The Salafi Wave in South Asia - Episode1
By Khama Bagosh Madzallah, New Age Islam
31 March 2013
Many people have expressed their anger over my last writing wondering why I had tried to unveil the typical violent face of Islam by quoting some Ahadees and two famous Indo-Pak scholars. To my surprise, educated Indo-Pak commoners have either only very formal information about religious sects and groups, or whatever they have is provided by the orators and scholars of the opponent sects. For example every Non-Shia group who believes in sectarian violence and is intolerant towards Non-Muslims is generally called Wahhabi. But the funny thing is that Wahhabism has crept particularly into the Shia sect as well in Pakistan. Those Shias who want to break the circumference of traditional sanctity and exaggeration are named as Wahhabis by their fellows. In subcontinent Wahhabi is a character (disliked a bit at the same time) who disregards the antediluvian sanctity of the religious personalities and tries to undermine their centuries old divine status. There is another popular name for this kind of Shias which is “Mukkasar” (down players or reducers) who tries to undermine the status of the Household of the Prophet; on the contrary the faction which concentrates more on preaching the holiness of these personalities is called “Malang” and have a faith, that due to their love with the Household of Prophet they would be rightful for heaven rather practicing common Islamic observances.
It can be observed that an Ahl-e-Hadees or in other words a Wahhabi Muslim would be more adamant in general attitude and justifies this behavior by proving its reconciliation with the predecessors of the religion including Sahaba (companions of the Prophet). He / She duly announces that the common Indo-Pak Muslims have lost the true Islamic spirit by indulging themselves in pagan practices and Non-Islamic additions.
For example if you look at the readings of Nawab Siddique Hassan Khan, Maulana Abdullah Bahawalpuri, Allama Ihsan Elahi Zaheer and Hafiz Saeed of Lashkar-e-Taiba they openly declare that Hanafi- Barelvi Muslims are quite similar to Hindus in worshiping Idols. There is a complete unanimity between the Ahl-e-Hadees (Wahhabi) clerics nowadays that people with Barelvi beliefs are at deviance from the definition of Islam. They have discontinued matrimonial alliances with them, but even if it happens somewhere incidentally and either the bride or bridegroom is Barelvi they try to convert him/her to Ahl-e-Hadees immediately, and for this the Ahl-e-Hadees clerics are given responsibility for the reversion of the astray. Sometimes ago the Ahl-e-Hadees community was shocked due to a famous “Ropery” Ahl-e-Hadees family’s young woman’s love marriage to a Barelvi man, and there were appeals to rescind the marriage.
Today I would discuss about Indo-Pak Ahl-e-Hadees school of thought with you friends, I would try to discuss the Neo-Salafism which is growing at large in Pakistan, rather their proclaimed well known beliefs. In Pakistan “Dawat-ul-Arshad” was the first sloganeer of Salafism which now has become Jamaat-u-Dawa due to several local and international bans. Lashkar-e-Taiba is the former name of this organization’s militant wing from which Hafiz Saeed has openly and repeatedly disassociated himself. In nineties, two professors of University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Hafiz Saeed and Zafar Iqubal, constituted Dawat-ul-Arshad under the supervision of Abdullah Azzam (the spiritual leader of Al-Qaida) and with the financial aid of a wealthy Arab Sheikh Abu-Abdul Aziz who later married the sister of Hafiz Saeed’s wife, the daughter of famous Ahl-e-Hadees scholar Maulana Abdullah Bahawalpuri. Maulana Bahawalpuri was maternal uncle and father-in-law of Hafiz Saeed. It should be noticed that last year the head money was announced by the American state department for Hafiz Saeed and Abdu-Rahman Makki who is the son of Maulana Bahawalpuri and brother in law of Hafiz Saeed.
Hafiz Saeed and Professor Zafar Iqubal have not only planted Salafi extremism by constituting Dawat-ul-Arshad in the religiously violent atmosphere of Pakistan but also specified directions for the Salafi-Wahhabi literature. Many of our intellectuals and expert commentators of Indo-Pak tensions know very little, specifically about the contents, of the publication “Mujjalla Dawat-ul-Arshad” started by the above mentioned personalities. After the ban over “Mujjalla Dawat-ul-Arshad” in 2007 the consequent publication “Mahnama Al-Hermain” and about the English publication “Voice of Islam” there is very little mention in newspapers. Fear is behind the abstinence of the analysts to comment over these publications in the newspapers. For example a report was published for good long seven years in the “Mujjalla Dawa” titled as “Kill T.V. Movement”. Stories were published narrating the killing of thousands of T.V. sets all over the country, which met their fateful end at the hands of Mujahideen of Lashkar-e-Taiba. You may be surprised at the use of the word “Killing” for a lifeless thing like a T.V. set by me; according to Mujjalla Dawa a T.V. set’s destruction was termed as its killing. Last but not the least; the Mujahideen were able to hear the TV set’s last screams and cries while it was being destroyed by the faithful.
It is narrated in a 1997 publication in these words: “The flight of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s eagles in Shekhupura is at its heights, and in Shekhupura the eagles attacked a tea stall in district courts under the leadership of Abu-Qatada Bhai after the congregational prayers of Friday. There was a disgusting pagan, immoral song being played on the wicked T.V. set in which a Hindu actress Hema Malini was performing and a big number of bad-belief people were watching it, as long as the eagles reached there the people became terrified, the eagles raised the slogan “Allah-o-Akbar” and the wicked T.V. screamed as they threw it on the floor. The volunteers of the Lashkar brought the wicked T.V. to the main square of the courthouse and beat it near to death. In the meanwhile Abu-Qatada stepped forward, torched the T.V set. The wicked T.V. reached its end as witnessed. At that time seven of the boys registered with the Lashkar to join the general training. This is called the power of faith and the force of God”.
It’s a separate issue that the leader of the same Lashkar-e-Taiba calls T.V. correspondents now for his press conferences specially and is quite anxious for the T.V. interviews. This revolutionary change will be discussed soon. After this Hafiz Saeed paid attention towards democracy and clearly stated it as Un-Islamic and an open war against Allah.
In Pakistan Salafism has transformed itself into a movement and many people from of the jobless fighters to the youth members of well to do families are joining it at large. We can perceive the intensity of the situation by looking at three minor examples. When the highly educated son of Tariq Aziz, a close friend as well as advisor for national security to Musharraf, accepted Salafism and joined Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Afghanistan, he was evacuated by a commando contingent in a special military plane flown all the way to Qondouz at night before the start of American air strikes there. One of the sons of Chaudhary Shujaat Hussein is a Salafi with quite a name in helping Salafi organizations. One of the sons of Mian Nawaz Sharif, a strong candidate for the prime minister ship for the third term, has become Salafi and is working with Maj. General Javaid Nasir to help people engage in Jihad.(to be continued)
About Khama Bagosh Madzallah: A confused Muslim, unable to understand the real definition of Muslimhood. Is a Muslim the standard bearer of Islam in reality? Or just an enemy of fellow Muslims? What is the Islamic ideology about rest of the world? What is its culture and history? Why the Muslims are in a conflict not just with other religions but other cultures as well?
Is Islam made for dominance or has been dominated by its followers?
I am a student of this thesis and would try to share my views with you fiends on the pages of New Age Islam.
URL: https://newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/the-salafi-wave-south-asia/d/10958