Taliban Khan Biggest Supporter of Monsters Taliban made by Punjabi Establishment

Liberal Pakistanis have criticized cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan's opposition to a military operation against the Taliban. His alleged support to the Islamists has earned him the title, 'Taliban Khan.'

Imran Khan:Aka Taliban Khan  Flirting with the Taliban

Recently, when the Pakistani Taliban nominated Imran Khan to engage in peace talks with Islamabad, liberal sections of society exclaimed, "See, we always said that Khan was one of the Islamists!"

Although Khan immediately refused to take part in the talks, the controversial "Taliban Khan" tag that he has earned over the years, got another endorsement.

Imran Khan is now one of the key players in Pakistani politics. His party came third in the May 2013 parliamentary elections and now rules the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. He wants Islamabad to make peace with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and sever its alliance with the US in the "war against terror."

Power and Money Hungry : Imran Khan married Jewish Jemima Goldsmith in 1995

"We will win this war if we disengage from the US," Khan recently told the media. "As long as the Taliban believe we are fighting the US war, they would declare jihad on us. This would be a never ending war," he added.

This is certainly a very different image of a liberal person who studied at the University of Oxford and played in the English cricket league in the 1980s. Back then, Khan was discussed in the British press as much for his sporting talent as for his alleged love affairs.

Khan went on to become one of the most successful cricketers Pakistan has ever produced, under whose leadership the nation won its first Cricket World Cup in 1992. He later engaged in philanthropic work in Pakistan and married British writer and campaigner Jemima Goldsmith. The wedlock, however, didn't last long.

Khan entered politics in the late 1990s, forming a party called Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI). Although he was worshipped by millions in the country as a great cricketer, Khan was never considered a serious politician, even by his ardent fans, until 2011.

Cant be Away from Cameras ?? Cricketer Play boy and now Taliban Khan 

But now, for many of his fellow contrymen, the 60-year-old is the "last hope" in a country which is facing innumerable problems ranging from a non-functional economy to a protracted Islamist insurgency. For others, he is a right-wing politician who wants to appease the Taliban.

Who really is Imran Khan?

Play Boy and Play Girl Perfect Couple now Deceiving Pashtuns 

So how did a person, who was doubted even by members of his own political party as a political alternative to the two main political families, the Bhuttos and the Sharifs, become a force to reckon with in the Islamic Republic? Was it because of the support of the ubiquitous Pakistani army and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), as his critics claim, or was it the relentless political campaigning that Khan has been doing for more than 16 years? Khan's supporters believe it is the latter.

"Khan's stance on corruption, terrorism and nepotism in Pakistani politics has struck a chord with the masses, which are fed up with the traditional ruling elite. He has no corruption charges on him, no foreign assets," claims PTI activist in Islamabad, Khawar Sohail.

Imran Khan Rise to Power by Punjabi Establishment / GHQ and its Made Taliban

But some observers argue that Khan is backed by Pakistan's right-wing groups, in particular the military establishment, because of his "soft" stance on the Taliban and other Islamist militants. His rise in Pakistani politics, they claim, is due to his "good relations" with the ISI. Khan agrees with the organization's position on matters such as Afghanistan and Pakistan's national security, they say.

Amima Sayeed, a development researcher from Karachi, believes that Khan, most definitely, supports right-wing extremists. He has not made it secret.

Need any ID Card ??

"When the Swat peace deal between the government and the Taliban was introduced in 2009, Imran Khan was the first politician to support it. His collaboration with the Islamic Jamaat-e-Islami party is also a proof of his right-wing agenda," she told DW.

"He might not sound like a religious political leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami or the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, but his views about the region, the world, and in particular about the militant groups in Pakistan, are sympathetic if not supportive of the religious right," Owais Tohid, a journalist for the Wall Street Journal in Karachi, agrees. "He opposes a military crackdown on the militants and dismisses the idea that there has been an increase in the homegrown jihadist culture in Pakistan over the years."

Eight months of Failed Government  in power

But some analysts say that the debate about Khan's Islamist or liberal credentials is actually taking the spotlight away from his performance as a politician and the leader of a party which governs an important province of the country.

Khan promised speedy justice and an end to corruption in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province after taking its reins. During the election campaign, he also said his party would curb violence and bring peace.

Chief Trainer of Taliban Mullah Sami and Iran Siddique a Taliban Sympathizer in Paki Media 

Representatives of the Pakistani government and the Taliban met in Islamabad for peace talks

Khan's PTI has been in power for almost , 1 year and eight months, yet critics state that most of his election promises have not been fulfilled.

"The government in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has not delivered anything to people. Corruption and nepotism are rampant and there hasn't been any significant development work in the past eight months," said Qasim Jan, a student in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

"Khan has only focused on protesting US drone strikes in the northwestern tribal areas, blocking the NATO supply route to Afghanistan, and coming up with all sorts of excuses in support of the militants," he added.

Pakhtunkhwa Governance 

Islamabad-based writer, Arshad Mahmood, agrees: "Things are pretty much the same as they were in the past. Khan's party workers consider themselves to be above the law and won't cooperate with the administration. If the PTI officials don't obey the law, how will the governance be improved?," asked Mahmood.

But Khan's supporters, which comprise mainly the Pakistani youth, feel his administration is being unfairly criticized.

"The government has made great strides into a faster and more effective judicial system. The education budget of the province is much bigger than in other provinces. Yes, there are problems, but things are improving," Zakria Zubair, a young entrepreneur in Islamabad, told DW. The 29-year-old PTI supporter also says that Imran Khan is playing the role of a competent opposition leader in the country's lower house of parliament.

source ; http://www.dw.de/pakistan-school-massacre-to-further-strengthen-armys-resolve-to-fight-ttp/a-18134203

School attack exposes Pakistan's flawed anti-terror strategy

An attack on Istaqlal Lyceum Kabul Occurred by Pakistan Sponsored Taliban in Kabul on 13th December 2014 , and 3 days Later on 16 Dec 2014 , another Attack Occurred on Peshawar Army public School who supports the Same Taliban as Tit for Tat response , represent a Flawed State Policy of Pakistan .  

More than 150 children have been killed in a Taliban attack on a school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. Analysts say the school siege proves the country's counter-terrorism policies have failed.

Attacking Schools in Afghanistan can Lead to Same Attacks in Pakistan as it Occurred in Peshawar 

For months, Pakistani army officials, including Army Chief Raheel Rharif, claimed that the military's operation against the Taliban – known as Zarb-e-Azb – in the country's northwestern areas had been extremely successful in destroying the militants' sanctuaries. But the Islamists' attack on an army-run school in Peshawar, the capital city of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, on December 16, tells a completely different story. 141 people, mostly children, were slain in the attack. All six attackers were also killed.

The Islamist Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) outfit claimed responsibility for the assault as a military operation to rescue the hostages ended after several hours. "This attack is a response to Zarb-e-Azb military offensive and the killing of Taliban fighters and the harassment of their families," TTP spokesman Muhammad Khorasani told AFP news agency.

PM Sharif: 'The students who died in the attack are like my own children'

The gunmen stormed the Army Public School in the morning hours and started firing at random, according to police officer Javed Khan. Army commandos quickly arrived at the scene and exchanged fire with the gunmen, he added.

"They (the assailants) include target killers and suicide attackers. They have been ordered to shoot the older students but not the children," said Khorasani.

The siege is over

DW correspondent in Islamabad, Shakoor Rahim, says the gunmen held pupils and school staff inside the principal's office for many hours after the attack. "The security forces and extremists traded gunfire until the army finally managed to end the siege," Rahim said, adding that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif immediately went to Peshawar to oversee the rescue operation.

Rahim quoted an eyewitness as saying that the gunmen were clad in white dresses and were speaking Arabic. Omar Hamid, head of Asia Pacific Country Risk at the global analytics firm IHS in London, told DW that the school represented a soft target that directly impacted the Pakistani army. "As the TTP spokesperson has said, he wanted the military to feel their pain," Hamid said.

Militants still strong and Have Backing of Punjabi Establishment : 

Maqsood Ahmad Jan, an analysts based in Charsadda near Peshawar, says that despite the ongoing military operation in the North Waziristan - close to the Afghan border - the Taliban still have the capacity to launch large attacks. "I don't think that any military offensive can fully eliminate the Islamists. They just change positions," Jan told DW.

The much-touted success of Operation Zarb-e-Azb is very much in question

There had been a relative lull in terrorist attacks in Pakistan since June when the South Asian country's army began an offensive against militants in its restive Waziristan area. Since then, the government has been claiming that operation "Zarb-e-Azb" has crippled the Pakistani Taliban and the numerous al Qaeda affiliated groups. It also says that the capacity of these banned outfits to launch attacks - which have lost 1,100 militants over the past six months - has also been significantly reduced.

"The TTP has been weakened, but retains the ability to carry out attacks like this. it would probably be harder for them to launch attacks further away from their area of operations, say in the eastern Punjab province, but Peshawar is very accessible from the tribal areas and would be an obvious target, as the army formation running the operation is based there," Hamid pointed out.

Islamabad-based journalist for Dawn newspaper, Irfan Haider, says that the North Waziristan military offensive has not been effective due to a lack of coordination between the civil and military intelligence agencies.

"The militant organizations are operating with different names, making it difficult for the federal and provincial governments to deal with them," Haider told DW.

However, Pakistani analyst Abdul Agha is of the view that his country's powerful army is responsible for the continuing strength of the TTP. "They are nurturing and supporting a number of militant groups. The result is that they are still very active," he told DW.

Commenting on the army operation, Agha said that "the government is going after the [militant groups] that have turned against the state, or who don't agree with its long-term plans vis-à-vis Afghanistan. Pakistan wants to eliminate some and will preserve some for the future."

The lawless northwestern tribal region of Pakistan is believed to be a Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold

Political distraction

Jan criticized the KP government, headed by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan's conservative Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, for its pro-Islamist stance. "Khan has a soft spot for the Taliban. His party's provincial government has failed to protect the common people from the extremists. The school siege is proof," Jan commented.

Since August, the PTI has been holding country-wide demonstrations to topple PM Sharif's central government, which Khan and his party officials claim came into power in May 2013 through rigged parliamentary elections. Experts say that since the embattled premier is busy fighting a political war in the capital Islamabad, he is not in a position to focus on the terrorism issues.

"It is no secret that the PTI is a sympathizer of the Taliban insurgency as the party has repeatedly denounced military action against the extremists on the pretext of opposing American interference. Since Khan started demonstrations against Sharif's government, his party has remained largely silent on Zarb-e-Azb," Islamabad-based political commentator, Khayyam Mushir, told DW, adding that the ongoing anti-government protests were a major distraction for the PM Sharif who is further conflicted on what position to take on the terror issue.

No change in policy regarding to keep Taliban as Pakistan State Proxies for War in Afghanistan 

Islamist militants demand the imposition of Shariah Law in Pakistan

"In the past, the military launched several offensives against the Taliban, but we know that the militants are still operating in the country," Agha said, underlining yet another opinion analysts hold, namely that there has never been any clear-cut strategy to uproot terrorist organizations from the country because the Pakistani establishment still considers Islamist extremists an important ally.

Islamabad wants to use them in Afghanistan after the NATO drawdown in the coming days, some say, while others assert that the Pakistani military hopes to regain the influence in Kabul it once enjoyed before the US and its allies toppled the pro-Pakistan Taliban government in 2001.

IHS analyst Hamid believes the Taliban issue in Pakistan is tied up to Afghanistan. He argues it is likely that Islamabad will demand US and Afghan action to target the TPP leadership in eastern Afghanistan, as a quid pro quo to supporting or pushing the Afghan Taliban towards peace talks.

source: http://www.dw.de/school-attack-exposes-pakistans-flawed-anti-terror-strategy/a-18134205

Military courts are not for Taliban Terrorist they will be Used Against You for Sure.

Why Military courts are being Asked for ???  when there is FCR Frontier Crimes Regulations in FATA  ( In Human with God Like Power to Bureaucracy in FATA that can be Applied to Tribal Areas where most of Terrorists are ) , and also Protection of Pakistan Ordinance and Many Brutal Laws and Even Article 245 which has Implemented Martial law in Pakistan in Some Areas ?. 

These Military Courts is beginning of End of Pakistan Federation it seems , and these Will be Used for Political Powers and Civil Society and also against Intellectuals and some Freedom Seekers who will Labeled as Terrorists for sure . 

The Punjabi Establishment is not Interested in Eradicating Taliban for sure as Mullah Military Alliance Which it made Itself as Means to Conquer AF-Pak and has made Jihadi Economy as Most Profitable Business with almost 5 Trillion Rupees Flowing Towards Punjab while the Blood is being run like Rivers in Pakhtunkhwa + FATA and Baluchistan .

Gul Bukhari


The agencies are not interested in convictions of extremist guys.” Every week, the prosecutors would get a visit from ISI and military intelligence officers to discuss the terrorism cases, to find out how many were being tried, how many pending. “And always they’d say, ‘Why are you going after good Muslims?’ or ‘What is the case against [Lashkar-e-Janghvi leader] Akram Lahori? He is working for Islam. Why are you working against him?’” – Buriro, prosecutor of Sindh ATC to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on prosecuting terrorists.

“Buriro produced the video in open court. He cross-examined the defendants’ witness, an ISI colonel. The prosecutors withstood anonymous phone threats; they turned down bribes to let the case return to the regular courts, where it would fade away. The security apparatus was especially furious that uniformed men were being tried in the anti-terrorism court. ‘During the process of the case I was threatened by the naval agencies. I was threatened by the ISI,’ Buriro said. The prosecutors were excoriated for not damaging evidence in the case as instructed.” - Buriro to CPJ on his prosecution of Rangers men for shooting to death unarmed Sarfaraz Shah in a park in Karachi in 2011. They were caught on camera and the case became a publicized one.

CPJ’s full report on the roots of impunity in Pakistan is a horrifying, heart-stopping indictment of primarily the military and its intelligence agencies. Political parties and governments, in particular the MQM, are not spared either, but the clear illustration of how intelligence agencies perpetrate atrocities and prevent justice through civilian law enforcement and courts is petrifying. 

The blood runs cold reading how journalist Mukarram Khan Aatif reporting on a Taliban hideout being only two kilometers from the Salala Checkpost on the Pak-Afghan border was murdered. 

Mukarram’s reports on Deewa Radio were pointing to the possible reason the Americans attacked the Salala checkpost killing 24 Pakistan Army soldiers. His reports came too close to exposing the military-militant nexus, and the military’s double games. 

The people of the country were rightly angry the Americans had killed innocent soldiers of the Pakistan Army, unprovoked. However, the people of Pakistan were to be prevented from understanding what actually led to the accident.

Yet, in response to the massacre of 140 children in the APC Peshawar attack, the most significant anti-terror measures announced by the Prime Minister, and acquiesced to by the rest of the parliamentary parties, is to cede ‘justice’ to the military and to lift the moratorium on death penalty for terrorists. Both were dictated by the military.

‘All day on Wednesday, according to a participant of the meeting held at the PM House, the military leadership stressed the need to set up military courts as the “(civilian) justice system had failed to deliver.” – front page of Dawn, December 25th.

 In light of the CPJ report, which merely acts to confirm what many of us have known, are military courts then the solution? Is the military the solution or part of the problem? The narrative being built for the justification of military courts is wrong: that the civilian judges and law enforcement agencies are too weak, inept, and cowardly to convict terrorists. 

All, I repeat all, terror groups, be they of the Taliban ilk (whom the military has for sometime turned against) or sectarian in nature like the SSP and LeJ, were formed by the military for its various domestic and foreign security policies.

 And the police’s and courts’ intimidation by the military intelligence agencies is in no small part responsible for the broken civilian justice system. One cannot exonerate the political elite for not trying to strengthen the policing and courts systems, but in the face of the powerful army, and with having to watch over their shoulders’ every moment for the next coup, one cannot blame them entirely either.

The decision to lift the moratorium on death penalty also reeks of vengeance and of being seen to be tough on terrorists. 

However, the manner in which non-terror related crimes or ordinary civilians are being charged and tried in anti-terror courts, bodes ill for the cause of justice. People like Imran Khan and Maulana Fazlur Rehman have been charged under the Anti Terrorism Act, so vaguely is terrorism defined in the act. 

How then, is lifting the moratorium a wise step? The case of Shafqat Hussain perhaps is the ideal example of the flaws existing in the system, due to which such knee jerk measures really only serve to right one wrong with another.

 He was sentenced to death when he was 14 years old. An extract from Reprieve’s report reads, ‘(Hussain) is set to be among the first executed as Pakistan lifts its moratorium on the death penalty.… although Pakistan’s Prime Minister has said those to be executed will be “terrorists,” Shafqat was convicted of involuntary manslaughter (by an ATC), what the courts described as an accidental death in the course of a kidnapping. 

The conviction was based on a forced ‘confession’ extracted from him after nine days of police torture – he was beaten, and the scars are still visible where he was burned with cigarettes. The case has nothing to do with terrorism.”

How does killing an innocent person, already a terrible victim of the broken justice system of this country, serve the purpose of fighting terrorism? What is really required is to provide training to police in forensics, evidence preservation, framing of charges etc.; provision of foolproof protection to judges, lawyers, prosecutors and witnesses; depoliticizing and making independent the police service. 

Yes, these are long term measures, but the Prime Minister’s plan does not even mention this as a long-term goal. Instead, it delegitimizes and disenfranchises the civilian setup further by ceding all control to the military.

The important issue here is that even if the decision is now done, the parliament must debate very carefully and at length the issue of military courts and civilian oversight and ultimate authority over these courts. 

Even more importantly, the government and all political parties must at the same time work on a war footing to fix the justice system and lay the groundwork for bringing back terror cases under their own purview. 

The military must also acknowledge its own role in this terrible tragedy that Pakistan is today, and begin to make amends and support the civilian democratic project as at least one act of penance.

The writer is a human rights worker and freelance columnist. She can be contacted at gulnbukhari@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter

source: http://nation.com.pk/columns/28-Dec-2014/military-courts

Peshawar School Massacre was used as an Excuse of a Martial Law.

Peshawar School Massacre has been used as Excuse to Hand Over Independent courts to the Militry and Also Implement a Martial law which was Objectives since last Many Years after Musharff Government was Abolished by a Lawyers Movement . 

General Mushraff who Started a Fake War on Terror and also made Taliban strong by Giving Money and Protection to Same Taliban who were Attacking Afghanistan and Also Killing Pashtuns and Baluchis only in Pakistan . 

Different name were Given to Same Monsters Taliban as TTP, Afghan Taliban , LEJ, SSP , Aswj, LET to Confuse People although they are same Products of Same madrisa,s in control of our Punjabi Establishment the Pakistan Military in Particular 

A drama of Fake war on Terror was Played on Af-Pak to grab the goodies and natural Resources worth Trillions in Af-Pak , via Playing on Both Side of War Games by Punjabi Establishment and Making Pashtuns on both Sides of Durand Line Slaves earning 50 Billion , US Dollars or 5000 Billion Pakistan Rupees by Selling Blood of Pashtuns as they are doing in Jihadi Economy since 1947. 

OK, goodbye by  Cyril Alm

Cyrill Almaeda 

They want you to believe this is a reaction to Peshawar. But they’ve wanted this for a long time: military courts. It wasn’t possible before. Too ugly, too difficult. Then Peshawar happened.

Peshawar was not sui generis, an atrocity that changed all the rules. Peshawar was the logical culmination of a long, persistent struggle.

Read: Militant siege of Peshawar school ends, 141 killed

It began somewhere in the darkness of the late 2000s. The game of cat and mouse between the military and the anti-Pak militants had begun to morph. Peshawar didn’t invent this: Peshawar gave them the excuse.

No longer confined to Fata, it had spread to the cities and Pakistan proper. Even in Fata, the nature of the fight had begun to change, from small, localised operations to full-scale war.

What to do about the men captured alive? Sometimes, you wanted to capture them alive: they provided valuable intelligence. Other times, you had no choice but to capture them alive, to take prisoners in the dozens and hundreds.

Also read: Political leaders reach consensus on

For years, the problem had been small enough to not cause much consternation. An irritant, as it were. Some were disposed of, no questions asked. Others were handed over to the courts, eventually released and then picked up again. An ugly cycle that created resentment on all sides, but still manageable enough.

Swat, South Waziristan and Iftikhar Chaudhry changed all of that. In Swat, they were picked up in the thousands. There were packed into rooms, buildings, anywhere with a lock and a key and a guard to stand watch. Too many to stay at the margins.

Also read: Military courts: a wrong move

The army wasn’t willing to let them go — the victory in Swat too important, the fight too bitter to forget. But feed them into the system and most would likely walk. It wasn’t the courts’ fault.

The system and the rules hadn’t caught up to the fact a war was being fought. From South Waziristan, they spilled out into the cities, travelling to faraway Karachi, turbocharging the militant threat there and everywhere, forcing the system to capture more and more, leaving in its wake darker and darker tales.

Also read: No distinction now between good and bad Taliban: Nawaz

It all eventually got too much. For Iftikhar Chaudhry, anyway. What the hell is going on, the crusading CJ asked. Bring us all these people, Chaudhry demanded. What are you doing to them, the Supreme Court all but yelled.

Think missing persons. They became a thing because of Chaudhry and his court. People started to ask questions. The excesses began to be talked about. The spillover into Balochistan began to be debated. It started to become uncomfortable.

Also read: Former CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry says military courts 'unconstitutional'

Think the Adiala 11. That wretched lot, accused by the army of some of the most audacious attacks, set free by the courts and then scooped up from outside the gates of Adiala.

No one remembered the Adiala 11. Except the court. The army refused to budge. The court pushed harder. Eventually, the broken, distended bodies began to turn up. Then, the horrifying spectacle in the court itself, barely recognisable humans brought in front of collapsing relatives. The public was repulsed. Surely, not in our names. It was hard to tell who the monster was, who the victim.

It all became too much. Swat and South Waziristan had already set the wheels in motion. Ideas were canvassed. Opinions were sought. We need a system to make these guys pay, the boys insisted.

Slowly, they began to get their system. You’ve heard of it in recent years. Strange names. Actions in Aid of Civil Power, Fata, Pata. Anti-Terrorism Amendment Ordinance, VII, VIII. Fair Trial Act. POPO. Amended POPO. POPO that became POPA, some say PPA. Article 245 invoked.

It was all legislative and administrative. All done by the civilians. All engineered by the boys.

Sometimes, it was presented as a favour: if you want us to do this, then these are the tools we need. Other times, it was postulated as a necessity: the problem is growing, we can’t go on like this, do this and this so that we can do what’s needed.

Always, it edged us closer to a hermetically closed system. Plucked from the battlefield or a safe house in a ghetto somewhere, kept in secrecy and done to whatever is necessary. Then, marched to either a cell or an execution chamber, depending on how relevant you are, how much repentance you’ve expressed and how lenient the system wants to be.

Think of it as a stone-crushing factory. Truck pulls up, dumps a bunch of boulders onto a conveyor belt. Sorry, you can’t ask if they’re boulders or if they need to be crushed. We know what we’re doing. Let us do our job.

The boulders bump along the conveyor belt, a few pulled off on occasion by someone or the other. Sorry, we needed that one. No, you can’t ask us why. We know what we’re doing. Let us do our job. Occasionally, a boulder is returned to the belt.

Eventually, the surviving boulders arrive at the crushing site. They stay in there a while. All that emerges are neatly packed bags with powdered stone.Nope, you can’t ask us what went on in there. No, you may not ask how they were selected. We know what we’re doing. Let us do our job. Trust us. OK, goodbye.

And then, the neatly packed bags of powdered stone are loaded onto trucks and driven away. That’s what a hermetically sealed system looks like, militarily, administratively, legally. That’s what they’ve wanted and, now, with military courts, that’s what they’ve got.

Peshawar didn’t invent this; Peshawar gave them the excuse.

We know what we’re doing. Let us do our job. Trust us. OK, goodbye.

The writer is a member of staff.

cyril.a@gmail.com

Twitter: @cyalm

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2015 : http://www.dawn.com/news/1154893/ok-goodbye

Peshawar School Massacre Suspiciously too Convenient Timing.

By Tahir Mehdi

Was Peshawar School  Massacre a Pre-Planned 9/11 like Event Needed by Pakistan after  Abolishment as Money was Drying up after, Kerry Lugar Bill finished in 2014 and it was extended on Request of General Raheel Sharif after his Visit  it received more then 30 Billion US Dollars in Last Decade Equaling 30,000 Billion  Pakistani rupees that was Mostly spend on Punjab and Punjabi Establishment in Shape of Arms and Ammunitions from China and USA . The timing of Peshawar School is too Convenient to be Ignored 

No Money from USA for Adventures in Mountains and Terrorist Like Taliban Made in Pakistan.  

Over 15 days have passed since the gruesome Peshawar carnage shook up the entire country. The atmosphere is still somber as a flurry of activity continues in government quarters.

So has the situation reached tipping point?

Do the authorities intend real, meaningful action or are they still looking to stage manage some mass catharsis and bid their time before returning to their old ways?

A slew of senior analysts remain skeptical, and they have good reason to be, given recent history.

Nevertheless, I for one shall not be carried away by past experiences and lose sight of new factors that suggest that Pakistan may have turned the corner. There is more at play than meets the eye.
US troops are going home and so is US money

When the US military campaign in Afghanistan came knocking at our door, the country was under a host of economic and military sanctions imposed by none other than the US itself.

The Pressler Amendment of 1985 had bound the US president to annually certify that a country receiving military or economic aid from US was not pursuing a nuclear program. For five years, President Regan and then President Bush (Senior) signed the certificate, up until the Soviets finally withdrew from Afghanistan.

The period 1983-1990 saw US military aid stand at an average of around half a billion dollars (in 2009 constant dollar).

But the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 drew a rather abrupt drop scene of this decade long Pak-US military friendship.

Then in May 1998, Pakistan defied international pressure and went ahead with nuclear tests. President Clinton imposed further sanctions under Symington Amendment and Glenn Amendment.

When General Musharraf toppled the elected government in October 1999, US Congress invoked Section 508 of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibiting all aid to Pakistan; these were termed as ‘democracy sanctions’.

The US non-military aid to Pakistan for the period 1991-2001 averaged just $75 million per year, while the total military aid during the eleven year period was a paltry $7 million.

All of this changed in September 2001. President Bush (Junior) waived Pressler, Symington and Glenn Amendments and the US Congress voted to allow the President to waive ‘democracy sanctions’. This broke loose a flood of US money.

US military aid to Pakistan in the first year of the new war, 2002, was a staggering $1.74 billion. The non-military economic assistance that year was $937 million.

See Sixty years of US aid to Pakistan

The US has certainly not been the only donor. As shown in a report by Center for Global Development, the US financial assistance worth $ 1.3 billion was just 30 per cent of the gross Official Development Assistance (ODA) that flowed into Pakistan in 2011, totaling $4.15 billion.

See Aid to Pakistan by the Numbers

Assistance from US and allies to Pakistan has maintained a high level since then despite many challenges.

For a broad comparison, consider that Pakistan’s total current expenditure for 2010-11 was Rs 2,296 billion and out of this Defense Affairs and Services (not total military budget) was Rs 445 billion.

The Coalition Support Fund (which reimburses expenses incurred by US allies against the war on terrorism) for the year 2010 was $1.22 billion (in 2009 constant) or roughly Rs100 billion; in other words, over a fifth of military’s current expenditure. It has remained at this level for a good 13 year period. This is a long time to stay hooked on to something.

Bloomberg quotes Congressional Research Service claiming, the U.S. paid Pakistan $11 billion out of the Pentagon’s Coalition Support Fund budget as of 2013. Including other military and economic aid, the US has given Pakistan about $28 billion during the 12 years through 2014.

General Raheel Sharif got an extension in the Coalition Support Fund for 2015 worth $1 billion during his recent visit to the US. But by 2016, US will be completely out of its combat status in Afghanistan.

In November 2016, during the next US presidential elections, Democrats would like to take pride in having successfully concluded the longest war in US history.

So while budgetary supports and civilian aid from the US and others will continue, though at a reduced level, military aid will slide down sharply, if not dry up completely after 2015.

Pakistan needs to keep around 150,000 troops in North Waziristan until at least 2017.

The monster of terrorism looming large at the western border at the time when resources are shrinking is no good news.

The time to act has arrived as Pakistan’s military strategists can no longer (financially) afford to let matters linger on its western borders.

The Kerry-Lugar bill had tried to use the US aid as a lever to create a new civil-military balance in Pakistan in 2009. The brazen attempt to give the newly elected government supremacy over military affairs had annoyed the army and was effectively blunted as aid to both civilian and military continued unabated.

The new reality is that the aid pipelines are drying up, especially the ones that directly supplied our military. It is bound to create a new civil-military power equation.

The civil-military hostility of 1990s can at least partly be attributed to the sudden reduction in size of the budget pie. We are again facing a similar moment in our history.

The only way to sustain previous levels of allocations is to increase the size of the national budget. That can come through measures like expansion in tax base, foreign investments and the overall growth in GDP of the country.

Peace is a pre-requisite to growth and it is only possible if terrorism is uprooted and we embark on a new era of regional cooperation.
Pakistan cannot afford to lose China as a friend



The recent upsurge in terror acts is blamed on the Operation Zarb-e-Azb, which, despite its shortcomings, the world has come to recognise as a step forward in the fight against terrorism.

Two weeks before the launch of Zarb-e-Azb, (on June 15, 2014), General Raheel Sharif paid a visit to China, holding meetings with political and military leadership of the new global power.

Since then, there has been a crisscross of meetings between US, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

China has advised Pakistan to settle its disputes with India through talks. It has also exhorted ‘neighbours of Afghanistan’ to not meddle in its internal affairs. It has come out in support of the new government in Kabul and has signed economic cooperation agreements worth tens of billions of dollar with Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

A new economy is emerging in the region, and China is a dominant player in it.

China and Pakistan have close cooperation in almost every sector of defense. According to SIPRI, during the five-year period 2009-13, Pakistan was the world’s third biggest importer of arms in the world (having a 5 per cent share in total international arms imports) and 54 per cent of Pakistan’s imports came from China.

Looking at it from the other side, China became the world’s fourth largest arms exporter during the same period and 47 per cent of its total exports were bought by Pakistan.

China has three main stakes in the region that are related to Pakistan.

One: it sees the militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a source of unrest in its home province Xinjiang, and it has zero tolerance for religious extremism.

Islamic militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan is a constant source of inspiration, if not support, for ethnic Uighurs of Xinjiang and a major irritant for Beijing.

Two: Xinjiang is important for China from more than one aspect. It has a fifth of that country’s oil reserves and its largest coal and natural gas reserves. It also serves as the distribution hub of the gas China imports from Central Asia.

Beijing has recently said it is investing $300 billion in the region and a good part of this is going in developing roads and railways that will link China with Europe and other regions. One important route shall pass through Pakistan and China wants its merchandise to flow on it, but is wary of religious extremism traveling back into its already troubled region.

See: China Invests in Region Rich in Oil, Coal and Also Strife

Three: China has stakes in the region’s economy. It already has a $3.5 billion copper mining contract at Mes Aynak near Kabul. China's appetite for mineral resources is insatiable.

Besides that, many of the Chinese investments in other countries of the region can materialise or optimise if there are no cross-country hindrances. This provides “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kick-start the two redundant economies of Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

Also read: Can China bring peace to Afghanistan?

Pakistan’s western allies have been exhorting it to ‘do more’ in the war against terrorism with frustratingly limited success. The pressure to walk the last mile now may not be coming from the wily West but from ‘all-weather friend’ China.

Given the ‘unreliability’ of the US, Pakistan is trying to diversify. Its recent overtures to Russia are part of this effort but these are unlikely to yield anything substantial given the uncertainties faced by that country’s economy especially in the face of the current slump in oil prices.

So Pakistan is left with China as the only reliable military partner – and it certainly cannot afford to lose or annoy her.

source : http://www.dawn.com/news/1153849/the-other-factors-reshaping-pakistans-war-on-terror

Father of Wahabism/Deobandism/Takfirsm in Indian Sub-continent and His Followers

Nadeem F. Paracha

Abu Ala-Mududi Father of Takfirism Wahabi Deobandi Islam. 

How the intellectuality of Political Islam turned into the brutality of faithful fascism: Nadeem F. Paracha

In Pakistan even the traditional Muslim practice of reasoning in matters of religion - originally introduced by the 9th century Mutazilites - is at times treated like some kind of an abomination to be feared, discouraged and repressed.

It is easy to accuse the proverbial mullah for this. And it is equally easy to blame him for being anti-intellectual and regressive.

However, over the years the conventional mullah has already lost a lot of face and respect. But this seemingly anti-mullah trend didn't always mean the opening up of society to a more enlightening and pluralistic alternative.

On the contrary, the gap created by the conventional mullah's gradual downfall was filled by religious scholars who only seemed to have intellectualized, modernized and politicized obscurantism. [1]

In Pakistan, Islamic scholars like Abul Ala Maududi and the far more moderate, Professor Fazalur Rahman Malik, were some of the first to occupy this gap.

Their tirades against the conventional mullah were welcomed by the more ‘educated Muslims.’ [2]

Working as the head of the Central Institute of Islamic Research formed by the Ayub Khan dictatorship in 1961, Prof. Fazalur Rahman laboured hard to find that elusive middle-ground between Pakistan’s colonial secular heritage and its somewhat ambiguous ‘Islamic Republic-ism.’

Maududi's elaborate treatises however, concentrated more on undermining the constructive role being played by the less puritanical Islamic sects in Pakistan. [3]

And even though both Maududi and Fazalur Rahman were staunchly anti-left in equal degrees, Maududi soon turned his intellectual weaponry against Rahman as well after the later published his short but highly acclaimed book ‘Islam’ in 1968.

Maududi and his Jamat Islami accused Rahman for undermining the importance of the hadith and for claiming that not all text of the Qu’ran was eternal and (thus), it should be understood allegorically. [4] 

Maududi’s staunch stance against the non-puritanical strains of Islam was a counterproductive move. Because in an ethnical, sectarian and religiously pluralistic society like Pakistan, the factions that Maududi challenged were/are comparatively moderate in essence: Barelvi-ism, Sufism and the Hanaifi school of jurisprudence – which is the most liberal of the four schools of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam – are still at the forefront of faith in Pakistan, boasting a large following. [5]; [6]; [7]; [8]

Many believe they are the very reasons that help keep tensions between religions, and religious sects in the country at a bare minimum. At the root of this is the pluralism-friendly factor emerging from these strains' historical make-up generated from a healthy cultural fusion between distinct peoples in the subcontinent. [9] 

That's why a ‘progressive Muslim’ in a country like Pakistan must be more pragmatic than either idealistic or political. He may be aesthetically and theologically opposed and repulsed by the more ‘superstitious’ strains of the faith, but he must understand that ironically, the large number of adherents that such strains have in Pakistan, they remain to be the social engine behind the consensual need in the society at large to keep matters like sectarianism and inter-Islamic polarisation in the country largely de-politicised. [10]

But Maududi not only shunned these ‘superstitious’ strains, his alternative of a more ‘unembellished’ and concrete version of Islam was also highly political and compartmentalized. [11]

This meant that not only were the more ‘blemished’ strains of Islam challenged by him, modern western philosophical and political ensembles like democracy, liberalism, socialism and especially Marxism too were rejected.

Maududi’s alternative was an ‘all-encompassing Islam.’ He purposed a single, exclusive version of the religion; a version that discouraged any previous interpretation of the Qu'ran and the Islamic Law (Sharia) that his own analysis did not approve of. And though he was skeptical of all modern secular concepts of ideology, paradoxically, he wasn't all that allergic to the notions of modern state politics. [12]; [13]; [14].

Calling for the imposition of this politicized and puritanical version of Islam in a socially pluralistic and religiously sectarian society like Pakistan was not only Utopian, it was also dangerous.

Not surprisingly, ever since the late 1960s, Maududi's philosophy has off and on found itself being used to encourage self-righteous coercion, political intrigues and violence - as seen in Jamat Islami’s role in the 1953 and 1974 anti-Ahmadiyya violence (for which Maududi was imprisoned); the role of the party in supporting (and taking part) in the Pakistani Army’s controversial actions in the former East Pakistan; and the role of the party’s student wing, the Islami Jamiat-e-Taleba (IJT), which was accused (in the 1980s) of introducing the violent ‘Kalashnikov Culture’ on the country’s campuses. [15]; [16].

Worst of all, Maududi-ism (as it is sometimes called), was also exploited by dictators (General Zia-ul-Haq), ulema and, of course, the Jamat Islami, as a way to deflect, deflate and denounce any other form of Islamic reformism. It actually eschewed tolerance. [17]

A number of politico-religious forces in Pakistan, as well as many television anchormen, print journalists and publications, are both directly and indirectly influenced by Maududi.

That's why one is not surprised to watch most of them dutifully derailing any idea that looks inwards at the present state of Islam as a cause for the violence perpetuated in its name.

These gentlemen and publications continue to offer hyperbolic Maududist tracts pointing at ‘western powers’ and faith-based ‘distortions’ for all the ills befalling religion and society in Pakistan.

Outdated Maududist thoughts are being aired in a reality where Communism, Cold War tussles, ‘secret societies,’ and ‘distorted sects’ are not the ‘problem’ anymore. On the contrary, most of the present crises are clearly stemming from a violent, psychopathic and totalitarian version of the faith. Thus, the socio-political disconnect in these gentlemen's otherwise widely published and televised arguments is now starker than ever. 

The fact is, Maududism in the post-9/11 Pakistan stands to be little more than an outdated relic of the Cold War, offering what now sound like rhetorical and hyperbolic clichés.

What's more, Maududi's ideas are also being used to make a veneered defense of the actions of anarchic militants in the North (as heard from politicians like JI’s Munawar Hussain and Qazi Hussain Ahmed; PTI’s Imran Khan, and even from some PML-N leaders who were once part of JI’s student-wing, the IJT. [18]

It is interesting to imagine how Maududi himself would have reacted in the current scenario. However, there is no doubt that the way his thoughts and ideas have evolved, they have been at least one reason why the current trends of reformism in Islam have failed to find any valid expression in Pakistan.

The backlash

The present-day reformist inclinations in Islam include two variations. One is being led by staunch secularists and the other by ‘progressive Muslims.’

Both may disagree with one another but their aim and goal seem to be common: To expunge Islam as we know it from laws and exegeses that, though man-made, have been handed down through the centuries as being ‘divine’ and thus unalterable. [19]

One of the many examples in this context is the law of stoning adulterous men and women that is practiced in some Islamic societies as ‘God's law,’ but it is actually not found in the Qu'ran - (the law was formed in the 8th century from a hadith whose credibility many scholars have questioned). [20]

Another is the literalist way the hudd or Hudood laws have been interpreted. Even though most Islamic countries (through the process of ijtihad/collective consensus), have avoided enacting ‘Hudood Laws’ due to these laws’ incompatibility with changing times and circumstances, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (until 2007) were the only two countries having these laws as part of their respective legal cannons.

Nevertheless, the Hudood Ordinances (enacted by the Zia dictatorship in 1979 in Pakistan), were finally scrapped by the Musharraf regime in 2007.

This was one of the foremost acts by the state of Pakistan directly challenging the ‘Islamisation’ milieu left behind by Zia who had been a staunch ‘Maududist.’ [21]

Yet another example suggesting a gradual backlash against the Maududist politico-theological model was the recent unprecedented verdict by the Federal Shariat Court that declared drinking alcohol as a comparatively minor crime in Islam, and changed the punishment (of drunkenness) from 80 lashes (from a whip) to light strokes from a stick (made from a date tree leave). [22]

Alcohol had always remained a largely tolerated indulgence in Muslim societies across the centuries. Many scholars maintain that though the Qu’ran has ‘advised’ Muslims to stay away from wine (as opposed to forbidding it like it does pork, carrion meat, blood and idolatry), it does not prescribe any punishment for its usage. [23].

In Pakistan too, alcohol was freely sold and consumed until 1977, when first (under pressure from the Jamat Islami), the secular government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto banned its sale, and then the reactionary dictatorship of Gen. Zia turned its consumption and sale (by Muslims) as a crime punishable under his controversial Hudood Ordinances.

Ironically, Zia’s ban on alcohol gave birth to a thriving bootlegging mafia- even though cities like Karachi have licensed liquor stores that have successfully checked the bootleggers’ influence in this city.

Zia’s ban on alcohol also triggered the widespread usage of addictive drugs like heroin.

For example, until 1979, Pakistan literally had just a single reported case of heroin addiction. But by 1985, it had the second largest population of heroin addicts! [24]

Though no Pakistani has been flogged for the offence of consuming and selling alcohol ever since 1981, the Shariat Court’s verdict must have come as a blow to the architects of Zia’s Islamisation process that was largely based on Maududi’s politico-religious thesis of an ‘Islamic state.’ A state whose blueprint, many Islamic scholars opposed to Maududi-ism maintain, does not exist in the Qu’ran and is only a generation of Maududi’s imagination.

Waiting for reason

There are a number of progressive Muslim scholars, especially in Turkey, Egypt, Malaysia, Algeria and Indonesia, who seem to be making deeper inroads in the 21st century Islamic reformist psyche. In Pakistan Javed Ahmed Ghamdi, the London-based Ziauddin Sardar and respected intellectual, Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy can be named.

In their work on Islam they have taken a scientific and a strictly academic approach, and are not immune to openly question the historicity of the Laws of Islam that have been handed down to us from the 8th century onwards; or a history and versions of the Shariah that started to appear almost two centuries after the demise of the Prophet. 

To them the Muslims need to have an interpretative relationship with the Holy text. According to Sardar, for example, we have been relying on an age-old interpretation of the Qu'ran, one that is ice-capped in history. The context of this interpretation is of the 8th and 9th century Muslim societies. It needs to be radically updated through ijtihad.

Most current Islamic reformists are also concerned about the retrogressive tendency in some recent so-called modern Islamists to determine ‘scientific miracles in the Qu'ran.’

According to Dr. Hoodbhoy, by doing this they undermine all the hard work undertaken by early Islamic scientists and philosophers and that this practice in a way also suggests that present-day Muslims should stop getting their hands dirty in labs and universities, thinking they know everything. [25]; [26].

Respected Muslim scholars like Prof. Sardar, and monumental Algerian scholar, Muhamad Arkun, have been particularly harsh on French writer, Maurice Bucaille’s controversial book, The Bible, Qu’ran & Science and how this book (financed by the Saudi government), has given birth to a navel-gazing cottage industry of half-baked ‘experts’ distracting Muslims from learning real science. They say the Qu’ran encourages the acquiring of science, instead of creating a pseudoscience by reading wrongly into the meanings of certain surahs of the Holy Book. [27]

Turkish pseudo-scientist Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar) – who has recently gained fresh new following among Pakistani TV news anchors like Shahid Masood and so-called ‘security analysts’ and TV personalities like Zaid Hamid – too has come under the hammer of neo-Islamic rationalists and secularists alike.

The rationalists have accused Yahya of encouraging Muslims to shun secular sciences as if this act of shunning was ordained by God. [28]

Interestingly, unknown to most of his Pakistani followers, Yahya has been a constant receptor of police arrests for various drug and sex related scandals. [29]. 

Many critics of this trend have described such men as ‘Islamic quacks’ who are discouraging a rational and scientific mindset in present-day Muslims.

Today's reformists also insist that there never was just one correct way to be a Muslim. As Sardar suggests, the propagation by any group of the single correct way is a totalitarian act. It will eschew plurality, democracy and tolerance, leading the ummah towards a totalitarian situation.

That's why to modern Islamic scholars like Muhammad Arkun, it is of vital importance that Islamic history and law be critiqued and thoroughly explored in the light of reason and current times. [30]; [31].

According to Arkun, it is only then that reason in Islam can be liberated from man-made dogmatic constructs - constructs that have played the foremost role in derailing Islam from its early philosophical and rational path, landing its fate in the clutches of biased power politics and, eventually, in the gun barrels of the fascistic and irrational mutations of the faith (such as the Taleban and Al-Qaeda).

_____________________________ 

 References :

 [1] The Forgotten Swamp – Navigating Political Islam: Guilain Denoeux (http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol9/denoeux.pdf) 

[2] Islam & Modernity: Fazalur Rahman Malik (http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=FJcyIeHeeZwC&dq=Islam+%26+Modernity+fazlur+rahman&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=gelbRTMzKz&sig=SnwIHjyOPXOJ9Z2CVK9E5cXQ-CU&hl=en&ei=-aksSoyeIpeIkQW8yqjoCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1) 

[3] Encyclopedia of the Middle-East: (Entry) (http://www.mideastweb.org/Middle-East-Encyclopedia/abul-ala-maududi.htm) 

[4] Revisiting Fazalur Rahman’s Ordeal: (Non-Skeptical Essays) (http://hangingodes.wordpress.com/2006/11/10/revisiting-fazlur-rahmans-ordeal/). 

[5] Islamic Extremism in Pakistan: Khaled Ahmed (http://www.southasianmedia.net/Magazine/Journal/islamicextremism_pakistan.htm) 

[6] Hanafi Madhub: Shaikh Siddiqui (http://islamawareness.net/Madhab/Hanafi/hanafi_intro.html) 

[7] Berelvi Islam: (Entry) (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/intro/islam-barelvi.htm) (http://www.geocities.com/pak_history/sufi.html?200622) 

[8] Maududi & Islamic Revivalism (Pages : 122-125) : Syd Vali Reza Nasr (http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=I07ykFUoKTUC&dq=Mawdudi+and+the+making+of+Islamic+revivalism&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=Kb4sSvvuFYrm6gO7-rSDCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5) 

[9] The Sufi Movement & Pakistan : (Entry) (http://www.geocities.com/pak_history/sufi.html?200622) 

[10] Pakistan’s Pluralist Traditions: Lisa Curtis (http://www.heritage.org/research/asiaandthepacific/bg2268.cfm) 

[11] Syed Abul Ala Maududi : Prof. Ziauddin Sardar (http://www.newstatesman.com/200307140017) 

[12] Tajeed O Aya-e-Deen: Abul Ala Maududi (http://www.scribd.com/doc/6800776/Rasayl-Wa-Masayl-4)

 [13] How Islam sees itself: Warren Larson (http://www.ciu.edu/library/document/HOW_ISLAM_SEES_ITSELF.pdf) 

[14] Radical Islam’s Missing Link: John Shaffer (http://www.pwhce.org/maududi.html) 

[15] Munir Report on 1953 Riots: Javaid Aslam. (http://www.civilservice.org.pk/DMGArticles/65_MunirRptRelevance.pdf) 

[16] The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution (Pages: : Syed Vali Reza (http://www.escholarship.org/editions/view?docId=ft9j49p32d&chunk.id=ch3&toc.depth=1&toc.id=ch3&brand=eschol;query=IJT#1) 

[17] Towards a Fundamentalist State: Bjarne Skov (http://folk.uio.no/bjarnes/urdu/Skov-Zia-ul-haq-04052005.pdf) 

[18] Split on the Taliban: Dr. Hassan Askari (Daily Times) (http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C05%5C24%5Cstory_24-5-2009_pg3_2) 

[19] Rethinking Islam: Prof. Ziauddin Sardar (http://www.islamfortoday.com/sardar01.htm) [20] FAQ about stoning: (Entry) (http://stop-stoning.org/node/9) 

[21] Musharraf Signs Bill: (Dawn). (http://www.dawn.com/2006/12/02/top7.htm) 

[22] A Good Decision: (Daily Times Editorial) (http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009/05/30/story_30-5-2009_pg3_1) 

[23] Islam, Its Laws & Society (Page:38): Jamila Hussain (http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=_IdBJ0m53n8C&dq=Islam+its+law+and+society+By+Jamila+Hussain&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=Bc1FtPN8gM&sig=euE1E3Xmge43wa586b08dKMrQl0&hl=en&ei=7_AsSuzMLKbm6gOG8PGBCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1). 

[24] Heroin, Taliban & Pakistan: B. Raman (http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers3%5Cpaper288.html) 

 [25] Science and Islamic Philosophy: Ziauddin Sardar (http://www.cgcu.net/imase/islam_science_philosophy.htm)

 [26] A Review of Pervez Hoodbhoy’s Islam & Science: Dr. Ahmed Shafaar (http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/hoodbhoy/book_review_islam_science.htm) 

[27] Weird Science: Ziauddin Sardar (http://bearsite.info/Articles/Science/Weird%20science.pdf) 

[28] Harun Yahya & Islamic Creationism: Francois Tremblay (http://www2.truman.edu/~edis/writings/articles/hyahya.html) 

[29] Police cracks down on obscure sect: (Turkish Hurriyat) (http://web.archive.org/web/20010217142739/www.turkeyupdate.com/adnan.htm) 

 [30] Islam-To Subvert or Reform: Muhammad Arkun (http://www.libertybooks.com/books/current-affairs-politics/islam-to-reform-or-to-subvert.html).

 [31] Philosophers of Arab: (Entry) http://www.arabphilosophers.com/English/philosophers/contemporary/contemporary-names/Muhammad_Arakoun/English_Article_Arakoun/English_Article_Arakoun.htm)

source: http://www.dawn.com/news/812924/maududi’s-children

Abu-Ala Maududi Many Faces and Founder of Wahabism in Indian Sub Continent .

Abu Ala Mududi 

By Nadeem F Paracha

To most Pakistanis and to those who have been associated with various Islamic political outfits in countries like Egypt, Indonesia, Syria and Malaysia, Abul Ala Maududi is to 'Political Islam' what Karl Marx was to Communism.

Both western and South Asian historians have described him as one of the most powerful Islamic ideologues of the 20th century, whose ideas and writings went on to influence a vast number of Islamic movements in the Muslim world.

For example, the well-known American journal, The New Statesman, in its July 2013 issue, suggested that the impact of Maududi's ideas can be found in modern Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood (first formed in Egypt) and similar outfits across the Muslim realms, all the way to the more aggressive postures of men like Osama Bin Laden, the founder of Al Qaeda and once the most wanted terrorist in the world.
Ambitions and achievements


In Pakistan, Maududi is mostly remembered as an Islamic scholar who founded the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI). But he also still remains a controversial figure here. To the left and liberal segments, he is remembered as the man who let the US use JI (during the Cold War) to undermine leftist and progressive politics in Pakistan, whereas many Islamic parties opposed to the JI once went on to declare him to be a religious innovator who attempted to create a whole new sect.

He arrived in Pakistan from India as a migrant and scholar with the ambition to turn what to him was a nationalistic abomination into becoming a 'true Islamic state' based on the laws of the shariah.

Maududi had formed his party in 1941 like a Leninist outfit in which a vanguard and select group of learned and 'pious Muslims' would work to bring an 'Islamic revolution' and do away with the forces of what Maududi called modern-day jahiliya (socialism, communism, liberal democracy, secularism and a faith 'distorted by innovators').

To that end, he began to lay down the foundations of what came to be known as 'Islamism' — a theory that advocated the formation of an Islamic state by first 'Islamising' various sections of the economy and politics so that a fully Islamised polity could be built to launch the final Islamic revolution.

Maududi's theories in this context attracted certain segments of Pakistan's urban middle-classes and was also adopted by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which tried to jettison the process through a 'jihad' within Egypt.

Not only did Maududi and his party face resistance from leftist groups, it also entered into a long tussle with Ayub Khan's secular/modernist dictatorship (1958-69), and with the ZA Bhutto regime, which was based on populist socialism (1971-77).

Mududiate / Wahabiat 

Maududi was also taken to task by the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan, which accused the JI of creating a separate Muslim sect called 'Maududiat'.


Nevertheless, Maududi's ideas were eventually adopted by General Ziaul Haq, who had pulled off a successful military coup in July 1977 and then invited Maududi to help him shape policies to help make Pakistan a 'true Islamic country' run on 'Nizam-e-Mustafa.'

The course charted by Zia eventually mutated into becoming a destructive and highly polarising legacy that the state, politics and society of Pakistan has been battling with till this day.

But the irony is that none of what went down in the name of faith and 'Islamisation' during and after the Zia dictatorship was witnessed by the ideologue who had first inspired it, because Maududi passed away in 1979.  

Not an all-out conservative — Maududi's existential journey

In all the noise that Maududi's career as a scholar, ideologue and politician generated, what got lost was the crucial fact that unlike most of today's Islamic scholars and leaders, Maududi did not emerge from an entirely conservative background.

His personal history is a rather fascinating story of a man who, after suffering from spats of existential crises, chose to interpret Islam as a political theory to address his own dilemmas.

He did not come raging out of a madressah, swinging a fist at the vulgarities of the modern world. On the contrary, he was born into a family in the town of Auranganad in colonial India that had relations with the modern and enlightened Muslim scholar, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan.

Syed Ahmed Khan was one of the earliest architects of Muslim Nationalism in India — a nationalism that attempted to create a robust Muslim middle-class in India that was well-versed in the sciences, arts and politics of Europe, as well as in the more rational and progressive understanding of Islam. It was for this very purpose that he formed the MAO college (later known as Aligarh University).

The Aligarh University that was formed by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan to modernize Muslim education in India. 

Graduate of Aligarh University India

The Aligarh University that was formed by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan to modernise Muslim education in India.

Syed Ahmed convinced Maududi's father, Ahmed Hassan, to join the college against the wishes of Maududi's conservative paternal grandfather.

Incensed by the fact that his son had begun to wear 'Western clothes' and play cricket, Hassan's father pulled him out of the college and got him lectured by various clerics and ulema on how he was going against his faith by 'being overwhelmed by western lifestyle.'

Hassan soon renounced everything that had attracted him at the college and became extremely conservative and religious. When Maududi was born (1903), Hassan pledged not to give his son a western education.

So Maududi received his early education at home through private tutors who taught him the Quran, Hadith, Arabic and Persian. At age 12 Maududi, was sent to the Oriental High School whose curriculum had been designed by famous Islamic scholar, Shibli Nomani.


Apart from teaching Islamic law and tradition to the students, the school also taught Mathematics and English. Maududi then moved to an Islamic college, Darul Aloom, in Hyderabad. But he had to cut short his college education when his father fell sick and he had to travel to Bhopal to visit him. In Bhopal, the young Maududi befriended Urdu poet and writer, Niaz Fatehpuri.

Fatehpuri's writings and poetry were highly critical of conservative Muslims and the orthodox Muslim clergy, and on a number of occasions, various ulema had declared him to be a 'heretic.' But Fatehpuri soldiered on and had already begun to make a name for himself in Urdu literary circles when he met Maududi.

Studying Works of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Europe 

Inspired by Fatehpuri's writing style, Maududi too decided to become a writer. In 1919, the then 17-year-old Maududi moved to Delhi, where for the first time he began to study the works of Syed Ahmed Khan in full. This led to the study of major works of philosophy, sociology, history and politics by leading European thinkers and writers.

Maududi is said to have spent about five years reading books and essays authored by famous European philosophers, political scientists and historians, and he emerged from this vigorous exercise a man who claimed to have found the reason behind the rise of the West (and the fall of Muslim empires).

By now, he had also begun to write columns for Urdu newspapers. In one of his articles, he listed the names of those European scholars whose works and ideas, according to him, had shaped the rise of Western civilisation. The scholars that he mentioned in his list included Russian materialist philosopher, Hegel; British economist, Adam Smith; revolutionary French writers, Rousseau and Voltaire; pioneering evolutionist and biologist, Charles Darwin and many others.

With this article, he began to shape a narrative through his columns in which he emphasised the need (for Muslims) to study and understand Western political thought and philosophy and to 'master their sciences.' He said that one could not challenge anything that one did not understand.

It was also during this period that Maududi began to exhibit an interest in Marxism. At age 25, he became an admirer of the time's leading Marxist intellectual in India, Abdul Sattar Khairi, and then befriended famous progressive Urdu poet, Josh Malihabadi.

By the early 1930s, Maududi was living the life of a studious young man and journalist who also enjoyed watching films in the newly emerging cinemas of India and listening to songs. He married an independent-minded girl, Mehmuda, who was educated at a missionary school in Delhi, wore modern dresses and owned her own bicycle! There was no bar on her to wear a burqa.

The young Maududi (1927)

Mududi Link with Conservatism 

Despite all this, Maududi did retain some link with his past as the son of a very conservative man. In his quest to revive the lost tradition of Muslim intellectualism, he had also come close to India's main party of Sunni Deobandi Muslims, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind (JUH).

But at the same time, he also expressed admiration for the political and spiritual leader, Mahatma Gandhi. Though he never joined Gandhi's Indian National Congress (INC) himself, he did urge other Muslims to join it in his articles. He also authored biographies of Gandhi and another Congress ideologue, Pundit Malaviya.

Maududi was greatly dismayed by the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey, and he blamed Turkish nationalists for it. When INC began to talk about an 'Indian Nationalism', something snapped in Maududi.

He had devoured every book on Western philosophy and history, but when the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the hands of Turkish nationalists, Maududi realised he had been highly underrating the power of modern nationalism all this time. This was one European concept he was not too familiar with.

Disenchanted by the Congress' Indian Nationalism and JUH's alliance with the party, Maududi retreated to the life of a husband who spent most of his time with his family, books, the occasional film and classical and semi-classical songs performed on stage.

Influence of Manzoor Nomani 

In 1938, he bumped into Manzoor Nomani, a prominent Islamic scholar, who admonished him for distancing himself from his father's legacy, for not having a beard and living the life of a rudderless Muslim.

Already disappointed with the way the concept of nationalism was taking root in the minds of the Hindus and Muslims of India, Maududi retired back to his library, but this time to study Islam.

He now emerged with the theory that it wasn't really the greatness of modern Western thought that had been entirely responsible for the rise of European political power, but it was due to lack of conviction of the Muslims to practice their faith in the right manner that had triggered their fall and made room for European powers to enter.

Maududi in His Books

Hate of Indian Nationalism replacing it with Islamism as Nationhood. 

In 1937, he vehemently attacked the INC's nationalism, accusing it of trying to subjugate the Muslims of India, but by the early 1940s he was being equally critical of Jinnah's All India Muslim League and of Muslim Nationalism.

He declared the League to be 'a party of pagans' and 'nominal Muslims' who wanted to create a secular country in the name of Pakistan.

Maududi's vehement attacks could not stop the sudden momentum that the League gained in 1946 and that helped it form an independent Muslim country in 1947.

In another ironic move, Maududi decided to leave India and head for a country that to him was an abomination and abode of nominal Muslims and the jahiliya. He began his political career in Pakistan in 1949, and it lasted on till 1979, when he passed away from illness in a US hospital. His funeral in Lahore was attended by thousands of admirers.
The many Maududis

Many Mududi Faces 

Writing in the 'Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought', Irfan Ahmed suggests that there was not one Maududi but many.

By this, he meant that as a scholar and ideologue, Maududi's views were often derivatives of phases in his existential journey; one that saw him depart from the conservatism his father had tried to impose upon him and wholeheartedly embrace the freshness of European philosophical and political thought.

Maududi then bounced between Indian Marxism and the anti-colonial stances of Gandhi and Deobandi ulema (JUH), before settling for a quiet urban middle-class family life. But incensed by the rise of Muslim Nationalism, Maududi finally found his calling in the project of interpreting Islam's holy texts in a political light, and emerging with a complex theory that we now call Political Islam (aka 'Islamism').

Elements of organisational Leninism, Hegel's dualism, Jalaluddin Afghani's Pan-Islamism and various other modern political theories can be found in his innovative thesis, and that's why his thoughts not only managed to appeal to modern conservative Muslim movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and populist youth outfits such as the Islami Jamiat Taleba, but even the mujahideen who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan all the way to the more anarchic (if not entirely nihilistic) ways of men such as Osama Bin Laden.

But the question is, had Maududi been alive today, which one of the many Maududis out there would he have been most comfortable with?

Source: http://www.dawn.com/news/1154419