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Shut Down All Faith Based
Organizations
A few months back the head of a religious
seminary was killed in a terrorist attack in the Capital of
Punjab, Lahore. Everyone in Pakistan felt bad about his death.
Today, another religious leader is gunned down in Sindh. In
reaction, people protested the death of Maulana in Lahore, and
again, people are protesting the violent death of Maulana in
Kherpur, Sindh.
Now, deaths of religious figures in violent
acts, and protest by their followers or sympathizers, are a
matter of routine in Pakistan. Pakistan has seen many such
scenes before and there is high probability if we do not change
our course we will witness many such dreadful events in the
country.
What do we mean by changing our course?
From changing our course we mean, we should
take a fresh look at social manifestations of our religious
fervor and try to re-orient it to turn it from negative
destructive force to positive constructive energy. We are
afraid, if this violence in the name of religion continues, no
one can save us, as people as nation and as a country, from
utter destruction.
Infact, if we closely look at extended
pockets of terrorism in Pakistani society, we can easily see the
links between social manifestations of our religious fervor and
these terrorist outfits.
Unfortunately, this religious fervor and zeal
has taken hold in our society in such a way that everyone,
instead of controlling it, ends up adding fuel in its fire. It
seems like from President of the country to the leaders of
political parties compete to please the rightwing clergy. Some
of them even use religious rhetoric to further their political
agendas.
If we want to stop religious violence in
Pakistan, as a first step, we have to ban all religious
organizations including religious political parties and we have
to ban the use of religious rhetoric for political purposes.
The simple reason to ban these religious
organizations, religious political parties and the use of
religious rhetoric for political purposes is, they are all
un-Islamic social manifestations.
There is no room for religious organizations,
religious political parties and the use of religious rhetoric
for political purposes in Islam. This whole nonsense was started
by politically motivated Mullahs in late 19th and
early 20th century. Now, this trend is so prevalent
that every Mullah in every street in Pakistan establishes an
organization based on his sect preferences and within no times
starts sectarian activities. Arabs, other than Egypt, pretty
much succeeded in controlling this phenomenon, but the non Arab
Muslim states are overwhelmed by these mushrooming faith based
organizations. Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, India and
Bangladesh became the most fertile fields for these un-Islamic
faith based organizations. The common characteristic of these
organizations is, the moment they organize as a group, they
start the process of fanning hate against other sects. The
politically motivated faith based organizations initiate process
of eroding state institutions in the name of Sharia or Islam as
a complete way of life. The larger the group becomes, its
ability to commit violence against opponent sects and ability to
threaten state institutions grows and so does its area of
influence.
Why Sunni Mullahs have to organize as
Jamaat-e-Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat and why Shias have to organize
as Jamaat-e-Ahl ul Bait or something else. Is there any
religious need for such organizations? Are these organizations
necessary to practice religious rituals? No, they are simply
started by influence hungry Mullahs to establish their faith
base territory to control peoples’ minds, thrive on their
economic resources, and gain control on their lives.
This way, these organizations are more sort
of social issues than religious needs. Since they are faith
based organizations, by nature they are divisive and through
their activities try to their superiority on other sects and in
the process preach hate and violence against them. Their
discourses, their dialogues, their speeches and their sermons
pit the people of their sect against the others.
Unfortunately, their impact does not remain
limited to mosques and seminaries. It spreads in the streets of
Pakistan. The bloody scenes in the streets of Pakistan from
Peshawar to Lahore to Karachi bear witness how destructive these
faith based organizations are.
Same is the case of religious political
parties. If religious organizations create social strife in the
country, religious political parties directly interfere with the
nature of governance and erode state institutions Perhaps,
martial laws did less damage in Pakistan, but religious
political parties eroded state to the extent it faces demise
after the tragic breakdown in 1971.
After all, is it a mere chance that Sofi
Muhammad of Swat was member of Jamaat-e-Islami or it is an
indicator which leads us to the termites eating Pakistan from
inside?
Faith based organization are un-Islamic.
There is no room for such organization in real scheme of Islam.
They should be banned, and the people who want to do politics in
the name of religion, laws should be enacted, either to make
them real irreligious politicians or push them back within the
limits of religion.
On the first hand, all Muslim societies
infested with this problem, should stop these Un-Islamic faith
based organizations. If they don’t Pakistan must move forward
and take steps to clean the state matters from the stains
created by politically motivated mullahs.
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