Lal Masjid:
A Mosque or a Military Fortress?
By Mohammad Ashraf
Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA
Otherwise
pious people, the Kharijites had one major problem.
They had assigned to themselves the task of determining
who was a good Muslim and who was not. The logic
they followed was, “God had given human
beings free will and, since He was Just, He would
punish such evil-doers as Muawiyyah, Uthman and
Ali”. In the application of this logic,
what they forgot was that the job of final appraisal
and punishment rested exclusively with God, and
not with them. Extremists, conveniently often,
chose to ignore this important point.
They even went one step further. One sect of them
refused to include Sura 12, entitled “Joseph”,
on the grounds that ‘a love story is not
permitted in the Koran’. This ‘Ajradi
sect’, after the name of its leader, ‘Ajarrad’
took some other absurd positions as well. This
sect avidly displayed its aversion to children;
they contended that people who were not born Muslim,
were destined for hell, and those who were born
Muslim, also had to be kept apart from the community
until they were invited to embrace Islam formally
etc.
These extremists, thus, in order to set things
right chalked out a plan, which in modern terms,
can be classified as the first act of political
terrorism in Islam. In the year 40 Hijra, a band
of Kharijites gathered at Mecca in the House of
Allah and asked for volunteers ‘to kill
Ali, Muawiya, and amr Ibn al-‘As”.
Three people offered their services. January 28,
661 was chosen as the day for carrying out the
crime. The terrorists were successful partially.
The attack was carried out as planned. Hazrat
Muawiya got wounded; Hazrat Ali who was preparing
to lead prayers in the mosque succumbed to the
wounds and died, and the third person escaped
because he did not turn up that day. Mosque, a
place of worship and peace, thus was used for
purposes different from its defined usage.
In the year 630, when the Noble Prophet marched
upon Mecca with an army of ten thousand men, and
the Quraysh conceding defeat opened the city gates
of Mecca, the Prophet took over the city of his
birth without shedding a drop of blood. Even the
sworn enemies of Islam and Prophet Muhammad were
given amnesty if they took shelter in the Grand
Mosque. None of the Quraysh, not even Abu Sufyan,
was forced to become a Muslim. It was the death
of his old religion that convinced him to embrace
Islam.
Two Fitnas, civil wars, in Islam scare us as we
turn over the pages of history. The first one
took place in 656 and resulted in the death of
the third Caliph, Hazrat Usman. The Second Fitna,
that happened in 680, ended with the Martyrdom
of Hazrat Imam Hussain. The Qur’an does
not sanctify warfare, unless it is in self-defense.
Why do our religious leaders often play God; assume
themselves as sinless and all others as sinful,
and embark themselves on a mission to correct
those who, in their opinion, happen to be living
in sin?
The Lal Masjid tragedy is a result of this mindset.
If Musharraf has done one right thing, it is this
delayed action against these modern ‘Kharijites’.
Instead of explaining to the people and to the
government for the presence of arms in the mosque;
for having links with terrorists; they, the religious
leaders, have already gone over-time glorifying
the resistance put up by the militants in the
mosque.
No government on this planet would have tolerated
such a military garrison in a mosque for so long
as did President Musharraf . India didn’t
in the ‘80; nor did America at Waco. These
mullahs and muftis who constantly appear on the
TV screen, and openly side with the militants
after the operation, are a part of the problem
because they master the art of how to twist facts
and cut both ways. There are others who say, “Does
this final showdown at the mosque mean that Gen
Musharraf is moving decisively against those elements,
and if so, what are the consequences?” The
answer is: if it is not now, then it is never.
Where were these religious leaders and politicians
when the government’s writ ended at the
boundary walls of the Lal Mosque! The government
wavered for six months as the religious students
on the command of the ‘clerics inside the
mosque seminary enforced their brand of Islamic
justice on music stores, suspected prostitutes
and policemen in the capital if they got too close
to their premises’, writes M Ilyas Khan
of the BBC. The government, in fact, needs to
explain for this inordinate delay in nipping the
evil in the bud. Why it waited for the abduction
of foreigners, such as the Chinese last month,
to finally get a rationale for taking the action?
That the mosques and madrassas are being used
for brain-washing the youth for activities that
run counter to the country’s interest no
more appears to be just an allegation or Western
propaganda. Differences with the government should
not mean sowing seeds of a civil war in the country.
Civilized nations follow the proper channel to
seek redress to their grievances. Which church
in the West can claim to conduct its own court
in complete defiance of the country’s judiciary
system? And does Islam permit that? What happened
to the mosque which was ordered to be burnt by
the Prophet, though he had promised to inaugurate
it with his own hands? “Cut the branch that
goes too high”, is the law of nature.
A majority of people in Pakistan are moderate,
forward-looking and law-abiding citizens. They
may be unhappy with the government; with the courts
and with the law and order situation; but they
are never in favor of chaos and anarchy, and extremism.
They are actually fed up with the militancy that
is in the government as well as in the religious
sector. When the supporters of the holed-up brothers
in the Lal Mosque, such as people like Mahsood,
say on the media, “We will turn Pakistan
into a country worse than Afghanistan and Baghdad”,
they do not sound challenging Musharraf, and they
directly appear to be challenging the people of
Pakistan.
Much is made of the first draft and the second
draft of agreement just before commencement of
the main action. The fact is that the very presence
of so much arsenal in the mosque and of the militants
has been enough to justify a much earlier action.
The loss of lives has been unfortunate, and it
could have been avoided had the parents not been
in sympathy with the Ghazi brothers, and their
brand of Islam. Which parent who understands Islam
and its true message, would chose to enroll his
or her child in such a seminary? In the last five
months, did no parent saw those thousands of young
girls, clad mysteriously in black burqas, holding
same-size clubs, and some even totting automatic
rifles and K-41s? Did it not worry the parents
that their children stood vowed to “fight
to death”? Were they there to learn the
Qur’an?, or the martial art of how to fight
if the government threatened to evict them. Why
did the parents not see that their children were
in the harms way when students of Hafsa school
began abducting government officials, or when
they took over the children’s library? Perhaps,
then they gloated in the chivalry of their children.
Those who chose to play with fire most likely
get burnt one day. And most importantly, how will
they explain the hardships through which the residents
of G-6 and other areas have gone through, just
for being in the vicinity of a mosque? Islam is
not a religion that extols death; it is a religion
that teaches discipline even when at war.
Once the Noble Prophet gazing into the future
while talking to his followers said, “There
will be a time when your religion will be like
a hot piece of coal in the palm of your hand;
you will not be able to hold it”. A keen
follower asked, “Would this mean there would
be very few Muslims?” “No”,
replied the Prophet, “They will be large
in numbers, more than ever before, but powerless
like the foam on the ocean waves”. This
one saying of the Prophet beautifully explains
the Lal Masjid tragedy, and the overall state
of the Muslims in 55 countries.
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