This article is being written as a rejoinder to the thesis presented by the Pakistani writer and thinker, Uxi Mufti, entitled "Roots of National Identity". The author, in his thesis, has attempted to present the argument that Islam is not the culture of Pakistan and that the culture of Pakistan is more correctly represented by Mohenjodaro.

The author begins by saying, “How do we relate to Islam when Islam is an Arabian import of the 7th century?”. In reply to this, I would say that indeed all cultures and religions were imports at one time or another. Culture is not born of the earth it is born from the interaction and movement of people. Geography at best dictates what type of clothes people in different regions would wear and what types of raw materials they would use to construct equipment and buildings. For example, the people of the deserts in the Sahara cannot be expected to dress like the Eskimos and vice versa. Nor would the people of the Sahara use wood to build shelters for themselves the way those people living, for example, in the tropical forests of Amazon would, where wood is more readily available. Here geography and topography are important influences in shaping culture. However, culture has its real roots in the movement and interaction of people and the dominance of one people over another. Take, for example, Christianity in the Americas. Christianity, is an integral part of the Latin American culture. Can we now say that the Latin American culture is really the Inca and Aztec culture? The Inca and Aztec culture are indeed part of the Latin American culture, now superseded by Christian and Spanish culture. Spanish architecture, and the Christian culture and the role of the church, both as a spiritual and architectural symbol, has become an integral part of the Latin American cultural and physical landscape, without which any attempt at the cultural definition of Latin America would be incomplete.

Also, take the United States of America as an example. What is the first impression which comes to mind when we talk of ‘American culture’? It is not the Red Indians which come to mind. In fact, it is the impression of Hollywood, large freeways, burgers, suburban sprawls and New York skyscrapers that one thinks of. For this is indeed what the American culture is. When one talks of the ‘American Dream’, we visualize American materialism - big homes and fancy cars. The last thing which comes to our minds are Red Indians riding on horseback across the great plains where the deer and the buffalo roam. This is so even though the real and original Americans were the Red Indians. True, the Red Indians were the people who gave America its first known identity but this does not mean that we refer to American culture as being Red Indian culture. Both are part of the American culture. Even so, ‘Hollywood America’ has overtaken and overshadowed ‘Red Indian America’. This is not to say, that the former is ‘superior’ to the latter, but that the former has ‘dominated’ the latter and is now the torchbearer of American culture. It is the dominant culture. Likewise, modern Australia has overshadowed the Aborigine culture and soon the Aborigine culture will only be a small part of the overall definition of Australian culture. Thus, in the context of Pakistan, the Islamic culture is the dominant culture whereas the other culture, the Indian culture, is an indominant culture, or rather a sub-culture. Mohenjodaro culture is more or less an extinct culture at best. It is a non-existent ‘dead culture’ belonging to a civilization gone with the wind that blew over the Indus Valley almost 5,000 years ago.

Furthermore, we cannot say that the first culture in a given territory is the rightful culture of that territory. There is always an earlier civilization. There is always someone who has been there before. This debate on the ‘first culture – first priority’ would continue ad infinitum. Rather it is the dominant culture or the more widely ‘practised’ culture which has the right to be called the culture of any given country or territory. How can anyone put forward the preposterous thesis that Pakistani culture is linked in any way with Mohenjodaro? You can throw in Harappa and Taxila and the Ghandara Civilization for good measure. Or even the Aryans of which Mr. Mufti is so fond of. Yet, the truth will remain that Islam has indeed given Pakistan and the people that reside therein most of their identity. One only needs to look around in Pakistan to realize this truth. We do not see any traces of Mohenjodaro, Ghandara or Harrappa civilization or culture existing anywhere in Pakistan. But the culture of Islam: the way of life, the mosques, the Sufi saints, the modest dress code, the laws are all there to see. Islam is a living culture in Pakistan. It is because of Islam that we are inherently conservative. If it weren’t so we would have gone India’s way. The Baluchis, the Pathans, the Punjabis, the Sindhis, the Kashmiris are devout Muslims. One needs only to go and live in the rural areas to see that Islam plays the major part in influencing the way they live and dress and behave. The mosque, whether it be in any of Pakistan’s four provinces, is the centre of rural life. The institution of the mosque is the contribution of Islam to Pakistani culture. In fact, the mosque plays a greater role in rural Pakistan than it does in urban Pakistan. Yet even if we take urban Pakistan, the greatest hallmarks and architectural landmarks of two of Pakistan’s great cities, Islamabad and Lahore, are mosques - the Faisal Mosque and the Badshahi Mosque respectively.

Likewise, the land which is now Pakistan was the cradle of civilization. Mohenjodaro, Harappa and Taxila were the cultural torchbearers of this Indus Valley civilization. However, with the decline of these civilizations and their elimination from the map of the Indus Valley, their culture died with them and with the advent of Islam in the 7th Century, the torch was passed to a new civilization to become the standard-bearers of the Indus Valley. This civilization was Islam. Islam is not merely a religion. It is a complete way of life. Any anthropologist can understand that religion plays a great role in shaping culture. In some instances, religion gives birth to culture. This has happened with all major world religions. Thus the role of religion cannot be discounted in the understanding of the origins of cultural identity.

Mufti writes in his thesis. “We Pakistanis dwell in the Indus Valley of Mohenjodaro but hold allegiance to Mecca. Can we weave the two extremities into unity!”. I do not see any extremities. The author is himself confused. Most of Latin America lives amidst the great Amazon but holds allegiance to what for all practical purposes a sub-district in Rome, the Vatican – many thousands of miles away across the Atlantic. Furthermore, where and what is this so-called Mohenjodaro culture? Is it a living culture like Islam? If so then where is it? This Mohenjodaro culture does not even exist in the crumbling ruins of Mohenjodaro itself, what to speak of the rest of Pakistan. Moreover, what is the author attempting to do? Is he advocating that we give up Islam and adopt Mohenjodaro culture? Can there be a choice between Mecca and Mohenjodaro? Is he asking us to chose between a God and paganism? First of all, there is no need to weave the two extremities. Secondly, if there is a choice the Muslims of Pakistan have chosen Islam over and above all other cultures and religions. There is no question of even comparing Islam with Mohenjodaro. Islam is living. Mohenjodaro is dead. Mohenjodaro is past. Islam is past, present and future. There is no competition between the two.

The author goes on to say, “Islam is not our nationality”. If Islam is not our nationality then what was all the fuss in 1947 about? Why was Pakistan created if Muslims were not a separate nation? The Founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, while giving an interview to American press representatives in July, 1942, when asked by one of the journalists whether the Muslims were a nation or not, said:

“We are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitions, in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all cannons of international law we are a nation”.

Mr. Jinnah was talking about the separate and distinct identity and culture of Islam and not of Mohenjadaro as Mr. Mufti might like to believe. Islam is a culture and Islam is a nationality. Nationality in this sense denotes feeling of belonging to a defined cultural heritage and identity.

Uxi Mufti further goes on to say in his thesis, “Granted that Mohenjodaro alone neither explains nor identifies Pakistani nationality, but the same could be said for Mecca”. This is an absolutely naïve statement in total disregard of the bare facts and is based on sheer historical ignorance. The contribution of Islam and Mecca to Pakistan, to Pakistani culture and to the creation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a deep-rooted historical fact. Pakistan was created as an after-effect of what happened in Mecca back in the 6th Century. I would like to ask the author one question. Would there be a Pakistan without a Mecca or Islam? Pakistan would have existed even if you take Mohenjodaro out of the formula. In fact, Mohenjodaro has no direct or indirect bearing on the creation of Pakistan. It would have made no difference to the creation of Pakistan if Mohenjodaro existed or not. On the other hand, it would have made all the difference in the world if Mecca existed or not. If there was no Islam there would have been no Pakistan. If there had been no Mohenjodaro there still would have been a Pakistan. This is the difference between Mecca and Mohenjodaro. Islam is Pakistan’s raison d’être.

The grandeur of the Islamic civilization is far too great for it to be compared with the ruins of Mohenjodaro. The Islamic civilization and culture is superior to that of Mohenjodaro. How can we claim Mohenjodaro has our national identity when we are even ignorant of the causes of its decline. We have not even been able to decipher the language of Mohenjodaro - perhaps the only great civilization in the world whose language has not been understood. Furthermore, can the Stuppa of Mohenjodaro match the beauty and grandeur of the Badshahi Mosque, the Taj Mahal or Fatehpur Sikri? Can the contribution of Islam to science, astronomy, medicine, language be compared to that of Mohenjodaro? Islam stands as the cultural identity of Pakistan, as its nationality. Islam gives concessions for individual cultures and languages. It believes in unity in diversity. God says in the Qur’an that “I have divided you amongst nations and tribes so that you may recognize one another”. But no one can doubt, least of all the anthropologists and historians who specialize in Islamic history, culture and arts and architecture at the hallowed schools of Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard that Islam has developed, over the course of 1400 years, a separate cultural identity of its own. In other, words it has become a civilization in its own right. Islam has contributed more to ‘local’ cultures than it has taken away from them. Islam gives more to other cultures and takes less in return.

The most striking aspect of Islamic identity is the sense of belonging which Muslims feel to Islam and Islamic civilization. No other religion in the world, except Judaism, has the ‘nationalistic’ feature of belonging to one nation. Indeed, the Qur’an says that the Muslim community, the Ummah, is one.

Mr. Uxi Mufti also writes, “I do not see any Arabian influence on Pakistani cultures and traditions, says historian and archaeologist Dr. Ahmed Hasan Dani. If you look for Arabian culture in Pakistan, he says, you will find nothing other than the date palm tree. If that is so then how are we Islamic?”. First of all, I am not ready to believe that a learned man like Dr. Ahmed Hasan Dani would make such a foolish statement. And if he has then, I’m afraid, I would have to lower my otherwise high opinion of him. How can an anthropologist overlook such an important contribution as language script. Urdu is written in the Arabic script. This is a major contribution. The Urdu language derives primarily from Arabic and Farsi. Farsi itself is based on Arabic. The Arabic script itself was spread around the world because of the Qur’an. Can any anthropologist deny that? Furthermore, why is the author confusing Arab and Islamic culture. The issue under discussion is Islam’s contribution to Pakistan’s unique culture and identity. Even so, it is Islam which has shaped Arab culture and Islam has a tendency to shape cultures wherever it goes. It was Islam which eliminated paganism and idolatry from Arabia and, in the process, completely altered Arabian culture. It was Islam which introduced the white dress which Muslims and Arabs all over the world wear. The white dress has nothing to do with the heat of the desert sun as the white dress was introduced by Islam. It was easier to weave a brown cloth then have it dyed white.

I would like to ask the author as well as Dr. Dani, if Islam has made no contribution then why are the 135 million Pakistanis such religious Muslims? Why do we see mosques in every nook and corner of every locality, town and city instead of temples and stuppas? This alleged statement by Dr. Dani borders on outrage. How can one be so ignorant of the bare realities? Why is it that the most proud emblems of Pakistan’s heritage are Islamic? The Badshahi Mosque in Lahore or the Faisal Mosque in Islamabad? Even in India, the most striking symbol of India is the Taj Mahal which is an entirely Islamic-inspired building. These monuments are not Hindu, Buddhist and they do not belong or have anything to do with Mohenjodaro, Harrappa or Taxila or any Aryan civilization. The Arabian date palm tree is not the only contribution made by Islam to Pakistan as Messrs Dani and Mufti would like us to believe.

Again, it is necessary to quote Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who, in September 1945, said:

“Every Muslim knows that the injunctions of the Qur’an are not confined to religious and moral duties. “From the Atlantic to the Ganges”, says Gibbon, “the Qur’an is acknowledged as the fundamental code, not only of theology, but of civil and criminal jurisprudence, and the laws which regulate the actions and the property of mankind are governed by the immutable sanctions of the will of God”. Everyone, except those who are ignorant, know that the Qur’an is the general code of the Muslims. A religious, social, civil, commercial, military, judicial, criminal, penal code, it regulates everything from the ceremonies of religion to those of daily life; from the rights of all to those of each individual; from morality to crime, from punishment here to that in the life to come…Therefore, Islam is not merely confined to the spiritual tenets and doctrines or rituals and ceremonies. It is a complete code regulating the whole Muslim society, every department of life, collectively and individually”.

This then is the extent of the impact of Islam in all Muslim countries including Pakistan. Islam has affected and influenced culture at all levels of society in each Muslim country. How can anyone say they Islam has no cultural impact on Pakistan.

There is a small group of pseudo-intellectuals in Pakistan who wish to see Pakistan secularized and de-Islamized. This small band of people who wish to ape and mimic the West suffer from a serious inferiority complex and do not wish to see reality as it is. That Islam is a dominating influence and dynamic force and has, whether they like it or not, shaped the culture, traditions and practices of Pakistan and 1 billion other Muslims in over 50 Muslim countries of the world. And no Mohenjodaro culture (whatever that is) can change that. Pakistanis have and always will look towards Mecca rather than Mohenjodaro for inspiration, guidance and identity. A living religion is more eloquent than a dead civilization. There is no comparison between the elegant and imposing spires of the Prophet’s mosque in Medina or the Grand Mosque of Mecca and the miniscule ruined stuppa of Mohenjadaro. I would rather look towards the beauty, grace and grandeur of Islam’s culture rather than a civilization long gone with the wind.