Islam and Human Rights
Anwar Shaikh
Chapter 6: Thus Spake Anwar Shaikh

Part 1

The facts throughout Islamic history demonstrate that Muslims are the special people of Allah who has bestowed this distinction on them for hating, hounding and hanging the non-Muslims. The Koran clearly states (in I.VIII, The Disputer: 20) that the Muslims are Allah's Party and the non-Muslims are Satan's Party. It is for this reason that the Koran has declared:

1. Allah is an enemy to unbelievers. (II, The Cow: 90)

2. The worst of beasts in Allah's sight are the ungrateful who will not believe. (VIII, Spoils of War: 55)

3. Unbelievers are the enemies of Allah and they will roast in hell. (Fusilat: 19)

4. Oh ye who believe! The non-Muslims are unclean. (IX, Repentance: 27)

5. Oh ye who believe! Fight the disbelievers...and let them find harshness in you. (IX, Repentance: 125)

6. Oh believers, do not treat your fathers and mothers as your friends, they are evil-doers. (IX, Repentance: 20)

7. Humiliate the non-Muslims to such an extent that they surrender and pay tribute. (IX, Repentance: 29)

8. Muslims are hard against unbelievers, merciful to one another. (XL VIII, Victory: 25)

These references from the Koran explode the Gandhian myth that Raheem (Allah) and Ram are one. In fact, Allah has permanently divided mankind into two groups: the Muslims are his party and the non-Muslims are Satan's party. Since Allah hates non-Muslims and wants their destruction, a true Muslim must follow this Divine guideline. Thus, the only relationship between a Muslim and a non-Muslim is that of ill-will, hatred and animosity. This is the basis of the Islamic Two-Nation theory, which means that the Muslims and Hindus cannot live together.

From the above discussion, it is clear that Islam, by its very nature, seeks to brainwash its adherents with a view to infesting them with the worst kind of fanaticism, which recognizes no moral and cultural bounds. If these were not true, the Koran could not tell the believers to treat their own parents as enemies, if they did not believe in Islam. To my mind, one's parents are the most adorable people.

Preaching insouciance, insolence and ingratitude toward one's own parents, disqualifies Islam as a Divine religion, and turns it into the biggest tool of Divide and Rule.

The British have been described as the master of the Divide-and--Rule policy, but Islam uses this weapon so effectively that the British look like toddlers in this field. The Divide-and-Rule doctrine of Islam is the practical exposition of its Two-Nation theory. It is not only India that has suffered the crushing effects of this Islamic approach to humanity. Yugoslavia, Russia and China are also experiencing its bite and the United States of America shall not escape its due share of devastation when the Black Muslim Movement gathers strength. It is owing to the Islamic ideology of hatred that the Muslim cannot live with their non-Muslim countrymen and want to partition their own motherlands to please the Prophet Muhammad in return for the paradise swarming with charming young virgins, beautiful boys, superb wines and choice foods. What a reward for betraying one's motherland! Such a sordid action is, surely punishable by hell. This is the result of Islamic brainwashing which makes the bitter taste sweet, projects the fool as wise and presents the blind as the visionary.

This Divide-and-Rule attitude of Islam, makes the non-Arab Muslims think of themselves as One Muslim Nation; it is why, they adore Arabia, the land of the Prophet Muhammad, and deplore their own motherlands. What is even more stunning is, they do so with a sense of pride and elation. In fact, "Islamic nationhood" is the biggest myth that man ever invented.

Look at Pakistan, which was carved out of India on the basis of Two-Nation theory. It soon orbit into two independent states and the magic of Islamic nationhood could do nothing except causing the death of three million innocent people. Despite this most terrible blood-bath, both Pakistanis and Bangladeshis still believe in Islamic nationhood. This is a fine example of brain-washing.

The Islamic attitude of Divide-and-Rule is, of course, a very subtle attempt to make the non-Arab Muslims hate their own motherland to love Arabia. So successful has been this Koranic ploy that, whereas other conquerors had to use fire and sword for securing submission of foreigners, the Prophet Muhammad turned the non-Arab Muslims into moths, which cremate themselves on the flame of Arab hegemony quite willingly.

How has it been brought about? It ought to borne in mind that in Islam, Allah is only a figurehead, and the real majesty is associated with Muhammad.

This is not a blasphemous statement because it is vouched by the Koran. In every religion, it is man who worships God, but in Islam, it is Allah, who along with his angels, worships Muhammad by praying peace to him (XXXIII, The Confederates :55)!

This is the reason that the Prophet shall share the Divine Throne of Justice, sitting on the right hand side of Allah, and it is his word which will decide whether a person goes to heaven or hell. As stated already, it is only the followers of Muhammad, who can enter paradise, and it matters not even if they were murderers, rapists, thieves, traitors, blackmailers, cheats, twisters, and so on.

Qualification for entering paradise is not the virtuous conduct but treating Muhammad as the Perfect Model of behaviour (XXXIII, The Confederates: 20) and following him blindly in all walks of life. Therefore, the true believer is the one, who not only eats and drinks as did the Prophet, but also thinks, talks and walks like him; even in sartorial tastes and tonsorial designs, a follower of Islam must look a copy of Muhammad.

Here lies the crux: the Prophet Muhammad was an Arab therefore, he naturally followed the Arab cultural traditions. Thus following him in all details of life means practicing the Arab cultural traditions. It is nothing but submitting to the Arab cultural hegemony and neglecting one's own national culture. This is what makes Islam, the Arab National Movement and destroys its religious veneer.

Part 2

Jinnah: A Saint at the Expense of Innocent people

" Hazrat Q aid-i-Azam , Muhammad Ali Jinnah Alehe Rahmat" is the title of the Gujarati Saint, who was born as Mohammed Ali Jinnah in Karachi in December, 1876.

This description bestows a greater dignity on him than that of a Muslim saint. It is an outcome of Hindu tradition, which makes ancestor-Worship an integral part of Dharma, and clearly shows that the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent share a common culture with the Hindus and are racially the same people. Without the unity of background, Jinnah could not have been treated by Pakistan as if he were one of the spiritual luminaries of Islam. A title of the Prophet Muhammad is "Hadi-e-Azam" i.e., the great guide. Jinnah's title: "The Qaid-i-Azam" means very much the same. Again, the use of "Hazrat" as prefix and "Alehe Rahmat" as suffix, further add to his devotional splendour.

He has been honoured as such for being the founder of Pakistan. It is only the success that should be saluted; failure cannot be applauded because it eliminates the difference between fortune and fiasco.

Such a great political hysteria was whipped up during the second decade of the 20th century that the mutual Hindu-Muslim hatred assumed inhuman proportions. Using Dr. Iqbal as a scapegoat, the Muslim League led by Jinnah, claimed that the Hindus and the Muslims were two separate nations; as they could not live together, India must be partitioned to create a separate homeland for the Muslims. This was considered the panacea for all Muslim ills, religious, economic and political. Should Jinnah be allowed the saintly title that he has come to possess? This is an honest question, and can be answered sincerely only if one can establish objectively that Pakistan has solved the major problems of all the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. If it has, then Jinnah was certainly one of the greatest saints that ever lived, but if it has not, then his status must be reviewed in the light of the results that the partition has produced.

To start with, let us weigh up the concept of Pakistan itself. It meant that the Indian provinces (Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan, NW Frontier and Bengal) where the Muslims were in a majority, must be treated as the Homeland of the Muslims, and separated from India as an independent state. This was a crazy idea for several reasons.

There was a distance of about one thousand miles between East and West Pakistan. It was impossible to reach Karachi from Dacca by Land, Sea or Air without the consent of the Indian government, which was bound to be hostile for the simple reason that Pakistan would serve as a symbol of Muslim hatred against the Hindus. This being the truth, diplomatic relations between the two states could not remain cordial, and they would exist only to demolish each other. It also meant that their budgets would be dedicated to national defense instead of public welfare resulting in poverty with its concomitant vices such as bribery, nepotism, tyranny, injustice and mal-administration.

History shows that one can have a far-flung empire, but it is impossible to think of a homeland whose parts lie a thousand miles away intercepted by a long hostile territory. The leader, who thinks of such a plan as the elixir of national ills, does not know the difference between mirth and misery, fruition and fiasco, delight and disaster.

Yet, Jinnah insisted on the formation of Pakistan. His followers have, no doubt, offered mitigating factors to support his soundness of judgment, but this is an exercise in futility. The fact is that he did secure Pakistan consisting of Eastern and Western wings, which in essence, is a proof of political incompetence. The man, obviously, wanted to be a hero at the expense of innocent people.

As I shall explain later, nationhood is not founded on religion but blood ties, a common culture and homeland, yet he insisted that religion was the cornerstone of Muslim nationhood.

If this were true, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. would have been one state.

As we know, it has never happened, and these countries are as independent from one another as England is from France and China from Russia.

However, if Jinnah had some secret knowledge of history or some special powers to mould the Muslims of Indian into a separate nation, he should have spent his energies to this effect.

After all, the prophet Muhammad had devoted his life to welding the various warring Arab tribes into one nation. Genghis Khan had also spent considerable time in uniting the Mongolian hordes into one nation.

But Jinnah did nothing to forge one nation out of Muslims scattered throughout India. Delivering occasional lectures from a high pulpit, canopied by an unswerving loyalty to the British Crown, was totally insufficient to accomplish the task. In a nutshell, he did not go through the laborious rehearsal, which is absolutely essential before staging the play. Either he did not realize or deliberately ignored the fact that the secret of Muhammad's and Genghis Khan's success lay in the fact that their people were already racially one nation, who had become divided into clans. Of course, the Muslims of India were racially and culturally Indian, but Jinnah had undertaken an entiely unnatural task of splitting it into two nations based on religion. It has never happened in this world because religion is not the natural unit of nationhood.

Part 3

The force of Jinnah's argument for Pakistan was emotional and exploitative. He used the religious appeal as a bait to bring the Muslims into the political net. He played upon the religious susceptibilities of people to make them believe that the Islamic state was the sure guarantor of peace, prosperity and plenitude, but he never explained the complexity, nature and purpose of the Islamic Law, the main vehicle of bringing about this Divine Revolution. Being a lawyer, it was his foremost duty to do so. This was the only way to make people realize what was required of them. The fact that he did not do it makes him less than honourable.

One must bear in mind that Jinnah was not a practicing Muslim, yet he advocated the establishment of an Islamic state. On the contrary, the formidable Muslim divines such as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Maulana Husain Ahmad Madni, Sayyad Ata Ulla Shah Bukhari, Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, and many more, opposed the concept of Pakistan and the Two-Nation Theory.

There is no evidence whatever that an Islamic state has ever existed according to the Koranic principles. Nor can it be proved that Islam required establishment of a single state for all Muslims to share its bounties, benefits and blessings. The Indian Muslims boast a good deal about the "Islamic Welfare State" established by the Second Caliph, Umar the Great. Yes, he did invent the system of giving social benefits to the Arab children, but where did the money come from? The finances were raised by robbing the newly converted Muslims of Egypt and Iran, whose children cried from hunger and disease. There is no record, whatever, to show that the Egyptian and Iranian children were given any stipends from the Arab funds; it was for Arab children only!

The truth is that the much vaunted Muslim Law falls far short of the universally accepted legal standards. What is law?

The law is a set of enforceable principles, which seek to establish rights and duties between person and person, an individual and society, as well as people and the state. The following peculiarities give the law its true distinction, deference and decency:

1. The law is never made for the benefit of one person, an individual and society. It is enacted for a whole group of people.

2. The law is strictly neutral in its application that is, it applies to the low and high and great and small with equal force.

Incredible it my seem but the truth is that the Islamic Law has nothing to do with public good because it revolved round the convenience of the Prophet Muhammad. For example, the Koran lays it down that a Muslim can have no more than four wives at the same time, but this law did not apply to the Prophet:

And any woman, Believer, if she gave herself to the Prophet and if the Prophet desires to take her in marriage, for thee, apart from the believers. (The Confederates, 33:45)

Also bear in mind the following Koranic Law, pertaining to polygamy:

"....marry such women as seem good to you, two, three or four; but if you fear you will not be equitable, then only one...."(Women, 4:1)

Thus the clause of equity is the pivot of having more than one wife. It is well-known that the Prophet could not maintain balance of fairness among his wives. As the Koran witnesses, it led to a lot of acrimony in the household. Instead of enforcing the clause of equity, Allah gave Muhammad dispensation from it:

"You (Muhammad) can suspend any of your wives as you will and receive any of them as you will: and whomsoever you desire of those whom you have set aside, it is no sin for you." (The Confederates, 33:50)

In simple English, it means that the Prophet is not bound by the Law of Equity, the basic condition of polygamy: he can treat his wives as he thinks fit. Since it is Allah, who makes the law a play-thing for Muhammad, one wonders if Allah and Muhammad are not the one and same person. It certainly led me to this conclusion.

The law, which is exclusive to a person for serving his convenience, or if it is flexible at will, it ceases to be the law. In this context, I ought to remind the reader that the Prophet was at liberty to marry the widow or divorcee of another person, but nobody was allowed to marry his widow (or divorcee). All his wives were raised to the status of Ummahaat-ul-Momineen (Mothers of the believers) so that nobody could marry them. When the Prophet died, his wife Aisha was only 18, and lived to be 73 as a lonely widow!

One can find many more examples to this effect, but I think I have said enough to illustrate the purpose and nature of the so--called Islamic Law. However, I may add that the poverty-stricken Muslims of India believed that the Islamic Law stood for economic equality. We all were led to think that way. Zulfikar All Bhutto openly equated the Islamic Law with the Marxist concept of nationalization, for this reason, whereas the truth is that Islam allows unlimited accumulation of wealth in any form, including land and is the only source of feudalism in the modern age.

It is this ambiguity about the Islamic Law, which has become the bane of Pakistan. Half a century has elapsed but Islamic Law has not yet been enforced in Pakistan despite the fact that India was divided for this reason. The truth is that there is no Islamic Law to be enforced. What is called the Islamic Law is the result of the far-fetched interpretations of the Koran and the Hadith; it also includes the vestiges of the legal contrivances that were developed by the Arab and Turkish rulers to meet the demands of their times.

Fin

Chapter 1