Re: Lack of freedom for Muslim of India
never said that SA is an islamic state, in order for that to happen it needs to have complete islamic/sharia laws in place which it does not. what are those core fundamental problems preventing them? it's a muslim majority country,what more does it need to be an entirely Islamic country?
Thank you for your comments; Saudi Arabia is a monarchy first of all; it has a haraam economic system (interest-based); it has a foreign policy which is not compatible with Islamic values; it has institutional racism against non-Arab Muslims and non-Muslims etc. These are just a few things that come to mind. As for what’s stopping it… Well that’s the question isn’t it? Muslim majority countries have failed to correctly implement Islam. Corrupt, power-hungry leadership, a disinterested population, people moving away from faith, lack of education (secular and Islamic), nationalism (etc); all these are stopping Muslims from correctly implementing Islam.
Now this quetion surfaces.Is there a true Islamic republic?
No there is not.
Islam is not a monolithic religion, there are multiple sects, many Pakistani *Shias and Ahmadis on this very forum have claimed that they are not very safe in Pakistan nor can they stay true to their religion in Pakistan. How can they, when every Pakistani has to sign on their Passport application that "*I consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad an impostor prophet. And also consider his followers, whether belonging to the Lahori or Qadiani group, to be non-Muslims.". In your own words this is a "heretic" sect. Indeed many agree that minority Muslim sects are a lot safer in India than Pakistan. Furthermore, the shrines of Sufis and Barelvis, who have the largest following on Indian subcontinent, are not desecrated in India.
No there are not multiple ‘sects’ – sects donate doctrinal partitions, and Islam for the most part has stayed impervious to major doctrinal splits (barring the Sunni v Shia’ one). What you are probably talking about is madhabs (i.e. schools of thought/fiqh [Islamic Jurisprudence]) which are (again) not sects. There are only 4 in Sunni Islam (Hanafi, Hanbali, Sha’afi, Maliki) and 3 (main ones) in Shia’ Islam (Ithna‘ashariyyah, Isma’ili and Za’idi); Isma’ilis are considered outside the fold of Islam by Islamic Orthodoxy. Under the Sunni Hanafi madhab, the Berelvi and Deobandi schools have developed, primarily (if not exclusively) in the Subcontinent. Again, these are not sects. They would still be classified as belonging to the Hanafi school.
Apart from this, there are Sufi tariqahs and schools of theological thinking (al-Ashaa’riyya, al-mo’tazillah etc) which are not separate sects but separate methodologies employed by different Muslims to define their creed. It’s a complex subject which requires years of study, and I’ll admit to knowing the basis rudimentaries, but absolutely no more. I am not here to pass myself off as a scholar.
How does this tie in with what you’ve said?
You talk about Pakistanis having to sign the declaration calling Mirza Ghulam Ahmed being an imposter. This is slightly incorrect; it is only if a Pakistani wishes to call himself a Muslim that he needs to do this. If he is a non-Muslim he does not. He can then simply sign another box which does not require him to declare the above statement to be true.
You cite this as an example that Ahmedis cannot stay true to their religion in Pakistan. How does the above cause this to happen? Ahmedis enjoy all of the rights that any citizen of Pakistan enjoys but they cannot call themselves Muslims because their beliefs are outside Islam. It seems a pretty simple case to me. Now if you say ‘who is the Pakistani government to decide who is a Muslim and who isn’t?’ that is a separate concern.
Many non-Muslims seem to have an issue with the strict parameters of Islam. They say: ‘Well if XYZ calls himself a Muslim, even if his beliefs are not concordant with the Orthodox, why does the mainstream jump so vehemently to call him a non-Muslim?’ For the answer to this, you need to realise that Islam is not just a personal philosophy; it is a comprehensive social and political order, which dictates economic policy, foreign policy, rules of governance, justice systems, accountability, penal codes etc etc. And just as a country has a right to define who belongs to it or, if for nothing else but practical purposes (e.g. benefits claims, taxation, right to suffrage etc) so too does Islam define who is a Muslim and who is not a Muslim, because the legal, practical, economical (etc) obligations enacted upon Muslims under Islam are different to the legal, practical and economical (etc) obligations enacted upon non-Muslims under Islam. Simply for the purpose of administration, it becomes crucial under an Islamic state to define who is a Muslim and who isn’t.
If Islam were just a personal religion, like Christianity, like Buddhism, like Hinduism, the issue of takfir (pronouncing someone non-Muslim) would not be allowed by God. But God specifically permits the Muslims the right to do this (after meeting stringent checks, balances and conditions of course), because of the fact that Islam is not just a personal faith; it is a governing system.
The issue with the Ahmeddiya movement arises when they insist on calling themselves Muslims and wish to be treated the same as Muslims; unfortunately, this cannot be the case, because Muslim scholars (and not just in Pakistan) have unanimously agreed that Ahmeddiyat is outside the fold of Islam. If Ahmedis stopped calling themselves Muslims, the issue would die down almost over-night.
The case is similar to a (for example) Brazilian immigrant to Britain (or America or France or whatever) who, after 2 days in the country, declares himself to be a citizen of that country and demands the same rights and benefits that come with that citizenship status. Here, I’m not saying that Ahmedis aren’t citizens of Pakistan, I am saying they are not citizens of Islam and hence cannot expect the rights and benefits and obligations that come with that citizenship if they do not meet the criteria to grant them that status.
Incidentally, for your interest’s sake, the issue goes both ways; we have a couple of Ahmedi family friends who refuse to pray behind a Muslim imam because they do not believe mainstream Muslims to be Muslims.
With regards to the desecration of Shrines, that’s quite a low blow; Pakistan is a victim of vicious terrorism, and has been one of the greatest suffers in Bush’s so-called WoT. This blowing up of shrines and graves is done by suicide bombers and not the general Pakistani population. It would be akin to me saying that every Indian Hindu is a mosque desecrator or a Muslim burner, when that’s not the case.
Incidentally, the building of shrines itself is a hotly contested debate in Islam, and if I were the ruler, I would get rid of them. Not by blowing them up of course, but by educating the people and doing it with the support of the population. But of course, that is a debate for a different day.
You also talk about two other things:
1) Posters on this forum talking about how unsafe they feel in Pakistan
2) Many agreeing that minority Muslim sects are a lot safer in India than Pakistan
You need to realise the complete uselessness of such statements. There are also Shia’ posters on this forum who say things like the below:
“our majority sunni state and government and nation has been very good to shias. militant groups exist and they may even have at various times institutional support (for geo-political aims) but despite being a minority by some distance shias enjoy media prominence in Muharram, round the clock police/rangers protection during majalis/juloos and significant political power. we are probably as free in Pakistan as anywhere else in the world”
This was posted by ravage on this very thread. Internet forums are not a good way of determining the socio-political realities in a country.
As for your second comments, I’m sure the ‘many’ who would agree with you are Indian. You need to define what you mean by ‘minority Muslim sects.’ Because if you’re talking about Shia’s, that’s simply not true. Barring a few incidents here and there, Pakistan’s Sunni-Shia population are at harmony. I’d say there’s more tension between certain Sunni groups than between Sunnis and Shias.
If you’re talking about Ahmedis, they are, of course, not a minority Muslims sect. They are a non-Muslim minority, and along with Pakistani Christians and Hindus, do face discrimination which needs to be addressed, just as some Indian Muslim and Christian and dalit communities also face discriminations which need to be addressed.
