Taliban, Terror, and Islam

By Dr Altaf Hussain Pandith

27 December 2014

Watching the live telecast of the 16th December Peshawar School massacre, I instantly thought: Had Prophet Mohammad (P.B. U. H) been physically with us today, he would have probably done two things. One, he would have banned the organized religion in public life and declared it a private affair; second, he would have declared war against Taliban and Talibanised Islam till last Talib, and the people of that religiosity, remained alive. This, for the simple reason that the religion of Mohammad (PBUH) was pro-life: it was to protect life, its dignity, integrity, freedom and beauty. But this new version of theological and literal Islam has become nuisance in public life, a source of misery, sorrow and anarchy. This Islam, across globe, including one in our own socio-cultural and political spaces, has led to degeneration and decline of the quality of human thought and intellect, as well as the quality of physical existence of human life.

While our Prophet and his companions united people, clans, tribes, races, ethnicities, nations and ultimately more than half of the world (two thirds of Byzantine empire was united only up to Umar al-Farooq’s period), and laid the basis of a rich, affluent, modern and ever-evolving civilization, these revivalists of “Islam” rip nations apart, make people fight with each other on the basis of sectarian, tribal and racial prides and prejudices, and even keep on fighting endlessly amongst themselves on the trivial issues, like the length of beard, size of trousers, number of Salah Rakaats and breadth of the women’s Hijab. These people endlessly try to demolish the social security systems and public order and have put under strain all components of social functioning, society and civilization.

A deeper insight into the Holy book of Islam leads us to understand, beyond doubt, that the essential message of the Prophet (as of all prophets) was not just to create a particular political system, mode of governance, or a special jurisprudence, as these Mullahs made us to believe, but to create a divine, spiritual, inherently just, peaceful, virtuous, modern, forward-looking and evolving society. Without exception and without even an occasional failure, he taught, through and through, only love, compassion, humanity, friendship to one and all, without the discrimination of friends and foes, us and them, ours and theirs, and peace and war. He maintained decorum and sanctity of human life, of prisoners and dead bodies, of children and women and of water bodies, trees and environment' this even in demanding times of wars.  For that very objective, he peacefully struggled for 13 years with patience, tolerance, humility and forbearance, inculcating in his followers the concept of Aakhira – afterlife- and the ultimate eventuality of the accountability of deeds, and the essence and importance of the merits of Character, through his own personality and example. These new terror induced revivalist ideologies thrive on, and survive, by invoking the ideological passions of hatred, intolerance, narrow-mindedness, self-righteousness and arbitrariness of actions and the un-mindfulness of the consequences of their actions. This very (terror) ideology in itself entails (logically) the out-come of the kind of terrorism, which the Peshawar massacre was representative and indicative of.

 While this new religion basis itself exclusively on the “theological, literal and stagnant interpretation of Sura Touba and Sura Anfaal, they forget that al-Quran consists of 114 Suras, and is not all about war. They forget the verse, “Whoever took a single life (one soul), except if it be for murder or spreading mischief and corruption in the land - It would be as if he killed the whole of humanity; And (likewise) if any one saved one life, it would be as if he saved the life of all people. And another like, “And Thou shalt not kill, and do not take any life, which God has made sacred, except by way of [Haq]-justice and law (6:151)”.  Killing with justice [Haq]- in essence and in all circumstances, without exception, means the killing by a person with lawful authority, a state or a government, or by its legal representative such as  judge, after all legal and evidential scrutiny, or in war between regular armies under a lawful authority of a state or government.  But in this new brand of Islam, there is no need of a judge or Qazi to pronounce a sentence. No court, no prosecution, or charge sheet, no proof of guilt, and, definitely, no scope of appeal or pardon. They believe in delivering prompt and unbridled “justice” to perceived offenders and enemies of Islam. While the Prophet always maintained the golden rule that the sins of a sinner be covered as much as possible, so as to provide him a chance of repentance and to save him from the severity of the punishment of the laws, so that the concept of punishment functions as a deterrent in society, these custodians of Islamic Shariah seem to be moving door to door, house to house, in search of sinners to execute them and to display “the greatness and magnificence” of Islamic Shariah.

The Holy Prophet released the prisoners of war in exchange of imparting knowledge to his companions. And, it needs little intelligence to understand what kind of knowledge non-Muslims could impart to Muslims. It was this spirit that ultimately Baghdad became the world capital of knowledge at some point of time in human history, and the Muslim Spain became the cradle of the Scientific Renaissance. It was the Prophet who sowed the seeds of that solid and powerful educational movement amongst the tribals of Arabia that we ultimately had the likes of Kindi, Razi, Zuhravi, Avicenna, Averroves, Ibni-Batuta, al-Biruni, Ibni-Khuldun, Umar al-Khyam, al-Gorism, al-Idreesi, Rumi and Ghazali, amongst us. This new brand of Islamists, “the great Taliban’ and the kind of this flock in our own society, instead, seem to tell us that the only real and necessary knowledge to be imported to our younger generation is the religious knowledge  (read theology, clergy and the narrower version of Islamic Shariah), and the rest is futile, wasteful, westernizing and off course condemnable; as in their opinion, it has the potential of cultural and civilisational subjugation and assimilation. These fossilized minds and their version of Islam want to reverse the arrow of time, which is a wishful thinking. But, this ideology, if allowed to go unhindered and unopposed has the potential to reverse the fate of Muslim civilization and will render the Muslim world over-insecure, ignorant, weak, socio-culturally and technologically backward, and completely defenceless in the face of enslavement and dependence.

Thus, more than mere verbal condemnation, the need of the hour is to strike at the ideological foundations and conceptual framework of this stagnant and medieval theological discourse and worldview. This is a defining moment for the Muslim world to come up with a well deliberated response to this terror ideology  and take it head on, globally as well as locally, in all its manifestations and colours and on all platforms and in all institutions of socio-cultural life.

Dr Altaf Hussain Pandith is Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Kashmir

Source: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2014/Dec/27/taliban-terror-and-islam-59.asp

URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/taliban,-terror,-islam/d/100722