Mahjabeen Islam

January 14, 2005

Pleasing God versus His Creation

The West must stop sweating the Muslim stuff as far as Pakistan goes. This is a country awash in lukewarm Islam; pockets of radicalism must exist but then they do in even the Western world, what with the Jerry Falwells, Daniel Pipes and the Southern Baptist Convention of the United States. Pakistan’s elite is overtly secular and very importantly this less than 5% of the population holds all of the power and are the movers and the shakers in each city.

With skyrocketing inflation and a runaway population (and non-existent population programs) the middle class struggles to survive, unable to pay the kind of attention to religion that radicalism would demand. If potable water is a rarity in Pakistan’s cities (the fact that it runs in pipes does not make it fit for human consumption) and the prices of essential items beyond the reach of its citizens and each day a recurrent exercise in varying kinds of frustration, religion must take the back seat that it clearly has.

With a step down from the middle class to the poverty stricken class, the literacy rate plummets from the 30% in females and 50% in males that is found in the upper classes and the struggle for survival intensifies though I was unable to appreciate the brewing of radicalism or revolution.

Islam is not a mosque-based faith in contradistinction to Christianity where a person’s character is judged by his church attendance. Additionally Islam is one of the few religions if not the only one that has exhaustive detail about every aspect of human life. Documentation of the life (Sunnah) and sayings (Hadith) of the Prophet (pbuh) actually do not have an equivalent in history. One sees the mark of prayer on the foreheads of some men in Pakistan and a smattering of women in hijab, but in the din of living there is a stark absence of the incorporation of Islam in all aspects of life. It appears that Islam has been reduced to a Friday only faith.

Some of it is the comfort of knowing that everything around us is Islamic and the taking for granted attitude that goes with it. This has served to create a remarkable laissez faire culture. It appears that we are content with the dua-e-safar on PIA flights, the bismillahs before speeches and the prolonged business closure for Friday prayer. And throwing people in jail for eating publicly in Ramadan. Not to mention the horrific Hudood Ordinance and Blasphemy Laws that create more injustice than they resolve.

That Islam is a way of life should not just be a catchy phrase, it needs to be lived, more so in a place where there seems to be such a disconnect between what is taught by the sacred texts and what is practiced. Whilst there are exemplifying case scenarios in the Hadith regarding personal hygiene, Pakistanis could win the prize for personal putrefaction. If the Hadith “cleanliness is half of faith” was to be used seriously as a yardstick, 90% of the nation would be culpable under the Blasphemy Law!

The typical Pakistani living room is cloistered and dusted with cut-glass and curios agleam. Should you wish to use the restroom though, the assault on your olfactory and visual senses could send you reeling. Oh and don’t even think about wandering into the kitchen for post that trip downing even the tea might be nothing short of heroic. Infectious diseases remain the highest killers in the nation and many have an oro-fecal cycle, the transmission relying solely on poor or no hand washing, especially after the use of the restroom. And using economics as justification carries no weight, for most of the nation is in a position to buy a bar of soap.

PIA tickets have to be personally reconfirmed and during this exercise I was informed that the way I had been booked I would not be able to make the connecting flight. “With God as our Witness please tell me that you cannot find a single flight out of JFK for all the afternoon, all evening and all night.” The man had the nerve to look me straight in the eye and say he could not. A trip to the office of United Airlines and the connection was found without problem. Avoiding misstatements is a basic tenet of Islam but the Most Powerful seems to have no clout at all.

“Amar bil maaroof wa nahin anal munkar” (Qur’an Luqman 31:17) enjoining the good and forbidding the wrong is a refrain in the Qur’an and serves as one of the most important parts of the faith. Michael Cook has written an entire book on this tenet called Forbidding Wrong in Islam taking from a rape that occurred in a Chicago subway with no one coming to the aid of the woman except a young man named Randy Kyles who later said it was his duty to help her. Cook writes that this duty is not articulated in American culture “in Islamic culture by contrast this duty has a name and it has been analyzed repeatedly by the religious scholars whose writings make up the bulk of the literature of Islam”. Under this tenet Muslims are to first physically prevent a wrong, second verbally and last of all avoid being a part of it.

Additionally before the creation of the universe God made all souls that would ever live and took from us what is termed The Covenant of Alast. “Alasto berabbakum, Am I not your God?” He asked and all the souls said “indeed You are” (Al-Araf 7:172). At this time all souls were created Muslim, modesty was made intrinsic, as was the ability to differentiate right from wrong.

The prohibition of alcohol in Islam was a gradual process whence initially in Surah Nisa (4:43) it was revealed that “approach not prayer with a mind befogged and until you can understand all that you say” and finally it was absolutely forbidden: “in alcohol and gambling there is great sin and some benefit but the sin outweighs the benefit” (Baqarah 2:219). It is said that when alcohol was made haram, those that had sipped it spat it out, those that had swallowed it induced emesis and all threw it away. In contrast the United States experimented with Prohibition in the 1920s but legislating alcohol consumption did not work for the thirteen years that it was enforced and the very purpose was entirely defeated. The contrast that Quranic prohibition led to immediate abstinence due to the fear of God versus the lack thereof in the governmental Prohibition in the United States goes to prove that in matters such as this the intrinsic moral compass works better than governmental intimidation.

Ziaul Haq bulldozed Islam into unwilling throats. Public alcohol consumption was still not common in the Benazir and Nawaz years, or at least strenuous efforts to camouflage and conceal were made. With Musharraf now quite inclined towards alcohol, pet dogs, Ataturk and secularism, euphemized as enlightened moderation, parties in Pakistan are no different from what they would be any Western country. There was a time that Pepsi was used to camouflage whiskey, now in mehndis and weddings there are regular bars serving vodka, whiskey and beer should you so desire.

Membership at The Sindh Club in Karachi is apparently proof that you have arrived. One wonders why it is that women that flaunt their memberships and consider themselves society’s crème de la crème, do nothing about being equated to dogs for one sign says “dogs not allowed” and right next to it “no women beyond this point”. There are other little snobberies at The Sindh Club that men are not to enter with sandals and photographs are not to be taken at functions and children under 16 are not allowed. A lady was detailing how another member’s privileges may be revoked for his function had photographs and children. There was much ado about violating the laws of Sindh Club and the great premium that membership in Sindh Club carries and how those that do not have it even feel quite jealous.

In a Hadith it is narrated that God wonders why it is that we make God the most insignificant One that looks at us. We dress up for the world but realize not that he is closer to us than our jugular veins (Qur’an Al-Qaf 50:16) and that the life of this world is but short and only a play (Qur’an Al-Imran 3:197) for the next world and the Day of Judgment seem to us at best distant and dubious. And yet this gnosis comes with a great commitment to the relationship with God and the realization that at all times a microsecond separates us from death. In large gatherings we wonder whose clothes are better than ours and whose jewelry more striking when we should pay mind to what will become of us on The Day when no one, no husband, son, brother, minister or Musharraf will be able to come to our aid.

At the manja ceremony of this same lady’s son a Qawwali was planned. I will admit that I travel halfway around the world for one or two Qawwali performances in the winter in Pakistan. To my horror prior to the start of the Qawwali I noticed glasses being carried in the hands of many full of that incriminating light yellow liquid. Soon enough the Qawwali was to begin and the groom’s brother detailed what a Qawwali is and then requested that since the Qawwal would start with a Hamd (poetry in the praise of God) that people should refrain from smoking. Excuse me? What about the yellow brew? I sputtered privately though and am ashamed to say that I stayed through the entire performance. I should definitely have left, no excuses.

In a Hadith transmitted by Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) cursed ten people in connection with wine: the wine-presser, the one who has it pressed, the one who drinks it, the one who conveys it, the one to whom it is conveyed, the one who serves it, the one who sells it, the one who benefits from the price paid for it, the one who buys it, and the one for whom it is bought.

I expressed my protest to the groom’s brother the next day and the justification was that “ten foreigners” were there. Ironically I am an addictionist and know that even if these ten foreigners were alcoholics they could more than easily stay without alcohol for three hours if not more. Also that the West is very appreciative and respectful of the rules of other cultures and if told to remove shoes and cover heads for entry to mosques do it happily.

See the colonial and servile mentality has not died in Pakistan. We are in a tizzy about losing Sindh Club membership, but not only do we drink we have the gall to hold a Qawwali performance at our home and drink while the holy names of God and the Prophet (pbuh) are taken in poetry. This is not just flouting the Law of God it is akin to challenging Him. He promises justice in this world and the next and the following verse makes me shudder: “and anyone who has done an atom’s weight of evil shall see it” (Al-Zalzalah 99:8)
(Mahjabeen Islam is a physician practicing in Toledo Ohio. Her email is mahjabeenislam@hotmail.com)