. Humans make history, that is their greatness. It
is a pity that the theories of historical, economic and psychological
determinism have sucked away our humanity and our free will and
reduced us to automatons. Without denying the colossal achievements
of the modern man, we have to admit this malaise of our present day
civilisation and the consequent alienation and meaninglessness of life.
 -37- LOUD THINKING

Iqbal had truly said that we must not indulge in unthinking imitation of
the west So, far from being "a mere accident or aberration of history"
as the anonymous writer puts it, Pakistan is not only the result of a
great struggle against the British + Hindu + Mullah combine, but a
unique movement in every way compared to all other freedom
movements, and what is more, it was the expression of the will of the
people,

As for the "Arab factor" the reason why I attempted to explain the way I
did was the delinking of "Indus Country" from the universal Islam by
Aitzaz Ahsan. Islam did come to India but via Persia. This was a pity
and Iqbal has definite views on it. but for the sake of brevity I must stop
here.

By the way, the printer's devil in 'The Nation"'s office created a funny
situation. In para four of my essay, by misprinting "Indus" as "Hindus" it
changed the meaning, which naturally upset the writer. There are
several other misprints, but if the writer corrects this particular one and
rereads the paragraph, it will make all the difference.

Finally, I welcome, once again, the debate launched by 'The Nation"

hope the readers will join in
 -38- LOUD THINKING

A FEEDBACK TO ISLAM THE ONLY WAY BY IMRAN

KHAN
In the Tolu-e-Islam issue of the month of May 1995. I came across an
article "Islam the only Way" by Imran Khan. It is a good thing that he
has appealed to the westernized group of Pakistan to study Islam,
because my contention all along has also been that the educated class
and the intellectuals have lost the battle by default by surrounding the
Quran to the clergy who have their own waxes grind by monopolizing
this area of research This has serious repercussions on the Quranic
revolution launched by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Iqbal and Jinnah. This
revolution would also have solved the issue of the "Brown Sahib" which
piques Imran Khan ever so much, for research has revealed that such
complaints are the natural sequences to the imperialistic dominance
and enslavement syndrome. But what is to be remembered in this
human phenomenon is that it is the fall and decadence of a particular
group that invites a conqueror. It is against this decadence that the
Quran warns again and again "lest another people take their place who
would not be like them". However ugly and cruel this situation may be
as a student of history it has dawned upon me that had it not been for
this "another people" the human specie would have been extinct by
now. This "another people" shakes them, albeit painfully, out of their
somnolence.

Actually, a lot could be researched and written on various issues raised

by Imran Khan. But my purpose IS not to discuss them, for he has
taken a lot in his sweep. My concerns are two issues where he has
stumbled, namely, "Allah's Will" and "dual functions of a Muslim" I
would very briefly like to tackle these two issues, according to what I
have come to understand is the Quranic view.

In the world of concepts and human communication, words are very

important. Twisting the meaning of words while retaining the form
makes all the difference. Hence one must be very careful in the choice
of words. A whole world view can be changed and distorted. Great
revolutions, including that of the Quran, have been thwarted by this
method. In Imran Khan's article the term "Allah's Will" is significant. The
word "Will" has evolved to mean absolugte decisions, unpredictability,
irrationality and unscientific approach towards life. These meanings
were attributed to the behavior of Baghdadi Khalifahs and the Kings
and Shahs who followed them In the course of time, this image was
stamped on to Allah, causing immense damage to Muslim way of life.
Now, if we replace the word "Will" with "law" as the Quran enjoins it, the
whole perspective changes.
 -39- LOUD THINKNG
By submitting to "Allah's Laws" we come under the process of "cause
and effect", the inexorable and unchangeable universal laws which
Allah, the Creator, has self-imposed upon Himself. The movement in
the universe and the development and integration of the human "self'
depends upon them. A human has a unique position in this respect He
begins to function only when he himself takes the initiative and
harmonies himself with the Laws of Allah. The results ensue in
proportion to the effort he puts in There is no Divine intervention, for
there are no favourities and no bias in Divinity. Intervention of any kind
also implies violation of His own Laws and withholding of human free
will. Such a behaviour could be a human failing, a human imperfection,
but it does not behave Divinity. Seeing in this context, what Imran Khan
achieved in the game of cricket was neither chance nor "Allah's Will",
but "Allah's Laws " in all its ramifications, including emotional and
psychological factors, a sheer matter of cause and effect.

Now, regarding "dual functions of a Muslim", Imran Khan says, "One

towards Go'd and the other towards fellow human beings" (If this is not
Secularism, what is!) He has drawn this conclusion from the statement
"Those who believe and do good deeds". I do not see any connections
between this statement and dualism, The Quranic position is absolute
"Unity of Law" (monotheism), Duality of law would mean chaos in the
universe. Hence obedience to Allah's Laws is in fact service to
humanity. Allah does not need our services. It is we, the humans, who
need His laws If "Namaz", "Roza", "Hal" and "Zakat" are considered as
such they are institutions In the service of the human race designed by
Allah. "Salat" gives humans dignity, pride and freedom when he can
walk on this earth without fearing another human being "Roza" or rather
"Som" gives him a base and a programme for a national army in place
of a standing army; "Zakat" is the foundation of an economic system
where every individual receives his basic needs as a birth-right and
"Haj" is a gathering which makes all this possible not just for Muslims,
but the whole human race. So we see, that what is considered as
functions towards God, are in reality function towards humanity. Duality
in life is fatal Imran Khan himself, has decried the "imbalance between
the body and soul" when criticising the West. "Dual functions", I am
afraid, create a similar imbalance. It is this split in our own lives in
Pakistan that has made a mess of everything. To be a "Namazi" and
"Haji" is one thing, to be a politician and a businessman is quite
another, and we have chaos all round

It so happens that both "Allah's Will" and "Dual functions" are traditional
concepts inherited from a decadent past. It would be a good idea for
Imran Khan to give more thought to these issues. These are the weak
points in an otherwise readable article.
 -40- LOUD THINKING

PAKISTAN AND ISLAMIC STUDIES THE INHUMAN

FACTOR

General Ziaul Haq had once said that the various measures he had
taken had dug in so deep into the institutions of the country that it
would not be possible to get rid of them even if he was not on the
scene. So far, these words have proved to be fatally true. Whether it
is hoodwinking of bank interest as Pak (pure) profit and loss sharing or
the dualism of zakat (Baitul Mall) and the budget, striking at the root of
the Islamic concept of the unity of law, Hadoad Ordinance and Law of
EVidence dehumanising women; the Law of Blasphemy destabilising
and sabotaging the society, pushing it into the dark ages; and last but
not least, Pakistan Studies and Islamic Studies, confusing and
alienating the new generation. All these carry sanctimonious
nomenclatures, sounding pious and patriotic, and any government that
dares touch anyone of these measures will be lambasted and charged
with being anti-state.

And yet the fact is that each one of these measures has corroded the
institutions and psyche of the nation. Hence each measure demands a
separate and special treatment. But I intend to deal with one issue
only, the issue of Pakistan Studies and Islamic Studies. It is high time
that a voice was raised against it regarding these all-important areas of
study.

To begin With, when these subjects were first introduced as compulsory

ones, the question inevitably raised was the supply of teachers for
hundreds, and in some institutions, thousands of students. The answer
indeed was a historical one' No teachers will be provided, came the
reply; the schools and colleges will have to make do with existing
faculty members, particularly that of history and political science and of
course that of Islamiat departments. This was worse than a bad joke.
On the one hand, by introducing this all-important field of study, the Zia
regime was trying to be over-patriotic; on the other hand, by throwing
the subject into the hands of the already over-burdened instructors and
by and large unqualified for this exercise, was tantamount to belittling
and ridiculing this very patriotism The sad part of it is that this cruel
joke has been carried on ever since by the successive regimes and the
situation has been accepted as fait accompli.

But the matter is not as simple as it appears to be. The situation on the
ground is ugly. Imagine the classes divided into sections of 80 or 100
or 150 students. Then imagine the time consumed by the futile
exercise of tak',ng attendance, what with responses by proxy, and the
 -41- LOUD THINKING

disappearing act performed by a majority of students. The time is so

short that the poor instructor can hardly afford to look up from the
attendance register. Once the attendance is over, the 50 odd students
left behind immediately plunge into little games of their own or gossip
among themselves. The teacher, for whatever little time is left, opens a
page from the text-book and reads on. It needs hardly be emphasised
at this stage that the atmosphere is that of indifference, nonchalance
and even that of disgust.

Why should this happen? Everything must have a cause. For one
thing, the teacher-student ratio is unmanageable. Secondly, the
teachers who already have a busy schedule in their own area of study,
cannot be expected to cope with it Thirdly, the courses of Pakistan
and Islamic Studies have been drafted most unimaginatively and are
repetitive ad infmitum from class one to 16 and of course nor are
professional colleges spared And finally, if there is anything
uninspiring In the life of the students. it is the textbooks, This is not
surprising because there was a dangerous design behind this whole
exercise.

It is a fact of history that the most vehement opponents of the Pakistan

Movement were the "maulanas" and the "mushaikhs", Now, to fight
back an external foe like the Hindus and the British was something that
the Quaid-e-Azam took in his stride, but to face the Internal foe, the
"undesirable' element as he described the mullah, was another matter.
It does not need an elaborate comment to realise the enormity of the
situation. This fact of the opposition by the mullah to the establishment
of an Islamic State envisioned by Iqbal and Jinnah is intriguing This
has confused many a scholar. But this is a subject by itself. Suffice it
to say that the genesiS of the opposition is that Islam breaks the
"thought control" of the mullah because without it the feudal lords and
t~e waderas cannot survive. Hence Mullahism or a clerical class is the
anti-thesis of Islam. Iqbal and Jinnah had made this very clear. No
wonder the common man voted for Jinnah en mass, and the mullah
was thrown into the background, The history of Pakistan is the history
of the mullah's maneuvers to stage a comeback. General Ziaul Haq
who came forward as their patron saint, aided them by introducing,
very piously, Pakistan and Islamic Studies as compulsory subjects.
There was nothing wrong with the subjects, but every thing was wrong
in the way the textbooks were written. Apart from their low caliber and
poor print, Pakistan Studies aimed at giving very subtly an equal or
perhaps the leading role to the maulanas and the mushaikhs. The
pages of the books are punctuated with vague and unauthenticated
references to the ulemas and the mushaikhs having aroused the spirit
of the Muslims. Then madrasas and Darul-U1ums of Oeoband, Bareilli,
 -42- LOUD THfNKfNG
Nadva and Jimia Millia of Delhi are mentioned along with and at par
with the Aligarh University, without breathing words about their
opposition to Aligarh and the Pakistan Movement On the contrary, the
impression created is that without their paving the way for it, Jinnah
could not have succeeded. Thus are the impressionable minds of the
children and the new generation polluted in such a subtle way that the
mullah's role in the achievement of Pakistan is taken for granted, and
his identity with Islam is reinforced, the obscurantism of the mullah is
further established by the courses in the Islamic Studies. Iqbal's
earthshaking auranie dream is thus shattered once again as of yore.
So the so-called history moves on, repeating itself. And it is a truism
that repeating mistakes is a disaster.

This is the hypocritical and fatal touch of liaism. The public and the
government must not allow the ghost of lia to make fun of us and
destroy our identity and our future. The poisonous sting must be
removed and these precious areas of study must be retrieved from
boredom and disgust. Therefore, I would like to invite my readers to
make suggestions as to how Pakistan Studies and Islamic Studies can
be improved keeping in mind the teacher-student ratio, the qualification
of the teachers, the mental level of eaCfl class when the books are
scribed for class one to 16, avoidance of repetition, and above all
focusing on the redundancy of mulfahism as against the beauty,
dynamism and universalism of Islam. If we are too lazy to do this then
it would be better to scrap the subjects.
 -43- LOUD THINK,NG
APPROACH TOWARDS CHANGE

My mind has been preoccupied, for some years, with the concept of
change and permanence in human life and as to how the Quran itself
envisions it. Of course the concept is inherent in it and I was not
unfamiliar, but what triggered off this constant preoccupation was, what
could be described as woman bashing by Zia's regime in the form of
Hadoad Ordinance, Law of Evidence and the proposed law of Qisas
and Diyat. As a consequence I got involved with some of the highly
intelligent and highly qualified women activists of our country who were
resisting these ordinances. The very fact that these women showed
tremendous courage and resilience, rationality and creativity in the face
of an unscrupulous military dictator, more than any section of the
population, exploded many a myth about women They were inferior to
no one and they refused to live as second or third rate citizens.

However certain issues that were more or less settled in my mind were
enlivened afresh through constant arguments and doubts that were
raised. ThiS" time It was not just a question of unauthentic Hadith and
the outdated fiqah, but certain verses of the Quran themselves. Does
or does not the Quran accept woman as equal? They wanted a
categorical answer. Ultimately, the question did not remain restricted to
the women's concerns, but included the institutions of slavery, of
property and inheritance, of charity as distinct from an economic
system, and of punishments for various crimes. All these challenges
gave me the opportunity to look deeper into the issues and the result is
this article. In what I am going to say I do not claim to be original, but
this is the moment in the history of the world to speak out and speak
out boldly and openly.

The Quranic claim is that varied historical experiences whether within

the ambit of its attitude and values, or outside it, that is, under the
process of "trial and error," the Truth of the Quranic objectives will be
ultimately vindicated. We see today the Communist Structure
collapsing not under foreign subversion and attack, but under the
battering of "glasnost" and "perestroika" from within, led by no less a
person than Mikhail Gorbachov himself. Then this year, 1989 happens
to be the bicentenary of the French Revolution. Re-evaluation of and
second thoughts on the French Revolution are being expressed from
'he advantage of hind-sight that is available to us. I am not referring to
any country in the "Muslim" world because no bold experiment has
been made by them and they do not have much to speak of about
themselves except blind unthinking imitation {Sir Syed said that even a
good tradition or institution becomes destructive if followed without
 -44- LOUD THINKING

understanding!) harking back to the past to maintain the status quo

Anyway, because of France and Russia, 1989 is indeed a great year,
full of port.ends, constructive or destructive, for the time to come.

The emphasis of this article is on a particular aspect of the problem,

that is, the approach Quran emphasizes and teaches in the
methodology of change, and it is on this very aspect that some
comments of the analysis on the French and Russian Revolutions
become relevant My contention is that this clarification will go a long
way in meeting the above mentioned doubts and questions.

The justification or the rationale behind "Wahi" is the limitations of

human reason, reason which is indispensable but is not pure or perfect.
Because of this limitation human beings tend to be, says the Quran,
hasty, impatient quarrelsome and unable to see beyond their
immediate profit. To harness human potentials and transform this
"Khudbeen" attitude, as Iqbal puts it, to "Ooorbeen" approach,
permanent values are set forth as ultimate objectives of life on this
earth A mere glance at the Felevant Quranic verses presents a picture
of an earth-shaking revolution, revolution, reverberating in the corridors
of power and challenging the status quo of the establishment. At once
one sees its fury and its uncompromising attack on kingship, autocracy
and dictatorship, feudalism and aristocracy, priestcraft and
Brahmanism, caste and class, slavery and buying and selling of human
beings as commodities, sexual discrimination and women subjugation,
ownership of the resources of the land and acquisition of property,
disparity of wealth and doling out of charity, real politic or Machiavellian
politic, In a nut-shell no man has the right to rule over another and
there IS no such thing as the ruler and the ruled. Now, no opponent or
disbeliever will deny this; all this is as bright as sunshine unless one
closes ones eyes and says: I cannot see. But the confusion and
rejection arise when one comes across certain rules and regulation
regarding inheritance of property woman as a woman relationship,
slavery, charity and punishments. The immediate comment is; Why this
contradiction? If the concept of possession is rejected, why then these
laws of inheritance? If slavery is abolished, why then these instructions
for the treatment of slaves? If women are human, why then these laws
that humiliate and downgrade her? After all, as long as women remain
economically dependent on men, for she does emerge as a victim of a
patriarchal Society according to these laws, then isn't her emancipation
and dignity set at naught? Furthermore, if everyone will be
economically secure, why then these exhortations to give charity with
all its occupied dehumanization? And last but not the least, if the Quran
is the upholder of humanity, why then these barbaric and inhuman
punishments? After pointing out these contradictions, no matter what
 -45- LOUD THINKING

initiative one takes, nobody is ready to listen. Seen superficially, the

contradictions are apparent; the two sets of laws and values must
connect at some point for after all the Quranic challenge is that the
proof of its supra-human source is the absolute absence of
contradictions in its text.

Fortunately, the human experience of just the last two centuries makes
the clarification easier, for it can be picked up as a pragmatic test. They
have been very eventful centuries, teaching us many things jf we care
to learn.

Now, what appears as a contradiction in the Quran, is a very profound

understanding of the human condition. While laying down radical
changes in the socioeconomic and political areas, the QUran
emphasizes a slow, evolutionary and unhurried process and
methodology in moving forward towards the ultimate goal. The Quran
warns against overnight changes. They can be self defeating, and even
if particularly successful, can cause prolonged, unnecessary suffering
and inflict wounds that can be too gaping to be cured easily and
normally. As Arnold Glasgow has well said: "The key to everything is
patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg not smashing it"
Explaining the same point Parwez Sahib wrote in June 1938 about like
a silent volcano in the breast of Muslim India, and promised to assuage
them. "But it will be accomplished very gradually and slowly," he wrote
"because tearing off from the thorny bushes with an abrupt, sudden,
gesture is certainly no wisdom." Indeed, mental attitudes and world
views change very slowly, and old habits die very hard. So the Quran
begins by recognizing the reality of the situation here and now at any
given point in history, both in material and psychological human
conditions, while directing its movement onward and upward. Nothing
can change outside of human life, unless totally transformed from
within, is a familiar Quranic approach. This reality is ignored by the
humans in their hastiness. Let's hear what Changes Aitmatov, a
Kirghizian writer and Editor of the Soviet Magazine "Foreign Literature"
said to Natalya Kazminya, AyPN correspondent, "When we rejected
our past religion, history and philosophy - we laid waste our cultural
field. We are duty-bound to compensate the spiritual void that has
formed as a result of our undialectical attitude towards the past."
Talking, about "glasnost" and "perestraika" in the same vein, he said "--
-- we should not smash everything along the way. In our attempt to
change things today, to eliminate one thing for another - be it some
relic or an alphabet - we should show great care, wisdom and tolerance
in order to find the best possible decision. Our society has suffered
enough from abrupt changes" This is the crux of the matter. The Quran
 -46- LOUD THINKfNG
is anxious to avoid "abrupt changes." An attempt is made below to give
a few examples to explain the mode of change.

1. Economics: The ultimate objective of the Ouran the fulfilment

of the basic needs of every individual along with a guarantee to
the unborn generations 85 well, it is followed by the permanent
values - concept of using the resources of the land and not
possessing them "To possess" and "have" are alien concepts
to this new set up.

Mode of Change: This indeed is a radical and dialectic step in

the midst of the large landed estates. However, no forcible snatching
away is ordered; instead laws of inheritance divide and fragment the
estates so that within a generation or two or three its total
fragmentation will merge into nonpossession of the Islamic economic
system. (It is interesting to note here that this is how Napoleon broke
the remain of the feudal estates after the French Revolution. For
centuries feudalism was. maintained in Europe by the law of
primogeniture, that is, the eldest son inherit"lng the estate singly in order
to keep it intact. By distributing it among all the children it was
fragmented until 12 acres of land became the unit of agriculture.) In the
course of this ongoing process, Zakat, which is "to give away the
surplus for the growth of the state in lieu of permanent guarantee of
security, and as such the very base of the economy, will have matured
But while in the process of maturing, the citizen are enjoined to give
"Sadqah" to fulfil the deficiencies and eliminate disproportion in the
existing conditions, on individual basis, once the system takes shape,
both the "laws of inheritance" and "Sadqah" laps and become
redundant. However, these rules remain an integral part of the Quran
for any society in any given space and time which is beginning from
scratch. Charity in any case is not a Quranic concept.

2. Slavery: The ultimate objective is the establishment of a

human family and equality of all humans. Every individual is
honorable for the simple reason that he/she is a human. No
other consideration is needed This is an absolute rejection of
castes and classes, and above all, slavery. I wonder if anyone
of us can visualize and feel what a dehumanizing affect,
suppression initiative and enterprise the buying and selling and
auctioning of human be'mgs, as commercial commodities,
cantering about. May be we can get some idea if we see
objectively what imperialism has done to us as subjugated
people.
 -47- LOUD THINKING

Mode of Change. The Quran encourages people to emancipate

the slaves at every step, and side by side emphasizes loving and
humane treatment like unto any member of the family. Thus measures
are taken to protect them and nourish them at every step stage by
stage until they are capable of standing on their own feet economically
and psychologically. Age old existence of being owned by somebody
as a thing can make one fell lost, nervous and bewildered if suddenly
thrown out into the free world as free persons. This is exactly what
happened when more than a hundred years ago Abraham Lincoln
emancipated the black American slaves and then left them in the lurch,
as it were with all good intentions of course, many couldn't face this
newly won freedom and pleaded to be allowed to hop back into the
cage. The worst part of it is that till today the attitude of the white man
has not changed. It has not been educated out of their minds (More will
be said about education later).

3. Women: The ultimate objective of the Quran is equality

of all. humans and equal partnership and companionship in the
family unit. Without this mutual respect and trust a family
cannot perform its functions in a normal healthy manner. I need
hardly repeat here that even towards the end of the twentieth
century, the mass of women on this earth are economically
dependent and depressed, and hence easily manipulated and
made emotionally and mentally crippled. Let's face it. It is a
woman's incapacitated condition in pregnancy, child birth and
lactation and the early upbringing of children that is the root
cause of this economic victimization. Instead of honouring her
for this role and helping her in her incapacitation, the perverted
mind of husband (not the son') enslaves her for all tirr.es It is
this perversion that the Quran attacks.

Mode of Change: In the transitory period, help and protection in

this incapacitated condition IS emphasized, but it is obvious that once
the Quranic economic system gradually manifests itself in which no
man or woman is economically dependent and his/her basic needs
from the resources of land are fulfilled as a matter of birthright, and one
eats and drtnks naturally as one breathes in the air and absorbs the
sunshine as free gift of nature, any talk of economic dependence
becomes irrelevant. The whole concept is inbuilt in the system.
Similarly, rules and regulations regarding the moral support of the
second woman to the female witness in financial matters (mind you, in
financial matters alone) becomes redundant when women become
confident and experienced in these matters. In fact, when this happens,
there is no reason why one female witness will not do when no male
witness is forthcoming. Such a situation can arise especially today, and
 -48- LOUD THINKING

it needn't be a pre-requisite that one witness has to be a male. The way

women allover, including Pakistani women, are entering the world of
finance and banking, trade and commerce, business and industry, to
insist on such a condition sounds funny if not worse. Otherwise too,
many a women in Pakistan, leave alone the rest of the world, are so
articulate, dialectic and confident that the term "bangles women" now
applies perhaps more to some men than these women! Of course a
large majority are still depressed and helpless, meek and illiterate, they
may still need help and support, so the injunctions of the Quran for the
transitory phase remain an integral part of the Quran for all those who
are making a beginning and breaking new ground, lapsing again when
closer and nearer the goal Seen from this perspective the Quranic
claim is vindicated that the proof of its divine source is that it contains
no contradiction.

4. Punishments: Talking about punishments, another aspect of

this theme of change will have to be clarified, equally important
and sensitive. The Quran, as the last and final Book spoke to
humanity as a whole. It does not address a particular chosen
people. Throughout the recipient is AI-Nas, humankind. Its
challenge is that criterion for survival is service to humanity as
an ultimate objective. All else will wither away. But, the Quran,
as we all know was revealed in the midst of Hejazi Arabs. Why
in Hjaz is a story by itself. (It has been discussed in the
introductory chapters of "Meraj-e-Insaniat" by Mr. G.A Parwez).
Now, while the ultimate objectives, the values of the Quran are
permanent and universal, beyond space and time, some
references in it and certain tranSitory rules, particularly the
realm of punishments, are local and historical, but definitely
exemplary for all times to come. Here are some cases in point
Although Anbia came to every nook and corner of the world,
only a few from the Arabian peninsula are mentioned. Certain
events, personalities and archaeological finds are referred to
again from the same area. Actually. Pharaoh and Nimrods exist
everywhere and so does the ungrateful and treacherous people
like the Jews. These are only examples familiar to Aabs of
those days. Similarly, punishments of flogging (by a date palm)
is mentioned which was not common in other parts of the
world. The philosophy and the psychology behind it all is, as
Shah Wali Uriah put it, that the Arabs were to be prepared as a
leaven ("Jhag" that consolidates milk in the form of yogurt) for
the rest of humanity. They were to be a model for others, since
Islam or for that matter any idea, cannot be spread by force. By
force the nomenclature of the individual may be changed, the
head and the heart remain atrophied to the idea, even more so
 -49- LOUD THINKlNG
as a vendetta of a defense mechanism. Nothing could be more
devastating to any new idea. So the Quranic appmach to
change is to begin from a certain point in time where one
stands at the moment. Naturally, local and familiar methods
and institutions are easier to use - politically, economically and
judicially - than those that are superposed. Nabi Muhammad
(peace be upon him) for example used the tribal "bait" system
to build democratic norms, i.e. to enable them to elect, select
and participate in consultation. Iqbal and Jinnah recommended
the secret ballot system and the parliamentary form with which
the people were familiar. As one grows in experience and
maturity these modes and techniques are evolved, changed,
amended and improved wherever necessary. This includes the
penal code as well. The Arabs were to continue flogging (with
the date-palm) until alternate and better method of deterrence
was evolved or acquired. Another society ought to begin from
whatever they are used to and evolve and move forward
acco"rdingly Of course the most inhuman practices were
immediately done away with, for example killing and beheading
the prisoners of war and taking them as slaves and
concubines. They were to be ransomed or freed, as the case
may be.

Indeed, this is how, according to my humble opinion and understanding

the Quran views changes; and as I said earlier, I do not claim to be
absolutely original in saying so. This approach wipes off confusion and
contradictions and sudden, hasty changes.

But this is not all. The Quran does not suffice in giving rules and
regulations for the transitory period only. Prior to that, the peoples
minds have to change, they must be mentally and emotionally prepared
br the change. The is a long, patient, rational and very slow process of
teaching That is why the Nabi (peace be upon him) is described as
teacher. He teaches, he does not preach. They are two very distinct
terms with distinct connotation Teaching is a painstaking method and it
IS a worthwhile method Short cut in this method will not take us to the
goal. Commenting on "perestroika" Prof. Khwaja Masud says that it is a
bloodless revolution (The Muslim, November 10) It is a revolution that
is being waged in the hearts and minds of the people. It is a more
difficult revolution because while it is easy to snatch power, it is a
Himalayan task to change the hearts and minds of the people" The
professor considers "presetroika" as a continuation of the October
revolution 1971 in Russia and describes them as synonymous. That
may be so, but I think the precedence is all wrong. "Presetroika"
should have come first and then the Revolution The Revolution then
 -50- LOUD THINKING

would not have been as bloody and as full of sufferings as it was_ The
Quran is so careful with its methodology that it enjoins upon the Nabi
(peace be upon him), the teacher to leave his country or home town
(Hijrat) for a place which is more conducive to the implementation of
the new system. So while Nabi Muhammad (Peace be upon him) left
Mecca for Medina just as Abrahim had left Mesopotamia or Hijaz and
Palestine, and Moses left Egypt for the valley of Senai. Thus "Hijrat" is
no ordinary migration It is the removing of the last hurdle in the way of
the new vision and establishment of this vision as a pragmatic test. If
the vested interests do not see reason, then at least leave them see
the results, the fruit of the seeds planted on another soil. After all, for a
"Momin" the whole planet Earth is a home, and peoples of all climes,
races and languages his brothers

I am convinced a method other than this - that is teaching, pragmatic

test and a model, rules and regulations for the transitory phase - will
spell disaster. The great upheavals in France and Russia and China,
well intentioned and visionar¥ though they may be, were hasty and
lacked the above mentioned methodology. The immediate result is
described by themselves as "The Terror" which the historians now say
was a "cruel experience". The all-consuming guillotine of France (It
made Madame Roland, just before being guillotined say: "Oh Liberty,
how many crimes are committed in your name"), and the Gulag labour
camps, and the purge of the mid-thirties in Russia are regretted today.
"Terror" has been the central theme of the. historians. Douglas Johnson
who talks about the terror and the counter-revolution (in France) has
pinned down the cause to "a new political class (that) has come to the
fore neither educated nor experienced, reacting to events rather than
controlling them, thinking in terms of vengeance rather than in terms of
principles" Sounds familiar? Well! These are lessons of history
vindicating and backing up the teaching and educational process the
Quran enjoins as a prerequisite to begin a change. The tragedy of
impatience and hastiness is manifest in all those regrets for it does not
bring the goal any nearer. It took France nearly a century to digest the
revolution after many mishaps of counterrevolution, monarchical
upheavals accompanied by all the unnecessary pain. After seventy two
years, Russia is back to square one, though at the same time it may be
admitted that there is no going back to pre-178g ancient regime.
Hopefully, that is dead forever. It may be pointed out here that failure
can also be due to some inherent flaw in the philosophy projected, but
that is another story (A perusal of "Mafhoomul Quran" and "Insan Ne
Kia Socha "by Mr. G.A. Parwez may be worthwhile.)

Talking about a model this is what time Blanking has to say about the
enthusiasm and naive optimism of exporting the French Revolution
 -51- LOUD THINKING

across Europe. "If they had stayed at home and had set about creating
a new order ~.-- their example might well have inspired mass
conversion to their cause across the globe. By trying to export that
cause by armed force, they not only sealed their own fate, they also
gave the old regimes they detested so much a fresh lease of life which
was to see most of them through the next century". Herein lies the
vindication of yet another Quranic guideline, a model as an example to
others. Hindsight and second thoughts have made the truth obvious. It
is another thing if as Hilary Mantel says, "writers have truths to offer,
while politicians and clerics commonly trade in lies." Politicians and
clerics, yes, they trade in lies, and in Islamic Polity neither of them has
any place, Once we are educated in permanent human values and
accept their implications and decisions even if they go against us, then
such Machiavellian politics has no feet to stand on. But I shall end
here.

We can only hope that someday, somewhere, somebody will present

this model as <iI Third alternative to capitalist and socialist systems. It
will not be done hastily, and yet it is remarkable that the results can
emerge sooner than one expects and with minimum death and
destruction and unnecessary pain. The very beauty of "Wahi" is, to use
Iqbal's words, the economy of time and energy. Remember, it was the
tortoise, who won the race, not the hare!
 -52- LOUD I HINKfNG

MEN WHO BELONG TO ALL AGES

The one unique factor that distinguishes humans from the rest of the
creation, as we know it today, is the realm of ideals and values.
Without ideals, no matter how comfortable we may be physically and
materially, we will remain empty within, the "hollow" men of TS. Eliot.
Higher ideals, higher codes of conduct, integrity of character,
trustworthiness -- throughout life we hanker for these. Even
Machiavelli recognizes and admits that there is such a desire, although
he himself does not believe in such ideas. He advocates, therefore,
that those in power will have to pretend to be what these ideals
represent if the power is to be retained.

This inner need of humans to live a life of quality and mental health the
Quran defines as the development of the "SELF" by harmonizing
oneself with the permanent human values. It assigns this development
and unfolding of the latent potentials of humans as the ultimate goal in
life on this earth

Psychology has also confirmed that nothing is more effective in life as

an example, a model of integrity to imitate. Preaching from the sacred
pulpits is in any case self defeating, engendering hypocrisy and
cynicism. Even teaching can be counter-productive if the pupil is not
exposed to the teacher's integrity outside the class room. Hence
models of teachers, scholars, leaders, of the past and present need to
be projected into the nation and humanity at large for inspiration.
Joshua Loth Liebman in his most laudatory "Peace of Mind", talks
about another fearful dimension of "parents" In our lives. He says;
"Too many people unconsciously go throughout life as camp followers
of an unhappy father or a neurotic mother, fearful, insecure, shame-
ridden because in their life career they unwillingly became imitators of
an unhealthy personality---- (for) Since we know that man is compelled
to imitate, the only question is whether our inevitable mimicry shall
invoke us the enslavement of parental models often narrow, imperfect
and erroneous or whether the identification process shall occur on the
higher levels. Given the choice, should we not assimilate the patterns
of model of heroes and heroines whose courage and nobility will
provide us with a design for living that we can make our own?"
Considering what is happening around us and to us, this is indeed a
profound statement. In this context it is most noteworthy and inspiring
that in proof of his "Nabuwwat" the Nabi Muhammad (PBUH) presented
his own integrity and trustworthiness (recognized by the Meccans in the
title bestowed upon him - "Ameen" and "Sadiq") having been born and
lived amongst the people he was addressing Now it was for them to
 -53- LOUD THINKING

see and judge. How many parents and leaders can even think of
presenting themselves for such an exposure?

We in Pakistan are fortunate in possessing a very rich and proud

heritage of excellent models and examples over the past century and a
half. The most noteworthy, particularly in the harmony and consistency
of their ideological commitment are Syed Ahmad, Jinnah, Iqbal and
Parwez. In this month of August with its fourteenth day as the
culminating one of their efforts, what could be better than to remained
ourselves of some of their deeds and decisions as example for all of
us, in all places and in all seasons?

Goal-orientation and commitment to high ideals was the hallmark of all

these heroes. This gave them courage, honesty, and the spirit of
sacrificing relative values in the face of permanent values.

For instance just visualize the mutual mistrust and tension and the ugly
mood of the .British Imperialist after the holocaust of the so-called
"Mutiny", particularly against the Muslims. They were edgy and
nervous, and arrogant and cruel at the same time. Criticism, however
mild, at this stage would have been regarded as insolvent and
seditious. "But Syed Ahmad Khan would not have been the man he
was, if the forbidding nature of the task had daunted him." Writes M.
Hadi Hussain, Within a year of the "Mutiny" in 1858 he printed a
pamphlet entitled "Causes of the Indian Revolt" It was frank and bold.
On seeing it Rai Shankar Oas advised him to burn all the copies, ,,----
don't risk your neck by saying things which can well be left unsaid".
Syed Ahmad replied" I consider pointing these things out is a service to
the country and the people and to the Government itself. If harm
comes to me for doing so, let it". This reply made Shankardas tearful,
records HaiL To begin with a pamphlet was regarded as "Highly
Seditious" by the British Government, making him liable to be
ploceeded against. But eventually the British Statesmanship prevailed
and on second thoughts they decided to benefit from it and they did.

Again, as a member of the Viceroy's Legislative Council he powerfully

defended the "Albert Bill" which was aimed at removing discrimination
between European and Indian clients in the courts, actually, the
Europeans refused to be tried by Indian Judges, Magistrates and
Jurors and put up a tough fight. Syed Ahmad worked hard at his
speeches and fiercely condemned this racial arrogance, Talking of
racism he and his son Syed Muhammad walked out of an official
function in Agra in protest against the seating arrangement which was
based on racial, white and black discrimination. I wonder how many of
us are now free to put up a similar defiance against the neocolonialist!
 -54- LOUD THINKING

Through experience and observation Syed Ahmad Khan had realized

that neither Hindus nor Muslims could survive a political and military
showdown. So he had advocated a policy of reconciliation for the time
being, enabling the creation of an atmosphere which would be
conducive for preparation for the struggle in future. The point I am
trying to make is that despite this policy of reconciliation, one does not
see him perched on some high office of the British hierarchy. On the
contrary he even resigned from his judicial post to be able to give more
time and energy to his Aligarh Movement

What is most inspiring is when the British Government dared to reward

him for his services in saving the lives of British men and women during
the "Mutiny" The reward was in the form of an estate worth about a
lakh rupees then which had been confiscated from a Muslim Rais, Mir
Sadiq Ali and Mir Rustam Ali, because of their involvement in the
revolt. Syed Ahmad immediately declined the offer. He was shocked
that it could even be presumed he could profit from another's
misfortune; he could not 'quench his thirst with the blood of a Muslim'
In any case, saving lives is a humanitarian deed and he would do it
again anytime whether they were British, Hindus or Muslims, and
certainly not for a reward. Far from acquiring anything, he sold his all,
even the kitchen utensils in the service of his people.

We see another of our great heroes fearlessly and boldly standing up

against the Governor of Bombay, Wellington, in appreciation of which
the citizens of Bombay immortalized in the "Jinnah Hall". Later we see
thiS dauntless Jinnah courageously attacking the Draconian Roulette
Bill and then resigning from the council in protest. He could not sit in a
council that could pass such bills into acts. And who can ever forget
the lone but brave dissenting voice at the Nagpur conference where the
whole Indian leadership had assembled and unified on one point. This
made a British observer remark that if India can produce one indiVidual
like Jinnah then it is going to become impossible to keep the people of
India suppressed.

Such is the stuff that heroes are made of. No wonder the opponents
were desperate to somehow corrupt him and buy him. What a
foolhardy thought. They did know that wealth, titles, women--- nothing
could tempt him. So why not offer him power? Accordingly, in 1930
the British Prime Minister, Ramsay McDonald subtly mentioned to him
that the reforms in the offing may include the idea of appointing Indian
Governors In the provinces. There was already one in Assam. "Are
you trying to bribe me?" Shout back Jinnah quitting the room never to
see the Prime Minister again. A worse offer was made by Gandhi
nearing partition, tempting him with the Prime Ministership of the united
 -55- LOUD THINKING

India with a cabinet of his own choice at the center, if only he would
give up the "Pakistan Idea," Give up Pakistan Idea indeed! Would
Nehru agree to be the Prime Minister of India under British
sovereignty? A lesser man Sheikh Abdullah, got caught in the net of
Chief Ministership of Kashmir, and spent major part of his post
independence days In jail, where he was packed off by his bosom
fnend Nehru. Such is the fate of all those who go in for personal power
and glory at the cost of the peoples' interest In fact even to mention
Jinnah's and Sheikh Abdullah's names together is blasphemy. To
persons like Jinnah. such choices and decisions come naturally.
Isphahani has confirmed this. "When lauded for his reputation for
incorruptibility, the Quaid would retort that those who praised did not
please or honour him To him it was natural for human beings to be
honourable and impeccable in their dealings and unnatural to be
otherwise" It is faith in what one undertakes that is important. Work
itself IS its own reward with its inner joy and satisfaction_ "Have faith
and you will triumph," he advised. Yes, nobody could buy Jinnah He
could not be reduced to a "cowboy' or 'His Master's voice' by the luster
of gold or the pomp and show of high office. Here is a man who belong
to all ages.

Luster of gold, pomp and show? Iqbal would laugh derisively at such
choices. Living in a dilapidated room on McLeod Road, there was the
danger of the roof crashing down When advised to move out, he said
if he did the poor Hindu Land lady (a widow?) whose only source of
income was the rent of this room would get no other tenant because of
its condition. Such sublime considerations need no comment. Even
when friends got a house built on Mayo Road (Now Iqbal Road) and
persuaded him to shift there, he moved as a tenant paying rent
regularly to the child-owner, his son, on whose name perforce the
house was reglstered_ Iqbal's way of life was the epitomes of the
phrase "Simple living, and high thinking" A voracIous reader and born
poet, he picked up just enough law-suits to survive. Sitting in his
obscure little corner, he took on the whole world trend towards Nation-
States, capitalist economy, socialist totalitarianism, democracy in which
the majority vote decides what is right and wrong thereby denying any
concept of a permanent code of conduct, separation of human values
from politics resulting in the horror of Machiavellian statecraft.
euphemistically called "Secularism," and of course he attacked
relentlessly the traditional world with its otherworldliness and deathly
stagnation. What is more, the criticism was not merely negative, for he
presented alternatives for which Pakistan was to be an experimental
ground
 -56- LOUD THINKfNG
In this whole scenario the beautiful team work between Iqbal and
Jinnah is very revealing of their personalities. Neither of them
encroached on each others areas; one a thinker, the other a practical
statesman. On the contrary, Iqbal invited Jinnah to lead the movement
because according to him there was no other. This was something
Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad or Maulana Abu! Ala Maudoodi did not
understand. They realized that they could not stand up to Jinnah's
practical statesmanship, so they entered the ranks of the opposition
and attempted to gain importance thereby. A wholesome and confident
person knows where he ought to function. No wonder pandit Jwahar
Lal Nehru came all the way to Lahore, flattering and tempting Iqbal to
capture the leadership, He did not know whom he was talking to. He
impressed upon Nehru that Jinnah was his commander and he a very
humble solider. This reply must have sent Nehru reeling back,
dejected but wiser.

Iqbal's position as an ideologue, after his demise, was filled in by

Parwez, educated and tram~d by Iqbal himself. One incident narrated
to me brings forth the greatness of both Jinnah and Parwez. In the
early forties the All India Muslim League had some funds and it could
afford financing the "Tolu-e-Islam" magazine of which it was in dire
need. parwez, the editor, declined the offer made by Jinnah, for in that
case the magazine would become inhibited in criticizing the Muslim
League, or even Jinnah if ever there was a lapse. That day visitors
founds Jinnah in a very cheerful mood. They thought some favourable
information regarding Muslim India and "Pakistan" may have come.
"NO" replied Jinnah. Then he related the incident of earlier in the day
and commented that if there is one individual like Parwez in "Pakistan"
'It would surv'lve and come to stay. When Pakistan came into being an
offer to be posted at any position of his choosing was again declined
He had served the Pakistan Movement not for rewards and promotions.
It was the inner urge, the desire for freedom that beckoned him into tre
fray. Parwez as a civil servant worked in the same position as he had
before independence Is not freedom the greatest reward, and a
transformation from a slave to a free citizen the greatest promotion?
Strange that such concepts had to be dug in today after Sixty years of
independence. We have picked up chains and put them round our
necks, hands and feet, as willing victims of neocolonialism; and what is
more we have hung labels round our necks announcing the price for
sale, With our national reputation thus of a purchasable commodity,
some dared to approach Parwez. The civilized modern world has its
subtle methods, unlike the barbaric days of the pharaohs when anyone
with leadership qualities was done to death The method today IS to
tempt outstanding ones in the field of learning with scholarships, and
non-academic ones are backed by big money to sabotage the country
 -57- LOUD THINKING

politically. Hence the much quoted and much admired by local

Pakistani intellectuals, Vincent Cantwell Smith came to Pakistan at
least twice if not three times, specifically with the purpose of offering a
fabulous scholarship which included his family as well, to go to a North
American University, most probably Me Gill (Montreal) in Canada to
research on Islam in its Islamic Studies Department" What sort of
research? "enquired Parwez. The research according to V.C. Smith
was to be on the economic system of Islam but it will have to be proved
from the Quran (the assumption was made before research) that its
system is anti-communists and pro-capitalists. "It is not for me to say
that The Quran speaks for itself. Whatever similarities there may be
or contrariness to the two systems will have to be projected", protested
Parwez, Of course, the scholarship never materialized. Charms of
wealth fame, travel, were contemptuously shunned. But there were so
many others who were lured by these to enter into the snares of this
C.I.A Center. I am aware of several who readily orientated their
research to suit the Anglo-American global strategy, in which, in the
long range Pa'kistan does not fit. The enemy No.2, after India as the
enemy No 1, Parwez never even stepped onto the grounds of the
American Centers in Pakistan This does not mean that the positive
and genuine qualities of the American people were not admired
especially their own mdependent research, and books from the
American Center libraries flowed onto his massive desk.

Since nearly every individual, group or party has some backing of sorts
from Washington, London, Moscow, Beijing, Delhi or Riyadh, it was
often wondered who was backing Parwez! But Parwez's personal and
public life was an open book with no dark, ugly secrets, qualities that
he shared with the other three great heroes, Syed Ahmad, Jinnah and
Iqbal, so nobody could ever find anything hidden in his character or his
work. It is not easily comprehensible that such individuals cannot be
rought even with all the wealth that lies in the lands, oceans and
mountains.

The success story of the Pakistan Movement till 1947 is the story of a
few personalities, a few heroes who looked at the sham shows of
politicians with contempt and were themselves unpurchaseable. Even
their detractors, or those who disagreed with them cannot deny this,

Well! Such are then the heroes the public longs for to imitate, a very
natural human desire; so they rallied round them and trustingly they
sacrificed their all, making August 14 a land mark in the history of
South Asia. If the dream of the heroes ever came true it could become
a landmark in the history of humankind.
 -58- LOUD THINKING

THEY WERE ALL SELF-MADE MEN

During the last fifty years we have been through many a crisis. To
identify very succinctly the first cause or the root of all the crisis put
together, it is the crisis of leadership_ For Pakistan this is doubly
traumatic, for not only was a new state created with new territorial and
-Ideological frontiers, demanding a very special leadership, it also had to
confront the efforts that were afoot to make it still-born by a Hindu-
British conspiracy_ This cris-rs has been a continuous one and there
seems no sign of it abating Why? The answer lies in the history of
humankind, for history is a laboratory for human action and interaction

History has proved again and again that feudal structure and the
attitudes and values that emanate from it are dehumanising and devoid
of heroic and meaningful leadership. It is only when feudalism died and
faded away, whether it was in Britain or France, Russia or China, did
signs of progress and change show their face, Leadership then
emerges through struggle and.hard work at the grass-root level and by
sheer dint of merit. It is then that inner potentials and talents for
leadership and scholarship (or any other area of human activity) find
full express'lon. Such were the self-made men who led the Pakistan
Movement

Now, have a look at Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. Although his forefathers
had links with the Mughal Court, Syed Ahmad was born at a time when
this court was at its lowest ebb, the Emperor himself a pensioner of the
East India Company, Delhi having been conquered in 1803 When 17
years old, he lost his father, so much so, that he had to give up his
academic preoccupations and look around for a Job to support himself
and his family. He found one as a 'munsif in the East India Company.
He was posted away from Delhi in various cities from time to time, but
later when posted in Delhi, he revived his educational pursuits, for the
city flourished and abounded in many literary and academic luminaries,
His main interest at the time was history and archaeology Then came
the devastation of the First War of Independence, when Syed Ahmad
Khan suffered grievous losses in the death of his mother, an uncle and
I'vvo cousins. One has only to visualise what that entails in terms of
suffering and pain and in his own words, "his hair turned grey over-
night". His first reaction was to migrate to Egypt. But on second
thoughts he decided to stay back and share the suffering of his people.

His pecuniary position can be estimated from the fact that when he
decided to go on a study tour of Britain as a preparation to launch what
came to be known as "Aligarh Movement", he sold his belongings
 -59- LOUD THINKING

including even the kitchen utensils to make it possible. The rest is a

saga of self-study, dedication, hard work and above all, care and
concern for his people. The struggle of this all-round genius and the
harbinger of Pakistan is a legacy of a self-made man. We do not see
any contemporary prince, king or a feudal lord measure upto his stature
as a concerned man, leave alone struggling for the people or an idea.

Similarly, Muhammad Iqbal was no son of a feudal or successor to a

(sprawling) big business empire. Born and brought up in Sialkot. a
small city, Iqbal belonged to a middle class family. His father made a
small income in business, making caps for 'burqas' and woolen shawls.
To augment his income he got himself attached to Deputy Wazir Ali
Bilgrammi as a tailor, but there was not much work to be done, so he
left. Though he made a goodly income at some stage, on the whole it
was inadequate. The family was dependent on the eldest brother
Sheikh Ata Muhammad, and he helped educe Iqbal in Sialkot and then
in lahore. He was also supportive when Iqbal sailed to Europe for
higher education. Had it not been for him, his education could have
been discontinued. On his return Iqbal had to struggle to settle down as
a lawyer and his financial constraints are part of the history that this
greatest of scholars of the twentieth century helped to mould.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the son of a bUSinessman, sailed to London at

the age of sixteen He soon suffered a set-back when his father went
bankrupt. He worked his way through to educate himself, even
performing in the Shakespearean theatre. On his return after four years
at the age of twenty, began a long drawn out struggle for financial
security. Being the eldest child, his responsibilities were manifold in the
context of South Asian family pattern. For three years he traversed the
streets of Karachi to no avail, so much so, that he moved to Bombay.
The struggle continued and the neighbours remembered a tall thin man
in a long yellow coat walk down the street in search of a job. Self-
confident and hard working he established himself as one of the
leading lawyers of the country and helped his sisters and brothers to
settle down. Thus it was after ten years struggle from 1896 to 1906 that
he entered palettes and joined the All India Congress, beginning a
journey that hid tremendous portends for the future.

G.A. Parwez, the outstanding student of Iqbal and a scholarly associate

of Jinnah, fought an ideological battle against the priesthood that
opposed the establishment of Pakistan. With his command over
eastern and western philosophy and modern exigencies of the time, he
continued his campaign against the vested interests and their allies
after independence.
 -60- LOUD THINKING

Parwez's struggle was lID less than the others, with a learned
grandfather who had lost his property to a wily brother, he was highly
motivated academically. But when it came to buying text books, the
family could not afford it So he borrowed them from his class mates
and copied them by hand what is more, this feat was accomplished
under the street lights because there was no electricity in the house,

In fact all his reading and studies at his school stage was done
likewise. Such is the stuff that heroes are made of.

Whatever I have recapitulated above is common knowledge. The

purpose of putting these pieces together briefly is to verify that those
born with a silver spoon in their mouth and brought up in an
atmosphere of luxury and easy money, fail to understand what
leadership is all about, we have "leaders" who are thrown up on the
power of landed estates or because they are scions of opulent big
businessmen. In the same context it may be mentioned that none of
the leaders and scholars menti6ned above had a political background,
that is, none had their fathers and grandfathers in power, sitting pretty
as MNAs and MPAs, plucking at the resources of the land. Theirs was
a self-made niche in the history of humankind and they will live as
such. This is to say that feudalism and feudal decadent values must go
if we are to have a future and respectability in the comity of nations,
nay, if we are to fulfil the Quranic objective of safeguarding humanity
against injustice and exploitation.

The Quran emphasises that all hurdles and difficulties have to be

overcome with steadfastness and hard work. Life is constant tension
but the burden is lightened with hard work. (94/5-7).

In the end, let me say it once again: The feudals and big business
cannot do it. They capture power only to maintain the status que. and
the rest is all a far;ade and a drama in the name of democracy.
 -61- LOUD THINKING

IQBAL, THE POET AND THE POLITICIAN

(A REBUTTAL TO RAFIQ ZAKARIA)

In a revolutionary situation, in any given space and time, it is the

productive and positive contribution of creative people--artists, writers,
teachers, leaders which make all the difference, To begin with the
changes are imperceptible; we call it a revolution the moment the
changes become perceptible. All this entails a great deal of teamwork
and mutual rapport among the creative individuals, even if it may be in
twos and threes. The French Revolution, Italian and German
unification, the Russian and Chinese Revolutions, the struggle for the
independence in the Third World-- a study of all these show teamwork
at some level or the other In our own struggle, the friendship and
teamwork between Iqbal and Jinnah is a classic example. Their coming
together is even more significant because in their case it was the
creation of a new frontier in South Asia on an ideological basis. It was
indeed a new phenomenon in the onrush of ideas and institutions
emanating from the West which were sweeping the minds of the non-
western world and still are overpowering them.

In this context I recently came across a book, the publication of 1993,

titled "Iqbal, the Poet and the Politician", by Rafiq Zakaria from India. Of
course we cannot expect a sympathetic and favourable approach from
anyone in India, but it is not possible to ignore when the author makes
an ugly and Machiavellian thrust on the teamwork of Iqbal and Jinnah
in order to justify Indian territorial nationalism. He has attacked the
Pakistan Movement from various angles very deviously and craftily and
all these need to be rebottled, but at the moment I am restricting myself
to the equation between Iqbal and Jinnah which he has targeted very
viciously. Below I am quoting the significant examples from the post-
1930 phase, a turning point in the history of Muslim India and coming
together of her two great sons.

"After his (Iqbal) Allahabad address," writes Rafiq Zakaria, "most

Hindus had begun to distrust his motives; the Muslim leaders were also
unhappy with his role. They found him impractical and not easy to
comprehend. Jinnah had never taken Iqbal seriously, hence he did not
pay much attention to his politics." Further on he says, "when Jinnah
took over the Presidentship of the All India Muslim League on returning
from London, he retained Iqbal as President of the Punjab Provincial
League. He had no choice---Had Jinnah found a suitable alternative he
would certainly have replaced Iqbal for there was no love lost between
the two". Regarding Iqbal's letters to him, Rafiq Zakaria says,
"obviously he (Jinnah) was not impressed by Iqbal's solution (in the
 -62- LOUD THINKING

enforcement of the Law of Islam}. The Quaid-e-Azam never allowed

the shariah to enter his thinking, his approach remained secular." Then
he adds "The story of Iqbal's efforts to woo Jinnah and Jinnahs'
reluctance to befriend him politically makes painful reading Thus, Iqbal
and Jinnah never grew close to each other, nor did the Qauid-e-Azam
regard the poet as of great help to him. Jinnah had always taken Iqbal
to be a dreamer; he had no patience with dreamers" Quoting Nehru's
"Discovery of India" Rafiq Zakaria refers to Nehro's visit to Iqbal in
Lahore. Iqbal said to Nehru "what is there in common between Jinnah
and you? He is a pOlitician You are a patriot" (more will be said about it
later) the author's comments are: "Iqbal did not consider Jinnah more
than just a politician Jinnah dismissed Iqbal as a mere poet" Also
"Jinnah continued to show no regard for Iqbal and his colleagues; he
did not even send a message to the Iqbal Day function held on 26
December 1937 in Lahore.

The above quotes and comments from Rafiq Zakaria are, I am sure
adequate to pin-point the author's objective to put In a wedge between
Jinnah and Iqbal and thereby cast doubts and prepare grounds in the
name of scholarship, to shatter the division of Indian Motherland.
Talking about scholarship, should a scholar select some sentences and
passages without fully understanding the historical perspective, or
select some and ignore others? Also does it behove a scholar to totally
bypass certain source material which gives a different picture
altogether? For example he has not even thought it fit to include Hector
Bolithio's "Jmnah" in his Bibliography, leave alone his "Verdict on
India". Another classic example (among others) is G.A PafV\lez, an
ardent student of Iqbal and a close associate of Jinnah, whose works
are replete with Iqbal, Jinnah themes. Moreover, some remarks and
comments of the author reproduced above are not authenticated; they
appear more as Rafiq Zakaria's own wishful think'lng Below some
references and quotations regarding the mutual relationship between
Iqbal and Jinnah from the second Round Table Conference onwards
will give a lie to the thesis presented by Rafiq Zakaria

"He (Iqbal) was a philosopher", writes Hector Bolithio" and his influence
over the fortunes of the Muslim people and on Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
was profound and enduring" He mentions that "Jinnah met Sir
Muhammad Iqbal many times in London and they were good friends--
he (Jinnah) admitted later that he had finally been led to Iqbal's
conclusions as a result of careful examination and study of the
constitutional problems facing India" Albiruni in his "Makers of
Pakistan" mentions that Iqbal got Jinnah interested in his objectives.
Indeed their meeflngs during the Round Table Conferences were most
momentous. In his "Evolution of Pakistan" Sharifuddin Pirzada writes:
 -63- LOUD THINKING

"Dr. Iqbal, in his famous address to the Muslim Session at Allahabad in

December 1930 advocated the setting up of a Muslim State in North-
Western India. When this address was being reprinted in 1944, the
Quaid-e-Azam writes: "Since 1929 there has been an exchange of
views between me and the late Dr. Sir Iqbal. Dr. Iqbal was a great man
and an outstanding Muslim who gave me every encouragement and
stood by me till the last." This is further confirmed by Badshah Hussain
in his article in the "Pakistan Times" August 14, 1967 (quoted by
Parwez in his PTV interview, 1984 November 7). He had interviewed
Iqbal in 1936. He questioned him whether he had seen Jinnah from
close quarters. He answered that on many occasions they had
discussed almost ali-important issues both through letters and in details
through mutual exchange of views in personal meetings. It was the
result of this that Jinnah transformed his own views and accepted the
ideas on Islam and Pakistan as he had projected them. Parwez
remarks that the "Millet" can never be grateful enough to Iqbal for
converting a personality like Jinnah to the Pakistan idea. And yet Rafiq
lakaria dare say that "--Hailing Iqbal later on as mentor of Pakistan
was in reality an afterthought"l How does then one fit in the letter Iqbal
wrote to Jinnah in may 28, 1937: "Muslim India hopes that at this
critical juncture your genius will discover some way out of our present
difficulties." Then again on June 21,1931 he wrote: "I know you are a
busy man; but I do hope you won't mind my writing to you so often, as
you are the only Muslim in India today to whom the community has a
right to look up for safe guidance through the storm which is coming to
the North-West India and perhaps to the whole of India." How can Rafiq
Zakaria turn a blind eye to the highly sensitive remark Jinnah made to
M.H Saiyid after the passing of the Lahore Resolution, quoted in his
"Jinnah --A Political Study" and published in Jinnah's lifetime: "Iqbal is
no more among us, but had he been alive he would have been happy
to know that we did exactly what he wanted us to do"

The deep friendship and affection that existed between the two can be
appreciated by Iqbal's message before his death to the Association of
Nairobi Muslims, quoted by Sharifuddin Pirzada in his "Evolution of
Pakistan". Iqbal wrote: "But let me tell you that I have finished my life
work. I do not desire to live long. But one man whose services the
Muslim world generally and the Indian Muslims particularly require is
Mr. MA Jinnah I should like you to pray for his long life" Very similar
thoughts were expressed by him to a friend in 1935 who wrote to him
praying for his health. This was quoted by Sir Abdul Qadir on Iqbal
Day, 1938 Iqbal wrote saying he had completed his time frame and his
message had reached the "millet" in complete form. Instead of praying
for his health, they should pray for the long life of Qaid-e-Azam
 -64- LOUD THINKING

Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Kamal Ataturk. They still had to complete
their mission. (Courtesy-Parwez's PTV interview)

We now come to the pointer from which it can be gauged the kind of
tactics the Congress leadership adopted. In 1935, Nehru came to
Lahore and went to see Iqbal. During the conversation Nehru remarked
that according to their analysis, he was far ahead of Jinnah. So why
shouldn't he take up the leadership in his own hand? Iqbal who was not
at all well, reacted very intensely and retort as to whether he was
attempting to pitch him against Jinnah? He then added that he was
only his humble solider. (Courtesy: Parwez's PTV interview) Perhaps in
this case Nehru was confronting a man of a very different ilk. He was
too integrated, fulfilled and balanced a person to succumb to such petty
and meaningless temptations. One wonders apart from a case or two
of a genuine conviction, what and how men like Maulan Abul Kalam
Azad, Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi, Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madni,
Dr Zakir Hussain, Sheikh Abdulla'h and many more betrayed and
damaged the cause of MusJim India. A weak ego, hence lust for power
and leadership tempted them, and they only managed to lose it all in
the long run,

Regarding the meeting between Iqbal and Nehru in Lahore, I have

already quoted another remark by Iqbal from Rafiq Zakaria's book. "He
(Jinnah) is a politiCian. You (Nehru) are a patriot" The author has
ended the issue there. He has not cared to pursue the issue further, for
there was a fall out after this statement became known, Ahmad Saeed,
in his book "Quaid-e-Azam and Iqbal" writes that some close
associates of Iqbal came to him and complained about the negative
impact of his statement on the Muslim League, Iqbal explained that he
never meant what it appears to imply. Even as such, the word politician
does not exclude patriotism. But being only patriotiC one indulges in
emotional'ism and is unable to have insight into the political intricacies
of a situation, This explanation, according to my mind, seems to go
against Nehru rather than Jinnah. However, Rafiq Zakaria obviously
has not thought worth it of perusing Ahmad Saeed's book.

If anybody still has any doubts about Iqbal-Jinnah teamwork, let us

read Jinnah's message on Iqbal's death. "To me he was a friend, a
guide and philosopher and during the darkest moments through which
the Muslim League had to go he stood like a rock and never flinched
one single moment." This is corroborated by his biographer M.H. Saiyid
that "in the midst of all this darkness there shone a flickering light in
Lahore, he was the only consolation of Jinnah". Hector Bohthio writes:
"He (Jinnah) worked alone, with no personal staff and not even a
secretary to copy his letters and keep his papers tidy. But there was
 ·65· LOUD THINKING

one bundle of letters, in a drawer, to which he could turn for

consolation. They had been written to him by S'rf MUhammad Iqbal,
after their meeting in England in 1932" In the Muslim League Session
in Palna in 1938, Jinnah said! "Muslim League has already deplored
the loss of Dr. Sir Muhammad Iqbal. His death, too, is an irreparable
loss to Muslim India. He was a personal friend of mine and composer
of the finest poetry in the world, He wi " live as long as Islam will live.
His noble poetry interprets the true aspirations of the Muslims of India.
It will remain an inspiration for us and for generations after us." This is
not aiL Two more speeches of Jinnah are preserved in Parwez's PTV
interview delivered on Iqbal Day in 1940 and 1941.

In 1940, presiding over the session he said Iqbal was his friend; as
everyone knew, the Muslim league was In the beginning, of an
academic nature. In 1936 some thought that It should be changed into
a parliamentary party. When Jinnah came to the Punjab in April 1936,
the first person he met was Iqbal. He presented his views before him,
and he immediately welcomed them From that time onwards till his
death, he stood by him like a rock. Allam Iqbal was indeed a great man
and a great philosopher As long as the eastern languages survive,
Iqbal's poetry will live forever. Though an Indian. he was known all over
the world as a great poet, he had contributed a precious lot in
awakenmg the political consciousness of Muslims Jinnah continued by
saying that poets awaken people. Poets like Milton, Shakespeare,
Byron have rendered great services. As far as Iqbal is concerned, he
has rendered greater services to Islam. Carlyle, while relating the
greatness of Shakespeare, quoted an Englishman who was offered a
chOice between Shakespeare and the British Commonwealth. He
replied he would not give up Shakespeare at any cost Quaid-e-Azam
went on to say that he had no state of his own but if one were
achieved, and If given a chOice he would choose Iqbal. What could be
u greater tribute than this? And yet Rafiq Zakana says that Iqbal was a
dreamer and Jinnah had no patience with dreamers' In any case, has
any change 'In human society taken place without a v·,s,on. without an
ideal and a goal, call it a dream if you like? Above all can there be a
meaning to life without a vision, and without a meaning, a future? Can
anyone survive and live without a future?

In 1941, while speaking on Iqbal Day, Jinnah said that if he had not
participated in the Iqbal day function he would have committed a grave
injustice to himself. He was fortunate in having the opportunity to
express his dedication to him. Iqbal's literary fame is universal as a lofty
poet and a great thinker. In the present, he is the history of Islam itself
In this day and age no one had understood Islam as well as he had. He
concluded by saying that he was proud of having served as a soldier
 -66- LOUD THINKING

under the leadership of Iqbal. He was a faithful companion, and he had

seen no other so intensely devoted to Islam. When what he thought
was right he stuck to it and stood by 'rt like a rock.

It is a rare thing to note that both Iqbal and Jinnah have recognized
each other as leaders and guide and oneself as a humble soldier of the
other. I wonder if such teamwork and humility has any other parallel in
history. I do not know how Rafiq Zakaria can ignore, apart from
everything else, Jinnah's admiration of Iqbal as a Poet of Islam,
someone who he says has understood Islam so well. The fact is that it
was Islam, the way Iqbal presented it, that brought them together and
cemented their friendship, and my challenge is that Jinnah woufd never
have come back from his self-exile in London, had it not been for Iqbal.
No struggle can be waged without a vision, and Jinnah's previous
vision had failed and died. In Its place was born the Quranic dream, for
which we all thank Iqbal, and to which Jinnah was converted. Even a
cursory reading of Jinnah's speeches is a challenging proof of this.

Rafiq Zakaria has the right to disagree with Iqbal and Jinnah, but he
has no right to distort history and tell lies. Facts are facts, and fact is
just another name for truth. To go against it is self-defeating. Moreover,
to deliberately ignore relevant and recorded evidence is not
scholarship, it IS not history, it is sheer dishonesty and injustice.
 -67- LOUD THINKING

QUAID-E-AZAM AND MULLAH ISM

The contents of my talk may be a little off the basic them of today's
declamation, but it will not be entirely irrelevant.

Indeed today, as Ghalib has lamented, Muslims, (nay, 1 would say

Ghalib has taken all humankind in his sweep), have fallen into the
depths of degradation. Reasons are many, but they are all knotted
together by the one single and absolute factor, namely, "Thought -
control" by the priest craft, engendering a regressive and negative
Mullah mentality. Haman, the high Priest, is the kingpin of the evil
system, for even Pharaoh and Qaroon cannot survive without him. To
the readers of Tolu-e-Islam literature, these statements are too familiar;
I have however, introduced this point for a special reason namely that
the Quaid-e-Azam had a plan to do away with Mullahism as an
institution and as a mentality once Pakistan was established, and we
had a state of our own .
•

The Quaid's leadership had already undermined and weakened the

Mullah's arrogance and hold on the people's minds. As early as in
1938 he had declared with confidence that the Muslim League had
"certainly freed you from that undesirable elements of Maulvis and
Maulanas." And then before and after Independence, in the years 1946
and 1948 he assured the Muslim India and the world at large that
Pakistan would never be a theocratic state or anything like it. At one
point it was very well said that every Muslim must be his own priest with
his own copy of the Quran. Even these brief and laconic references
vindicate the fact as to how well the Quaid understood that the Mullah
was a later and an extraneous element to the Quranic System and an
addition in an Islamic State. To me it has always been an intriguing
phenomenon to know as to why an individual would want to be a
Mullah. So it often formed the ubject of discussion with Allama Parwez.
That is how one day he spelt out the Quaid's plan to do away with
these "undesirable elements", a plan which unfortunately could not be
implemented for he left us and his world too soon in the midst of untold
problems created by the enemy in a calculated manner to make
Pakistan stili-born. After his demise, Pakistan was hijacked by all those
elements, secular and clerical, who had opposed its creation. So
naturally nothing was done about it.

Quaid-e-Azam's plan was to attack this institution economically,

because according to him the problem of the Mullah was economic, the
problem of his stomach and his daily bread. If he could be given
economic security and dignity and self-respect, the very raison d' etre
 -68- LOUD THINKING

of his existence would be nullified, As I understood from Allama

Parwez, Quaid's plan had four parts;
(1) All those "Moulvis" who had reached the age of
superannuaflon, should he pensioned off. In other words, their
old age security should be fully guaranteed.

(2) All those who were still young or beginners should be given
priority in bemg admitted to modern schools and colleges, thus
acquiring modern skills and enlightenment just as their
contemporary compatriots.

(3) After completion of their education they should again be given

top priority in acquiring jobs. None should be left unemployed.

(4) While the existing lot were being absorbed In the economy of
the country, the Darul Uloms and Deeni-Madaris, and they
were not many in 1947, which manufactured maulvis in these
factories should oe closed down and no new ones should ever
be allowed to be established.

Such was a simple but effective plan. The issue and its solution is
exclusively economic. MAH. Isphahani in his book "Quaid-e-Azam as I
knew Him" records an incident which both surprised and hurt him to the
core. In the course of the parliamentary Board meeting (1936) the
Maulanas estimated a sum of Rs. 50,000 for propaganda purposes. Of
course, the league had not even fifty coppers in its coffers. The
workers were expected to work with whatever resources they could
muster and to produce positive results. Disappointed the Maulanas
drifted in the direction of the Hindu Congress and conducted
propaganda for the Congress party which could meet their financial
demands. Indeed there could not be a more diabolical example to
prove the economic reason for the creation and maintenance of the
priestly class.

I am not aware if Quadi's plan is documented fully in these four parts in

his papers or Allama Parwez's papers. May be someone, some day,
will be able to discover further details about it Nevertheless, I thought I
should take this opportunity for I think it is my duty, to put on record
what I know. Of course, my source of authority is Allama Parwez alone
and I am glad I was able to get this information from him and glad that I
am able to communicate it to you.
 -69- LOUD THfNKING
JINNAH REINTERPRETED

I had barely finished writing a rebuttal to Rafiq Zakaria's "Iqbal - the

Poet and the Politician" when another book "Jinnah Reinterpreted" by
Sad R Khairi was handed over to me. The former was from India, the
latter is from within Pakistan. First published in 1995, it has now come
forth, in 1996, in paperback. In his preface to this edition, Sad R Khairi,
while remarking on the reception he received to the earlier edition,
says: "What came as a surprise was the extent and warmth of
welcome. People do want- to know the truth." This is with reference to
the opening of his book, by a saying of Socrates: "Do not be angry with
me if I tell the truth".

Now what is the "truth" that Khairi has pronounced, and the people
have welcomed it? That neither Jinnah nor Iqbal ever wanted partition
of India! In his chapter on "Search for an Alternative" for the unity of
India, Khairi.says Jinnah fought to the last to safeguard the unity. "The
Muslims were fast reaching the end of their tether but Jinnah was sti\l
reluctant to make the demand. Jinnah did not want to burn the boats
before giving the Congress yet another chance. but Jinnah was still
reluctant to make the find choice. Even in the Lahore Resolution, he
kept the option open. ultimately it was Jinnah who tried to save the
unity of India by accepting the Cabinet Mission Plan, and the Congress,
which destroyed it by its rejection. the unity of India. had been saved
by one man who could have done it." So. the long and short of it is that
it was "Motile Nehru. by going back on his promises to give safeguards
to Muslims. had turned them away from a united India. Jawaharlal
Nehru, b rejecting the Mission plan. forced them to Partition. the
Pakistanis are under a heavy dept of gratitude to them. Some day they
must raise a monument to both father and son",

MS for Iqbal, Khairi says he "merely emphasized the need for unity
among Muslim ranks and freedom for a nation to construct its society
according to the political and communal goal it had set." He goes on to
say that Iqbal's Allahabad Address has been misconstrued as a
demand for Pakistan. and a myth has been created that he was the first
person to demand partition. Furthermore, knowing that the "myth-
makers" may be on solid ground regarding the clear-cut letters Iqbal
wrote to Jinnah, he wears round by saying, "He (Iqbal) was simply
thinking aloud to Jinnah ... he had opened his heart to Jinnah, and the
heart ever sincere, is not always meticulous or discriminating."

As if this was not enough, Khairi attacks the issue from another angle.
"Iqbal, although a practicing lawyer. was more of a poet and never very
 -70- LOUD THINKING

particular about the use of terms like "federation", "states" and

"provinces" or the subtle differences such as between "State" and
"state" And then he cynically ridicules the idea of terming "Iqbal-Jinnah'
on the pattern of "Mazzini-Cavour".

I have quoted at length (although there IS a lot more of similar nature)

so that the reader can appreciate when [ say that Sad R Khairi has
spoken the biggest Goebellion lie of the 20th century.

Obviously the main objective of Khairi is to delink Jlnnah and Iqbal. It

then becomes easier to nullify the very making of Pakistan and to
present Jinnah as a secular and diehard Indian nationalist, pining away
for Indian unity even more so than the two Nehrul This delinking also
eliminates Islam from the picture, because everything said and done,
no one can deny, not even Khairi, that Iqbal was the greatest exponent
of Islam in the 20th century.

Actually, Khairi (like most of l;1is intellectual compatriots) is at pains to

prove and project the trends that European experience unleashed on
the rest of the world, and which he has uncritically imbibed. The subject
nations are bound to be intellectually servile to the political dominance
of the ruling nations. But the sad thing is that human beings never learn
from other people's experiences. For more than 500 years the
European people have gone through the hell and fire of change in the
process of trial and error. In the course of time they evolved the
institutions of secularism leading directly to the fatal duality of public
and private laws; material motivation of profit making as a base for the
capitalist economy; majority vote deciding what is right and what is
wrong; and last but not least, nationalism and nation-states based on
territory, race and language

In this whole process, the European Man and his off-shoot, t~e North
American Man, is also a proud achiever of freedom from theocracy, the
Church establishment headed by the Pope and its hierarchy of clerics,
in whose presence the powerful monarchical dynasties and the cruel
feudal structure could not have been annihilated Overthrow of the
Church liberated the mind of Man so that great strides have been made
in the world of science and technology. But -- a very big but -- in spite
of this tremendous pride of performance, the western civilization, built
on these changes, has reached the end of their tether. To Pl't it in a
nutshell, the two devastating world-wars among nation-states
originated in Europe, where the concept of nationalism evolved,
moreover, European imperialism has been described as an extension
of capitalism: as for secularism, it was a secular government that
dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; it is the secular
 -71- LOUD THINKING

duality of law that has split and fragmented the Self of Man, lea,ding to
global schizophrenia, and threatening the survival of man; we are no
longer ashamed of Machiavellian devils destroying one's own group, or
the country next-door or even the whole earthly existence.

Again, secularism has not even been able to rise above gender
difference, still thrusting on woman her role of sex~symbolism in spite of
her fantastic human achievements. And then, having rejected God, we
have downgraded ourselves in the worship of the god of Mammon.
Alas! In spite of everything we are groping in the dark in search of our
true human identity and destiny. It is not that this scribe (alone) is
lamenting this grim speculate; it is the best thinkers of that very
civilization which made such great sacrifices and had the courage to
think ever so dangerously, who are desperately seeking a way out At
this stage, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
situation has been described as the "End of History". In the sense of
new ideas and new institutions, it amounts to saying "this is all we
have."

But, way back since 1908, Iqbal had been exhorting: "No, this is not
all". His whole poetic venture and his politics is an attempt to prove this.
He cannot be brushed aside as a mere poet The difference between
poetry and prose is not its form, but whether one is emotional or
rational in one's thought One can also be highly emotional and
unreliable in prose form. I think this standard must be kept in mind
when evaluating any piece of writing.

Iqbal's answer to the human dilemma lay in the Quran. This was his
option to capitalism of today. This was not a myth, it was matter of the
survival of the human race. He wanted to present this in the form of a
model, for there is no compulsion in the Quran For such a model, a
State is a prerequisite. Yes, there were several other schemes for
partitioning India by both Hindu and Muslim leaders, as Khairi points
Qut, but they have been relegated into the background because those
schemes were motivated exclusively on the basis of Hindu-Muslim
tensions and hence had a negative bias. Iqbal's scheme gained
momentum because it had a high and noble ground to work on which
was of universal importance. More will be said about it later.

Iqbal's Quranic scheme lives forever, while all the others have sunk into
oblivion. And let it be stated once and for all that Jinnah responded to
Iqbal's ideals to which he was converted between 1930 and 1935.
Jinnah would never have come back from his self-exile had it not been
for this conversion This is my challenge for all times. Nay, the Jinnah
who came back in 1935 was not the one who had earlier returned in
 -72- LOUD THINKING

1896, as Khairi would have us believe. His earlier goal, the spirit of
Ludknow and Indian unity, had been dead and buried Nothing had
changed since, what was he going to come back to? If it was still the
former goal, why did he leave in the first place? It all sounds very
unconvincing. Funnily enough, Khairi himself quotes Evelyn Wrench to
whom Jinnah said that he had first got his vision of Pakistan in 1930!
And the same was said to Syed Hasan Riaz. Then what "Jinnah had
not changed .. he kept on the same course that he had chartered in
Lucknow in 1916 .. he had not turned left or right, much less taken a U-
turn". Yes, Khairi's problem is his disgust and fear of religion, the
religion that was rightfully rejected by Europe. But then, Jinnah was not
converted to the religion that Khairi fears. As a scholar he ought to be
aware that the Pakistan Movement was often described as "Islam
Versus Islam", that is, the "Quranic Islam" Versus the "Mullah's Islam",
and never the twain can meet. This is the point where many a critic
falter, and this is where Jinnah is misinterpreted, and where efforts are
made to delink Jinnah and Iq~al.

As hinted earlier, Iqbal was attempting to meet the global challenges of

secularism, capitalism and nationalism, which end up in dualism,
mechaivellism and animalism. He sought unity and balance in the
cosmos and in the Self of a human being, a wholeness and
universalism in the human approach towards Nature and towards each
other. Thus Islam is a "wholeness", encompassing the "totality" of
human existence. It rejects the idea of cutting the humans into small
fragments, call it political, economic, social, sexual, religious, artistic,
racial or lingual. Once this is understood, then such statements as "The
Pakistan Movement" or that "Actually, Jinnah had secularised Muslim
Politics", as Khairi puts It, become irrelevant. It is in the concept of
"wholeness" that the future of humans lies, and it is in this concept
wherein human values are never divorced from human behaviour and
human development. The end result is the integration of the human
Self, which carries the whole system onwards and upwards. Now, the
mullah or the clerical class surfaces as the antithesis of this idealism in
favour of its own power and its collaborators, the vested interests.
Naturally, mUllah's Islam best flourishes in theocracy, wherein the
maulanas don the grab of Divinity and through "thought-control"
perpetuate the status quo. It was against this horrible scenario that
Jinnah stated emphatically and categorically that Pakistan would never
be a theocratic state. But perhaps it would come as a surprise to Sad
R Khairi that to the mullah, if theocracy is not POSSible, his second best
choice is secularism! So since Pakistan was to be a "Muslim State"
based on "Islamic Principles" and "democracy" and "justice" and
"socialism" according to Jinnah's pronouncements (and Khairi admits
this) this was the mullah's death knell. Secularism allows the clerics to
 -73- LOUD THINKING

function and control the personal life and laws of the people, but the
Quranic Islam eliminates the clerical class. In any case, with the
people's participation in the law making within the Quranic boundaries,
the clerical class becomes redundant. This was the genesis behind
mullah's opposition to the Pakistan Movement, and it was this mullah
who was the "undesirable element" in the words of Jmnah. In this
contest, "Quranic Islam" triumphed and the mullah's Islam met an
ignominious defeat It was Jinnah's great service to the Muslims of the
subcontinent to rid them of this dodder (akaas bail) that had been
eating into its body politic.

But of course, as Khairi writes "He (mullah) surfaced again sometimes

after Jinnah's death," flourishing under General Ziaul Haq with cries of
"Islamic State" and "rule of the Sharia". Khalri describes this as
mullah's 'revenge on Jinnah' It is a revenge. all right, but not for
reasons he gives. The revenge was for revealing the Truth, that is the
Quran, as Iqbal would put it. Quran is mullah's death and it is his
master-str~tegy to keep it buried in the gUise of being its guardian and
spokesman Ever since the world began, he has made a fool of us all,
and he continues to do so by creating a curtain of ignorance against
Iqbal and Jinnah and we all lap it up. The mullah is most vehement
about it because the fear lurks perpetually In his mind that the Quranic
Islam may wipe out and engulf hiS existence. His choice still remains a
secular united India where he cans be permanently at rest. His control
over the personal law will never be challenged In the name of religious
freedom.

Having said all thiS at length, the epithets, "communal" and

"fundamentalist", derogatory as they sound, do not apply to the Quranic
Islam, and hence to Jinnah either. So we do not have to feel
squeamish about it. These epithets are reserved for the mullah's Islam,
and the Pakistan Movement has nothing to do with il. This should be
declared loud and clear. By the way, If Islam is "fundamentalist" then
what about Nabi Muhammad (PBUH) and all the Anbiya who preceded
him? I challenge Khairi and others of hiS ilk to challenge the
superpower of today, just as the Anbiya challenged Nimrood,
Pharaohs, Ceasars and the Khusroes of the past.

I have a bone to pick With the author of Jinnah Reinterpreted, when he

says that Jinnah's acceptance of the Cabinet MiSSion Plan was his
effort to save the unity of India. I do not know a scholar can blatantly
make a selective choice by accepting some facts and ignoring others to
make the picture suit himself. Jinnah accepted the Mission Plan for
reasons other than Khairi mentions. The most important clause of the
Plan was the Grouping System ---------- A, Band C The last two were
 -74- LOUD THfNKING
Muslim majority areas, which could draft certain common features
when the Constituent Assembly met The Center was to be a weak
one, and after 10 years the Band C groups could opt out and secede
from the Indian Union. It was this Grouping System that Jinnah
accepted "as a steping-stone towards Pakistan", After this, what Indian
Unity is Khairi talking about?

Having rejected Islam as the basis of nationalism, how is Khairi to

make a case for Pakistan? Now read on as to what he says: "The
concept of two nations goes far back to the time of the Aryan and non-
Aryan, the noble and the ignoble. The nobles, divided into high and low
castes, formed an exclusive society to which no outsider was admitted.
the outsiders were dirty and filthy, whose very touch would pollute the
Aryans. That was the origin of the Two Nation Theory in India." Hence,
"The fact that the Muslims were a nation apart was taken for granted.
Everybody accepted it." To talk of high and low castes, of dirt and filth
and of racial division, as the basis of nationhood, as the twentieth
century moves on to its close·js a sad ref~ction on human intellect. If
there is any dignified basis to live and let live, it can only be on the
basis of world-view and sense of values that a group of individuals
hold. There cannot be any other base as dignified.

By and large, the intellectuals of Pakistan have a problem vis-a-vis

Islam. If they cannot accept it, there can be no quarrel about it,
because the sheet anchor of Islam is free will and choice. But they
should not project their own ideas, their own subjectivity on Jinnah as
the founder-father of Pakistan. And del inking him from Iqbal is like
telling the tale of Denmark without Hamlet. Thereby, they shake the
very foundations of the state. But Pakistan has come to stay. Of
course, they have a right to suggest different systems and different
world-views to the Pakistan Idea. They may, if they are so fed up of it,
or genuinely disbelieve in its existence, undo the work of Iqbal and
Jinnah. But they should do so on their own responsibilities and
convictions, and on their own strength. they should not act cowardly by
taking refuge under the umbrella of Jinnah by attributing things he
never said or meant.
 -75- LOUD THINKING

PARWEZ AND THE PAKISTAN MOVEMENT

Generally when we talk of anyone's role in a freedom movement, the
image of a freedom fighter looms large on the horizon as one who is
seen in the midst of clanging swords and the neighing of horses;
booming of bomb explosions and crashing down of planes. Another
image is the glamour and exhibitionism of "jalsas" and "jaloos", the
agitational politics with its "Iathi" (batten) charges, arrests and
imprisonment's. These methods, barring a few exceptions of great and
genuine heroism is a short cut to fame, bringing to the forefront faces
and personalities on the mass media, with banner headlines and
photographs, with all the gimmicks and public relations of the modern
electronic technology. They are thus recognised and talked about by
the man on the street and some even gets included in school
textbooks_

But there is another kind who works quietly, and in the background
without arty desire to exhibit themselves, because for such individuals,
hard work and sincerity in themselves are their own reward This is in
Quranic terminology their 'sawab' and anything more than that
embarrasses them. PARWEZ is one of them Over the years, as 1
watched and became familiar with his agonising concern for humanity,
his non-stop research into the realm of ideas, his single minded life-
style towards a determined goal -- and all this without glamour and
away from the public gaze -- his words echo again and aga;n in my
ears today when he once made a powerful comment as follows:

"Remember, the foundation on which a building stands is

always invisible" Yes, Parwez's role in the Pakistan
movement, as I see it, is seemingly almost invisible, but
foundational and decisive.

Several times during my personal dialogues with him he emphasized

two particular points with reference to the Pakistan Movement. I am
sure many of you are familiar with these points because he mentioned
them in his writings, his weekly lectures and the annual Tolu-e-Islam
Conventions. He wanted to bring home to us these issues perhaps to
motivate us to think or even work in that direction. Firstly, he
emphasised that no history of the Pakistan Movement can be written in
the correct perspective until and unless the years between 1930 and
1935 in Jinnah's life are researched, studied and understood. We will
fumble and bungle, write volumes on it, but it will not be history.
Secondly, he said that the authentic history of the Pakistan Movement
is enshrined in the pages of "Tolu-e-Islam" of May 1938 to June 1942.
 -76- LOUD THINKING

Fortunately, in the year 1973 I was jobless, with plenty of time and
energy on my hands, I decided to make the best of it and take up the
challenge. Of course I was nervous knowing my limits and capabilities.
I attempted a mere spadework only, and I was glad it was done during
Parwez's lifetime, for I could seek his guidance whenever I got stuck.
My response to his challenge took in its sweep a hundred years of
freedom struggle, from 1857 to 1947, but exclusively as the projection
of the "Pakistan Idea", as distinct from a narration of political events.
According to my grasp and understandmg of the problem my
spadework research is restricted to four personalities only, i) Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan, ii) Iqbal, iii) Jinnah and iv) Parwez. Today, of course, the
role of Parwez alone is under perusal.

For Parwez's role I have relied wholly on the Tolu-e-Islam issues of

1939 to 1942. In order to understand the material that lies embedded
in these issues, a brief background is necessary, because this material
was not written in a vacuum and Parwez's role anyway cannot be
isolated from that of Iqbal and Jjnnah.
In this search for Truth, Parwez had traversed many and varied paths,
experiencing all kin's of ordeals with the "Pirs" and "Sadhus" (many of
you must have made a perusal of it in his celebrated book on
"Tassawwaf Ki Haqeeqat", until he landed in Lahore to become the
most willing, the most dedicated and the most brdliant students among
all those who flocked to Iqbal's abode. No wonder that when Iqbal
planned to inaugurate the monthly magazine "Tolu-e-Islam", his
selection finally fell on Parwez as its editor, who from now onwards
was destmed to work with the lamp he had lit with Iqbal's flame of
knowledge.

Iqbal was the foremost ideologue of the movement. Today, the word
ideologue and Ideology have been so defamed and vulgarised that one
feels shy or guilty owning them. Whatever may have happened after
1947, Indian sub-continent was just another country. The OPPOSing
parties fought a great ideological battle and there was no ambiguity or
confusion about what each party represented.

After Iqbal's death, Parwez picked up the ideological battle where he

had left it. It would be quite in place to make a very brief digression
here to clarify and pinpoint the issues, attempting at the same time not
to dis-interest you. We are in such melting pot today, that a little
repletion fits in

Actually, what had horrified Iqbal as a keen observer and a voracious

reader was the fact that humankind was inhumanly split into tiny lingual
and territorial units, and what is more, a human individual himself was
 -77- LOUD THfNKING
more split into departments. Islam to him (Iqbal) was not only the
destiny of the Muslims of India, he said, but "human destiny." (By the
way, in this context I am surprised that we continue to describe him as
a "poet of the East", when his works are deeply seeped in humanity
which elevates him as the "poet of humanity". This lapse should be
corrected and let "Tolu-e-fslam" make a beginning in that direction. It
behoves them to do this more than anybody else). Yes, to Iqbal,
"Neither the teachings of medieval mysticism nor nationalism nor
atheistic socialism can cure the ills of the despairing humanity" He
wanted to offer a solution that would not be "departmental affair", some
offering the salvation of the soul only, while others offered bread only,
and that too incomplete and unsatisfactory. "Islam" he wrote, "is
neither mere thought, nor mere feeling, nor mere action; it is
expression of the whole man". Furthermore, in this world of injustice
and exploitation there should be some group of people somewhere
who could stay the hand of tyrants and act as the chowkidar (not police
man l) of humanity. It was to this world-view and these concepts that
Jinnah and Parwez had been converted and educated. This kind of an
earth-shaking programme could not be forced on anyone--that would
be the negation of the free will--the greatest gift bestowed on
humankind by the Creator. Those who willingly accepted this ideology
would make a pragmatic test, bringing results that would act as a
leaven for other states, breaking down artificial geographical walls
embracing the whole human race. Such a test could only be made in a
sovereign state; that is the crux of the problem--hence a free state of
Pakistan, or for that matter any state anywhere in the world. This was
the basis of the Two-Nation theory, those who adhered to this and
those who did not. And it is obvious from what has been said above
that this division is not restricted to Hindu and Muslim India, but is a
universal phenomenon.

The very first issue of 'Tolu-e-Islam" which Iqbal was able to see before
his death, was dedicated to this vision. It said, "We present this
magazine, Tolu-e-Islam, to Allama Iqbal, and hope just as his light of
learning dispersed the clouds of darkness heralding a new "Islamic
Dawn", so this magazine may also prove to be its true beneficiary".

In the mean time Jinnah who soon grievously lost his friend, his guide
and a philosopher in Iqbal's demise, had called upon Parwez and
spoke thus: "I am well aware of your total adherence to the Movement.
This battle will have to be fought on three fronts--the British, the Hindu
and the "Nationalist Ulema", who will oppose the Movement under the
grab of Islam. I will take on the first two, my wish is that you tackle the
third one". (This was revealed by Parwez himself in 1972 during his
independence Day speech, later published under the caption, "Ah!
 -78- LOUD THINKING

Quaid-e-Azam, where are you?). From this event onwards began a

long personal and ideological association between them. It is common
knowledge now that Parwez was 'the person' who had access to the
Quaid anytime, anywhere without previous appointment. Information
and ideological advice of great value and import was delivered through
this direct access. The private secretaries were instructed to announce
him in, under any circumstances, during meetings, during interviews,
during meals, during resting hours. I never queried, for I somehow took
it for granted that Parwez must have kept a diary of these meetings, but
it seems he did not. I feel a loss of it as I write this, but if he avoided
writing it. he must have a good reason for it. Anyway, recorded or not,
this was an aspect of his very important role in the Pakistan Movement,
particularly when Iqbal was no more, leaving us at the very early stage
of launching of the movement.

However, the second aspect of his role, the Editor 'Tolu-e-Islam" is

recorded. For four years, May 1938 to June 1942, the most crucial
years when the ideologiGal battle was raging at its height, Parwez and
this monthly magazine, the only press media of the All India Muslim
League, stood up alone against all the powerful media of the Hindus,
the British and the Nationalist Ulema who either joined the Congress or
its various groups working under its flag. In this battle, the most difficult
elements were the Ulemas who posed as religious leaders and
condemned Sir Syed, Iqbal and Jinnah as "Kafirs". The major battle of
"Tolu-e-Islam" was to expose them and their defence of the stand taken
by the Hindus in attacking the basis of the Pakistan Movement. Why
the Ulemas took this stand is a separate story by itself and could be
dealt with some other time.

At the moment the nature of the battle needs to be put in its proper
perspective as enshrined in the "Tolu-e-Islam" issues by the Pen that
Parwez wielded.

Iqbal's 1930 Allahabad address, and finally the Lahore Resolution of

1940 based on this address were like disturbing a hornet's nest. Apart
from misrepresentation and use of un-dignified words by the
opponel'lts, the Lahore Resolution and the Pakistan Idea were attacked
from different angles and directions, and it was "Tolu-e-Islam" alone
that bore all these shafts on its shield of knowledge and conviction.

These shafts were clever and subtle. One such shaft was to
undermine and shatter the confidence of the Muslims. The Muslim
belief that Islam is the TRUTH, made them feel superior. It is this
feeling that must be attacked, and it was attacked in several ways. To
begin with, such a feeling was described as 'narrow-minded' and
 -79- LOUD THINKING

'prejudiced', A Muslims was thus labeled and made to dislike himself

and his identity. He was considered an obstacle in the way of unity.
So a solution was found in "Sufism', The 'Sufi Saints', past and
present, were glonfied and it was pointed out that both Muslims and
Hindus visited and venerated their tombs. There is no need for
outward rituals, for what matters is personal, emotional devotion to
God. This 'sacred and innocent' mould was being used to cast Hindu
and Muslim communities into one nation in the geographical sense.
Thus an Arya Samaj debates in Simla stated: 'Sufism is the only basis
of Hindu-Muslim unity," Diwan Lal Chand Navil Rai said: A true Sufi is
neither a Hindu nor a Muslim -- Sufisim is the only way by which all
inhabitants of India can be formed into a common nation. No wonder
Sufi saints were especially included in the Vardha Scheme of
Education. which was sponsored by (Mahatama) Gandhi (more will be
said about it later). As such Sufism had the support of Pandit Nehru as
well.

In fact it was through the Vardha Scheme of Education that

(Mahatama) Gandhi set the ball rolling on the political arena against the
superiority of Islam, to be picked up by others and pushed towards its
goal. The atmosphere was consequently full of cacophony of voices
from all sides -- 'all religions are the same', they said. Akbar's Deen-e-
Elahi and Oara Shlkoh's elective views on religion were much talked
about. The authority for such views was always (Maulana) Abdul Kalam
Azad's commentary on the Quran. Every Hindu speaker quoted him. It
was also translated in Hindi and brought to the fore in this stormy
political period in the political life of India

In the year 1941 i('l early June an "All Religions Conference" was held
in Sholapur, presided by Pandit Sundar Laiji. In his presidential
address he said that Islam itself preaches that all religions are the
same and no one religion is superior to another, that is what Maulana
Azad says. It is true that external rituals are different. what matters is
"Devotion to God" and "pious deeds". Dr. Bhagwan Dass wrote an
article on 22nd February, 1939 in the "Hindustan Times". He stated
that all great religions are the same at least in their essentials.
Differences are only in minor details. Thus these "essentials' or
'Universal ethics' should be taught in school text books where the future
generations are growing up.

"Tolu-e-Islam" took up cudgels against this threat to the Muslims and

declared that Islam in any case is not a religion, and hence this
comparison is irrelevant. whether it is in the form of "Sufism" or the
'universal ethics'. As Ad-Oeen the Quran is beyond them, and as Ad-
Deen it triumphs over all the others. It further explained that obedience
 -80- LOUD THINKING

to God is possible only by implementing Quranic Laws as the only

sovereign. Thus the issue is not of 'personal devotion to God's laws
objectified in the Social Order. "Tolu-e-Islam" then tackled the issue of
'pious deeds', It said: "Pious deeds are an individual act of ministering
unto the poor and the weak. To suck blood out of man like leeches and
then, when he is about to faint, pour water into his mouth is no piety.
"Indeed, the just and unjust are not equal" says the Quran (9/19).

However, the Congress in their 'generosity' continued to make offers to

the Muslim League. It said that after achieving the "Sawraj" (i,e. the
independence) the 'religious freedom' of the Muslims will be intact,
meaning thereby that Muslims will be allowed to pray, to fast, read the
Quran and go to Hajj as they are allowed to do so under the British Raj.
The Queen's proclamation of 1858 had given 'religious freedom' to all.
The question that arises is if that is what Islam means, then what is the
difference between British Raj and Hindu Raj? What IS all this pother
about throwing the British out of India? Under the caption 'Sawraji
Islam', Tolu-e-Islam stated that after the achievement of Sawaraj,
western democratic system will be installed, and majority vote will
decide the laws of the land. The Muslims may be allowed to read the
Quran, but what if a Quranic principle clashes with law of the land?
Where would the 'freedom' find its expression?

Thus the battle raged. Sufism, universal ethics and religious freedom,
none could stand the Quranic shafts. The issue was not of some
'private affair' of the individual, but between man-made laws and the
Quranic Laws. Once this is understood, the picture falls into shape.

As early as 1869 the anti-Urdu issue had shown its tentacles. Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan, with his usual political acumen had realised that it was
not a mere academic controversy. In later years not much was done
by Muslim Leaders in the defence of their language. They realised it
only when anti-Urdu campaign was in full swing, and as the Pakistan
Movement gained in momentum, Jinnah declared it to be the lingua
France of the Muslim nation just as Hindi was of the Hindu nation

Of course, language as a language is not an end in itself, neither is its

importance such as it has gained in territorial nationalism. But
languages and their scripts are deeply linked with cultures in terms of
basic human attitudes, with historical processes and with the rise and
fall of civilisations. It would be interesting to quote here (Pandit) Nehru
himself. In his autobiography he says: "A change of script is a very
vital change for any language with a rich past, for a word-picture arises
with different sounds and different ideas. An almost insurmountable
barrier is put up between the old literature and the new, and the former
 -81- LOUD THINKING

becomes almost a foreign language that is dead. When there is no

literature worth preserving this risk should be taken. In India I can
hardly conceive this change, for our literature is not only rich and
valuable but is bound to our history and our thought, and is intimately
connected with the lives of our masses. It would be cruel vivisection to
force such a change, and It would retard our progress in popular
education" If this can happen by change of scrip! alone, what could
happen with the change of language? In this context, by making
English the official language In India, the British engineered a
masterstroke. But the British at least were constrained to maintain the
distinction between the ruler and the ruled. But Hindus talked about
'collective good', and raised slogans of 'joint electorate', 'one flag', 'one
language' and 'one nation', drowning the Muslims in a sea of sheer
numbers, that is, the Hindus. When the Muslims protested, they were
described as backward, agents of imperialism and toadies. Nehru,
whose thoughts on language and script have just been quoted,
remarked irritatingly, "These quarrels over Persian and Devanagiri
script are stupid!.".

Congress leaders used Sanskritised Hindi in their speeches before

mixed audience: wrote their correspondence and reports in the
Devanagiri script Yet they claimed to represent both Hindus and
Muslims. "Gandhi believed that Hindi in the Devanagiri script is the
only language of India." This was to be made possible in three stages.
First, Hindi was to be defined in such a way that it took Urdu in its
sweep. When Jmnah protested against all this, (Maulana) Azad
explained that Hindi IS really Urdu l The second stage was t'J slowly
introduce Sanskrit words into il. (One has to listen to the News
Broadcast of the Indian radio and television today, to map the
significance of this cultural attack). And lastly, to introduce the
Devanaglri script Gandhi tried to hoodwink the Muslims by saying that
the language for all India would be called not Hindi but 'Hindustani'.
The Congress ministries formed under the Act of 1935 made Hindi in
the Devanaglri script compulsory for all school children In 1939, a
Vardha sponsored book "Sab Ki Bali" (everybody's language) was
published. It was in a purely Sanskritised Hindi. In the language
column of the census forms people were advised to write 'Hindustani'
No mention was made of Hindi or Urdu. This valuable information
about the issues at stake are safely enshrined in the Tolu-e-Islam
issues, thank to Parwez.
 -82- LOUD THINKING

A MAN OF SUBSTANCE
(MY MEMORIES OF PARWEZ SAHIB)

My association with Parwez Sahib is a long one, from 1956 to 1985,

almost thirty years. These were the most meaningful, scholarly and
satisfying years of my life, I feel honoured to have experienced this
association, but I cannot say jf I can do justice to what J have to say
about him. I can only hope that some research scholar, today or
tomorrow, will be able to utilize the memories we are putting down in
this "Parwez Number" and write a comprehensive biography of a
caliber that is worthy of him.

Much that I would like to efface my "I" in these memories, it is bound to

intrude for obvious reasons. Parwez's own works enshrine his
understanding of the Quran; these memones deal with his human
relationships, little episodes, anecdotes, small incidents and so much
more that bring out his towering personality. As he himself often
explained that the SELF ,of a human-being awakens, develops or is
deformed only when he relates to other human beings; this cannot
happen in a cave, a Khanqah or a monastery, isolated from the
struggle and vicissitudes of life. Hence my observations and
experiences regarding him will perforce refer to "I" and "me".

I have vague childhood memories of "Tolu-e-Islam" issues of 1938-

1942 with Iqbal's portrait on its title page. My father received them
regularly and probably even did pamphleteering on "Tolu-e-Islam's"
behalf. At the time I knew nothing about it, not even the identification of
the portrait Little could I have guessed at the time that was destined to
have such a long and deep contact with the "Tolu-e-Islam" movement,
turning the whole direction of my life along paths unknown to me
before

My first introduction to him is almost dramatic and in the long run

significant. Parwez Sahib himself, when I narrated this event to him,
was so taken up by its significance that he would himself repeat it to
fnends, and once even introduced me as such during an annual
convention when I was called to read my paper, It so happened that in
1956 when Parwez Sahib was still in KaraChi, he came to Lahore on a
lecture tour at the invitation of the Lahore branch of the 8azm-e-Tolu-e-
Islam, He had a busy and exhausting day, and was a little tired. His
friends, knowing mus'lc alone could relax him, decided to arrange a
musical evening with the up and coming young Singer of classical
"raag". namely Nazakat and Salamat Ali, The venue chosen was our
house. When the plan was suddenly announced at a short :lotice, I
 -83- LOUD THINKING

inquired as to who the chief guest was. When told that he is a great
scholar of the Quran, my face fell and I protested to my father that he
should not have agreed to invite a "Mullah" into our house and that
there was still time to change the venue. A little argument ensued
between us because my father was adamant. So I decided to quit the
house until Parwez Sahib had left. Actually I had reached a point in my
life when Islam and Mullah became totally identical. (This concept has
been further strengthened during the last eleven years and an Islamic
state and theocracy, rule by the Muliah in the name of Divinity, have
become synonymous terms.) This is the Mullah's triumph and little does
he care that it has alleviated a whole lot of people from Islam itself and
hence is self defeating. I could not visualize myself and a Mullah under
the same roof, such was the intensity of my reaction Now, to convert
such a one to Islam is quite a feat, and Parwez Sahib did it. Such is the
significance of his triumph; may be my case was symbolic of the youth
of yesterday and today and for days to come.

The question th;3t arises is as to when and how did It all begin? When I
look back it seemingly is a sheer chance. I was preparing a lecture for
my class (I had started teaching only a year ago then) on the downfall
of the Muslims In my search for some meaningful material I tried to
consult several books when I came across "Asbab-e-Zawa/-e-:.Jrnmat".
As I attempted to read slowly (my Urdu being mostly self-taught) 1
forgot all about my lecture and got totally absorbed in the book for its
own sake. Later when I checked the name of the author it was the
same Mullah who had graced our house a few months earlierl Anyway,
whoever he was he had shaken me and shown me the light at the end
of a dark and long tunnel. However, the book itself raised thousand and
one questions and I had to traverse a long path before I was fully
convinced-------- the direction of course was definitely that light he had
shown This was thus the beginning of a correspondence between
Parwez Sahib and me, with letters flying With tremendous frp.quency
between Lahor8 and Karachi, until he hin,self moved to Lahore after he
took his (pre-mature) retirement from service. The letters were now
substituted for personal meeting as he was available to all Visitors after
4 p,m. At least for the next twenty years there are very few evening that
missed; discussions were endless and questions were always erupting
up. His mode of answering questions was most enjoyable and unique.
The simplest or the most abstruse question was tackled, sometimes
with a mere phrase, a sentence, an anecdote, a joke or with a counter
question, or even with a mere facial expression. Sometimes he would
enter into a long explanation if the question so required. \ thoroughly
enjoyed it all and because of this remarkable art of dealing with
questions my favourite session during the Tolu-e-Islam ConventIOns
was the "question-answer" session and he knew it The question WHY
 -84- LOUD THINKING

is the beginning of knowledge and Parwez Sahib would get concernr:d

If no questions were forthcoming for that was a sign of mental
stagnation he said. What a contrast to the Mullah's fanatic and
obscurantist approach where a challenging question is tantamount to
"Kufr",

The atmosphere he radiated was that of absolute tolerance and

freedom Any topic under the sun could be discussed: there were no
inhibitions, no constraints, no "ghuttan". If I had experienced any sign of
"ghuttan" ! would have departed forthwith. But 1 stayed on never to
depart and his full-blast laughter from the depths of his throat and lungs
still rings in my ears.

During these informal sessions it was inevitable that \ met many

interesting people and gained great experience from their questions
and the way of looking at life. Many became friends for that assuaged
our intellectual loneliness which is the state of mind that adherence to
unconventional and revblutionary concepts one must face to remain a
part of it But of course Parwez Sahib taught and trained us
intellectually and emotionally how to remain a part of the whole, never
to be isolated, and of course like Sir Syed and Iqbal he was above
even a mere shadow of sectarianism. He remained not only ar integral
part of the Pakistani historical process, but embraced humanity in his
fold A movement based on the Quran cannot be wrenched away from
humanity and he belongs to all across all lingual, geographical and
racial barriers.

What made Parwez Sahib all the more lovable was his love for
children. He used to say that the smile of a child is the most refreshing
and releasing sight when one is tired in the midst of work. Their joy of
life, spontaneity and innocence uplifts ones spirits. Throughout the
thirty years that I knew him photographs of his nieces, Najma and
Salma, in their infancy or a painting of any smiling face of a child
remained in his study and on his desk He loved having children around
in the house and when his nieces were married their children in their
turn gave him the same joy. He always had candies and toffees stored
up to offer the children of parents who visited him, and I know many
young men and women today who have lovely memories of their
childhood visits. And what could be better in life than happy memories.

He was ever so kind to animals and birds. Here I shall narrate just one
incident about his pet-dog, a gorgeous Pomeranian In those days he
went out for walks in the evenings and the dog accompanied him. One
day a speeding car passed by seemingly over-running the dog. Parwez
Sahib was over-whelmed, squatted on the roadside and closed his
 -85- LOUD THINKING

eyes with the palms of his hands. Suddenly he felt a tug at his sleeve.
he slowly opened his eyes and there was the Pomeranian safe and
sound wagging his tail and looking up at his master. That evening when
I met him he said: no more pet dogs after this one There is so much
grief in human parting, why add this one to it?

Music was not only his hobby; he was recognized as the connoisseur
of music of Indo-Pakistan classical tradition. His knowledge of i( and an
ear for it was tremendous_ He would cry in agony if any singer went out
of tune. His approval was like a final verdict on ones accomplishments.
It gave them confidence and happiness I have heard the great Umarao
Bundu Khan sing for him in the very lawns of 25-8, Gulberg. Mahdi
Hassan (during his pre-film and TV days) gave several renderings of
classical raags. Nazir Farooqi often sang Iqbal's poems dl.i~ing the
convention. Parwez Sahib made special efforts to listen to Roshan Ara
Begum of whom he had very high opinion. I have seen h"Jr really
inspired when he was present among the audience. She knew he
understood every note, sur, the nuances and subtleties of the particular
raag she was singing Yes, for Parwez Sahib music was the height of
relaxation. With a large library of tapes and records he would listen to it
to recoup his energies; no wonder music has been described as the
food of the soul. and it has been well said that those who cannot
appreciate music or declare it as "haram" have no soull For we are in
an atmosphere where all creativity is looked down upon and reoressed,
to discover Parwez Sahib's talents and the encouragement he gave to
them, all the more so as the scholar of the Quran, I knew I had come to
stay In the Tolu-e-Islam movement

In fact 25-8, Gulberg was a haven for those who could no longer suffer
a meaningless and soulless existence engendered by Mullahism. His
consistent and persistent intellectual and rational criticism of priestcraft
as an institution communicated the most important message to us,
namely, Islam and Mullahism are contradictory to each other. The two
cannot exist together. Perhaps the greatest damage that Ziaism has
done is that he has identified Islam and theocracy, almost wiping off the
achievements of south Asia in particular and the Muslim world in
general for the past one hundred years at least

It is no wonder that as far back as Liaqat Ali Khan himself, Parwez has
been gagged on the mass media ---- the press, the radio and later
PTV. The way the media Ignored him, coupled with the virulent
propaganda of the priesthood against him, they have succeeded in
creating a curtain of ignorance, depriving the people of a public debate,
enabling them to sort out their own commitments. Eventually a
thousand Mullahs signed a declaration condemning him as a kafir.
 -86- LOUD THfNKING
When I referred to it soon after. he smilingly said that he had been
greatly honoured, though he did not deserve it, because by doing so
they have lined him with such great ones as Sir Syed, Iqbal ana Jinnah,
who each in turn had been treated as such. 'Well" he continued "if they
think I am that great, it is their own outlook", At another time he made a
very intriguing comment, "Mullah is my touch-stone. As long as he
criticizes me, I know I am on the right path. Any approval by him would
set me thinking where have I gone wrong?

How Iowa Mullah and his minions could stoop was often witnessed by
me when he received phone calls. All of them if not more, would be
abusive and threatening. For instance he would pick up the receiver,
listening with a subdued expression of surprise and human concern (as
if saying how could you?) and then put it down without a word. "Who
was it?", I could not help asking the first time. "Abuses, curses and
threats to kill" he said sadly. I understood. Since occasionally he
received important phone calls, he could not even put the rec<:!iver off
the hook. These threats went $0 far that friends advised him not to go
for his daily evening walks After that whenever I visited him after 4
P.M. he would be seen walking up and down his little lawn. Whatever
damage the priestcraft may have done, they have only displayed their
lack of self confidence in whatever they claim to know or to be. Those
who have something to say do not have to throttle, mentally or
physically, those who disagree.

With all his philosophical idealism, Patwez was a very practical person.
For example when young people or students came to him and were
desirous of serving the movement he immediately and emphatically
advised them to first acquire full skill in whatever they were aiming at
In the present Socio-economic set up which guarantees no security to
its citizens, they must make themselves economically viable. Without
economic security it is impossible to take off on the wings of idealism.
With feet well rooted into the ground one can grow into a tall tree,
otherwise one will leave every thing midway, losing at both ends. Being
emotional, zealous and inexperienced at the time, such an advice may
not have been comprehensible, but in the long run it was gratefully
appreciated.

Once, having known me for sometime he analyzed my attitude (and

many of those like me) by narrating an imaginary (but of course based
on reality) incident, "While walking along the road, you are a witness to
an accident. A person is injured. You are terribly concerned and upset,
you scream at those who caused the accident, you wail and weep at
the injured person, you criticize the continuous violation of traffic rules
and so on and so forth In the meantime the injured person is dead
 -87- LOUD THINKING

Now, there is another passerby who immediately notes the registration

number of the vehicle, piCks up the injured person and rushes him to
the hospital. Having seen to his first aid care, he informs his family and
lodges the report at the police station_ Later may be he even pr'Jtests in
the mass media or does something positive to eradicate traffic
violations. However, what matters is that due to him the life of the
injured person was saved. After narrating this event he added, "You
belong to the first category" This was indeed an eye opener alld it did
me a world of good and I felt much better within myself. It went a long
way in helping me to change my approach to external conditions.

In his dealings with people he was very direct. He did not mince words.
He did not hum and haw and make false promises, a typical attitude
not only in social relationship but government and private offices as
well. It is so reminiscent of the false sense of etiquette in the decadent
Awadh culture. If he could do something, he did it, if he could not, he
would just say he could not To a Pakistani this sounds abrupt, but it
was hont:st and practical and eventually led towards better human
relationship.

It is universally recognized that Parwez Sahib excelled in a rare

combination of a writer, a speaker and a conversationalist In all these
three modes of communication he will go down in history as a rarity.
But I would like to deal here with his role as a teacher and a friend.
Today the role of a teacher IS restricted to the limits of a class room,
where he "talks at" not "to" an unmanageable numbers and to whom
hardly anybody listens. The ancient concept of close association
between the teacher and the student, where the personality of the
former is constantly exposed and where he is constantly watching and
guiding and answering queries, sorting out inner confusions, conflicts
and frustrations. It is change of attitudes and world-view and the
development and unfolding of the SELF t'lat is aimed at. This is a life-
long process. Parwez was a superb teacher.

Once I was in a frustrating mood because of some horrifying

international event. "I seem to lose faith in humanity", I said tearfully.
Smiling softly he asked: "Do you have faith in your own SELF?" I was
taken aback at the turn of the question, and I replied "1 hope SO"I "Well
then", he said smiling broadly, "beginning from yourself you must reach
out again to others embracing the whole of humanity". I felt my eyes
brightening and my heart full of hope again. Ever since, this approach
has worked wonders with me.

At another time Parwez Sahib guided me by saying that 'We tend to

measure things and events by our own life-span and space". This is
 -88- LOUD THfNKING
where we falter. Results of human thoughts and actions have their own
measure of time, they mayor may not be witnessed in our life-time. We
are the beneficiaries of what the previous generations did, the future
generations will benefit from what we do_ Indeed many find this difficult
to swallow, but then this is a historical fact

Becoming aware that politicians in Pakistan and elsewhere succumb to

internal and external pressures, detrimental to the peoples 'interest, I
inquired, "why can't they resist or just qUit their seats. They CQuid take
the people into confidence and I am sure they will give them not only
support but also loving acclaims". "Aah!" he smiled, "It's because there
is always some thing black at the bottom!" Everything fell into place by
that one phrase. Seeing the oppression of the three Martial laws and
experiencing the authoritarianism of a priest-ridden society I wondered
what would happen to the people's psyche. "You see", he said, "the
more forcefully the truth and freedom are pushed down, then like a ball
they bounce upwards as forcefully. Furthermore, one shoultj never
cease to speak and write the truth, for truth once spoken is never lost."

Parwez Sahib was born in the mango season, July 9th, and he loved
mangoes. Often I would wish him happy birthday with gift of mangoes.
Once he said: "Birthdays are evaluated chronologically, it is not
quantity but quality of the life that matters" He never lost an opportunity
to educate me, and I was not the only one. There were innumerable
others who were similarly educated. His friendly and loving concern for
the youth in particular and others in general was written about by a
foreign western scholar who had never met him before. Surprised,
Parwez Sahib asked him how could he make such a comment without
knowing him "1 read your letters to Salim" was his simple reply.

This loving concern and edUcation was a gift, free of cost, nay, even a
"thank you" was not expected in return .

The challenge that Iqbal had thrown in his direction was fantastically
responded to. He had said, "If you stand on one sot holding the lamp,
only the surroundings will be illuminated. But if you start walking with
the lamp it will continue to lighten your path all the way through". Ever
since Parwez Sahib worked like one possessed, never wasting a single
precious moment. He was either thinking, reading, writing or
communicating his thought. Every day without fail, he was at his desk
at 5. A.M., writing endlessly till 4.p.m., stopping in-between briefly for
hiS simple, frugal meals. The self-discipline was unbelievable. :f he fell
ill for a day or two, he would put in more hours of work to make it up.
His main regret and suffering during his five months illness was that he
had lost so much time. He shed tears over this waste copiously. (He
 -89- LOUD THINKING

had no inhibitions about a man shedding tears --- there was nothing
traditionally "feminine" about it, it was simply human_) If I found him
disturbed, it was only due to interruption during work. His total
concentration was expressed deep in his eyes, as if on fire with
inspiration and profound thought, based on continuous meditation and
extensive and the intensive reading_

The productive output was great, it does not need to be listed here; it is
common knowledge. The list sounds unbelievable not only to us but
even to eastern scholars who are themselves attuned to hard work and
research. Some of them on a visit to Pakistan wanted to meet him,
having heard of his "Classification of the Quran", the "Dictionary of the
Quran" etc. They presumed he had a whole team of research
assistants; when told that there was no one and he had done all this
single handily they left immediately without any further discussion,
saying that it was not possible and he was lying. 1 happened to visit him
the same evening when he amusingly told me of the strange event with
a gesture of tlis hand to indicate as to how was he to convince them?

Unknowingly they had paid the highest tribute, recognizing the

Inexhaustible capacity to work. PaNlez Sahib himself did not think he
was anyone special, everyone can do it, he always insisted. I do hope
the scholars concerned know it by now that it was indeed a one-man
show.

What makes his achievements greater still is to have worked under

unhappy political, economic and social pressures, and manifold
responsibilities at a very personal level. He did not let tensions and
stresses affect his nerves and the heart. This was declared so by his
surgeon and the anesthetic who were all agog to see his fit condition
for a seven hour long operation on his spine almost at the age of 82
years. This reminds me of the fine distinction he always made between
"worrying" and "thinking" The classical Iqbal like pose that many
indulge in may appear as a thoughtful pose, but actually most of the
time they are worrying. "You must think of a solution to a prob:em, not
worry about it," he advised. No wonder I never saw him frustrated. This
was a condition unknown to him. Frustration and hopelessress are
"IBLEESIYAT" the natural result of emotionalism, unrestrained and un-
harnessed by" reason plus "Wahl" To the last moment his books,
articles, lecturers and conversation remained seeped in optimism,
hopefulness, enlivened by vigour and youthfulness. BearinJ a few
exceptions, thinkers and rebels, no matter how vigorous they might
have been in their youth towards old age they turn towards IT'ysticism
and Sufism, weighed down by physical infirmities and strains and
stresses of life particularly in the socio-economic system which is
 -90- LOUD THINKfNG
incompetent, unjust and corrupt, causing unnecessary irritants and
insecurities. Parwez Sahib lived in such a one but wrote a most
challenging book, which shook quite a few learned scholars, criticizing
the concept of Sufism and that too during almost the last decade of his
life.

We have seen Parwez Sahib was a man of many parts. Along with his
serious single-minded purpose of life, he had the artless art of repartee.
There are many an occasion which I have lost track of, (I never realized
one day I would be writing this, or else I would have noted down many
such words he uttered) a few that I do remember I shall recount.
Indeed, wit and humour gurgled within him all the time, accompanied
by laughter was infectious.
My aversion to priestcraft the readers are already familiar by now
hence this topic came under discussion constantly. One day I said
desperately, "how could they survive all these centuries and with such
forceT "You see", he said light-heartedly, "there has always been an
unholy alliance between the priest and the vested interests. While the
latter allots lands to the former here on this earth, the priest in his turn
allots them lands in paradise In the hereafter."

All those who have attended Parwez Sahib's weekly lectures of one
and half an hour's duration may remember him seated on a shabby
looking massive sofa. Once a lady, visiting from Karachi spotted that it
was badly worn out and torn at places. She was rather upset. She
convinced some of us to accompany her to Parwez Sahib and offer to
change the upholstery of the sofa. We readily agreed. When she
expressed herself accordingly, he chuckled and said:" I am not yet
dead, and you are already offering me chadars!"

He was a great champion of women emancipation (If he wasn't it

would have been the parting of the ways for us). Once while talking on
the subject, he quipped, "I reserve my final evaluation of a woman until
she becomes a mother-in law!"

During his last illness I once spoke out thusl "Every moment of my life I
pray from the bottom of my heart for your speedy recovery."

"Alas!" he replied, with a twinkle in his eyes, "So my illness has made
you too believe in prayers?".. in the traditional sense. This was an
obvious reference to my almost aggressive aversion to the traditional
concept of prayer and worship similar to all traditional religions.
 -91- LOUD THINKING

Once explaining the monotony and lack of imagination about the menu
cooked, he said with a wry humour;" It is meat and cabbage today, and
it will be cabbage and meat tomorrow!"

/I is many years now that we have been actually missing his presence.
To hear or to talk to a man about the Quran and Islam without suddenly
assuming a pious look, foolishly posing as divinity, thundering and
throwing thunder bolts at the frightened listeners, was somethirg out of
the world that we are made to live in. No beard donned his face, and
like Iqbal, till the last moment, he got himself shaved lest even in the
last moments of his life he was identified with the Mullah's outfit. He
looked straight in the eye, without feigning false piety and modesty; that
sheepish look we are so familiar with, which evades you with downcast
eyes but which surreptitiously glances sideways at everything around In
so nauseating a manner was rejected as identical to "Islamic" behavior.
He always stood out in the crowd and at many a gathering peoDle have
asked me "who is he?" Why do you ask?" Because he looks so
distinguish!,,:d. He has to be somebody" And so he was.

Today we have to pursue his objectives and carryon the movement as

he did: self-reliant and depending entirely on our own resources. We
have to be strong, for we can lean neither on the local feudal lords and
big business nor on any international backing. There are groups who at
least for moral support, if not any other, look up to London,
Washington, Moscow, Delhi or whatever, but we have to quietly march
on with the strongest support that we have, the Quranic permanent
values.
 -8£- LOUD I HINKING

PARWEZ - THE WHOLE MAN

One thing that always confused and bugged me was as to v...ny does
"religion" reject reason and beauty. Terms such as "blind faith" and"
piety" (as against beauty) did not make sense, for after all Why should
the Creator bestow these upon us if they were not to be used? These
questions came up in my mind perhaps because of my c:lildhood
schooling and liberal parenthood. In nursery and kindergarten classes
we were taken out for long walks in the woods and different kinds of
trees, birds and even nests and ant-hills were pOinted out by the
teachers as marvels of Nature. And we sang joyfully and loudly with the
piano every morning about "all things bright and beautiful, good Lord
made them all". If good Lord made them, how could they be evil?

As time passed, I noticed a strange kind of dualism in the society,

which I am afraid, still persists, in fact in a more pernicious form.
Individuals who enjoy seeing Indian films with their sexy exhibitionism,
each film the exact replica -of the previous one, listening to musical
concerts, classic or cheap, go to dance sessions and so on and so
forth, suddenly transform into solemnity of a mourning look, a stooped
posture and a slow gait, the moment they enter a "religious" discourse
or a "religious" presence of a house of worship. To live in two worlds at
once sounds very schizophrenic to me. In my early and late teens I was
simply bewildered The result was I fell into a world of total negation
and I suffered.

It was good thing that Parwez came to my rescue when I contacted him
after reading his "asbab-e-zawal-e-ummat, " which I came across
through sheer accident while browsing through my father's little library.
These reminiscences are hovering around me for this is the month of
February when Parwez parted from us into eternity thirteen years ago.
All the more so because of the worsening condition in the realm of
creativity and joy and beauty. I am reminded more and more of him, for
here was a man whose life and personality was a total unity, a one
whole. As a scholar of the Quran, his mood, his expressions, his
activities were all in unison Those who have not met him personally
during his lifetime can catch a glimpse of this in his videos. Talking on
the themes of Divinity, Revelation, Values, Self, Here and the
Hereafter, an indivisible whole of our existence, he laughs, he jokes, he
dramatises along with the seriousness of the subject. It is something
that touches us in totality, not as a pie in the sky having noth·lng to do
with the "profanity" of life on this earth.

Those who are provoked by what I am saying should read Parwez's

 -93- LOUD THINKING

'Art and Islam", an excellent rendering of the subject Every item of

utility, he writes, has an aesthetic lining to it Denying beauty is
tantamount to confronting the Creator. While procreation is restricted to
the animal kingdom, creativity is Divine, in which we are co-sharers of
Allah, true as mere specks, while He is Companion-in-Chief. (Not
having comprehended this elevated position bestowed L~pon us
humans, we sank into animalism, multiplying from 3.5 crores (35
millions) to 14 crores (140 millions) in 50 years!). Do we realise that the
universe, the oceans, the mountains, the vegetation, everything exudes
colour, sound, rhythm and poetry? To deny and reject all this, as
Mullahs and Sufis do, is to end up in perversion. Since this is unnatural:
they end up by entering into it through the backdoor. The worst part of
all this is that all these attributes are summarised and fixated into the
woman. And then they are so scared of her (or rather themselves) that
they shut her up in the house. Writing in the "Friday Times" Fayyaz
Mahmood says; "For God's sake -- you can not protect your women by
locking her up in the house. What is the family system anyway other
than covering up of incest and violence towards women?" After this,
there is not much that one can say on the subject.

In the article mentioned above, "Art and Islam" Parwez has beautifully
sorted out the issue according to the Quranic approach. Anything that
is health giving, positive, full of life and joy, enabling to meet the
challenge of life, anything that does not overflow the banks (that is, the
permanent values) is Islamic. Its reverse is perversion and inhibition,
depression and death. Can the reader recognise himself/herself in it?

Yes, until this month of February 1985, when Parwez was alive we
shared his outburst of laughter, admired his knowledge of music as
perhaps the greatest connoisseur of his time listening to Malkai-
Moseequi ( Queen of Music) Roshan Ara Begum and Umrao Bundu
Khan. His library of musical tapes and records was as impressive as
his library of books. His appreciation of life- giving poetry, his never
miSSing out on the theatre, (which hardly exists now thanks to the
politicians and the Mullah) and great art movies of the West. All these
were appreciated as a Quranic venture, as Allah's co-sharer in human
creativity and not as a guilt-ridden Mullah or Sufi who cannot see life
straight in the face (in Parwez's own words) eye to eye.
 -94- LOUD THfNKfNG
A TEACHER WAS BORN

July 9, 1903, a teacher was born, perhaps one of the greatest

humankind has experienced through the ages. As this date
approached, my mind has been recollecting my experience of having
known Parwez as a scholar, an advisor, a neighbour, a fatherly figure,
a friend and above all a teacher. His scholarship stands out In his
erudite "Insan Ne Kia Socha" alone, notwithstanding his other great
works, but he also stands out in the reaction he engendered and still
does. I find a very apt similarity in a comment I came across in
Spinoza's oldest biography by an unknown friend which I would like to
share with my readers. I am sure they will enjoy the relevance, the
power and beauty of the words and concepts expressed therein. "Our
age is very enlightened" he says, "but it is not therefore more just to
great men. Although it is indebted to them for its most precious
enlightenment, and happily benefits therefrom, yet, whether from envy
or from ignorance, it cannot bear that anyone should praise them, and
it is suppressing that one should have to conceal himself in order to
write their life, as if he were about to commit a crime; especially is this
so if these great men have made themselves famous by views that are
unusual and known to common souls. For them, under the pretext of
doing honour to received options, however absurd or ridiculouS, they
defend their own ignorance to which they sacrifice the sanest light of
reason and, so to say, truth itself. But whatever risk one may run on
such a thorny course, I would have profited little indeed from his
philosophy whose life and maxims I take upon myself to write, if I were
afraid to undertake it ....... even if this work", continues the biographer,
"which I consecrate to the memory of an illustrious friend, be not
approved by everybody, ·It will at least be approved by thosf who only
love Truth and who have a kind of an aversion for the impudent mob."
I have read and re-read this comment. each time to find it more
illuminating, more relevant and truer than ever before with reference to
Parwez's life and works. His views do sound "unusual and unknown to
common soul" but that is where lies his fame. This has caused the
envious and the ignorant to create an atmosphere in the country in
which everyone, though strangely aware of Parwez's presRnce, is
afraid to mention his name or quote him by name. Many scholars,
writers, journalists and teachers readily quote some of the basest and
mediocre of Quranic commentators for or against their own views, but
Parwez's name is an anathema. This does not mean that they do not
quote him, they quote him galore -- his words, concepts and
terminology, but they do not own their debt to him. Even those who
may dare may soon have to retreat. For instance during president
Ayub's regime, President House circular was printed daily in the
 -95- LOUD THINKING

newspapers, listing the names of all those who visited him that day.
Once in a while Parwez's name also seen in the list. This created an
uproar, so much so. that Ayub, ostensibly a powerful and highest
military executive in the country had to buckle down to the "impudent
mob" and the name was henceforth withdrawn, which of course does
not mean that Parwez did not meet him again. And yet it is the "soul"
of this "impudent mob" that benefited from these visits, for Parwez
played no mean part in the promulgation of the Muslim Family Laws of
1961 and the Land Reforms. These measures would have been far
more radical if Ayub had withstood the pressure of the vested interests,
the "envious" and the "ignorant" Another example is the helplessness
of the PTV It is sitting pretty on a twelve hours marathon interview it
programmed on Parwez's life and works, but it dare not televise it. As
for thE" politiCians and the priestcraft, both in their nature Machiavellian
and power hungry and in favour of the status quo have been using his
words and concepts as slogans and beating them hollow by repetition_
Come to think of it, I am a part of the same milieu, Certainly not
through envy.or ignorance, but certainly through the fear of lOSing the
opportunity of communicating Quranic wisdom to my students_ I dared
not mention his name in class. I do not know whether to call it funny or
criminal that though eventually everyone who knew me also k:1ew my
affiliatipns and the source of my knowledge and information, everyone
barring a few liberal and sympathetic friends, avoided a refe'ence to
PalWez. A strange hush hush atmosphere prevails, a silence pregnant
with an explosive awareness, I have been through p"'lin and
sometimes quilt at my fear, cowardice or what some may describe as a
simple defensive common sense, call it what you may, at not being
able to quote Parwez as liberally and generously as open quotes
Socrates or Aristotle, Machiavellian or Chanakya, Voltaire or
Raussean, J.S Millar B. Russell, Freud or From, Marx or Mao and all
by name. Nay, I did quote him copiously, but his name was a taboo,
and I cannot say for sure whether even r0W I am above this inhibition,
The walls of PffJjudice and ignorance are more impregnable than steel
and iron.

Two sides of this wall offer an intriguing contrast, on one side stands a
teacher, on the other a preacher and the twa'in can never meet. A lot
has been written on teachers and teaching, but I shall restrict myself to
the concept I evolved by sheer observation, of one of the greatest
teachers, Parwez. Since our sOciety IS so priest-ridden it will not be
difficult to show the other side of the picture. They abound in ever
increasing number in every nook and corner of the country, blowing hot
and cold down our necks whether we like it or not.

Parwez, the teacher, always appealed to the rational in humans,

 -96- LOUD THINKING

carefully reasoning with his listeners, developing their intellectual

faculties in the process with tremendous patience. The beaut~' of it all
was that the listener felt free to agree or opt out. It's not that Parwez
did not take a stand, he was a highly committed person, but he gave
the other person the confidence that he/she could fight back if need be.
The natural affect of this attitude on the listener is calmness, h0pe and
stability within, in spite of the change that might have taken place. The
"common soul" is afraid of change, it is easy to follow the beaten path.
But in Parwez's teaching change came without destruction.

The opposite of this can be now visualized. A preacher is emotional

and sentimental. He relies on the irrational and passionate forces
within humans, and like Shakespearean Anony he arouses the
emotions of the "impudent mob" unleashing destruction and anarchy all
around with shouts of "seek, burn, fire, kill and slay." The base of the
preacher is the fluctuating nature of emotions, which can be twisted in
any directions he wants. Each time the emotions subside, the effect it
leaves behind is pessimism and hopelessness, the fire extinguished
into ashes. •

In Parwez's attitude was implicit a belief in the respect for the humans.
I can never imagine him exploiting or using others for his own
purposes. Parwez the teacher was ever at pains to build self-respect,
confidence and independence among his students no matter how much
the latter may disagree with him. As long as he helps in makirlg him a
thinking person he was happy The preacher on the other hand
demeans and destroys the "self' of his listeners and surely nothing
could be more criminal and inhuman than this approach. "SELF" is all
that a human has; to destroy this is to destroy humanity itself. What do
we have left then?

Parwez was very humble and modest, almost to the point of self-
effacing whenever perforce he had to make a reference to him:::;elf. He
always described himself as a struggling student of the Quran, and no
more. He was open-minded and an excellent listener. SOMetimes,
very querulous people turned up with the obvious intention of hearing
him talk or have a dialogue with him about his "unconventional and
unknown" concepts to the "common soul", but ended up talking non-
stop themselves. He gave them his time and listened with wrap
attention even if they did not have much to say. I marveled at his
patience. When he lectured or conversed, he never talked "<3t" them
never made them feel different or inferior. But a preacher who is
always preaching "at" the congregation, be he a priest or a demagogue
or a politician, he develops a false sense of righteousness and behaves
in an arrogant manner. He thinks he knows everything. This is
 -97- LOUD THINKING

dangerous for the people at large, for this kind of so-called scholarship
or leadership can dampen the spirit of the people and make tllem feel
guilty and joyless.

A question, a doubt is the beginning of knowledge. Parwez was at his

best when challenged with a question. His evenings were mos~ly spent
in answering questions for that was the time when visitors were
welcomed. Some of us who visited him frequently were occasionally
chided if we failed to put a question over a period of time. We must
have stopped thinking, reading and observing or else why is not a
question being shot at him? "Pull yourselves up, or your minds will get
rusty", he warned during the annual conventions, my favourite session
used to be the question-answer session, and he knew it. Invariably, he
would remind me that day with a twinkle in his eyes. "Hope vou'li be
there, it's your favorite session."

What a contrast to the "Maulanas" in whose congregation a question is

unheard-of. In fact a question asked is enough of a reason to declare a
fatwa of "Kufa!". Do atrophied, unquestioning minds promise a
"tomorrow"? These preachers do not have even a "today" to offer for
they themselves are living in "Yesterday".
A teacher can only flourish in a democratic set-up. No wonder that
Parwez's presence exuded freedom and equality, in contrast to
authoritarianism of the preachers. In contrast to Parwez's smiling joyful
image we are confronted with faces that are severe, topped with a
perpetual frown, overlooking hollow, sunken eyes in a death-like mask.
These faces are symbols of undemocratic attitudes and so not auger
well for the country. No wonder it has been often remarked that
Pakistan, With so many preachers multiplying In geometrical
proportions, has lost its smile and whatever little hope it had for
democracy.

As a teacher, Parwez was always at pains to make us undersland the

issue at stake. He would repeat any number of times if need be, until
the point went home. He constantly reminded us the Quranic ir.junction
not to follow any thing that one does not understand This is a sure
path to disaster. However, the preacher relies in exactly v}hat the
Quran has warned against-- blind obedience. The concept of opting for
Allah's Laws through free will and understanding and r€3S0n is
euphemistically described as "submisSion to Allah's will". Furthermore,
this "Allah's will" is identified with ancestor worship. The sertimental
appeal to follow the path of the forefathers is a constant refrain,
deadening the rational faculties of the listeners. No wonder it was so
refreshing and enlightening to listen to Parwez when everything was
opted for on merit, on its intrinsic value. The vision broadened,
 -98- LOUD THINKING

advanced, opened, the issues were seen in their depths by gning into
the roots of them all. The preacher can only shout hollow slogans from
the house top and screen out "fatwas" against those who disagree.

Actual!y, the preacher has no knowJege or understanding of human

psyche. He is not concerned with the multitude he addresses as
person. The fountain of life and concern is dry within him so all he can
do is to emphasise dry ritualism and to hurl hellfire and brimstone
agamst those who dare falter. He does not think of explaining why one
should "pray", why one should "fast", why one should perform
"pilgrimage", except that if you are not a practicing believer you are
doomed forever. One sadistic pleasure they evince is in striking terror
into the hearts of the people, cursing them, abusing them and throwing
them into hell in the hereafter. The here and now, the hell on this
earth, pain in the mind and body that exists around us, they are not
concerned about. The wretched of the earth want a friend here, they
want here, they want here and now a balm to soothe their nerves, to
heal their wounds. If the. preachers are not concerned about this earth,
I am not convinced of their concern about any other world.

This is where lies the greatness of Parwez. He not only educated us,
he listened to everyone's woes and placed his fatherly hand!:> on our
weary heads. A teacher has to be a caring person, reaching out to allay
the fears and the worries that one is destined to suffer in an unjust
system. Last but not the least, a teacher is a universal phenomenon,
he belongs to humanity, not to any particular locale or pecple. A
teacher is a member of a human family, united in human brotherhood.
Parwez broke down our prejudices, dislikes, and barriers of :311 kinds
that seek identities other than human.

In contrast the preacher thrives on hatred, fear division and

sectarianism. This is their means of livelihood, their busil"1ess. If
human beings become one, the preacher will lose his job.

Looking back on what I have discerned in observing Parwez, a teacher

and a preacher represent two cultural approaches. One dynamic,
forward looking, positive, free and creative. The other decadent,
backward looking, negative bogged down in destiny and the status quo.
One is happy the other is sad. As the unknown biographer of Spinoza
said, "Those who only love Truth" will "approve" of a teacher. There
have been many great teachers; I was lucky I came to know one of
them.
 -99- LOUD THINKING

PARWEZ AS I KNEW HIM

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It has just been announced by the compere that I am going to speak in

English, and I am not going to apologize for it. We have assembled
here together on the binding link of permanent Quranic values and
concepts and attitudes, and not simply because we all speak Urdu or
Punjabi etc. These days, the manner in which we attempt to reduce
and limit our so-called national identity to languages and '... halwar-
kamiz' and jackets is pathetic and childish. In any case, we fail
miserCibly for clinging to an attitude, which, not surprisingly, is the fate
of all this kind of "Jahalat"- But thanks to Parwez Sahib, we are saved
from being confused and bogged down in lingual and sartorial
chauvinism and complexities. Language after all is of practical
significance, a mode of communication between one human being and
another. Language is not a "god" or else I would never have had a
chanc~ to.speak today, or on prevIous occasions in the ToIL'-e-lslam
conventions. I would have been made "dumb", an "Ajmi", but Parwez
Sahib gave me the tongue and the opportunity to speak. Before you
run away with the idea that I am merely looking for justificatory reasons
for my unforgivable ignorance of the Urdu language, let me roint out
that what I have said has far-reaching ramifications. For some years
now we have been in the grip of what is alien and what is Islamic and
local. We pick up some trivial elements of external life and state a
controversy, wasting time and energy. I feel ever so grateful to Parwez
Sahib for sorting it out for us: Anything inhuman is alien, everything
human and beautiful is Islamic. But to struggle against inhumanity is
hard and painful, to don shalwar-kamiz is easy I That is the crux of the
problem.

It is indeed presumptuous on my part to venture a comment on Parwez

Sahib. How much could I know him, how much of his personality could
I appreciate, how much of his mind could! comprehend? It all depends
so much on the level of my own life, my experience and my nlind - all
s~ puny, so little, so ignorant and limited when face to face with him.
r
How can I then be so presumptuous and so audacious , No,
audacious I am not; I am scared, but I have been pressed upon by my
friends here to say something.

Actually, what helped us was the fact that Parwez Sahib himself was
never patronizing, never condescending; he never let any of us feel
that ",e were ignorant or stupid or bad. I remember once some
students from college came along with me to meet him. One of them
 -100- LOUD THfNKING
said' "Parwez Sahib, I have a question to ask, but it is a very stupid
one", He immediately replied: "No question is ever stupid". This was
naturally followed by a lively discussion on a free and equal footing. In
my very early contacts with him, I discovered I knew nothing. What
had I been doing or studying till now? I recognized my absolute
ignorance, but he made me, and everybody else, feel wonderful, on top
of the world! He seemed to pick up the loose ends of the thread of our
personalities and our minds, and slowly, lovingly and imperceptibly
integrated us. When I first came in touch with him, earlier, through his
books and then in person, I was totally at a loose end - confused,
disillusioned, aggressive, cutting like a sharp knife every "g,Jd" that
came my way, and up in arms against the older generation, who were
terribly self-righteous but unable to answer my questions, u,lable to
satisfy me, The whole worldly phenomenon seemed meaningless and
hollow and in the human scheme of things I, as a woman, was on the
lowest rung of the ladder. However, I had come to one positive
conciL'sion, probably because my area of study was history, namely,
that at the root of all this ,evil was the all-pervading institution of
priesthood, in any given space and time. The second positivp aspect
was that I had negated everything and my mind was a clean slate I
discovered that this is what the phrase "La IIlah" in the "Kalima" means.
What would have happened to me if there was no Parwez to teach me
the "II-Allah", I shudder to think, The way he harnessed my intellect,
my energies, my potentialities is a saga by itself. The beauty of it is
that it was done without my visible or consciously being aware of it. He
knew the art of helping us by imparting the feeling that the
accomplishment was all our own. How did he do it?

If I may use the phrase, for lack of any other: he seemed to stoop to
conquer as it were; he came down to our level from his mighty heights,
and then made us stretch a little higher and higher, bit by bit, inch by
Inch. And all these without even a semblance of pressure, If anyone
was not willing to learn, to develop, he/she could depart, he alway's
remained a friend, always concerned. Let the prodigal come back, and
he received him/her with open arms. There were no complaints, no
grudges, Yes, we have, a year ago, lost the best of friends ill him. I
recall, as he departed on his last earthly journey, the one universal cry
from the heart that rose was: "we have lost a friend." Indeed, there
could be no better tribute, He was a friend to all, irrespective of age.
He WdS friend to an infant, a child, to a teen-age, a youth, to the
middle-aged and the very old. He could talk in the language'and idiom
of each age group, a rare quality. I pity those unfortunate cou,ltrymen
of mine who did not know him, who did not experience him. Perhaps,
they do not even know what they have missed.
 -101- LOUD THINKING

I would like to take this opportunity to declare it publicly that if today r

am still proud of my Pakistani and Islamic identity, it is because of
Parwez who in this tower of Babel that is Pakistan put thf' record
straight, and introduced Sir Syed, Iqbal and Jinnah to us. Had it not
been for that, we would have broken our moorings and headed towards
other alternatives_ Many of us would have surrendered to fanaticism
and blind faith - the refuge of the weak and the work-shirkers. It is so
easy to live on anti-imperialist slogans and gain popularity thereby. But
to face reality, to think rationally, to act in a restrained manner, to admit
one's failings and shortcomings, to struggle patiently without any desire
for reward and power, only Parwez could teach us.

The great ocean of knowledge and experience that he was, an

intellectual giant among puny and bombastic dwarfs, Parwez was the
epitome of modesty. He never posed as an intellectual, he was totally
unassuming His extensive and intensive reading, his burning of the
midnight oil, his perseverance and hard work for which, to use his own
words, he "squeezed time from the rays of the sun"; a life that he
thoroughly lived, as opposed to unlived lives, all this could be observed
in his eyes deep, alert, bright, seeing eyes, another the like or which I
have not seen. Yes, I was talking about his modesty. I needn't give a
list of his great works; you are all familiar with them. What I ""ant is to
share with you what he one day said: "I have tried to make it easier for
future scholars to do research on the Quran. Whatever I have done is
only the beginning". I was flabbergasted. "But you have done so much
research on the Quran already". I exclaimed. He only smiled Lenignly.
He often used to smile in that manner at my naive remarks "Parwez
Sahib", I would say again and again "people must know how tT;uch you
contributed towards the Pakistan Movement. You must tell this
ungrateful nation about your association with Qaid-e-Azam". At last
one day he said: "Remember Shamim Beti, the foundations of a
building are never visible. And yet, the whole visible edifice and
superstructure rests on it." I felt ashamed of myself. To whom was I
talkin~ 01 publicity and fame?

There was one other time when I felt ashamed on a similar theme.
was attempting a long research paper on the ideological history of the
Pakistan Movement. I gave him a prominent position as the editor of
"Tolu-e-Islam" and as an adviser to the Qaid. When he glanced
through it he said, not too happily: "So you have satisfied yourself,
haven't you?" I wanted to say he deserved it, but I did not and I could
not. I am afraid I wasn't growing up as fast as he wanted me to. r was
still childish.

Thirty years ago I started to teach. Seeing from hindsight I wonder

 -102- LOUD THINKING

what I would have done if I had not come across "Tolu-e-Islam"

literature. In a few weeks of so-called teaching I realized, though
vaguely, that I really could not be a teacher without a vision. One had
to move in some direction with idealism and a visionary outlook.

I had almost given up the idea of teaching. I particularly mentioned this

to Parwez Sahib as he lay ill, a few days before he passed aWay_ "You
and your books helped me to teach_ You made me a teacher." There
were tears ____ of joy in his eyes, and it's a moment I will neve," forget.
Talking of his last days, when I had the privilege of seeing him almost
everyday, there was one thought that preoccupied his mind, for he
mentioned it several times_ He said: 'The personality, the SELF of a
human being should always be kept distinct from his viewpoint and his
ideas. One may condemn, abuse or reject the ideas, but the person,
the SELF in a man should be respected. However, in Pakirtan, the
person is degraded, humiliated and abused." Then he added
pensively, "Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) was fortunate. The Arabs of
the time knew the fine distinction between the person as a person, and
the ideas that he projected." It seems he was hurt. I do not k.now by
whom and how he was hurt, but it is a painful memory for me. On the
other hand I cannot recall a Single Incident when Parwez Sahib ever
spoke degradingly about anyone. He respected every human being
and never spoke ill of anyone. Intellectual disagreement and criticism
of ideas was done with dignity even when the conversation was off the
record and at a personal level. It is only a person of this cahbre and
greatness who could produce beautiful people. I do not know many of
them closely, so I can only mention those who come to my mind off-
hand: Sourayya Andaleeb, Dr. Zahida Durrani, Dr. Salah uddin, and Dr.
Abdul Wadud. Parwez Sahib has left behind some gorgeously
beautiful people.

What a crime against humanity that such a man should be gagged, that
a curtain of ignorance should be created against him. When and who
banned him on the mass media, took a fatal decision. I can now
understand Iqbal's "Iblis Ki majlise-shoora" with greater poignancy.
The vested interests of Pakistan are afraid of neither western
democracy nor communism. They are afraid of the Quran. For
examrle, they are not afraid of Faiz (I am not decrying him, I have
great admiration for him), but they are afraid of Parwez. During his
lifetime and now after him, Tolu-e-Islam has never been sanc:ioned a
public hall for its public meetings. How petty can the opponents be? If
they think that they can harm Parwez, they do not know what '"hey are
talking about. Ideas and concepts are abstract and intangible, they
cannot be arrested, imprisoned and tortured. They spread into the
atmosphere and eventually become part of universal human assets.
 -103- LOUD THINKI oJG
To attempt to kill a positive idea is to kill one's own self. The whole
process of suppression and repression, gagging and banning, is in the
long run self-defeating.

In the end, alas! I cannot help saying that talking about ParwbZ in the
past tense is excruciatingly painful, not merely at the personal and
emotional level, but the fact that he is now absorbed into what we like
to describe as the "glorious past". For us, as a decadent society, with a
dead culture, everything good, everyone great was in the past, I do not
relish this theme. What about today, what about us? It was so
wonderful to have goodness and greatness in our midst, in the present,
throbbing with life, not buried under the earth, and in the past. Now,
one looks around for one in vain. If we are to believe Iqbal, such a
vacuum is filled only in centuries.

(Paper read on his First Death Anniversary on 25th Feb. 1986)

 -104- LOUD THINKING

WHY ARE THEY AFRAID OF HIM?

Soon after the Quadi-e-Azam left his earthly abode a circular was
issued to all the relevant departments that Parwez should be blacked
out in the media. This happened under the premicrship of Uaqat Ali
Khan. Thus "the "Radio Pakistan" and the Press (privat~ press
inclusIVe) treated him as jf he did not exist. Then came Ayub Khan's
regime. The press used to print daily a column captioned "President
House Circular" which listed names of those who visited the President
the previous day. Occasionally, Parwez's name was seen in the list.
Very soon there was a wild protest against its inclusion by the clergy or
the Mullahs and the henceforth his name was withdrawn from the
Circular. You see no one should know such a person existed. In the
early eighties the PTV interviewed the then survivors of the Pakistan
Movement and compiled a library of videos for future showing. But PTV
dared not televise it for their dear life for the clergy will be up in arms
even if it means burn'lng the whole country to ashes.

Moreever in case Parwez's impact trickles down to the masses who

would be the main beneficiaries of the Quranic system he projects, the
puppets of the mosques resound in every nook and corner of the
country with a propaganda that creates a curtain of ignorance against
him C¥]d the very name "Parwez" becomes an anathema. Thus at all
levels from the highest echelons of politics to the lowest unprotected
and illiterate commons of the society. It is seen to it that tte name
Parwez should be treated as or at least pretended that such a
phenomenon as Parwez does not exist ~

Why are they afraid of him? He had no political clout, no political

position or party, no army, no wealth, no power and author'lty. It is
eleven years today that physically he is no more and yet he ;emains
gagged as before. They are still afraid of him, If I may attempt an
answer the verdict of history is that power lies not in material rE"sources
or brute force, but in IDEAS. History also proves that power and force
cannot kill an idea. The nose of the humans may be cracked and
broken, but the abstract Ideas float in the atmosphere untouched.
Hence, TRUTH spoken or written is never lost If humans have moved
forward in time it is because courageous and gracious individuals all
over the world have not hesitated to speak and write the TRUTI-l at any
cost and without rewards, and such a man was Parwez.

What did he say? He primarily attempted to remove the barriers that

intervened between a human and the Quran, and thereby paved the way
for independent research and understanding ideas for oneself. This
 -105- LOUD THINKING

overthrew the "thought-control" of Hamaan, the high priest, JVer the

people. This also overthrew Hamaans' unholy alliance with Pharaohs and
their "economic-control", finally this also overthrew the "political-control" of
the Pharaohs. This about sums up the story of crushed humanity, the
agonising screams of which are smothered under the combin~ of the
jackboots of the Waderas and the Sarmayadars' and the "pious" noises of
the mullahs.

The fact is that the history of the humans is the history of conf'Jrmation
between the haves and the have-nots, between the powertul and the
dispossessed. Anyone who speaks for the have-nots and the
dispossessed is feared and it is therefore seen to it that the voice of the
Quran never reaches them. It is as simple as that. But the short
sighted ness of the humans and their eyes on the immediate gains make
them repeat history instead of learning from it. The backlash of the
Nature's Law of Retribution may be just round the corner with all its
devastating pain and suffering. It is this that they should fear. Parwez is a
friend of hl..lmanity; he is only trying to help you by warning you of this
impending doom.
 -106- LOUD THINKING

WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?

(The Paper read on the occasion of Second Death Anniversary of Late
AI/ama Ghulam Ahmad Parwez on February 21, 1987)
Ladies and Gentlemen:

Since t stood here. before you on this platform full one year ago, the
Pakistani nation, that is, you and me, and everybody else has been
pre-occupied with the question: What is wrong with us? What Ails us?
Copious journalistic literature has been produced in the form of feature
articles, editorials and letters. The climax came when the President of
the country summoned a conference of 500 (bureaucrats, military
generals, ulemas and intellectuals) to identify the problem nunlber one
of Pakistan. Immediately, the opposition held its own conference
declaring that the President himself was the problem number one! (It is
another matter, that the vested interests in the country think that "Zia is
the president, all's well with Pakistan"). This whole exercise of
identifying our ailment, our problems, brought forth some suggestions.
For instance, elections on the basis of 1973 constitution, abolition of
corruption, sectarianism and disunity etc. I am afraid all these are, at
best, superficial explanations and suggestions in fact all thesE' are not
the actual problems or the causes of our decadence. They are the
results, the consequences of causes that lie buried deep in our history,
and deeper still in our national psyche,

However, to face these relates, to face to the truth about ourselves

demands courage and honesty. The Quran defines "truth" as fact, i.e.
"Fact" is the "Truth". In recent history Sir Syed, Iqbal and Parwez as
thinkers and scholars, and again Sir Syed and Jinnah as practical
Statesmen, are models before us who confronted realities as they
were, no matter how ugly and unpleasant they may be. It is a pity that
the people who claim these great leaders as their own are today
internationally ridiculed as ostriches and pigeons. It is high time the
nation pulled its head out of the sand and opened its eyes.

I shall naturally attempt to talk in the light of Quranic attitudes and

values. If there are any mistakes and lapses the responsibility, of
course, is entirely mine.

As a student of history, my understanding of the past one thousand

years in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent is a history of conquest and
subjugation by imperial forces, forces that labeled themselves as
"Muslims". They came from Arabia, Iran, Central Asia and Afghanistan.
Now, imperialism is imperialism; it does not become good by adding
 -107- LOUD THINKNG
the prefix "Muslim" to it. We cannot say "British" imperialism is bad,
and "Muslim" imperialism is good. If there were, incidentally, some
positive results of the "Muslim" impact, so were there of the "British"
impact, even more so. However, at the moment I am concerned about
the psychological impact on those who conquer and subjugate and rule
over other people, The whole process is self-defeating because it
leads to negative characteristics and dehumanisation of the rulers
themselves. They become arrogant, cruel and unjust. They act as
bullies and start suffering from superiority complex, thinking they are
always right. They refuse to listen to others, particularly those from
amongst the enslaved. Once disqualification of Moses, In the eyes of
Pharaoh, was that Moses belonged to the conquered and enslaved
subjects. Eventually, by destroying others, they end up by destroying
their own selves.

Now, those who are enslaved, like we ourselves were for more than
two hundred years by the British, also develop equally negative
characteristics. They become cowardly, deceitful, sycophantic and
crooked; they start suffering from inferiority complex, losing confidence,
initiative and leadership qualities; they are no longer creative and
inventive, and are unable to think for themselves; they become lazy,
dependent and highly emotional people. In short, they cannot stand on
their own feet, and are ever ready to sell themselves at the first
opportunity

I am sure you have already got the point I am trying to make. Since we
have a combination in our national psyche, the negative heritage of
both the conqueror and the conquered, the picture that looms large
before us is a horrifying one. The mistune of the above mentioned
characteristics means that we are denied the great human qualities of a
living dynamic people like love for freedom, courage, pride, the ability
to say "No" even to God, absence of the fear of death, upright, and a
commitment to ones promise made, even at the cost of ones life. In
order to comprehend the Quran and accept its challenge, one has to be
a liVing people. To the dead and decadent people, with weak minds, a
soul stirring message of Islam, which infuses a spirit of freedom and
responsibility and which not only urges to stand on ones feet but even
to accept the leadership of protecting the victims of injustice anywhere
in the world, is beyond their ken. No wonder, during the 1937 election,
Quaid-e-Azam in exasperation lamented: Muslims are either the camp-
followers of the congress or boot-lickers of the British. In his book
"Mairaj-e-Insaniat" Parwez Sahib has pin-pointed that in the 6th
century AD world cultures, only the Arabs, who had been till then
neither the conquerors nor the conquered, had the ability to be the
recipient of such a message and such a Mission. The character of the
 -108- LOUD I HINKING

pre-Islamic Arabs is replete with anecdotes of valour, daring, and love

of freedom. It is incorrect on the part of writers on Islamiat or so-called
"Islamic History" to say that the last Nabi was revealed to the Arabs
because they were worst of the lot. On the contrary, they were the
best. It is another matter that when these Arabs indulged in
imperialism themselves, they lost their character. That is why Aliama
Iqbal, in his 1930 Address at Allahabad, said that (Pakistan idea) aimed
at wiping off "the stamp of Arab imperialism from Islam"

At this stage, one wonders why Iqbal chose this area to eXj:'eriment
such an elevating and challenging vision of humanity. In the context of
what I have said above, it does not appear to be the right choice. But
Iqbal did have definite conditions and reason for his choice. I have
Parwez Sahib's authority to state the following' It so happened that the
north-western part of India, which is Pakistan today, apart from being a
Muslim majority area, was reserved by the British for recruiting soldiers
for the British Indian army. So this area was not industrialised or else
people would have sought jobs in the factories. Hence thp. vested
interests of the Big Business did not develop here. The only vested
interests were the landed feudal who had been gifted land by the
British for helping them dUring the Great Revolt of 1857. To them a
strong warning was given by Jinnah. Iqbal had already ferociously
attacked them in his poetry.

Secondly, the British were eventually withdrawing from India. This

would automatically create a vacuum to be easily filled in by a new
revolutionary government. This was not possible anywhere else in the
so-called "Muslim" world because there were already well entrenched
systems and governments difficult to be uprooted. It is a tragedy that
we are faced with a similar situation in Pakistan today. All kinds of
vested interests have taken root and there is a government in existence
that safeguards these interests. A very clever "think-tank" is
perpetuating the status quo, rather regressing, by woman bashing and
through the compulsory subjects of Islamic and Pakistan Studies. But
this sordid tale will have to be told some other time. ShortagE: of time
does not permit me to speak on it now. Moreover, I would like to draw
your attention to a strange hypocritical situation that prevails within us
and in the root of our existence as Pakistanis. Here I would like to
quote Khushwant Singh, an Indian journalist, who has viSited Pakistan
many times. In his "Around the world" (a collection of articles on his
travels) he says: 'This two-nation theory that the Pakistanis swear by
is a lot of hogwash. And they know it." This is typical of his bawdy
language, but my observation about the intelligentsia of Pakistan
conforms this viewpoint. People who matter, the opinion-makers and
decision-makers, inwardly among themselves, do not believe in it, but
 -109- LOUD THINKING

outwardly they continue to repeat it without any comprehension.

Instead of re-searching it themselves, they have lost the game by
default by leaguing it to the Mullah. The consequences are that the
nation has lost its sense of direction and commitment One only has to
stand by on the roadside and watch the traffic pass by to realise the
characterlessness of the nation Without commitment, without the
sense of loyalty and pride, a national character cannot be developed.
For instance, even a gang of thugs displays extraordinary character
within the gang, abiding by its rules and regulations, though outside the
gang the thugs are supposed to murder and plunder their fellow human
beings. We are not even like those thugs.

After having said all this, the question arises: What is our rope for
tomorrow? Surely, we cannot end on a frustrating and pessimistic
note.

One glimmer of light that I see in this very dismal scenario is that the
people of Pakistan have never been pro-Mullah. Whenever there has
been a choice between a Mullah and a non-Mullah, they have always
chosen the latter Our 40 years of history proves it. For example, in the
1946 elections, the people chose Jinnah, and rejected the Muliah; in
1965, the one organised party, the Jamaat-e-Islami acquired only one
seat in the National Assembly, it was Ayub and other politicians who
got rest of the seats: In 1970, they managed to acqUire only 4 seats
against Bhutto and others. They fared no better in the 1977 or the so-
called 1985 elections. It is the anti-Mullah stance of the people that will
work for a better tomorrow, if and when a leader emerges who has the
caliber and stature of a Jinnah He will not be the one who will play
games with the priesthood to seek cheap popularity. Secondly, it is the
grass root education as visualised by Sir Syed's Allgarh educational
movement that has been our saviour, and hoping that I am not
s~eaking too soon, we have so far, escaped Khomenieism.

Actually, this was the thrust of Parwez Sahib's desperate attempt at

establishing a residential college on Sir Syed's model, and for this very
reason it was thwarted by the powers that be. This is an area where
we must continue our struggle, a goal where our attention must be
constantly directed. There is no substitute to education in bringing
about a permanent change in the attitudes and values of the society.

However, I would say that a particular piece of land is no more sacred

than another. The whole planet, Earth, is the homeland of the human
family. wherever the atmosphere is conducive, whoever there exists a
people with the character of the Arabs of the 6th century AD the
Quranic experiment can be made. Where we have failed, somebody
 -110- LOUD THINKING

else may succeed. We are not the chosen people, nobody isl This
was the rationale behind Parwez Sahib's project of translating into
English his "Mafhumal-Quran" and other books. He wanted to speak to
a bigger and wider audience. He did not succeed in this either and he
felt desperate about it in the last days of his life. To translate his books
into English is a debt we owe him.
In any case, seen from the universal angle, the human race is moving
in the direction its creator wanted it to move. Only it is too painful and
too prolonged and torturous a route it has taken. Who will be the lucky
people, who will succeed in economising this effort and time, as labal
puts it, only time will tell.
 -111- LOUD THINKING

THE BABY BOOM

After a lot of noise and din, it is all-quiet on the Islamabad front. The
burning issue in the seminar held was family planning and the baby
boom. At the time, from the highest echelons of the executive to all
levels of administration, everybody had been crying hoarse about the
population explosion in the country, now among the highest in the
world. One commentator (for there was a great deal of journalistic feed
back) informed us that Pakistan was producing 35 hundred thousand
babies annually, This is no laughing matter indeed.

What intrigues me is: why this sudden concern? What is it that sparked
it off, this sudden spurt of mouthing loud nOises that made daily
headlines? The reason can only be guessed - it could be as innocent
as the high spirit of Abida, the Syeda from Jhang, and of Atiya
Anayatullah, the all time veteran in the field of family planning: it could
be as grin=! as, what my teacher used to warn us, that decadent nations
talk too much_ In other words those who have deeds to show do not
have to talk; or it could be merely a publicity gimmick to impress and
prove to you know whom. You and I, dear reader, are common souls,
outside the corridors of power, the corridors of mysteries that will never
be unraveled_ As someone once revealed, three layers of information
emanate from the powers that be-one for the ignorant and the
credulous mob, one reserved for the journalists exclusively, who are
not to divulge it to the mob, and then there is the actual, the real, buried
deep under the files destroyed, never to see the light of day. Future
historians will dig out these documents if extant, use their art of
inferences, and by putting two and two together, using their expertise of
historiography, may bring forth the horrors of the ugly phase we are
passing through in the present.

To come back to the recently held seminar on family planning.

challenge the powers that this seminar, like any others on another
theme, was an exercise in futility - a waste of time, a waste of energy,
and a waste of money, all such precious national commodities_ They
are talking at people, ironically at those who already understand the
family planning gibberish, and are by and large already controlling the
number of their offspring. They did so not because of seminars, but
because of education, a desire for a better economic status, higher
expectations of quality of life and above all, women's demand of a new
creative life as opposed to purely procreative. None of these
conditions exist for more than 80 per cent of the population. And the
seminars do not reach them I defy anyone to claim that anything will
be achieved by this exercise_ Already the noise have been reduced to
 -112- LOUD THINKlNG
a mere whimper and vanished into thin air. The people who were
supposedly addressed never heard it in the first place. And yet, it is
almost fatal if they do not hear it How do we make it possible?

If we take a long-term view, the mode of achievement will have to be

what has just been mentioned above, namely education, higher
expectation and status of women. For a small section of the
population, this has taken a 150 years to reach this point. We cannot
wait that long. So what do we do?

To begin with, we have to see the main obstruction on the path to

family planning. I was pleased to the note that two of The Nation's
columnists Amina Jilani (July 13) and Masud Hasan (July 17) have hit
the nail on the head by connecting this problem with the priestcraft.
With their traditional role of thought control they have the ignorant, the
wretched of the earth of the land of the pure in their clutches. Blaring
into the loudspeakers fr.om the ready venue of the mosque pulpit, they
spell out their theories against family planning and birth control, Their
theories can summarize as follows:

(a) Children are gifts from Allah.

(b) Allah is responsible for their food.

(c) The wife is accursed if she denies the husband his conjugal
rights

(d) More and more "Muslims" must be produced to militantly

counter (obviously to make up for the lack of indigenous
military technology and inventiveness) the military might of the
non-Muslims by sheer numbers as unarmed can on fodder.

All these arguments are fallacious and non-sensual, but coming from
the divines of Pakistan (I am not kidding, the root meaning of the word
maulana is divinity") not only the ignorant, but also even the educated
are misled. One has only to THINK, use their reason and intellect, to
see the hollowness of mullah's arguments. I hope the readers will do
some thinking on their own and contribute to The Nation and other
papers.

Children are no gifts from Allah as such, they are the result of sexual
intercourse, which is dependent on the free will of the humans
themselves. They mayor may not indulge in it. For sexual urge is
psychologically motivated. Yes, the law of reproduction nexuses a
 -113- LOUD THINKING

priori or onginated by Allah, but it does not say that a baby should be
produced annually.

Muno sa/va or "manna" does not fall from the heavens. Each one has
to struggle for it through a system. Each child does not bring food from
Allah along with her/his entry into this earth. Starvation and hunger in
many parts of the world including Pakistan, is a glaring rejection of this
claim. Yes, the food is grown according to Allah's laws, but it has to be
justly distributed, and the earth's resources too have to be respected.
They too have their limits. Even without this argument, the absolutely
horrifying incident of a little girl killing her infant sister, hoping thereby to
acquire Rs. 50,000 from the government, so that her father could feed
his seven or eight children, is a proof enough, if proof were needed, as
to what is the factual situation on the ground. Generally, the people
have iinked this incident with the impact of culture of violence in the
country (which is true) but that is not all. If the father had produced
only two or three children, this horror would not have occurred.

Nothing could be viler than denying a woman the freedom of her body.
Instead of feeling ashamed of his indiscriminate sexual lust, the male
curses the wife. What a society is this? No wonder that an
uneducated married woman feels like a legal prostitute. In the katchi
abadis of the town and the rural areas, women are still producing more
than a dozen children are. What happens to the woman is a story
known to all, but it does not bother the husband, for he is only
submitting to the "will of God". Could there be a greater blasphemy?
Talking about numerical strength to counter the non-Muslims, nothing
could be more ridiculous. This is what happens when we put out
destiny into the hands of the ignorant, and who like the drones, live on
the labour of the bees, who remain ever so busy. But the human bee is
the most wretched one in the human set up.

I would like to challenge the mullah on two counts.

a) What about the famous, magnificent 113 against the 4000 on the Battle
of Badr?

b) Why cannot a whole ocean of "Muslims" wipe off a tiny little island of
usurpers in Palestine, called Israel? If they had only pondered over it
(and this is what the Quran says: Ponder, think, understand, use
reason and intellect in Surahs and verses 8/22,3/191,5/71, 10/100,
17/36 to mention just a few) they would have realised that it is not
numbers or numerical strength that matters, what matters is the quality
of the mind-its creativity, its inventiveness, its character, its sense of
adventure and wonderment, and a lot more.
 -114- LOUD THINKING

Perhaps, and rightly enough, I can be taunted that, like the people in
the seminar, I am also addressing the readers who are alreatly
producing two or three children. So what is all this bother about? Yes,
I admit, for me too this amounts to little more than a mental exercise,
but there is an appeal I like to make to the feminists of Pakistan. They,
along with a few male sympathisers, are our last hope. Let us first
realise that no government will ever expose the mullah. They are
always hand in glove, supporting each other's vested interests. Like
the Muslim Leaguers fighting for Pakistan, we must spread out into the
country, from door to door, convincing the people about family planning
and exposing their real enemy. The summer vacations in colleges and
universities can be used more meaningfully, if students are galvanised
for this mission. This is also a matter of life and death for humanity.
For Britain and the Continent, there were the Americas, Australia and
New Zealand to push away their extra numbers. Where will we push
ours? Into the Arabian Sea?
 -115- LOUD THINKiNG

THE WAllS RUNNING AMOK

The Lahore High Court judgment has shaken the urban educated
society by declaring that the "Nikah without Wati's consent is void"
Such a statement cannot be taken lying down, it has to be sorted out. It
is a very sensitive Issue, touching the formation of a new family unit. To
say that the family unit is the basic social unit from which springs up a
particular quality of national life and character is indeed a back need
truism. But perhaps it is seldom realized that in the family it is the
mother, who also is a woman, an ignorant and dehumanized being and
a second class citizen, who plays a pivotal role in arranging marriages
of the off springs. She is the most significant "wali" in our social
backdrop, but then this "mother-syndrome" is an issue by itself and
ought to be tackled as a subject on its own,

At the moment the concern is the Lahore High Court judgment. The
experts are already wrangling and rambling on the legalities of the
issue, and this is as it should be, for that is the way the matters are
crystallized. I am interested in putting forward some concrete cases of
couples as a pragmatic test, tailored to the wishes of their "walis".

To begin I reproduce a report published in the January 24,1993 issue

of The Nation. It is a story of a very obedient son, ending in a case of
patricide due to mental distress.

Reporting from Mandi Bahauddin the correspondent wrote that "an

educated young man due to mental worries severely beat his old
parents with "dandas" to death". Elaborating on the reasons for this
patricide, the reporter writes, and I quote him at length: "The parents
persuaded him to divorce two wives. As per detail, the accused resided
in Mohalla Manzoorabad and is a graduate. The parents of the accused
persuaded him to divorce his first wife and then arranged his second
marriage. Four children were born during the wedlock. Then the
parents persuaded him to divorce his second wife. He surrendered
before his parents and divorced his second wife. After this the accused
remained mentally upset and returned home in late hours.

"On the night of the occurrence he returned home at midnight and

seeing the parents sleeping, attacked with "dandas." The father of the
accused was 75 years and mother 73 years. On information when
police reached the place of occurrence the accused was present there.

"The police took him into custody and after registering a case started
investigation."
 -116- LOUD THfNKlNG
So much for the reported case of a dutiful son. Below I give some
cases known to me in a never-ending process of agony.

A young man, just having graduated was pestered by the mother to

enter wedlock. The son, still without a job, wisely replied that he was,
apart from being still economically dependent, not yet mentally
prepared for a serious responsibility. The verbal tug-of-war continued
for sometime, till the young man relented on condition that he was
married to the daughter of his paternal aunt. The mother declined,
insisting that it was to be the daughter of his maternal aunt. This tussle
went on for almost two years, making the son depressed, during which
period he confided to his friends that he wanted to make his life an
example for others. They soon came to know what he meant one day
he was found hanging to death from the ceiling fan of his room.

Yet another young man expressed his desire to the parents that he
wished to marry a particular girl. Pat came the answer that it was not to
be. He nevertheless l]1arried her in secret and even fathered two
children. Some time later, parents suggested a girl he could marry. He
did not have the courage to divulge his secret marriage. The second
marriage took place, but it was founded on this secretive deception
which naturally could not be hidden forever, shattering the life of the
girl, the main victim.

Then there is a case of tea and sympathy. A young man in his late
teens got involved with a married woman with children. It was a case of
wife bashing and mental cruelty. Age wise the youngster had still to go
a long way before he could settle own economically. So he forgot about
the whole episode and got busy with varied avenues of job hunting. As
usual, the mother could not walt; as soon as he got fixed in an out of
town posting, he was telegraphically called on the pretext that the
mother was on the deathbed. Escorted by friends he dashed home,
almost out of his wits when saw a crowd assembled, which turned out
to be the celebration of his wedding! The nuptial ties were solemnized
with a woman he had never seen and soon came to despise her. But
this forced bond had to be maintained to keep the mother happy under
whose feet lies the "jannat". But later on, when he learnt that the first
ladylove had divorced her husband, he wasted no time in marrying her
on the rebound. He is now bandied about like a shuttlecock between
the two rivals, trying to make do with his meagre income and a dozen
children to boot. He cannot desert the first wife because of his mother's
sentiments and commands and the second he cannot because of his
own sentiments and preferences. The situation IS pathetic and
ludicrous.
 -117- LOUD THINKING

One young man, according to our "cultural values" was forced to marry
a girl within the "baradari" against his wishes. He could not adjust to the
situation which was not of his own making. His roving eye spotted
another, whom he married secretly_ The second wife showed tantrums
and insisted that he divorce his first wife. He was now between the
devil and the deep sea. Reaching the end of his tether, he ended the
second marriage. He is now back to square one, living in hate and
disgust and fathering unwanted children. However, the "Walis" have
had their way. So what if the son is miserable and unhappy!

Cases of one wife from the "baradari" to please the "Walis" and then
the second one to please oneself can be multiplied in all situation, rich
or poor, educated or uneducated. Those who have a peep mto this
domestic scenario can well scream out that if this is not hell then what
is?

These are concrete and pragmatic examples that question the wisdom
and objectivity of the 'Walis". Barring some great exceptions, the
'Walis" by and large are hardly grown up and mature themselves to
take on such a grave responsibility. It is a vicious circle of which they
are also a part. For this very reason, they must help to break it. "Walis"
or wards, they are all humans, and as such they should be friends, and
not treat each other as "things", with no choice, no options, no feelings.
"Things can be picked up and placed elsewhere; humans should not be
insulted in this manner. As for wesernisation and the dish antenna, with
absolutely no desire to defend it, it would be better not to be too
supercilious about our morality. "Muslim" or non-Muslim, the history of
man, in varied time and space, has no better spectacle to present. Let
us with all the wisdom that we might possess, meet the challenge of
changing times, and in this transitory period, make it as little painful as
we can. The judgment of the High Court is not a wise step in that
 -118- LOUD THINKING

IS THE MOMENT OF DEATH FIXED

Dr. Abdul Wadood's article on "Is the moment of death fixed?" in the
month of August, disturbed me a great deal, all the more so coming
from a person of his stature in the relm of Quranic literature. However,
it IS a saving grace that in the end he has left the question open and
has invited readers to throw some light on the issue.

I do feel awkward in making an attempt, for if Parwez, the Teacher,

could not fully satisfy Dr. Wadood, I do not see how r can. Also, in the
presence of Parwez's comprehensive and scholarly book "Kitab-ul-
Tiqdeer", a small fry like me does not have much more to say. But the
issue is so sensitive that I cannot afford to keep mum, even if it means
merely pinpointing the counter questions that arise in ones mind on
whether the moment of death is fixed and predestined? It is interesting
to note that Dr. Wadood draws a line between universal laws of cause
and effect that govern our physical existence, and on the other hand
certain happenings and accidents from which an individual escapes
death rather unexpectedly! Having said this, he goes on to narrate
several episodes in his life whence he was saved within hair's breath
For instance within two minutes of his leaving one bunker for another
during the Second World War, a bomb exploded in the one he had left
and he was saved. Similarly, he happened to alight from a raft on a
high lavel bank of a swollen river only to witness the drowning of all the
other rafts, and so on and so forth, Dr. Wadood wonders whether his
precarious survival in the varied happening was to the direct Divine
intervention on his behalf! In this context, at least three questions arise
in my mind!

(1). The Quran, to prove its veracity and Divine origin, throws a challenge
to the humans that it entertains absolutely no contradictions. Indeed!
Divinity alone could make such a claim. And yet Dr. Wadoood's
approach belies it The law of cause and effect as deSigned by the
Divine power, functioning unchangeably and inexorably, has according
to him a contradictory aspect wherein Divine intervention i'3 taking
place sometime, somewhere, all the time. This is a serious matter in
the understanding of the Quran.

(2). Divine intervention on behalf of one or more individuals smacks of

favouritism and human frailty. Allah is equidistant towards each human
irrespective of any consideration. Besides, it describes each individual
as unique and special, why should then some be allowed to die? On
the contrary, the Quran decries the killing of one individual as the killing
of humanity, and saving of one individual is the saving of humanity
 -119- LOUD THINKING

Thus the position that Dr. Wadoed has taken does not fit into this
Divine pattern designed for us.

(3). According to the Quran, the only Divine intervention is "Wahi". The
Directions Power of Allah. It is revealed in words, in clear terms, and
remains outside of the receiver, The "Nabi". Any other form of Divine
intervention is an illusion, a hallucination This leads us to a very
serious implication. Any claim of Divine intervention today, is a severe
violation of the finality of "Nabuwaal". "Wahi" the only form of divine
intervention, ended 1400 years ago.

Like Dr. Wadood, any individual could narrate instances of being saved
from an impending death I can also recount several such eerie
instances_ But they have been of no consequence after a temporary
excitement The case of such instances can be stretched far, too far
indeed to our liking One could ask why was there no Divine
intervention when on the battle of "Uhad", Hazrat Muhammad was
wounded and also lost some of his teeth. He was also poisoned, and
although he survived at the time, he eventually died of it. Had it not
been for it, he could have lived longer for the benefit of humanity. This
leads us to what I consider as the greatest tragedy of humanity, the
assassination of Hazrat Umar, Ameer-ul-Momineen. His "Farooqiat",
his high standard of administration, and his long term plan to educate
the neo-converts to Islam, especially in Iran, the world today would
have been very different and the suffering and pain of humans would
not have been so prolonged and so intense in the past 1400 years. I
ask: Why did not Divinity intervene and stay the hand of the assassin,
Feroz? One could be angry and real mad at the Divine Power, may be
even deny its existence had it not been for the Quranic introduction of
Allah as having self imposed the laws of cause and effect on Himself.
Though designed by Himself, He will never violate them. Indeed, only
such a Principled Allah has the right to create and maintain the
magnitude and grandeur of this Universe of which we still know very
little. In the end, ! cannot help recalling from history the case of
Jalalluddin Akbar, the Mughal Emperor. Though almost illiterate, he
was a pragmatic intellectual. He was told of a man who forecast the
year and time of the death of anyone who cared to ask him. Akbar
invited him to his court and checked with him on the age of all those
present, including himself. Then he asked the forecaster about his own
moment of death, which he forecast several years in the future. Akbar
summoned his executioner and ordered the beheading of the man,
which he did It was a despotic and barbaric way of disproving
pragmatically the idea of the moment of death being fixed, but it
clinches the matter.
 -120- LOUD THINKING

PURDAH

,"Purdah" obviously deals with man and woman relationship, their

cooperation and coordination in a collective social living on this planet
earth. But the strange thing is that even after thousands of years of
experience, this problem of purdah remains controversial and it is not
yet sorted out, if not in practice, then at least not in theory even.

As I understand, any change in values and attitudes takes place, first in

the mind, an internal revolution within the human being, before it can
manifest externally in ones behaviour and in the interaction of humans
in a living society. If this change has not taken place, then even if a
woman dons half a dozen "chadars" or "burqas" or what is today called
"hUab" it will make no difference to the man; he is naturally aware that
inside this padded paraphernalia is a woman, and that knowledge is
enough to excite him. Similarly, a burqa clad woman is no guarantee
that she is respectable and "good". Basically, it is all in the mind, not
out there!!1 .

Let's face it once and for all, that Purdah means self-respect and
respect for others, the two go together Once this is understood with all
its implications, the rest automatically follows. Men and women, no
matter where they are and what they are busy about, they should be
dignified and smart. What is condemnable is exhibitionism. The whole
thought-process is externalised in ones facial expressions, gestures,
the tone and fluctuations of voice and ones gait. A burqa clad woman
will draw more vulgar attention and curiosity with her exhibitionist
behaviour than a dignified and self-respected non-burqa woman. In
fact, in an emotional immature and undeveloped society, more so in a
sexually segregated society, marriages are more akin to legal
prostitution, and in most cases the man is more of a rapist than a
husband.

It may also be pointed out that the outward garb or dress varies
according to climate, raw material available and style of life. It can also
change to suit the changing environment, the change in life-style.

Above all, unless man is not disciplined and educated in sexual

matters, as a woman is expected to be, "hijab" is meaningless. The
Quranic values and restraints are equal for both men and women.
 -121- LOUD THINKING

MOTHER-iN-LAW SYNDROME

AI the social level the most dreaded figure that emerged on my

childhood horizon was the fjgure of the mother-in-law. Hardly
understanding or realising what the term signified, the very mention of it
sent shivers down my spine as the young and not so young women
around me talked about her in horrific references. She loomed large as
a frightening ogre and even today as an aging woman, I cannot say
that the scenario has changed. Through the intervening years, I have
observed read and thought about it as one of the biggest realities
around me. I could not escape it because women have been talking
about it exactly as they did 50 years ago and more perhaps for
centuries.

Before I say anything more the funny thing about this unwholesome
situation is that it is a woman who inflicts the unspeakable torture on
another woman,. and the very woman who had been oppressed herself
becomes the oppressor over another woman the daughter-in-law in
which capacity she had herself suffered.

On the surface, this ugly picture is mind boggling and disgracefully

inhuman. But there has to be some reason, some cause for this
continuous, unending misery, fear, hatred, disunity and the breaking
and rebreaking of homes.

Yes, reason there is, for nothing happens without a cause. I have
understood. Readers are indeed welcome to put forward their own
reasons according to their own observations and experiences. The
mother-in-law, sister-in-law" (saas-nand) syndrome is any ugly spot on
the name of womanhood.

~:aving said this, I shall try to analyze the factors that go in the making
of a "saas-nand' duo that corrodes into the happiness and peace of
another woman. To put it in a nutshell the basic human (both men and
women) problem is the innate desire for security---emotional,
psychological, biological, mental and financial. In fact many human
problems rise in the absence of these securities. In all living beings, the
instinct of self-preservation is very powerful, and it has to be so or else
no specie could survive.

I really do not have td repeat that from birth to death, the female
existence is regretted, rejected and blushed upon. Leaving aside the
female infanticide practiced among the Arabs during pre-Islam days, as
current as today, modern China started practicing it when family
 -122- LOUD THINKING

planning programme restncted the family to one child only. If the child
happened to be a female, she was put to death hopmg that the next
may hopefully be a boy. Perhaps neither men nor women have given
enough thought as to how deeply, though unconsciously, this can
pervert the victim emotionally and psychologically amidst such
continuous feeling of unwanledness. Then there are hundred and one
theories in every society and numerous cultural approaches as to how
inferior a woman is. For centuries this has been dined into her, and I do
not see how any being can maintain ones self-confidence and
humanity and balance in human interaction The impact of the TIME
factor IS very deep Indeed, epitomized in the phrase-It has always been
so, and the argument IS supposed to terminate at that. No wonder one
often faces women, and not always the uneducated ones, who try to
convince us that woman has beccme too weak and afraid to face
herself as a responsible human beings.

Another facet to their distorted vision is financial dependence. Partly

due to her biological role of child bearing and child rearrng and partly
due to the social mores of any given society, the women's position
becomes totally helpless and hopeless. To this must be added her
muscular weakness vis-a-vis the male whir:::h increases her vulnerability
to her ruination. No woman, anywhere, at any stage, can feel secure
sexually. Indeed, she must have a tremendous sense of resilience that
in spite of all these horrors and perpetual sense of being demeaned,
she has survived as a specie.

Admittedly, whatever has been recounted above is nothing original. II

has already been said more powerfully and effectively by many great
men and women. The purpose of my reminder of these oft repeated
facts is that they go in the making of the mother-in-law as we know her.
Due to this all-en-compassing insecurity, a woman has to look around
for someone who could give her support and on whom she can rely
absolutely unconditionally. And this someone has to be a male

Now, now matter how sympathetic the father and brother may be, the
woman's final abode on this earth is declared to be her husband's
house. Again and again she is pushed back under the roof of this
house if she dares to run back to the parental home with the words:
Come what may her funeral can only depart from her husband's roof or
else she is condemned never to enter the God's kingdom. But her
position vis-a-vis her husband has been the weakest particularly so in a
"Muslim" Society, what With the institution of polygamy and the absolute
power of divorce that he commands. Her inseCUrity is complete, as
mentioned above, because of her financial dependence leaving her no
clout whatsoever to fight With. Hers is a burnt out case.
 -123- LOUD THINKING

However, she sees one solitary ray of light in the dark tunnel. There is
one male she has powerful control over. Born in her womb, brought up
in her lap, conditioned by her, dependent on her, adopting the mother
tongue, and internalizing her value -system and personal traits---this is
her son. In her son she feels safe in every way_ General sense of
security, a rainy day, Infirmity, old age, she has someone reliable
around. The traditional values give her further respectability, for after all
heaven lies at the feet of the mother. With this kind of backing,
sanctified by the priesticraft, her protection is sealed.

But tt:en suddenly a crack appears in her armour. Preparations are

soon afoot to get the son married In the midst of pomp and show,
music and fireworks, the bride arrives to share emotionally and
financially the very individual on whom alone the mother had relied As
time passes, the crack in the armour gets wider and wider. What
apparently was looked upon as mother's love for the much wanted son
turned out to be a thin veneer of "possessiveness", ali that she "had" as
a protector, the only security she had built up in a world where she is
never otherwise safe, where she never exists on her own rights, seem
to vanish into thin air. The ground seems to shift from under her feel.
The battle for survival begins, Anyone dare share her son. She will
possess him at any cost. The rest of the story is all too familiar. It is a
drama enacted in every home, as if It is the only theme of life,

All this is tragic, unhappy and uncalled for, Perhaps this is one situation
where, as a feminist myself, I sympathise with the son who is cruelly
sandwiched between the mother and the wife The fact that the mother
and the wife are two different propositions in their nature and quality,
and neither can be each other's rival is another subject by itself. What I
am concerned about is as to how the mother-In-law syndrome can be
dissolved, and our homes made happier and harmonious.

One pragmatiC way of looking at it would be to analyze those

exceptional Individuals, a microscopic minority of mother-in-law and
sister-in-law, who "love" and not "possess" Their sons and brothers,
who relate therefore normally and wholesomely to the "stranger" and
"shareholder" newly admitted into the houses,

It has been observed that a woman who has had a wholesome and
humane Childhood, meaning thereby that her birth was welcomed and
was treated on par with the son in the family, also there was complete
equality between sisters and brothers and no one was made to feel
inferior on the basis of sex alone--such an atmosphere is tremendously
conducive to self-confidence, development of ones identity and
individuality, ThiS coupled with education and skills to enable financial
 -124- LOUD THINKING

autonomy will help make her proudly stand on her own feet. Such a
woman does not have to hang on the apron strings of her sons, and
start indulging in daughter-in-law bashing.

We are all entangled in a vicious circle, and it must be broken. This can
only be possible if the women is given a chance to love and not
possess her sons. Like so many other issues this too has to be sorted
out in long-term measures. It is a matter of a change of cultural
attitudes of a whole people. Societies have to wait and work hard for
decades and centuries for such fundamental transformation. The
situation among the ignorant and the dispossessed seems beyond
redemption, and they form at least 80 per cent of the population. If the
more aware and educated do not give the lead, nature will takes it own
"course. This means change will come but it will come painfully,
tortuously and over a prolonged period Whether we make a concerted
effort or leave it to Nature, the choice at least is ours.
 -125- LOUD THINKING

A SHAKEN PSYCHE

The breaking away of one half of ourselves was more than agony; the
herding away of almost a hundred thousand soldiers and civilians was
more than humiliation; the ganging of powers such as America, Britain
and Russia with Sharat was more than overhearing and repressive,
The cumulative effect of all these emotional and psychological traumas
was our loss of idealism, the idealism high formed the raison d'etre of
Pakistan. and by which we introduced ourselves to the rest of the
world.

A lot will be written, and has been written, on the struggle for power
among the contesting candidates, the three main figures being Mujib-
ur-Rehman, ZA Bhutto and General Yahya Khan; also on the political
and military cruelty and bungling of the West Pakistanis; also on the
inferiority complex and the superior airs plus the political awareness
and docility of one or the other wing of Pakistan. This is as it should be.
Self~criticis~ and objective research of all events, national and
international, must go on. This is all part of our self-discovery as
humans, as our actions or inactions continue unfolding the human
psyche. This is important because while we reach for the skies we
know very little about ourselves. G.K. Chesterton has well said, "One
may understand the cosmos, but never the ego, the self is more distant
than any star."

One thing that the fall of Dhaka has revealed is the "passive and
accidental birth" of Man that seems to engulf his identity and his roots.
To rise above it and be "fully born", as Eric Fromm puts it, is not to be
yet even among the highly developed groups. In an article, rep,oduced
by a local daily in its December 14 issue, Carl Honor writes that
"although a clean break from London seems unlikely, the debate in
8cotland is moving towards independence". Within Britain, the feeling
ot being a Scot, an Irish or Welsh has not disappeared; he is still
someone different from the English In Quebec, people never forget
that they are French as against the rest of Canada, who are English.
To be "born fully" one has to reach the level of values _ the values of
justice, of equality, of human brotherhood. This has been the role of the
Anbiya sent in every nook and corner of the globe. If we hear the
echoes of such values, written or spoken, anywhere In the world, it is
because of them. To rise up to it once again, to live above our passive
and accidental birth, Pakistan was established to make an experiment
of Quranic eternal human values, a model role for humankind, just as
the Arabs were organized by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to playa
model role or act as a leaven for the human race. This method is
 -126- LOUD THINKING

applied because compulsion negates the very objective of these

values.

However, the local Pharaohs, Qaroons and Hamaans hijacked the

Pakistan Movement which they had opposed to the last moment, and
jumped into its bandwagon only when the establishment of Pakistan
had become inevitable. It is Important to keep this scenario before us to
understand the phenomenon of Bangladesh. The very word
"Bangladesh" denotes race, language and birthplace. It was the most
racist state that came into existence at the time. What made a
Bangladeshi was the fact that he/she was born a Bengali and spoken
Bengali as the mother tongue. No other factor was recognized. Hence,
one of the first measures that was announced was that all Beharis or
any other non-Bengali must quit Bangladesh. Even "Allah" was rejected
because He was a foreign God. Now, to fight against injustice or
economic disparity or inequality of any kind visa-a-vis West Pakistan is
one thing, but to proclaim race and language as the be all and end all
of existence and identity i's quite another. One cannot help asking at
this stage as to why Bharat which went all the way, morally and
militarily, to support Mujib-ur-Rehman to establish a desh for Bengalis,
did not surrender West Bengal so that all Bengalis could be one and
together? And why did not Mujib include this in his manifesto as his
ultimate objective?

The fact is that the break-up of Pakistan was meant to disprove the
"Two-Nation Theory" as Indira Gandhi proclaimed jubilantly. It was
something she could not tolerate. She could not forgive Jawaharlal
Nehur for the crime he committed by accepting the partition of Bharat,
even though he was her father, she told the students of Aligarh in
November 1971. "India aimed at undermining the Islamic ideology of
Pakistani order to display the superiority and the enduring nature of
secularism", writes Mizanur Rehman Shelley as quoted by Shelton
U.Kodikara in his article "8anglidesh".

This backdrop was necessary to describe the psychologically

devastating Impact of striking at the very basis of Pakistan. The people
of Pakistan, of whatever was left of its former status, reeled and fel! in
humiliation, victim to an acute sense of insecurity and lack of
confidence. They lost faith in themselves and wallowed in frustration
and hopelessness. We have never been the same again, bec1use we
lost, along with East Pakistan, our idealism, which Islam gave us, even
though it was never implemented. And this was the very purpose of
Bharat and other foreign powers.
 -127- LOUD THINKING

Naturally, this loss of idealism created a vacuum in our lines, which had
to be filled in by something. Now, the innate propensity of idealism is to
move forward. It pulls you, into the future, it gives a "tomorrow" to the
people. The loss of it then means moving backward in time and history,
in an area where one feels familiar with a false sense of refuge. This
refuge was the Mughal rule Syndrome. No doubt all societies suffer this
kind of hangover to some extent, and so did we, but what happened in
our case was to develop a mindset that cannot go beyond it. This is a
terrible regression because it aggravated our desire to fill the vacuum,
by material goods in the Shape of Mughal grandeur, pomp and show,
. and lavish royal spending but without their genuine creativity. So what
we see around is an instant desire, a mad rush for whatever we can
acquire, and this comes handy in the form of goods that western
technology can easily provide. Either by working abroad, or through
corruption or by loots and plunder, by hook or by crook, the vacuum
must De filled Everything ends in a rush of a shopping spree, but it
does not really help, because the vacuum is bottomless. That is why,
for example, one house as a roof on our heads is not enough, It has to
be a grand Mughal structure, or a replica of the White House, in every
city of the globe if it were possible. One car will not do, there has to be
a fleet of twenty or fifty, one dozen or two dresses will not do, it must be
in hundreds And when we eat, we do so as if it were the first time ever
or perhaps the last And for the rulers, the venue must be nothing short
of Shalimar Gardens and the Shahi Oila, perhaps only the artists and
the architects of Lahore clutch at their hearts to see this vandalism, the
common man only envies them.

Another fallout of our loss of idealism is the rise of ethnicity. Those who
had opposed the Pakistan Movement or those who had drifted away
later, tried to strike the same path which Mujib had taken. Khan Abdul
Ghaffar Khan in the Frontier, G.M. Syed in Sindh and Akbar Bugti in
Balochistan talked in terms of "Sindhu Desh" and Pakistan" They
raved against Islam in favour of secularism as the basis of
communities. They referred to four nationalities within the nation,
without making clear wherein lay the difference. It was like playing with
words. In fact along with Bangladesh, there had been a plan to
dismantle West Pakistan as well, by merging the Frontier with
Afghanistan and Russia, Balochistan with Iran and Sindh with Bharat.
Punjab, left alone, would then easily be swallowed up by East Punjab.
So the saboteurs had a heyday. There were language riots and papers
with Urdu written on them were burnt. All this ended up in what is now
called MOM, an expression of ethnic feelings of the Mohajirs, which
was given further momentum during Zia's regime. Thus the atmosphere
we breathe in seethes with suspicion and hate, for racism engender
 -128- LOUD THINKING

exclusiveness instead of gregariousness. Such are the repercussions

of the dismemberment of Pakistan.

One of the mystiques of the tragedy is that to date the Hamoodur

Rehman Report lies hidden. The people have not been taken into
confidence. Generally speaking, our tendency is to black out important
information; many reports lie gathering dust. But the fall of Dhaka was
not ordinary event. Twenty-five years have gone by and the people are
still in the dark. As citizens of Pakistan, we have right to know.
Governments have come and governments have gone, but none has
dared to publish the Report in spite of protest. ThiS had led to
dangerous repercussion, political and psychological. Such a mysterious
attitude arouses curiosity and speculations become rife, which is not a
healthy exercise because it is based on what may be described as
circumstantial evidence. It IS not based on facts and concrete evidence.
Important institutions like the army, on which depends our sewrity, the
institution of leadership on which depends our state policies and
decisions, the institution of bureaucracy on which depends our day to
day administration, all these become suspect and lose their credibility.
Disillusionment sets in creating a culture of suspicion, mistrust and
negativism, and Ideal ground for the saboteurs. The ordeal we are
passing through today, politically, economically and socially, is an
ample proof of what has been said above. What is more when
information such Hamoodur Rahman Report remains unpublished, we
tend to repeat our mistakes, both of omission and commission. Lack of
knowledge of the facts, the causes of a particular event, creates a gap
of ignorance between the cause and the effect It is then difficult to
mend the fences. Then we only help making ourselves into a nation of
sheep, Instead of Iqbal's Shaheen. Was it a situation like this that made
Bernard Shaw say that we learn from history that we never learn from
history? At least it fits into our unhappy experience.

Lesson to learn

Some conclusions could be drawn and some lessons learnt from the
bleak scenario that the 1971 war presents. Below is a small attempt to
do so.

Firstly: The democracy that is based on majority vote is cound to

cause tensions and even corruption A few votes or even one vote can
turn the tables and become all-powerful in deciding the destiny of a
people. How many will stick to principles and not sell their seats? I
wonder. Furthermore, numerically, for example, former East Pakistan
had a majority vis-a-via all the four provinces of Pakistan put together,
a majority that was "permanent" and "inconvertible". That is why they
 -129- LOUD THINKING

were against "parity" of the two unit This controversy engendered a

great deal of bitterness. Thus this majority vote can be used as a lever
in any given situation. This does not mean giving up democracy, but it
does mean redefining it No wonder, the Quran emphasizes
"consensus" which Iqbal commented as weighing of heads rather than
counting them.

Secondly: It is a strange thing that while definite qualifications are

needed to be a teacher, a doctor, an engineer, a banker etc, no
qualification is needed to be a leader. Anyone simply claims to be so
and announces it accordingly. Nothing could be more ridiculous and
fatal than this. I would add that apart from educational qualification, an
individual should be psychologically examined before he/she assumes
the role of a leader. No wonder, Hazrat Umar Farooq (RA) explained
that when a person is selected for a public office, he should be one
who, when seen In a crowd, stands as someone special, but when
selected, he humbly disappears in the crowd .
•
Thirdly: We have several times shouted murder, described
several as traitors, but never properly tried anybody for treason. This is
both unfair and dangerous. If anybody is charged, there should be a
fair trial and he should be acquitted or punished accordingly. A proved
treason is a very grave offence both in the Quranic and secular
systems. In the USA, even the Rosenburgs were not spared.

Fourthly: Since the Bangladesh phenomenon has shE'ken the

Two-Nation Theory, it should either be properly reinstated (remember
2+2=4, even if not a single vote goes In its favour) and implemented, or
alternatives must be announced whatever they maybe. One cannot live
forever in a state of confusion and indecisiveness

Fifthly: If the decision is in favour of the Islamic ideology, it must be

properly taught in the educational institutions, so that every new
generation grows up with It A racial and lingual nationality is naturally
bom into it, an ideological nationalism has to be acquired by choice, It
has to be refurbished continuously. This is hard work, but it is worth
doing.
 -130- LOUD THINKING

IT IS A SHAME

It is a long time now that we have been living in shame, ever since the
Blasphemy Law was under the infamous and pernicious power of
'Mard-e-Momin' Zia; yes, ever since the atmosphere has been
contaminated to the extent of not sparing ten years old boy even; ever
since intolerance and fanaticism has gained ground as never before
not only against Christians and other minorities, but also among the
various sects of the majority community; and ever since, the
Blasphemy Law has enabled the people to take the law into their own
hands under the umbrella of so-called blasphemy, for reaSO,1S other
than stated. I hang my head down in shame as a member of this nation
at the sectarian bomb blast in the court premises, the place of justice
and balancing of scales, and now In Shantinagar, meaning the land of
peace.

I have long believed that any act of blasphemy or any kind of attack is
bad enough, it is an undvilised and self~destructive behaviour, but a
v·lolent emotional reaction to it is an indication of weakness and lack of
confidence. Talking of weakness, I am reminded of one of my teachers
at the master level in the Punjab University. He made a statement (the
nature of which I forget now) during the course of his lecture which
caused considerable but quiet emotional agitation in the class.
Eventually he made a remark to the following effect: "Remember", he
said, "if your faith or beliefs are as weak as an earthen-ware vessel,
then let it break". The remark had a tremendously heal"lng effect on my
mind. Passing through a phase of scepticism and uncertainty, I at the
time lingered between traditionalism and what Sir Syed Ahmad Khan
would have described as the "New Light." I immediately felt r,,"laxed and
contented, without any remaining sense of guilt. So the people of this
country are only betraying their hollowness and lack of convictions.
This is dangerous perhaps not so much for the minorities as it is for
themselves.

Moreover, It should be brought home to us that when we talk about

facts and truths, when we say for example that 2+2=4 or H20 IS water,
then no amount of blasphemy can shake it or make any difference.
Even if the whole world votes against the sun, or to make It relevant to
the current situation, votes against the Quranic Truths, the Truth
remains the Truth and the sun conflnues to shine. Similarly, the
greatness of Muhammad (PBUH) or any other Nabi cannot be marred;
they are what they are. They are too solid and too glorious to be
demolished and overshadowed by a few words, spoken or written.
Furthermore, what has come and gone, people or situations and
 -131- LOUD THfNKING
events, they cannot be undone, no matter what the abuse and what the
insult.

I think the most grievous and terrible form of blasphemy is ones own
behaviour vis a vis ones own beliefs_ A moment of introspection and a
little observation of the happenings around us of our own making, will
vindicate in a glaring way that we are committing blasphemy every
waking hour of our life. The corruption rampant in every walk of life;
deceit and fraud, dishonesty and lies are not isolated events but a way
of life; women bashing, child labour and abuse is a daily occurrence;
water, worthy of drinking is available to only 30%, and daily bread is a
nerve wrecking struggle bordered on near starvation; health and
education facilities are a disaster and cleanliness is now a dream of the
past We have become a symbol of all that is ugly and inhuman,
Indeed, I am repeating what is known to all, but I am replaying the
scenario to point out that every act of ours is a denial of what we
profess to believe. This is blasphemy. Imagine! This image of ours is
identified with the Quran and Muhammad (PBUH), an image which has
declared us globally as the second most corrupt country in the world,
and what is worse, a "failed state", We have made ourselves a living
testimony of a character that insults the Quran, It is not the anti-Quranic
writings on the walls of the mosque or a few pages of the Quran
desecrated and thrown into the mosque (that is, if it so happened), but
our devastating behaviour in Shantinagar which is blasphemous,

That this should happen in Pakistan is a greater shame, because

Iqbal's vision which created this country was no ordinary one. It was a
challenge to all the existing systems and the onrush of certain concepts
and institutions. A lot could be written on that but keeping restricted to
the anguish of the situation we are concerned about, the Quranic
justification for creating a new group then and now was that while every
existing group at its best does all it can for Itself, there is none which
would take care of the human race as a "",lOle and stay the hand of the
tyrant where ever it might be. Its objective is 10 protect the unprotected.
The life, property and the houses of worship of all groups are to be
protected against attacks from outside with their own blood. Their
assigned role is that of a 'Chawkidar so that humanity can live and
sleep in peace, If this cannot be done, there is no justification for the
existence of this group, because the Quranic ohJectives of a Muslim
state cannot be compromised. They are permanent and enshrined in
the Quran for anyone, any time to take guidance from,

Once again, I am reminded of another stalerrent made by a Christian

gentleman whose name I forget, but he wa~; the son of a Christian
leader, Joshua Fazaldin. This was more than two decades ago, but I
 -132- LOUD THfNKING
still remember his sense of disapPointment and bitterness at the
direction things were moving, victimised Christians being no exception.
Quoting his father he said that he, that is, Joshua Fazaldin had
specially decided to stay on in Muslim Pakistan rather than in secular
India. The reason was that Jinnah had promised protection to all in
accordance with the Quranic values. His understanding was that since
Quranic values are permanent, for all times, they cannot be changed
by a majority vote. On the contrary. in a secular state, such promises
can be changed by counting of votes. So the element of uncertainty is
always there.

I have put his statement in my own words, but any family member
could corroborate or explain it better if they read this. Anyway, I think
there cannot be a more glowing tribute to the Quran and the promise
that Jinnah made accordingly.

The previous government of Benazir Bhutto wanted to make sure that if

"Blasphemy Law" could be implemented in such a way that only the
courts could tackle this sensitive issue was badly thwarted by the
Ulemas, who charged her with wanting to abolish it altogether. She
denied it, and the matter ended there. Now that Nawaz Sharif has a
massive mandate, and has promised to protect minorit~s according to
the promises made by the Qaid-e-Azam, we can hope that something
will be done about the Blasphemy Law as well. If the Law has to stay,
then it should be first Investigated whether the punishment for it is
death, secondly, it must be ensured that the public does not take this
law into its own hands. People like Joshua Fazaldin should be
honoured regarding their decision to live in Pakistan and we should see
to it that they never regret their decision.
 -133- LOUD THINKING

WOMEN'S DIVORCE RIGHT

Life is full of ironies and paradoxes. Looking at them philosophically,

they provoke laughter. Looking at them as the situation emerges on the
ground, it sends shock waves of confusion and pessimism in ones
blood stream, and one wants to cry. Perhaps one laughs and cries all
at the same time.

One such situation is the Pakistani woman's attitude towards her own
achievement with reference to family life. After independence, Prime
Minister Muhammad Ali Bogra's second marriage to his foreign
- secretary acted as catalyst to the women's' movement against
polygamy. The marriage had been enacted on purely emotional
grounds, for his first wife was a highly respected, refjned and a popular
person, against whom neither the husband nor the nation could point a
finger. At the time, the only noteworthy and vocal organization was the
APWA which took up cudgels against this inhuman misinterpretation of
the Quranic' text. In the course of time, with the support of the liberal
graciousness of President Ayub, and guided by erudite exp8rtise of
some scholars, the Muslim Family-Laws, 1961, became the law of the
land. It dealt with several aspects of family life, Minimum age limit for
marriage, polygamy, divorce, registration of 'nikah' and rights of
inheritance of the orphaned grandchildren. The original draft of this
document was far more revolutionary and identical to the Quranic
concepts, but it had to be compromised and washed down as usual
under the pressure of Mullahism. Whatever the laws are worth, they
were considered the first step towards sanity, hoping that sooner or
later, it would take the next step to make up for its limitations that were
forced on it. But the Mullah's sword has hung on it ever since,
threatening and agitating against it as 'un-Islamic'. Why they describe it
as such is a story by itself, However, the women too have kept up the
pressure, and it is no mean achievement to have retained it against the
vested interest backed by the negative power of fundamentalism,

But here comes the crunch. The very women who can show off this
luarel in their cap, and of a class that is influential liberated and some
of them highly educated and intelligent, not only do not take advantage
of the rights achieved, but many today do not even know what the
details of the Muslim Family Laws are all aboutl The irony of it is
baffling, Are we crazy? Are we schizophrenic? When we really need
these laws we ignore them, and later weep and wail over it. In fact the
truth suddenly dawns upon us when the lawyer informs us that by not
laking our rights, we are doomed to a prolonged, ugly and vulgar court
proceedings,
 -134- LOUD THINKING

The main feature of the Muslim Family Laws 1961, I am referring to is

the woman's right to divorce her husband. In matters of human rights
the Quran does not differentiate between men and women. Either
partner can initiate divorce proceedings jf the marriage does not work
out. But in the washed down version of these laws, the woman begs
the right to initiate divorce from the husband-to-be, the groarY', on the
wedding day against the clause 18 of the "nikah" form. (Ponder here
over the sumptuousness of the man: he cannot tolerate the woman
divorcing him as a matter of right as a human being: she must beg and
acquire the right from him!) If the bride does not beg of him, she is back
to square one.

My grouse is as to how much work have the feminists done in making

the women aware of this particular clause 18 on the "nikah" form? How
many women actually do sign it? This would be an interesting theme
for a survey_ The result would be scandalous, for the situation is most
certainly ubiquitous.
•
To be unaware of it after a struggle to achieve it is the glaring paradox.
But, also to be unaware that before the 'nikah' form even reaches the
venue of the wedding house, the clause 18 has already been viciously
crossed out without the permiSSion of the parties concerned, then the
scenario becomes ridiculous and tragic at the same time.

Presuming for a moment that someone in the house is aware, and

thereby points out the significance of it. Won't he/she be shouted down
as spoilt sport; the great aunts and grandmothers Will lament in horror
at the bad omen of talking of divorce during nuptial ties; the parents will
be hugging their "noses" for fear of losing them and the dumb,
decorated bride, engulfed in romantic expectations will not uher a word.
After all, it is an auspicious wedding day, and the person wro has a
gala time, is the Mullah. He gloats over the scratching of the clause 18.

Once the auspiCIOUS "nikah" day and the romance is over, in more and
more cases it dawns upon the woman that divorce may be the only
alternative. It is only then that the crossed clause 18 stares back in all
its angularities and pricks, and now they know it is too late. A simple
application to the Councilor of the ward, and divorce papers in ones
hand within ninety days, if all reconciliationary efforts fall, IS !he right
won and lost. The lawyer now takes you to the court for a judicial
deciSion, facing all kinds of vulgar publicity, constant obstruction and
torture on the part of the husband, and all this could prolong for two
years or more. Even so, a favourable decision means going to the
Councilor, for this decision was only an aid to wipe off the cross on the
 -135- LOUD THINKING

"nikah" form, with this proviso that the decision can be still ch311enged
in the court,

Now, if this is the plight of the upper and middle classes, what about
the ignorant, the illiterate, the dispossessed?

My plea is that the women's organizations must make people aware of

the rights already gained. People should also be educated against
superstitious and irrational attitude. In the meantime we must clamour
for further improvement of the Muslim Family Laws,

A word to the Government and the administration. When the Mullah

crosses out clause No, 18 on the 'mkah' form without permission of the
parties concerned. and fights back if someone objects, isn't he violating
the law of the land? When Mullahism bullies hiS way through the form,
isn't It acting as a state within a state? It must take note of it. Or is Seth
Edhi right when he says that the government is "mazloom"?
 -136- LOUD THINKING

ODIOUS COMPARISONS

Comparisons are always odious, all the more so when our country is
compared by Pakistanis themselves with Its greatest well wisher, India.
No matter what area of activity it may be, you mention it and there
comes the comparison wherein Pakistan is always wrong and ugly, and
India always right and proper. In this self-hate, we tend to forget that in
the social sphere in particular, for example marnage and its customs,
dowry system, divorce, widowhood, remarriage and above all, customs,
all banns of our life, are of Indian and Hindu origin. Furthermcre, their
problem of overpopulation, their shantytowns with dirt and filth which
decades ago made. A Huxley describes them as one big latrine, and
corruption, if not as bad as ours, are not better either.

Now, before anyone runs away with the idea that I am being prejudiced
and hateful towards India, let me clarify it certainly is not meant to be
so. What I am cribbing about is our unscientific and un historical way of
approaching life problems 13nd experience.

Yes I India does have the upper hand in several areas. But whether it is
India or any other country, we must have a historical perspective and
the rationale behind It, before we come to any drastically negative
conclusions. In other words, the cause and effect of what goes on in
the universe and in the mightiest of all phenomena, the humans.

Primarily, the science of the rise and fall of nations explains a great
deal about human behaviour. Without going into the details of its
causes and its various theories, (for that is not the intention of the
scribe In this article) I would like to emphasize that once a nation falls, it
may not be forever, but It does take a long time, pain and sacrifice, and
a great deal of objective reflection and introspection to rise again. In
this context, the fall of the ancient Greek civilization is a classic
example What with the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman political
domination as a result of its decay, its erstwhile greatness still eludes it,
although it transmitted a precious lot to the world. Similarly, ancient
Hindu civilization, culminating in the Gupta era, more than 2,000 years
ago fell, to be crushed and dominated initially by the white Huns and
later on the Arabs, partially, and then the Turks, Mughals and the
British. The Muslim world, among all civilizations, is the youngest and
the latest to decay and fall, barely two to three hundred years ago. For
the Hindus, a period of 1800 years lies behind them in their efforts to
rise again Logically then Muslims of the sub-continent have the
shortest possible period in which to stand on their own feet. Thus the
time factor plays a very important part In the rise and fall of a people.
 -137- LOUD THINKING

According to Iqbal, the Quran comes into the picture when any people,
with its help, attempt to "economize time and effort," and lessen the
pain and anguish that goes with it

Thus If India is ahead, or does better In some areas, it should be seen

in this light, her 1800 years to our 200 years. The chain of cause and
effect has to be followed scientifically before any judgment is
pronounced.

Next is the factor of piecemeal conquest of India by the East India,

Company, culminating in the exile of Bahadur Shah Zafar and the
declaration of Queen Victoria as the Empress of India. This was a
traumatic exercise for the Muslims, the loss of their role as rule,s.
Although the change was only in form; the substance had been lost
long ago. However, the shift of loyalty to a foreign master was
unthinkable. It was not so for the Hindus, although thEjY were
disappointed in their ambition to replace the Mughals. The main point
that emerges from this situation is that while the Hindu readily
cooperated with the British and gained experience, the Muslims stayed
back. This factor was further aggravated by the British attitude; they
were suspicious of the Muslims because it was them that they had
wrestled power. Also, along with this they had a commollality of
feelings and rapport with the Hindus, because the latter had their own
remorse for having been ruled by The Muslims. This mutual entipathy
naturally created a big gap between the two warring groups. TI,e worst
decision that the Muslims could have made was to keep aloof from the
modern education in the English language when first introduced in the
year 1813, while the Hindus leapt towards it. For them the change was
only from one alien language to another, but for Muslims it became a
symbol of enslavement, just as it must have been for the Hindus, a
change from Sanskrit to Persian centuries ago. Thanks to Sir Syed
Ahmed Khan, the situation was retrieved considerably, or else today
the Situation would have been worse. Well some headway was surely
made, but the yawning gap still remains.

Another interesting phenomenon is that incidentally it was one of the

traditional Hindu castes amongst the four, vaish that in time became
the expertise in economic matters. Like the Jewry, the moneylenders of
yore, they became the financiers of the modern era. On the contrary,
the pre-Mug hal and Mughal rulers prided themselves in being
administrators and soldiers. Counting money was considered
derogatory to human ways of living. The Muslims derided the Hindus
as baniyas, just as Napoleon downgraded the British as "a nation 9f
shopkeepers." The worship of the god of "Mammon" is indeed
dehumanizing but unlike the British and the Hindus, lacking in the
 -138- LOUD THINKING

tradition of econom'lcs, being lavishly spendthrift with no saving habits,

it is not surprising that we reached the verge of economic collapse,

Furthermore, If we compare the All India National congress and the AII-
India Muslim league, there IS a gap of 21 years, to begin with. The
Congress, founded in 1885, became a mass movement, almost
militant, from 1905 onwards, on the issue of partition of Bengal. The
League, founded in 1906, broadened its base not until 1937, when the
Quaid launched the Pakistan Movement. It is remarkable that his
statesmanship and dynamism gave us this homeland within ten years,
but being a much younger organization than the Congress, it needed
time to grow up, as any organization would need to. In any case, the
human mind changes and learns slowly and gradually; old habits die
hard. Centuries of old mental and physical enslavement and
dependence on monarchical authoritarian regimes still has a hold on
the world psyche. Moreover, very few people are imparted that
particular strength by the family and the society, which is needed to
stand on ones own feet ~:md think for oneself. It is so easy to lean on a
patriarch, a dictator, a Sufi saint, even his dead bones in his grave will
do, or eventually of course it is all God's willi The travails of the birth of
democracy and its growth cannot be taken easy. It is painful, bat worth
the pain Many countries, including India, have still a long way to go.

In addition to all thiS, Pakistan Movement was no ordinary freedom

struggle like any other. It was swimming against a strong tide. Jinnati
had only ten years in which to educate the people. He was fighting
against time of which he had very little, facing not only the severe
opposition of the Hindu British combine, but also deadly blows from the
feudal~mullah combine from within If Jinnah had more time that is, if
he had joined hands with Iqbal In 1908, instead of 1930 onwards, the
whole scenario in Pakistan would have been different. the Indian
leaders did not have such conditions, because they were swimming
with the fide that was engulfing the whole globe.

Apart from this conceptual challenge, the above mentioned Hindu

British combine attempted to manipulate the stillbirth of F-akistan.
Changing the date of parlltion was the dirtiest game they played.
Partition of Punjab and Bengal followed by the pre-planned and
uncalled for massacre by the "Gandhian preachers of peace" (ahlmsa);
the occupation of Muslim Kashmir by the "biggest democracy in the
world", and the bungling of military and civil shares that fell to Pakistan
and a lot more, was aimed at killing the new state (which they could not
prevent from being born) at its birth. They could not kill it outright, but
all this did create moral, emotional and physical trauma ·hat still
simmers in the veins of our people. The self-righteous stance of India
 -139- LOUD THINKING

and the fact that the Anglo-American Bloc has always and will always
feel more at home with India, should be accepted once and for all. So
seen from this angle, Pakistan has always been at a disadvantageous
position from the beginning. If Quaid-e-Azam had lived longer, or if
there was another Quaid, the story would have been different, but that
is a subject by itself.

But in spite of all this, with alJ the ingrained human resources that this
nation possesses, she could have traversed some distance and
eventually reached a pOint from where it could take off to achieve its
original purposes. But this was not to be. While the clerical class has
been the death of every civilisation - since all decadent culture are
priest-ndden - we had an abundant share of it as time passed. But they
too could have been ignored just as our discerning public has ignored
them in every elected assembly. While all clerics came on the scene as
traditional sectarian groups, one of them came as a political party to act
as a saboteur. A lot can be said on its damaging role in the poIitico-
economic arena, but in the long run it is in the educational field that it
has been really fatal. Beginning in 1953, it destroyed the fabric of
whatever good there was in the system we inherited in 1947. They
captured the Punjab University in the mid-fifties, and then one by one
the colleges affiliated to it, until they threw their pernicious ne+work all
over the country's educational institutions. I am surprised why the
successive governments have not been able to do anything about il.
What have the political parties to do with the educational institutions?
These are sacred places of research. learning, academic discourses
and a preparation for the future scholars, teachers, sCientists, leaders
and bureaucrats. What are they doing there by controlling the
admission of students, allotment of hostel rooms, allowing classes to
function only at the'lr will, pretendmg to be self-styled guardians of
female students' morality, in short destroying the educational
atmosphere of the country in every way. llVhat are the vice-chancellors,
Senators and Heads of the Departmems supposed to do? Remain
helpless at the behest of thelf masters, whoever they be? A country
can face any calamity as long as its educational institutions kept on
functioning and good teachers exist. Whatever problems Britain, USA,
France etc_ may face, they have never allowed politics to interfere in
education, so much so that Oxford and Cambridge Universities were
chosen to be at places distant from London, as capital c:ties are
generally considered liable to be politically or othelWise corrupt. In fact,
neither did London interfere m Indian Universities, nor did the League
and the Congress_ Even after independence, there is no counterpart to
a particular student group in the universities and colleges of India.
Hence, the odious comparison At least we should know who is
destroying us.
 -140- LOUD THINKING

Lastly, whatever was left of discipline and some sense of vall es, was
run over by ZA Bhutto. That was the beginning of lawlessness which
tears us down today at every step. After him came General Zia whose
pious strokes cracked down whatever was left of the institutions in the
country_

In spite of all that has been said above, I believe that Pakistan stilt has
all the potential and the energy not only to materialise the dream of
Iqbal but also to demonstrate the alternative to the preseflt global
status quo, and with the slightest pain and suffering.

What I have been trying to say all the while is that it is important to
understand that the failure and success of the people has its
antecedents in history, and it takes time to break away from them. If the
vision is clear and commitment is deep, then no people have anything
to fear. But constant comparisons in a negative style where everything
about ourselves is hopeless, and comparisons with a country which is
ever ready to help us to destroy ourselves to fulfil our death-wIsh, as it
were, will get us nowhere.
 -141- LOUD THINKING

THEIR ROYAL HIGHNESSES

Looking back at the grim family tragedy in the context of our national
political scenario, it let loose a chain of thoughts in my mind. For one
thing, after a long period, the people of all classes, irrespective of their
individual loyalties, groupings and commitments, were emotionally
moved in unison at the killing of Murtaza Bhutto, the brother of Prime
Minister.

In a society riddled with confusion, divisiveness, hatred and violence, it

was a good feeling, albeit briefly, to experience a commonality of
humanity which is supposed to be inherently within all of us humans. It
is pity though that Murtaza Bhutto had to die in this manner to make
some of us realise the beauty of genuine collective human feelings.

But, and this is where the sad part comes, no such expedience was
manifest when numerous and nameless, guilty or not guilty, were killed
in a similat manner. Why? Is it because they did not belong to any
dynasty, to any royal family? One may raise ones eyebrows and query:
Did then Murtaza Bhutto belong to royalty? This is where thE" c(Unch
comes.

Major part of the human race even today craves for their Royal
Highnesses in whose INS runs the blue blood. By way of analysis,
seen purely from the apparent historical perspective, man has lived
through a longer period under monarchs, princes and princesses, than
any other institution.

He still pines for and seeks glamour, the pomp and show, tht;:f regalia
associated with them. Moreover, having lived under their ;:jbsolute
power, he has lost his human individuality and significance, and his
human identity which was a proclamation of his free will, responsibility
and creativity. He longs to surrender to a powerful regality so that he
can escape from freedom. Since he never really grew up, responsibility
and hard work frightens him. In this process, in Pakistan he has
created at least four royal families-the Ayubs, the Bhuttos, the Zias and
the Sharifs.

Having come to power via the armed forces or elections, their wives,
sons, daughter, brothers and Sisters, all strike a royal pose and take it
for granted their right to succeed to the one and only throne. And the
worst part of it is that people at large, for reasons mentioned above,
willingly and uncritically: go along with it. Of course, this phenomenon
of political immaturity due to absence or very limited experience of
 -142- LOUD THfNKfNG
democratic institutions is not exclusive to Pakistan; it is a familiar
picture of the Third World, what with their Gandhis and Nehrus, Marcos
and Aquinas, Bandranaiks and Muhibur Rehmans and Ziaur Rehmans.
Even in Britain, the mother of modern democracy, where there is only
one case of son succeeding the father as Prime Minister on the basis
of sheer brilliance, namely, Pit the Elder and Pit the Younger, the
people have not yet been able to get rid of the royalty syndron1f'.

Now, the British royal family has often been described as a roY31 model
and symbol of national unity. This takes us to a deeper concern of
hUtTlan psyche than we discussed above regarding sheer political
immaturity of man.

The question that arises is: Is it inherent in a human psyche that it

needs to look up to a model to build his own character? Let's presume
that it does. Having said this, then perhaps the best role models in
history have been the Anbiya and all those who like them, struagled for
justice and struggled really h.ard As Lincoln declared: "If I get a chance
to kick the unjust system, I shall kick it hard."

Such are the men and women whose strength of character and noble
deeds inspire their fellow humans. If even one human can rise to such
heights so can every other human. No wonder the Persian envoy,
deputed by his monarch to meet Umar Farooq, the "king" of th 3! Arabs,
returned to report that therein every individual was a "kmg" That is how
it is meant to be. Each individual a hero unto himself possessing a
highly developed and integrated "self" This became possible, because
Umar Farooq, keeping In harmony with the Quranic values, made it
sure that his son though brilliant, would not succeed him When such a
suggestion was made, he rejected it vehemently, shocked that such a
proposal should be made in a Muslim State.

However, when the "heroes" are not like Umar Farooq, claiming
"heroism" and "kingship" on the basis of "royal blue blood" and "family"
links, rate than "becoming" what one ought "to be", then the very
human existence is degraded. The "emulation" and "Inspiration" of a
role model is reduced to "worship", which is not the same thing.

The Quranic declaration that no human has the right to rule over
another, that all humans are equal and one human family, :1nd that
each human is honourable for the simple reason that helshe is human,
is violated by the "dynasties" who come to power by force or fr2ud. This
must stop if we are to live our lives, and not just vegetate. An unlived
life is death of a nation, and Nature cannot tolerate this kind of a
vacuum in its scheme of things.
 -143- LOUD THINKING

COMMENTARY ON STEPS PRESCRIBED IN VERSE

4:34 FOR CORRECTING FAMILY

Surah 4, Verse 34

The decade of the 19ao's has witnessed a desire on the part of women
to find out for themselves the Quranic injunctions regarding human
issues in general and the gender issue in particular. In Pakistan, after a
great deal of agitational activity, women seem to have settled down
mainly to intellectual activity. This has taken the form of seminars and
discussions and the establishment of research centres.

One of the verses that preoccupies the mind most, is Surah 4, Verse
34. In traditional translations its impact in my view, is primitive and
horrific, and totally unacceptable to the humanity and self-esteem of
womanhood and the institution of the family itself. It was in this mood
which I shared with many of my compatriots that I approached Mr. GA
Parwez,. the great Iqbalite, for further clarification of thf above
mentioned Quranic verse. I am glad I did, because he fell fatally ill not
very long after this. I would have missed out on the details for what
emerged out of our dialogue was for me an original rendering of the
verse unknown to me in any other literature, including his own
published works. No doubt the meaning and suggestion is implicit in his
"Mafhumul-Quran", which I shall follow phrase by phrase, but the
comprehensive details given below are based on our dialogue which I
would like to share with my readers I write on Allama Parwez's
authority, and any lapse is entirely my responsibility.

Surah 4 Verse 34 asserts, to begin with, as elsewhere (2/228, 33/35)

that men and women are equal in the exercise of their hum~n rights
and duties. The difference lies in the biological functions of the two,
thereby complementing each other. The "difference" does not mean
inequality and the time-honoured male chauvinism for which the
woman is pathetically the victim of superiority complex. In fact both
excel each other in their unique general potentials bestowed on them
by the Creator. The uniqueness of the woman lies in her capacity to
carry the baby in her womb, lactate and nurture it. This incapacitates
her for a while for which the men are enjoined to perform the function of
relieving her of the anxiety of this situation by giving her security and
protection This in no way implies that a woman is debarred from
earning (4/32) or that the man can strangulate her economically. (In
any case, the ultimate objective of the Quranic socia-economic order
and' systems is to guarantee basic needs to all men and women not as
a favour but as a matter of right.) Also, the Quran is envisaging a
 -144- LOUD THINKJNG
people who have already gone through a metamorphosis, a change
from infantile equation of dominance and subservience to human
partnership. After having said this, the Quran goes further to advise
women to safeguard their biological function in the interest of the
perpetuation of the human specie in accordance with the laws of
nature. The next sentence in the verse refers to a possible "rebellion"
(nashuza hunna), translated as such by Marmaduke Pickthall, on the
part of women. Parwez Sahib also uses the word "Sarkashi" in his
rvlafhum-ul-Quran. The question arises as to rebellion against what and
against whom. The traditional mind seems to immediately turn in the
direction of sexual waywardness, followed by three stages of
preventing it as laid down In the Quran (1) they should be counseled
against it (2) the husbands should separate from their wives (3)
corporal punishment can be meted out to them by the husband, if the
first and the second stages show no results. Seen with such reference,
the woman's mind naturally balks at it. Why was not the sexual
waywardness and immorality of the man included in this verse, I cried
out in despair. Here two • paints must be understood at the very outset,
explained Allama Parwez. Firstly, the Quran in this verse discusses the
issue not between husband and wife, but between men and women in
general. As such the matter is tackled by the society and the
administration through its institutions, such as the court. Seco'ldly, the
issue at stake is not a woman's sexual waywardness but her "rebellion"
against the biological function of procreation.

In a male-dominated society it eventually comes home to a woman that

what smothers and denigrates her is her uterus, so why not do away
with it? As Carol Driscoll pOints out: "It should not come as a shock to
realise that women can never hope to be liberated in any sense ·If they
are denied the right to control their bodies, especially their repr")ductive
organs."

This anti-uterus attitude may lead a woman to decide not to have a

baby. This kind of protest will never come from a man, for he never has
to go through this process. He can never even appreciate what it
entails both physically and emotionally. It may also be noticed that with
more and more awareness and enlightenment the woman feels
unfulfilled with her traditional role Is child bearing the ultimate? Vicki
Pollard says: "Natural childbirth has been glorified as the most beautiful
moment in a woman's life. This is unfortunate because it leads to the
idea that motherhood is the ultimate experience in life." But a woman is
a human being, and her head and heart are no less clamouring for
artistic and intellectual creativity apart from sheer procreation. Such
rumblings of dissatisfaction and rebellion are reflected even in ancient
Greek literature where wives had no part to play in the cultural pursuits,
 -145- LOUD THINKING

when that country was passing through its most elevating and
productive phase in its history_ In Euripide's "Medea", the rebel woman
spoke out thus:
"Soon would I stand,
Three times to face their battles,
Shield in hand,
Than bear one child"

Such individuals have existed perhaps in every phase of hlsiory and

every society_ A few individuals do not matter, but if this feeling
becomes collectively articulated and gains momentum as a movement
then the survival of the human specie is threatened_ At this stage of the
dialogue my immediate r-etort was: On the contrary the world is
threatened with the burden of overpopulation, we are two billion too
many; in this context it is ridiculous to imagine that the human specie is
threatened with extinction, or ever will be in the procreative sense. To
this Parwez sahib referred to the liberation struggle wageE by the
women of Europe and North America In the past to three hundred
years_ In time it has become more and more articulate and vocal.
Already the copious anti-uterus literature is showing signs of dwindling
population in those countries, and the women's liberation movement
could lead those areas into a crisis. As the third world countries (where
the extra two billions have been produced) develop and women gain
awareness like their counterparts in the first world, similar literature and
movements will blast the status quo. It will then become a world-wide
crisis_

Now, the Quran is for all times. It visualizes the future possibilities and
accordingly lays down the guidelines. Surah 4. Verse 34 becomes
applicable only in such a contingency_ Otherwise it remains redundant
So, when the world is faced with such a crisis, women will be
C:Junseled against this attltude_ Of course, it IS but natural that unless
they are helped in retaining the confidence and the certainty that
marriage and motherhood is not the end of all experience, it will not
show results If this counseling fails and the anti uterus movement
shows no Sign of a bating, then sexual indulgence, by and large
becomes irrelevant. Sex is not for pleasure alone. The administration
and the court can then decide on (temporary) separation, husbands
abstaining from sex and thereby putting psychological pressure on the
wives_ If even this does not bring any change in attitude, then the court
can inflict corporal punishment, not the husband_ Indeed the very idea
of the husband beating the wife dishonours and demeans the Nife and
consequently the family_ Above all, it goes against the very values of
the Quran (17/70) Regarding all kinds of punishments, in my article
"Quranic Approach towards change" published In Tolu-e-Islam of
 -146- LOUD THfNKING
January this year, I have taken the position that these are local and
historical and the nature of punishments can change from time to time
and place to place. Regional and local historical continuity, provided
the punishments are not too barbaric, makes It easier to implement:
secondly the change is inevitable when the cultural level of the human
mind reaches heights of refmement and beauty. Some psychologists in
the meantime accept corporal punishment as part of treatment.

The rest of the verse emphasises that if women retract from their stand,
there is no vendetta Involved It may be repeated here that Surah 4
Verse 34 tackles not any personal relatedness between husband and
wife, where husbands arrogate to themselves the prerogative of
beating their wives black and blue and throwing them out of their
bedrooms. It is this misreading of the verse because of which wife-
beating is so rampant in almost all Muslim countries. Even so-called
educated husbands claim this "Quranic" right to beat their wives, and if
they do not beat it is to be seen as a favour in a spint of magnanimity!
Talking of "rebellion", the Quran chides men and husbands a,> well in
their role as protectors. (hey can also be "rebellious" in the sense that
they ill-treat and desert their wives. Again it is the administration
through its court that arbitrates (as In the women's case) and bring
about an amicable understanding between them and settle the money-
matters on conditions that are workable (4/128).

Such are the details communicated by Allama Parwez on this very

sensit!ve issue. The details are definitely out of the rut of traditional
translations and certainly more convincing. In any case, it is with
pondering over and taking up the challenge for further research. It IS
difficult to give up ideas that have the sanction of history and centuries
of time to back it up, even when these Ideas are negative and
unproductive. Nevertheless the effort must go on, for anything positive
said or written is never lost.
 -147- LOUD THfNKI,\lG

MEMORIES OF ALiGAHRH
My sister, Nasim, now Mrs. N.Z. Sani, (these days giving a push
onwards and upwards to the Dawn Model School of Quranic Education
Society) and I landed at the end of 1944 on the soil that Sir Syed
Ahmad had tread upon, and were breathing in the atmosphere that this
great man had breathed in. At the time we did not realize it We were
admitted into the pre-matric classes of Girls' High School in Aligarh
within the precincts of the College for older girls. A little nervous and a
lot more homesick (having been left behind by our father in the hostel
for what turned out to be two years away from the family for the first
time) we tried to grasp an environment totally alien to our past
experience. From a convent in Bombay where we walked a mile and a
half to school in uniform of skirts and tunics, all complete with belts and
ties, hearing only English along with Marathi and Gujrati, here in
Aligarh we found ourselves in the midst of flowing 'ghararas' and
'doputtas' and chaste Urdu, Whether it was our capacity to adjust
quickly €If whether it was the charming and welcoming atmosphere, or
both, we were soon in step with what was happening around, and we
enjoyed It The girls were friendly and full of life and the teachers were
competent and dedicated_ There were sprawling lawns, badminton, net
ball and baseball courts and an open-air theatre.

Now the readers might wonder what is so unusual abcut these

facilities. Apparently yes, but in reality no, What I want to
emphasize is the spirit behind it all. There was not even a
shadow of inhibition, ('gutton') fear or repression as it would be
rampant in a segregated, sequestered system. There was
abundant laughter and good cheer and freedom. As a natural
sequence, students were creative and innovative. Whether
there was an occasion for welcome and farewell parties, a
seasonal festival like welcoming the spring or the m')nsoons
(saawan), celebration of the 70 th birthday of Papa Mian (Sheikh
Abdullah, the founder of girls school and college in 1913), or
the Foundation Day when Papa Mian addressed the girls or the
annual play_ Whatever the occasion, it brought out the best
from the girls and their talents and natural gifts found ample
expression and manifestation in sound rhythm and colour.
fheir "cultural" activities were not restricted to "Naat" or hymn
singing and recitation alone without comprehension. It was all
lived through.

My sister and I grew up fast in this scenario. No doubt the convent in

Bombay had imparted us a good educational background and a
 -148- LOUD THINKING

valuable sense of discipline, but here In Aligarh we bubbled with life

and acquired a new identity.

We now belonged to the Muslim League of Quaid-e-Azam. In fact it

was the beginning of our awareness as would be "Pakistanis" and I
found myself writing in bracket against my name the term "Pakistani",
But all this was without the ugliness of what is termed as "politics" in
colleges today. It's just that we became politically conscious in a
healthy way during the most eventful and exciting years prior to
independence. And for the first time wanted to read the newspapers to
keep abreast of what was happening day to day. This brin!=)s us to
another interesting aspect of the administration.

There was a newspaper and reading room in the precincts of the

college. There were newspapers and magazines galore, but DAWN
was the most sought after. However this was meant for college girls
only and we the schoolgirls ("Children" as we were termed) did not
have access to it. Some of us felt this to be unfair. At least the Matric
students should be allowed to benefit from the reading room, we
argued and insisted. The matter reached the Principal, Mrs. Haider
(Mumtaz APA, the daughter of Sheikh Abdullah) and Miss Ram, the
head Mistress of the School. For a while they resisted, after all we were
school children. When they found us adamant they relented and
loosened the rope. The 9th and 10th classes were henceforth permitted
rp read the newspapers during their free time. Similarly we were
allowed to go to the Stratchy Hall at the University to listen to Liaqat Ali
KtJan, who came to speak on behalf of the Quaid who could not come
hi~self because of his ill health, of course to our eternal re~ret and
loss. That was one C'hance we would have had to see him and listen to
hlni). The third privilege we gained was to accompany the college girls
In a:anvassing for the Muslim League during the 1945-1946 general
eleotions
, in which it proved itself to be the sole representative of
Mus~.im India. From hindsight, the point I am trying to makE; is the
attitude and understanding of the authorities and chief management in
tacklii·~g the "agitation" (If this term can be used at all) demands of
some of us as mentioned above. They gave us a listening ear FInd tried
to appr·:eciate our feelings.

So muc-h for our political awakening. However this recollection of the

Aligarh \spirit would be incomplete if I do not refer to the caring and
sharing of what was the "Alig Family" as created by Sir Syed Ahmad
Khan. The term "Alig" is enough to remove all barriers and create
togethernU!ss even today. For example, I can never forget the several
Eids that came by during our stay in the hostel. Most of the girls went
home, but some of us had to stay back. One of the teachers walked up
 -149- LOUD -;HINKING

to us and said that we were welcome to her home for Eid for it was out
of the question to leave us lonely in the hostel. So we had a gala time
in a homely atmosphere and it made us feel great and proud to be
entertained by our teacher and of course we had a lot to write about
back home to our parents. This concern lives within us till today.

Perhaps, AIigs or non-Aligs would recall that witticism and sense of

humour was the hallmark of the Aligarh Spirit. This quality is acquired
or is possible only in an uninhibited atmosphere of freedom, already
referred to in the beginning. This was the greatest gift imparted by Sir
Syed Ahmad Khan to the nation. Apart from a joyful feeling that it
engenders, a sense of humour maintains a balance in life. It is a great
thing to be able to laugh at oneself. It is essential for toleration and
survival. In the last fifty years we have slowly lost this quality what with
the joy killer priesthood in our midst and their dry and retro;!ressive
"madaris". If we desire to survive we must revive the spirit that was
Aligarh.

Post Script after matriculation from Aligarh we joined "Balika Vidayala"

College in Cawnpore where our father was posted. This was a few
months before independfince and political conditions were such that it
was not advisable to be away from home. Infused with the Aligarh spirit
my sister and I led a function or two with new ideas and created quite a
stir. Finding out our Aligarh background the Principal and the faculty
members of this Hindu College exclaimed "No Wonder! After ali, it's
Aligarh!
 -150- LOUD THINKING

SOME STRAY THOUGHTS WORTH REMEMBRING

Parwez Sahib's writings and lectures are already immortal, but even in
an informal sitting and causal talks, one learned a lot from him and felt
educated. A chance remark, a comment, an answer to query - one
always felt his presence with wanting to come again

Below are some of his thoughts and guidelines I can recall:-

Emotional people do not produce leaders. However. they do throw up

leadership of high caliber at a moment of crisis; a time in their history
when it becomes a matter of life and death.

Parwez Sahib considered study of philosophy as a prerequisite to

knowledge and learning, that is, at least some acquaintance with it to
read his books, or for that matter, going in for higher criticism. Then
further, at one pOint he remarked: "Psychology, the study of human
psyche, IS the subject of tomorrow. Its importance for human balance,
stability and happiness can hardly be over emphasized."

Considering his tremendous erudite and in-depth knowledge of varied

subjects, I often wondered and thought loudly as to how intellectually
lonely he must be. On this Parwez Sahib always modestly bypassed
my remark. However once, very enthusiastically, albeit in a bemoaning
manner, for it did not seem possible, he said, "If only I had the
opportunity to converse and have a dialogue with Nirad Chaudhery (of
"Continent of Circe" fame) what a wonderful experience it would be.
Those who have read Nirad would know what he meant and missed in
his life.

To guarantee the permanent success of a movement, of a new idea

and system, it is essential that the leader harnesses the potentials of
his close associates, thus quietly and unobtrusively creating a balance
in their personalities.

The way we have been sliding downhill, hitting the rock bottom of
degradation and failure in every field, I once asked in desperation as to
why it should be so. Parwez Sahib replied: "A people who do not have
respect for themselves and for others, are a doomed people. The down
hill slide accelerated when, during the agitation against President Ayub,
people abused him and shouted" Ayub Kutta, Hai. Hai," etc. etc. Ever
since this has become the pattern against whosoever came next. To
criticize and to disagree intellectually, or even dislodge anyone from the
"Gaddi" is one thing; to disrespect is another. Without mutual respect
 -151- LOUD THINKING

(those on the gaddis should also respect the commoners) a people

cannot reach the higher planes of development."

As an executive in the Home Ministry I worked under the British

Councilors; under the Interim government when Patel was the Home
Minister; then under various governments in Pakistan both inside and
outside and (after retirement) in the ministry, never did I suffer or things
were never so apperceive and unpredictable as under Presic.ent lia.
This has been the ugliest phase of my life.

"Just visualize a strange paradox", he once said "we establish

factories, manufacturing long cloth by million of yards, only to be buried
six feet under the ground". Indeed, to quote a wise man, it takes an
extraordinary mind to see the obvious.

If there is a rift and conflict among blood kinsmen, it t ecomes

inescapably painful - if one stays close, one burns in its fire, if one
stays away, one is choked in its smoke.

In a stable and happy home, a member of the family can easily shed off
his/her strains and stresses of the outside world as he/she enters the
home, just as one sheds off the dust of ones feet on a door mat when
entering the house.
 -152- LOUD THfNKfNG
THIS IS MARCH 1996

This is the year 1996 1 What's so peculiar about it? The reader might
query, Well, it could be that we are hosting the World Cup and what is
more, defending our title as well. So far so good. We wish cur Boys
greater glories and greater victories.

However, I am thinking of 1996 in which year Pakistan is coming close

to half a century of its independence; to be exact, it will be 49 years this
August. Also,56 years this month in March since the Lahore Resolution
was passed. As a ritual we will make all the required noises and
gestures and then sleep over its sterile results for another year,
although the next year cannot be ignored so easily. We are 'Joing to
complete 50 years, so preparations are already afoot. No doubt it will
be a ritual on a grand scale, but a ritual nevertheless.

What are we ritualising? Is it running away from the Hindu majority,

from their intoleranc~ and fanaticism, from their hatred and vendetta,
for didn't we rule over them for a thousand years? Now it was their turn,
you see. If Pakistanis are run-away people, running away from the rise
of Hindu Nationalism in fear and insecurity, then we have indeed laid
very negative foundations of our present and our future. Negativism is
self-defeating, and is it any wonder that we have regressed in time (lost
in sheer emotionalism) and space (lost to Bangladesh)?

Nay, Pakistan was not the result of negativism, although Hindu

fundamentalism and vendetta is a fact of history. Pakistan Movement,
embedded in Iqbal's Allahabad Address of 1930 and the lahore
Resolution of 1940, was a very positive and a unique movement of the
twentieth century, perhaps the first of its kind since the pericd of the
Khulfa-e-Rashidin. As such its roots lie in thousands of years of human
experience of the Divine Message revealed to the Anbiya, but at this
moment in history its fruits lie in centuries ahead.

Pakistan Movement, to begin with, was a tremendous challenge to

territorial, racial and lingual nationalism. It rejected the nation-State as
inhuman. Its vision was that of universalism, it envisioned the human
race as one human family inhabiting the planet Earth as its are single
homeland. Eric Fromm in his "The Sane Society" has psychologically
analyzed the birth of Man as passive and accidental. Thus his ties to
the soil and blood is an existence on the animal level. Man is fully bam
only after freeing himself from these ties. This was the Quranic dream
of Iqbal -- the re-creation of Man into his human identity -- which has
been destroyed by the nation-State based on soil and blood.
 -153- LOUD THINKING

At the same time, Iqbal's relentless battle against the status quo be it
monarchy, feudalism, capitalism, communism, slavery-- need a role
model. For a role model, independent territory and authority are the
pre-requisite; for that matter, for any system these conditions are
necessary. This was the rationale behind the demand for Pakistan.
Commentators get confused when they confront Iqbal's universalism
together with his demand for a separate state. They look upon it as a
contradiction. In the first place, territory is a means to an end not an
end in itself, like a nation-state is_ Secondly, the Quran aoes not
impose its system on an unwilling populace. It presents an example for
others to emulate, but never casts even a shadow on the free-will and
choice of the humans. This is the philosophy behind the Quranic
concept of "Hijrat" to move to a terr"rtory (if the home territory does not
welcome the revolution) where the new system could be implemented.
This is why Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad left their native
lands. A human can move on to any place in his earthly home. (There
were specific reasons why the territory "Pakistan" was chose" for an
experiment, but for the time being I leave this to be referred to on some
other occasion.)

Furthermore, Iqbal's vision, through the Quranic concepts, saw into the
future decades ahead. In the clash between capitalism and
communism, Iqbal foresaw the collapse of communism because of
certain lacunas in its basic philosophy. Capitalism with all its
ruthlessness and avarice would then be without constraints ard hence
devastating for humanity. Above all, capitalism is a self-perpetuating
system based on profit motivations and selfishness. When the
inevitable happens (and collapse of USSR has taken) Iqbal hoped that
there would be an alternative to capitalism in the Pakistan's experiment
as another option. Today one can appreciate this foresight because the
world is faced with a destructive uni-polar power, already described as
"The End of History" as far as new options and ideas are concerned.

Talkmg of destruction, the Quran likes to see a group of people. who

unlike other groups, who at best only work and serve their own
interests, safeguard and protect humanity. The only justification for this
group to exist is that it lives and dies for humanity, using its power and
technology for humanity's benefit. That is how Iqbal saw Pakistan's
global role.

I feel very intensely that unless the intellectuals of Pakistan research

and highlight these positive aspects of Pakistan Movellient, its
progress and development will ever remain marred by negativism and
its resultant lack of commitment both at leadership and mass level.
 -154- LOUD THINKING

OMAR DARAZ

There is a gaping void in the Lahore Centre of Tolu-e-Islam, or for that

matter. in its worldwide Tahreek. Ornar Daraz is no more.

It is said that nobody is indispensable. That may be so, but it is also

true that each individual is unique. And this uniqueness matters and it
will be painfully missed. We will miss his quick and sturdy gait, cheerful
demeanour and a ready smile He was always there when you wanted
him, he always responded with enthusiasm and alacrity. I think I
specially noticed these characteristics in him because the general
global conditions have made people rather fearful and gloomy. But not
him. I remember the last time I met him, barely a week before he said
his final goodbye. He was specially invited among others to evaluate
the script of a documentary-cum-drama the Bazm-e-Khwateen of
Lahore was attempting to produce for the Golden Jubilee celebrations.
He applauded the script spiritedly in a manner that was his wont.
except for the concluSion 'Of the play. It had a slightly pessimistic note.
As he spoke, he stood up and ended his comments by declaring that it
should end with the following words: "-----and then this planat Earth
shall be illuminated with the glory of Allah" These are the last words I
heard from him and they shall ever reverberate in my ears.

Omar Daraz was a problem-solving person. Lucky are the people who
have it or acquire this trait. Many a time if I presented a problem or a
hurdle that came my way, in a split second he would offer a solution. It
was so simple, what was there to weep and wail about? Right he was,
I always thought, what was I cribbing about. why should I be weepy?
And I would laugh at myself. He made it all look so easy.

In the last years he was attempting to translate Parwez's books. He

worked with tremendous zeal and speed and of course, thoroughness,
day and night. Sometimes hours passed by, burning the midnight oil,
and without his realising it. When he looked up at the clock, a new day
had dawned. One day I remarked that he was overtaxing himself. At
this he referred to what I had once repeated to him what Parwez had
said on his deathbed, two days before his demise. Parwez had felt
deeply that his life's work was In Urdu which had a very limited
audience and that too was not very responsive. He would have liked to
reach the world audience, which was possible in the English Language.
So this was the motivation that made Omar Daraz work like an
obsessed. I couldn't help admiring his concern for humanity and his
attachment to Parwez. May Allah bless him!
 -155- LOUD THINKING

In the last year or so, he was very keen that young people should learn
Arabic. The younger lot has to carry on the work of the seniors when
they are no more. So this became a passion with him. He once
mentioned that he had great hopes in Atif TufaH and his son Khalid. In
retrospect I now wonder: was it some kind of a premonition of the
coming end? One never knows. Yes, there is so much we do not
know about each other, and it is interned in the grave.
 -156- LOUD THfNKlNG
RAYS OF HOPE

Day after day the media feeds its readers with alarming news and
views causing anxiety and depression all around, and ending in fears
that everything is falling apart. The various organs of the government,
the institutions of all kinds, the very concept of values of life are ripped
to pieces. Seeing it from the historical perspective, this is not
surprising. Wherever the Pharoahs, the Qaroons and the Hamaans
dominate and rule the society, this state of affairs is a logical and
natural consequence The feudal structure, the big business and the
thousands and thousands of madaris all over the courtry that
manufacture the clerical class is bound to create the atmos~here in
which we are finding it difficult to breathe.

Well! when I picked my pen to write, my intentions were not to join the
crescendo of lamentations which becomes inevitable when two
Pakistanis meet For a change I wish to dig out some of the positive
traits in our set-up and the stre'ngth that lies within us. In the noise and
din of wailing and lamentations, we are loosing sight of these rare rays
of hope

To begin With, we have inherited noteworthy human resources, not

numerically of which we have too many, but qualities. In this context,
the intelligence and the LQ. of the nation is a great asset A world-wide
survey once declared Pakistan to be one of the top ten in high LQ.
category. Since I have lost the reference to the exact period and the
organization that announced it (may be some reader may be able to
help) I am referring to the lecture of Dr. Eqbal Ahmed I atterded not
very long ago at th::: Falettis. He also talked about our tremendous
human resources. Having studied and then taught in several top
universities of U.S.A and where he addressed an international
community of students, he found Pakistani students among those who
possessed the highest quotient of intelligence. I think there cannot be a
more authentic source of verifying this factor. This is our great luck, for
such an asset can only be acquired after hard effort of several
generations. And we have it right here and now.

For almost half a century of maladministration and lack of concern and

protectiveness on the part of the ruling class the people have emerged
stronger by acqUiring certain traits which can be a great asset in the
long run. For sheer survIVal as well as great expectations for better
quality of life, characteristics such as self-help, self-reliance, initiative
and enterprise are now the hallmark of national character. These were
the qualities which helped the developed countries to becorne what
 -157- LOUD THINKI.vG
they have become in due course of time, for once upon a time they
were also developing nations with all the negativism that we are
familiar with in the third world today. In time these qualities can bring
great dividends under a genuine dynamic leadership. Alreddy, for
example, in the field of education, stupendous initiative is mcnifest in
the opening of network of schools in the length and breadth of the
country. To top it all, there could not be a better example than LUMS.
They have filled in a terrible vacuum created by governmental
indifference, although a lot needs to be done for the poorer sections of
the population.