KARACHI - Under immense pressure from the United States, a slow and gradual
operation has begun in Pakistan against the strongest political voice of
Islamists and the real mother of international Islamic movements, of which
Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front is the spoiled child.
In a surprise move this week, Pakistan's federal minister of the interior,
Faisal Saleh Hayat, listed a number of incidences in which members of the
Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), the premier fundamentalist party in the country, had been
tied to al-Qaeda, and called on it to "explain these links".
"It is a matter of concern that Jamaat-e-Islami, which is a main faction of the
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal [MMA], has neither dissociated itself from its
activists having links with the al-Qaeda network nor condemned their
activities," Faisal said, adding that "one could derive a meaning out of
its silence".
The MMA is an alliance of six religious parties that gained unprecedented
electoral victories in national elections in 2002. One of its members is the
leader of the opposition in the Lower House, while the MMA controls the
provincial government in North West Frontier Province. It also forms part of a
coalition government in Balochistan province. The MMA has 67 seats in the
342-seat National Assembly, with just under a third of them held by the JI.
Asia Times Online predicted that the JI would be targeted (Jihadi's
arrest a small step for Pakistan , Aug 10) and now contacts
confirm that moves have already started against associates of the JI in its
strongest political constituency, Karachi. The next phase will most likely be
in Rawalpindi and southern Punjab. Several close affiliates are believed to
have been arrested by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) without charges
being laid against them.
The JI's leader, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, subsequently denied that his party had any
links with al-Qaeda or other militant organizations. "We do not believe in
violence," Qazi said. He criticized the government for making such accusations,
saying it was taking directions from the US.
Typical of those being arrested is Tariq Baig, a former president of the
Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba (a student organization ideologically born of the
JI) who was picked up from his residence in central Karachi. According to
witnesses, a few cars with black-tinted windows laid siege to his residence,
and then heavily armed men in plain clothes took him away.
Neighbors claim that Tariq had dissociated himself from the Islami
Jamiat-i-Talaba. He participated in the Afghan resistance when the ISI was
motivating students to wage jihad against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
However, other sources say that he was arrested for making calls on his cell
phone to people connected with militant organizations.
During his press conference, Faisal cited some JI connections with al-Qaeda. He
said that a woman named Malooka Khatoon, an activist of the JI, was
arrested in Clifton, Karachi, on October 4, 2002. She revealed links with
al-Qaeda leader and September 11 mastermind Khaled Shaikh Muhammad.
Also, the house of former field-hockey Olympian Shahid Ali Khan had been used
as a hideout by an al-Qaeda member. "And the wife of Shahid Ali Khan is a
leading activist of Jamaat-e-Islami," Faisal said.
Attaur Rehman, an alleged leader of the Jundullah group which is believed to be
behind the recent attack on the motorcade of the corps commander Karachi in
which several army personnel were killed, was once the nazim (administrator)
of the Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba in the international relations department of
Karachi University.
The deciding factor in initiating action against the JI was video footage and
the interrogation report of the confessions of two doctor brothers, cardiac
surgeon Dr Akmal Waheed and orthopedic surgeon Arshad Waheed, sons of renowned
educationalist Hafiz Waheeduddin Khan, who laid the foundation for the
country's largest teachers' association, which takes its ideological
inspiration from the JI.
The doctors themselves were members of the Pakistan Islamic Medical
Association, an affiliate of the JI. The video film and report have them
admitting to raising funds for militants and treating fighters in South
Waziristan tribal agency, besides helping the families of Arab jihadis return
to their countries of origin after leaving Afghanistan. This evidence was
handed to the US consulate in Karachi by the Sindh governor, Dr Ishratul Ibad,
which in turn passed it on to Washington. Washington then applied maximum
pressure on Islamabad to take action against the JI.
Intelligence insiders tell Asia Times Online that initial operations are not
targeted against the main JI structure, but at lower-rank workers suspected of
involvement in underground militant activities. At the same time, once this
operation starts, it will be inevitable that it extends to the highest level.
Further, every JI leader is involved with senior army officers, both serving
and retired, and they will not be spared in the process.
The JI is not only the largest, most organized and most resourceful
organization in the country, it has deeper roots in the establishment than any
other outfit. Tackling it will surely open a Pandora's box, and at the same
time create a vicious backlash.
The Jamaat-i-Islami's deep roots
The party was founded in 1941 in British India in Lahore by Syed Abul Ala
Maududi (1903-79). Maududi was not a traditional cleric, he was editor of a
daily newspaper and all his knowledge of religion was acquired from reading
books, rather than studying at a seminary. He hailed from an elite spiritual
family in Delhi, and his real contribution was his discovery of several
philosophical concepts and terms in the Koran that gave birth to the
present Islamic movements and their radical thought, which rejects traditional
Islam and challenges Western capitalism, as well as socialism.
To begin with, Maududi did not accept Islam as a religion - a term used by
traditionalists in all societies, whether Christian, Jew or Muslim, when
referring to divine guidance. Instead, Maududi introduced the Koranic term addin
(the way of life). The Koran, he argued, never used din (way of life)
alone. Whenever the Koran speaks about Islam it calls it addin .
This conceptualization helped Maududi separate Islam from its traditional
concepts, which only dealt with matters like rituals, appearances - wearing
beards and caps - etc. He presented Islam on a much broader canvas in
which socio-economic and political systems are all interlinked with Islam
itself.
He debunked the system of education in Islamic seminaries as well as in modern
schools, advocating instead a system of education where all faculties,
including the sciences and engineering, co-related with "the way of life".
He started debate in his magazine Tarjumanul Koran with contemporary
intellectuals on the concepts of civilization and related them to the
evolution of human thought and ideas and "the way of life", rather than to
the study of human races and their habits.
Pulling all of his ideas together, he declared Islam a "movement" which
struggles (jihad) to enforce "the way of life". For Maududi, an Islamic state
is a blessing for all irrespective of religion, caste and race under "the way
of life". Later, Maududi translated the Koran with an accompanying commentary,
as if presenting it as the manifesto of a revolutionary movement.
At this time, the middle of the 20th century, such presentation of Islam was
highly unpopular and rejected in traditional circles. But traditional clerics
were not Maududi's target audience. Rather, he wanted to address
Western-educated people, which he did, in effect presenting an Islam parallel
to theories of the time, such as Marxism and capitalism.
Maududi's ideas began to take root in Pakistan's elite class from the very
inception of the nation in 1947, when it was carved out of British India, and
steadily spread further across the social spectrum. This was separate from the
development of the JI's structures. In other words, at the beginning there was
a twofold spread of Maududi's thoughts: through the growth of the JI as a
defined organization, and infiltration into intelligentsia circles and beyond.
For instance, prominent educationalist Allama I I Qazi, the founder and the
first vice chancellor of Sindh University, was never a member of the JI, but he
was a main source in spreading Maududi's writings. Internationally famed
Pakistani constitutional expert A K Brohi was the first person in Pakistan's
early days to publicly reject the Koran as a source of law-making. Qazi
introduced him to Maududi's writings, and he remained an Islamist until the
end. Similarly, top Pakistani bureaucrat-turned-journalist (and a former editor
of Dawn newspaper) Altaf Gohar, a Marxist, read Maududi while in jail, and
converted to Islam, and he became well-known for his lectures on television.
This kind of influence continued to spread. The publisher of the Dawn Group of
Newspapers, Hameed Haroon, recalls that by the 1970s the JI was characterized
by its members and supporters coming from the brightest segments of society.
Its influence in the country's major media grew, as well as on campuses.
It was not yet a political force, though. In 1970 the JI was wiped out in
elections, gaining only four seats in the National Assembly. At the same time,
the JI's student wing, Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba, swept union elections in the
universities of East Pakistan.
The campuses became the JI's main playing field, which it cultivated throughout
Pakistan, and of course these students went on to join the establishment,
including the army.
General Zia ul-Haq's 11-year rule (1977-88) proved a golden period for the JI
as he officially promoted Maududi's literature and Koranic commentary in the
army. The result was that officers like retired Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul -
whose duty it was to indoctrinate people - himself became indoctrinated with
Maududi's thoughts.
This process continued, so much so that only a year ago, the ISI was forced to
ask a major-general who was once a leader of the Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba to
speak with the MMA leadership when talks on the issue of President General
Pervez Musharraf continuing to wear his uniform had become a hot political
problem.
In the field of mainstream politics, politicians who embraced Maududi's thought
ranged from Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan (many times president of Pakistani Kashmir
and leader of the Muslim Conference) to the imprisoned acting president of the
Pakistan Muslim League, Syed Javed Hashmi, to seasoned liberal politicians like
Sardar Sher Baz Khan Mazari.
The mother of international Islamic movements
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928, 13 years before the JI, by
Hasanal Bana, who also presented Islam as a system, but he did not have the
conceptualization to attract many educated people.
Thus, by the late 1940s, Maududi's ideas had fully penetrated the Muslim
Brotherhood's literature. Books written by the most popular Muslim Brotherhood
ideologue, Syed Qutub, show clear inspiration from Maududi. The Egyptian
government objected to Pakistan in the 1960s for instigating trouble in Egypt
when a prominent Brotherhood member, Saeed Ramadan al-Misri, visited the JI's
Lahore headquarters to learn how to integrate the revolutionary structure of
the Brotherhood into mainstream national politics, like the JI.
Similarly, the JI exported the same political restructuring and ideas to Iran.
The ideologue of the Iranian revolution of 1979, Dr Ali Shariati, shows his
complete inspiration from Maududi in his writings. So, too, the leader of the
revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, called Maududi an imam.
How Pandora's box will open
The JI has always operated as a mainstream political party within the law of
the land. This message was passed on and emphasized to other Islamic movements
in the Arab world, especially in Egypt, where splinter groups emerged to work
as underground organizations to topple the government. A late JI leader,
Khurram Jah Morrad, was once stationed in London, where he tried to disengage
the splinter groups from their activities and induce them to join the
mainstream Muslim Brotherhood.
During one of Maududi's messages delivered on a visit to the US, where his son
was employed as a hospital doctor, exiled leaders of international Islamic
movements held big gatherings, where Maududi was invited to speak. A collection
of these lectures is available in book form, and they show a complete
condemnation of underground movements, and in a muted way Maududi instructed
the participants to bring about changes from within the state, or in other
words, become pro-establishment.
"Islam is an open message. I request you with my heart for the sake of Allah,
don't indulge yourself in underground organizations. It brings enormous
complications in which the real message of Islam is lost and it is quite
contrary to the Prophet's way of life. No matter how much oppression,
executions come your way, don't indulge in underground organizations."
In this manner, an apparent radical organization such as the JI became part and
parcel of the Pakistani establishment.
Its first real opportunity for this came in 1971 when India and Pakistan became
embroiled over East Pakistan, where the Pakistan army had no local roots. The
JI extended its help, thereby establishing the first nexus between the JI and
the Pakistani army, which appeared in the shape of militias like al-Badr and
al-Shams, which fought side-by-side with the Pakistan army against the Bengali
rebellion and Indian invasion.
The nexus deepened during the decade of the Soviet invasion on Afghanistan,
starting in 1979. The JI's Afghan connections were represented in the shape of
two charismatic mujahideen, Ahmed Shah Masoud and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The
present chief of JI, Qazi, a former college lecturer in geography, was involved
with Afghanistan's Islamic movement and coordinated closely with the ISI's
Afghan cell once he was elevated to general secretary of the party.
Qazi was very much trusted by the ISI for his strategic view of Afghanistan.
Indeed, when factions of the JI of Masoud and Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami began
attacking each other's interests, the ISI chose Qazi to resolve the dispute. So
on Qazi's advice, the anti-US Hekmatyar was preferred to receive ammunition and
other goods, much of which, incidentally, originated in the US.
The establishment of the Matabal Khidmat (an organization led by Dr Abdullah
Azzam which later evolved into al-Qaeda) and jihadi training camps in
Afghanistan for Arabs were all joint ventures in which the ISI and the JI were
involved together.
Also, the export of jihad to the Central Asian republics to pressure the USSR
was a joint venture of the ISI, MI6 - British Secret Intelligence Service
- the JI and and the Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan. MI6 directly remitted
money into an account in Qazi's name, which he was to use to pump Islamic
literature and money into the republics to incite the local Naqshbad circles (a
Sufi group) to rebel against the communist governments.
Similar projects were undertaken in Chechnya and Bosnia, in which the JI sent
several of its members to fund local opposition movements. Several still hold
key positions in the JI structure.
So both within Pakistan - including in the army - and abroad, the JI has deep
links. By taking on the JI in Pakistan, Musharraf could face a situation of
virtual civil war.
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