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Saturday, April 24, 2010

Pakistan’s “liberals” and the mullahs: two sides of the same coin

Excerpts from my final reply to Man 1.
This is the fourth and last instalment of my internet exchanges with Pakistan’s westernised secularists. For all their vaunted “liberalism” they turned out to be just as prejudiced and narrow minded as the mullahs they despised. More surprisingly, the “Islam” they professed to follow appeared to be a carbon copy of the religion that the mullahs shout from the mehrab. Man 1, in particular, seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with sexual topics – just the sort of thing that Pakistan’s “liberals” associate with the mullahs!

“From time to time I come across a piece of writing which has the effect of making me feel physically sick. Your string of posts yesterday had that effect on me – it is with some effort that I am responding to your comments.

[Blogger's note, 4 May : following objections, I have removed the second paragraph. Perhaps I had allowed my judgment to be swayed by the excessive crudity of Man 1's comments]

The Qur'an is easy to understand but the “understanding” is not guaranteed. If you wish to acquire understanding you will have to discard your practice of quoting selectively from the Qur’an to support your pre-conceived ideas. You will have to act in accordance with those verses which tell you to think hard over the aayaat of the whole Qur’an. In other words, see things with the eyes of a grown up, not those of a child.

It is a pity you refuse to learn from the knowledge and wisdom of others. The fact is the Qur’an does sub-divide its verses between the Mohkemaat and the Mutashaabehaat verses. Please do read my article on Islam to understand the difference between the two and the reason why the meaning of the Mutashaabehaat may not be clear to you. As for the Mohkemaat, the biggest stumbling block to our understanding is the simple fact that the Qur’an was revealed in Arabic which was in use 1500 years ago. A language – any language, its proverbs, the meaning of words – changes enormously over such a long period. Try reading an English text written 500 years ago or an Urdu text just 300 years old – you will have a hard time making sense of what you are reading. Therefore, not all translations of the Qur’an are equally reliable. You need to read several different versions and arrive at your own conclusions.

The story I have told you above also serves to bring out the difference between a matter of fact statement and a pornographic description. If, for example, the little boy looking into the room were to be replaced by your favourite author Harold Robbins, you would be guaranteed to read a titillating account which would make you drool at the mouth. Is teaching of biology “pornographic” because it specifically mentions the private parts of men and women? Do you now understand the essential difference between the Quraanic descriptions and the vulgar stories attributed to the greatest man who ever walked on earth?

Many repellent stories – “ahadees” – were dreamed up by the muftis of the time to provide a justification for the vile deeds of the reigning khalifah and members of the aristocracy. Child abuse was made acceptable by “discovering” ahadees some 250 years after Allah’s Messenger had passed on, which gave his wife’s age at nikah as 6! Al-Quran says a marriage is a contract between a Muslim man and a Muslim woman, which they enter into freely. Only a mullah’s mind can think of treating a child of 6 as a grown up young lady who understands the nature of the contract she is entering into.

According to the Qur’an there is nothing wrong with living in peaceful co-existence with one’s fellow human beings. If you dig up stories which contradict the Qur’an then I shall have to reject them out of hand. In any case, do point out to me where you can see an Islamic society anywhere in the world. Take Pakistan, dominated as it is by the twin evils of mullahism and westernised fascism. It is a land where corruption, lies, deceit, injustice and oppression are widespread, and where we get the leaders we deserve – Zardari, Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif! Tell me what is Islamic about this society? You need to create one before you stand on high moral ground and let off hot air into the atmosphere. The sad fact is that what we have in Pakistan today is the Age of Jahiliyyah masquerading as Islam.

Another bombshell you drop is: 'If Shaan-e-Nazool is not important [as per you] then please follow all those Verses which are quoted as Violent Verses of Quran and start hacking the heads infidels'.

This is pure mullahism! There are verses in the Qur’an which tell you how you need to defend yourself in wartime from treacherous enemies. There are separate Quraanic passages which tell you to be kind and fair to all human beings irrespective of who they are provided they are living in peaceful co-existence with you. It is an insult to Allah’s Book to imply that you are ordered to “hack off heads of infidels”. The “shaan-e-nazool” thing is nowhere mentioned in the Qur’an – it is simply the product of our mullahs’ fertile imagination.

I have shown you how close to the spirit of Islam Quaid-e-Azam was but you continue in your stubborn refusal to acknowledge the truth. I shall not go over ground I have already covered.
Are you really unaware of the contradictions in your postings? You will sink deeper and deeper into the bog as you discard Allah’s Guidance in favour of the wild pronouncements of self-important mullahs. “To you your Deen, and to me mine” - let this be the end of our discussion. I am not interested in prolonging this meandering “discussion” leading nowhere.”

TAILPIECE

Some aspects of my response above may have left you a bit puzzled. This approach, I felt, was necessary to deal with the wild statements of Man 1. Here is a sample of some of his less extreme rants:

“Yes I have understood the Quran because it is very easy to understand and I am very proud of it. Allah says and He is saying it repeatedly that Quran is easy to understand.
وَلَقَدْ يَسَّرْنَا الْقُرْآنَ لِلذِّكْرِ فَهَلْ مِن مُّدَّكِرٍ
And We have indeed made the Qur’an easy to understand and remember: then is there any that will receive admonition? [ AL-QAMAR (THE MOON) Chapter 54 - Verse 17]”

“Those Muslims [particularly Pakistanis] who talk of Quran and Islam and living in the West under 'Infidel Kaafir Secular System which is made by man not Allah' should leave West and should live in 'Jinnah’s Paradise' or stop defending Pakistan and Secular Jinnah’s Ideology through Quran”.
  
“On Hadith a noted Political Maulvi of the Sub-Continent Ubaidullah Sindhi couldn’t teach Bukhari because of certain ‘explicit Hadiths’ [as per him but he was and is not Hujjat - Proof] then why didn’t he feel any shame while teaching Quranic Verse like these, which are quite explicit and Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi should have discarded these verses from Quran due to Maulana Illogical and absurd shame.
وَمَرْيَمَ ابْنَتَ عِمْرَانَ الَّتِي أَحْصَنَتْ فَرْجَهَا فَنَفَخْنَا فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِنَا وَصَدَّقَتْ بِكَلِمَاتِ رَبِّهَا وَكُتُبِهِ وَكَانَتْ مِنَ الْقَانِتِينَ
Wamaryama ibnata AAimrana allatee ahsanat farjaha fanafakhna feehi min roohina wasaddaqat bikalimati rabbiha wakutubihi wakanat mina alqaniteena
Arabic Word in the verse: Farjaha or Farj means Vagina [should I say it in Chaste Urdu]
Translation:
And Mary, daughter of ‘Imran, whose body was chaste, therefor We breathed therein something of Our Spirit. And she put faith in the words of her Lord and His scriptures, and was of the obedient. [AT-TAHRIM (BANNING, PROHIBITION) Chapter 66 - Verse 12]”

“قَالَتْ أَنَّى يَكُونُ لِي غُلَامٌ وَلَمْ يَمْسَسْنِي بَشَرٌ وَلَمْ أَكُ بَغِيًّا
Qalat anna yakoonu lee ghulamun walam yamsasnee basharun walam aku baghiyyan
English Translation:
She said: How can I have a son when no mortal hath touched me, neither have I been unchaste? [MARYAM (MARY) Chapter 19 - Verse 20]
How would you define the touching by a man? What kind of a touch makes woman pregnant? Please define or would you prefer silence because of the shame like Ubaidullah Sindhi!”

“وَأَنَّهُ خَلَقَ الزَّوْجَيْنِ الذَّكَرَ وَالْأُنثَىمِن نُّطْفَةٍ إِذَا تُمْنَى
Waannahu khalaqa alzzawjayni alththakara waalontha Min nutfatin itha tumna
And that He createth the two spouses, the male and the female, From a drop (of seed) when it is poured forth; [AN-NAJM (THE STAR) Chapter 53 - Verse 45 and 46]
Now where has gone the shame of Obaidullah Sindhi? What is being discussed here if not the Intercourse between Man and Woman and word Sperm i.e. Nutfa in Arabic is in the Quranic Verse and men emit Sperm through Penis [Should I use chaste Urdu]”








2 comments:

Lost-in-cyberspace said...

I feel the filthy language of Man 1 should have been answered differently. Doesn't seem right to hit back with an example which is not quite decent. Why tell the whole world how you dealt with an 'influential westernised liberal'?

Sakib Ahmad said...

Perhaps a wiser person than I might have gone about it differently.

Anyway, below is a link to a recent - and very decent - article on Quaid-e-Azam by a highly educated person who, thankfully, is not "westernised".

http://kashifiat.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/quaid-e-azam-islam-and-pakistan/

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