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| Pak ulema haven't renounced suicide-bombing | | |
BL KAK
NEW DELHI, FEB. 27
An online academic magazine in Pakistan the other day sent out a wrong signal: Clerics from all schools of thought have declared suicide attacks un-Islamic and forbidden them under the Sharia. And these clerics said killing a non-Muslim without a legitimate cause was against the Islamic way of life.
The meaning of what these clerics said has been found to be quite diferent from that which has been attributed to them. Even as Maulana Amir Hamza of the much-publicised Jamaat-ud-Dawa was quoted as saying that a suicide attack wasan act of terrorism and that someone killed himself to kill oths also accountd for the sins of those killed, he was found on website as saying: "No suicide attack is justified in a country which has Islam as the state religion, ruled by a Muslim ruler and is not under occupation by infidels".
This means that Iraq is excluded from this definiton because it is occupied by kafirs (infidels). In other words, Maulana Hamza would justify bombing in Iraq against the occupying infidel. This also means that suicide-bombing is not okay in Pakistan - because Islam is the state religion, the country is not occupied by infidels and Gen. Parvez Musharraf is a Muslim ruler - but okay in a non-Muslim country like India, the United Kingdom and the United States, for instance. The Maulana is clearly worried about Muslim suicide-bombers killing innocent Muslims. But what may become moot at any time is whether even Pakistan can qualify as an Islamic state and whether Gen. Musharraf can be denounced as a bad Muslim for allying with an infidel like the USA.
The second cleric included in the survey is Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, formerly of the JUI, who actually allows suicide-bombing while alluding to Palestine! Then there is a former Pakistani minister and Sunni cleric, Mehmood Ahmad Ghazi, who says that suicide-bombing is wrong but he too imposes the condition of the Islamic state, implying that it may be okay to kill innocent people in a non-Muslim state. Anis of Jamaat-e Islami has been quoted as saying that he cannot be sure if suicide-bombing is wrong, but he too refers to Palestine without noting that Al Fatah condemns suicide-bombing while Hamas actually does it.
Barelvi mufti, Munibur Rehman, has said nothing new, but he also maintains that suicide bombing in an Islamic state is not legitimate. This implies that one may suicide-bomb innocent non-Muslims and even target a non-Muslim state with impunity. Significantly, the shia scholar, Allama Qamber Abbas Naqvi, says that even a non-Muslim cannot be killed in this manner.
Therefore, a re-reading of the views of these gentlemen, as opined by Pakistan's Daily Times newspaper, leads to the "conclusion that they have outlawed suicide-bombing only in very specific conditions and not generally at all". The newspaper's editorial comment: "In fact our clerics have confirmed that Al Qaeda, which began the trend on 9/11, can go on doing it. It is not clear if killing the Shias in Iraq is wrong because the ulema did not explain if they thought Iraq was being ruled by Muslims. It is quite possible that they may eventually disqualify Iraq as an Islamic state because the Americans are in occupation there. All of them cunningly ducked the question whether Al Qaeda's killing of the Shias of Iraq - and the killing of innocent Sunnis by thugs like Muqtada al Sadr - was okay".
What were the clerics driving at? If they wanted to outlaw suicide-bombing in Pakistan, why did they refer to Palestine where suicide-bombing is done to kill innocent people as legitimate collateral damage? The survey is the most hair-brained piece of work done by a Pakistani publication whose rightwing religious views are well known. The clerics should have touched on the trend of killing the Shias through suicide-bombing. The truth is that most of the casualties of suicide-bombing in Pakistan have been innocent men, women and children of the Shia community. |
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