Jehad and The Curriculum

If you are not an illiterate in Pakistan, you should have no problem in reading this.
A slap on the face of goaagoochaater NGOs and intellectuals.

Bande (or Vande) Mataram comes from the book ``Ananda Math`` by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee.
#127 by bongdongs on April 9, 2004 8:57am PT

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Thanks bongdongs for teaching someting to the ``teacher``. I wanted someone else to show this mirror to the jahil.

There is much more but as I said earlier the Parrot-mynahs who mistake inglo-culture for having acquired learning are the curse on Pakistan. No wonder he is trying to gain converts to his creed of slavism. He has to find safety in numbers. Who else would employ him?

The reality in Aitchison is different. Other than the name, it is still somewhat better than the
money-for-education-for-money factories. No matter how hard the secularist/atheist might try, it is from such schools that most maulvi-look-alikes emerge once they realise how they have been cheated and robbed. Such record is there for all to see and that is why the ``teacher`` gets the goosebumps.

Haroon:

Egypt and Libya were against Pakistan precisely because they were secular & socialist under Nasser and Qaddafi..allies of USSR , just as India was then. The Shah supported Pakistan not as a muslim but as a slave of USA, just as Pakistan was.

Iran never claimed or blamed Pakistan for the centrifuges. They did, and said so, that it obtained the parts on the open market. In fact Musharraf is now ready for a blackmail by the US thugs and it won`t be long before he will be sitting in the company of Saddam, Noriega, Marcos, Shah, Aristedis, Soekarno, Cao Ky, Pinochet and many many others. Anyone who ever made any democracy-deals and freedom-trades with these thugs has been trounced and trashed at payout time.

You are proud of your Islami heritage . That is really what matters. Rest is detail.

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Just to reiterate and set the record straight: emphasis are mine

An excerpt from: Shariful Mujahid

The writer was Founder-Director of the Quaid-I-Azam Academy (1976-89), and authored Jinnah: Studies in Interpretation (1981), the only work to qualify for the President’s Award for Best Books on Quaid-I-Azam.
(Courtesy DAWN Tuesday December 25, 2001)

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But should equal citizenship for one and all, with equal rights, equal privileges and equal obligations, necessarily mean a secular state? Does Islam nullify this concept? Jinnah did not think so; (nor did Iqbal). This is evident from his July 17, 1947 press conference and his reply to Mountabatten at the transfer-of-power ceremony on August 14. Consider the following extracts from his press conference:

Question: “Will Pakistan be a secular or theocratic state?”
Mr. M. A. Jinnah: “You are asking me a question that is absurd. I do not know what a theocratic state means.”

A correspondent suggested that a theocratic State meant a State where only people of a particular religion, for example, Muslims, could be full citizens and non-Muslims would not be full citizens.

Mr. M. A. Jinnah: “Then it seems to me that what I have already said is like throwing water on duck’s back (laughter). When you talk of democracy, I am afraid you have not studied Islam. We learned democracy thirteen centuries ago.”

And when Mountbatten commended Akbar’s model in dealing with non-Muslims, Jinnah invoked the Medinite model:

The tolerance and goodwill that great Emperor Akbar showed to all the non-Muslims (he said) is not of recent origin. It dates back thirteen centuries ago when our Prophet (Peace be upon him) not only by words but by deeds treated the Jews and Christians, after he had conquered them, with the utmost tolerance and regard and respect for their faith and beliefs. The whole history of Muslims, wherever they ruled, is replete with those humane and great principles, which should be followed and practised.

Remember, this response was really off-the-cuff since Jinnah was not provided with an advance copy of Mountbatten’s address and, hence, had no time to deliberate, mull over it, and formulate a suitable response. In other words, he had to depend on the quickness of his mind and his basic convictions to come up with a ready response. This means that Jinnah regarded equal citizenship for one and all as an integral part of Islam’s legacy.

Indeed, in all of Jinnah’s multitudinous pronouncements during 1934-1948, which I have pored over, time and again, the word, “secular”, does not occur even once. Then, how could he have conceived the indivisible Pakistani nationhood concept in a “secular” context, and not in the Islamic one, especially when Islam was his constant refrain and the counter piece of his rhetoric all through the momentous 1937-47 decade.

And because, as Dr Fazlur Rahman has pointed out, those who understand modernity do not know Islam and those who understand Islam do not know modernity, and because we are, alas! not a research-oriented society and not even a “reading society” such as Iran, Syria and Egypt, we have failed to establish linkages between Jinnah’s and classical (not traditional) Islam’s view-points. More critical and grievous is the spectacular failure of our West-oriented elites and cultural affiliates whose ignorance of Islam is matched, if at all, by their playing hostage to the professional clergy’s distorted version (or interpretation) of Islam, motivated as it is by their personal, sectarian and political agendas.

Though Jinnah might not have been aware of it, his “national” framework, comprising both Muslims and non-Muslims as equal citizens of a political unit, has a hallowed Islamic precedent. And that precedent is the Misaq-i-Madina (622/623), which Dr Muhammad Hamidullah, the renowned Islamic scholar, describes as “the first written constitution of the world”.
Articles 1 and 2 of the Misaq describe the Quraishite and Medinite (Yathrib) Muslims as “a political unit (ummah) as distinct from all the people (of the world)”, and Article 25 lays down that “verily the Jews of the Banu’ Awf shall be considered as a community (ummah) along with the Believers, for the Jews being their religion and for the Muslims their religion…” (Muhammad Hamidullah, The First Written Constitution in the World; Lahore: Ashraf, 1968, pp. 41, 48). Articles 26-35 accord the same status to other Jewish tribes, which were also placed within the ummah canopy.

Thus, the Quraishites, the Medinites and the Jews, who together constituted a “political unit” or political community in multi-religious, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-racial Medina, were accorded equal rights, equal privileges and equal responsibilities. For one thing, without such rights, such privileges and such responsibilities, these constituent sub-units could never have become integral parts of a political unit or community (ummah), nor delineated as such in the Misaq.

True: unreserved equality in terms of rights, privileges and responsibilities in a polity is today considered a “secular” value, but long before this principle was discovered as a “secular” value, it was enshrined as an Islamic value in the Misaq, and that by the Prophet (Peace be upon him) himself. If this assertion jolts West-oriented intellectual elites and “cultural affiliates” they have none but themselves to blame. For sure, they have found it convenient aquitable and tolerant one i.e., a society which is absolutely free from the cantankerous evils of creeping prejudice and invidious discrimination, and which does not debar any one from his entitlement to a fair deal on the basis of his race, language, and religion. Thus, fourteen hundred years ago, Islam set its face against the extermination of minorities through ethnic cleansing as witnessed in the blood-drenched twentieth century in Bosnia, Kosovo, Kashmir and Palestine.

Pluralism means co-existence of various groups on the basis of equality and mutual respect. Clubbing together the Quraishites, the Medinites and the Jews under an all-embracing ummah canopy means equal rights, equal privileges and equal obligations for all members of the constituent sub-units, Moreover, Islam puts a premium on meritocracy and the principle of equality in legal terms. Then how can Muslims have an edge over non-Muslims in the political sense? And this is what Jinnah laid down: “Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims… in the political sense as citizens of the state”.

Religion intrudes into the business of the state only to the extent as the people, either directly or through their representatives, wish it to. It may become the fountainhead of the cluster of overarching values that constitute the ideology of the nation, that become the source of public morality, that shape and determine its social philosophy and ethos. In the case of Pakistan all that has been ensured through the objectives Resolution (1949), which is an integral part of the constitution. This Resolution envisages an “Islamic democracy”, and incorporates the core Islamic aspirations behind the Pakistan movement. If we had only implemented the Resolution in Pakistan’s public life, Pakistan could have become an “Islamic democracy” in the true sense of the term.
Islam not only rejects the concept of a “chosen people”, but it also countenances pluralism: “those who believe (in the Quran) and those who are the Jews and/the Christians and the Sabians-whoever believe in God and the Last Day and does good works-/they shall have their reward with God, and no fear/shall come to them nor shall they grieve.” (al-Quran, al Maida, 5:69).

And remember, this ayaat did not belong with the Meccan period, when the Prophet (Peace be upon him) was courting the Jews and the Christian, but with the Medinite era, after the battle of Khaybar (630), when the Jews, in making “tangible contribution towards the Meccans’ campaign to raise an army of ten thousand men against Medina” in brazen contravention of the pluralist Misaq, had proved implacably hostile and utterly untrustworthy.

And when Allah promises salvation to non-Muslims in the hereafter, how could you deny them fundamental rights in this world?

These pluralist tendencies in Islam also explain why, much against the Lahore Ulema’s interpretation, the Objectives Resolution recognized not the followers of a particular faith, but the people- all “the people, irrespective of whatever faith they may follow”, as emphasized during the debate on the Resolution- as the vehicle of “the authority” – i.e., the sovereignty- by Allah to the state of Pakistan. And this, in turn, explains why Mian Iftikharuddin (1907-62), the foremost spokesman of the Left during Pakistan’s formative years (1947-58), waxed so eloquent on the concept of “Islamic democracy” during the debate on March 10, 1949, saying “Sir, I repeat, no one need object to the word ‘Islamic’. If we can use the words ‘Roman Law’ or the ‘British Parliamentary system’ and so many other terms without shame or stint, then why not ‘Islamic’? But you must give to the world an Islamic constitution. Had we given the world a proper Islamic constitution, a fine ideology, a new way of achieving real democracy, I think we would have performed a great task.” He could commend Islamic democracy because, unlike the later day Western elites, “progressives” and cultural affiliates, he knew his Islam and refused to become hostage to the clergy’s myopic and motivated version.

This version generally seeks to equate an “Islamic state” with theocracy, which it is not. In his speech on the Objectives Resolution, Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani (1885-1949), the foremost alim of the day, who should know Islam much better than the half-baked, self-appointed clergy, declared categorically that “an Islamic state does not mean the ‘Government of the Ordained Priests’. How could Islam”, he asked, “countenance the false idea which the Quran so emphatically repudiated in the following words”: “They (The Jews and the Christians) took their priests/and their anchorites to be their lords besides Allah to (the) derogation to God (al-Quran, al-Ta’uba, 9:31)

Prime Minister Liaquat was emphatic: “… theocracy … is absolutely foreign to Islam. Islam does not recognize either priesthood or any sacerdotal authority; and, therefore, the question of theocracy does not arise in Islam.” Iqbal has expressed serious reservations about the vetoing power accorded to the Mujtahids in the Persian constitution of 1907, in his Reconstruction (1930). And Jinnah had ruled out theocracy time and again, especially in his broadcast talks to the peoples of Australia and the United States, in February 1948.

To conclude then: there is no contradiction in Jinnah’s enunciation, on the one hand, of the concept of a united Pakistani nation, with all its members’ full entitlement to equal rights, equal privileges and equal obligations and his call, on the other, to the officers and men of the 5th Ack Ack and 6th Light Ack Ack Regiments in Malir on February 21, 1948, “to stand guard over the development and maintenance of Islamic democracy, Islamic social justice and the equality of man-hood in your own native social” (italics ours)

Indeed, Islamic democracy subsumes the concept of one, indivisible Pakistani nation-hood.

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The writer was Founder-Director of the Quaid-I-Azam Academy (1976-89), and authored Jinnah: Studies in Interpretation (1981), the only work to qualify for the President’s Award for Best Books on Quaid-I-Azam.
(Courtesy DAWN Tuesday December 25, 2001)

feroz

I am well aware of M. Rabbani... he has managed to ruin even the Pakistan Studies for O Levels. I don`t what Echoboom actually said... but here is the thing... despite the propaganda by Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan recently that Jinnah didn`t wear western clothes after the creation of Pakistan, there are 100s of pictures after partition in which Jinnah is dressed in well cut suits...



Vertex...

Since both Feroz and I live in Lahore and teach in Lahore... I think we have some what of a claim to speak for the Pakistanis right? Atleast this Pakistani was bored to death by the mythical Jinnah of Pakistani mythology. I started intensely admiring Jinnah after reading about the real one. The real anglicized and secular Jinnah will appear to be a greater hero than the mythical saladin Jinnah... when put in the right context.

Agreed otherwise with the earlier part of the post... perhaps the distinction between the Muslim state (a demographic concept) and Islamic state (an ideological concept) needs to be drawn as you say.

PS: Bong dongs is correct... Bande materam is from Anand Math ... a 19th century novel by Bankim Chatterjee...

Jinnah was a die-hard secularist. And the Muslim League believed in democracy much more. The only reason the Congress adopted democracy in one breath was because the hindu population had an over whelming majority therefore they would be the `winners`. If the demographics of the situation had been different and muslims had been in majority and hindu`s in minority then I`m sure congress would have denounced democracy and push for a seperate hindu state.

Ferozk and Vertex

Here is the ``hindu`` way of re-stating your posts, which explains everything. Actually, there are two myths or realities about Jinnah, one for Feroz and one for Echo. Both realities coexists in a parallel universe. Trying to cossover causes massive grief .. as in 1947. As Jay would probably say, Jinnah was not secular, but merely looked-down upon the natives, and that would explain everything.

#119 by echoboom

I have say goodluck to your anti-colonial muslim education. May you find answers to all the science and technology questions by reading ``the book`` written/narrated by a Camel jockey 14 hundred years ago.

#122

Ferozk wrote:
``It seeks to portray the song Bande Matram as being responsible for inciting violence towards the Muslims, but fails to mention that it was written by a Muslim member of the Congress Party!``

Bande (or Vande) Mataram comes from the book ``Ananda Math`` by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee.

re: echoboom (various posts)

Jinnah was born in 1876 and he died in 1947. A statement about Jinnah`s life has to made over the entire spectrum of his existence. What Jinnah did or wear in the last 12 months of his life do not out weigh what he did before 1947. Jinnah, as a politican; as a leader; as a human being, has to be judged in light all his actions over the course of his entire life. A general statement about Jinnah cannot be made into a historic truth simply on the basis of what he did in one year of his life, out of the nearly 75 years which he lived. A lfinal judgement over a life lived is the sum of all its years considered and not one year.

As to your other contention that a Islamic teacher should disregard the course and teach his own views, this kind of shallow logic is an excuse for teaching prejudice, bias and bigoted opinions. It is this kind of twisted and ego-centric logic, which ensures that Pakistani schools are the breeding grounds for creating ignorant, bigoted and prejudiced students. It is this kind of logic, which creates segregrations of young impressionable minds and mentalities into ghettos of hatred and intolerance.

Ciao

re: vertex # 104

You are correct to state that the power of myth is much greater than reality and given a choice, people will opt for the myth instead of the reality.

You may choose to believe a myth or a lie, but your choice does not make a lie into a reality. If your choice is to support a Jinnah of your make believe, then you are ignoring reality and history is to be about objective facts. We can disagree on the interpretation of the facts, but we cannot disagree on the past events themselves, because they cannot be changed and they exist for all to judge them. The past speaks for itself whether we agree with it or not, but we cannot completely ignore it out of hand, as you are vainly attempting. We cannot deny the past no matter how much we may disagree with it. People have a right to believe what they wish and I am always willing to support the right of others to make their own choice, but believing some thing false does not it into a truism.

If you wish to believe a lie as your ``reality``, that is your choice. My choice is to believe in my ``reality`` of history.

Ciao

Oh lord...did someone not warn this child about echoboom`s mental and spiritual disabilities?

echoboom, firstly, I think that if you meant I`m Muslim as in a monothesist and that I believe in Allah then sure, Yup, I am. But i dont pray 5 times a day or dreams about creating a super-islamic state. Infact, we should be proud of our Islamic Hertiage but I dont think Islam is the way for Pakistan. As in, the question for us chowkies to ponder is ke should is be a source or THE source for the future of Pakistan? It should surely be a source, not the source. I`m more of a Pakistani than a Muslim. I`m not saying that I consider Islam or being Muslim any a bad thing, its a great thing. But what Libya and Iran did to us a while ago did kind of make my thinking go 180 degrees the other way. In fact, Egypt did not allow weapons and ammunitions to go through the suez canal to our help in 1971. Oh well, we didnt really touch the umman or Islamic nations in this debate but that really influences me. However, I think that culture can NOT be preserved even though if we try our best. We should try to preserve our culture as long as the preservation does not hurt the miniorities or women of Pakistan. mr.feroz is correct, the spelling of Wana is Wana. Jinnah was educated in London and he had a British accent. Infact, on speeches he would dress Indian but at home he would wear western clothes. He was a die-hard secularist.

re: mantolives # 115

Thanks for the information, I appreciate it.

It would be encouraging if the content of Pakistan Studies text books is made neutral and it states both sides of the arguments. It is good to hear that biased and hate inciting references are deleted from the text books. Some of these references are pure lies and are designed to simply foster and more importantly instill and institutionalize a sense of hatred in the minds of the students.

For example, the standard text book in Pakistan Studies called ``Pakistan Studies`` is by Mohammad Rabbani. It combines historic rumors with political and ideological biases and thus, seeks to create a ``historic version``. The book portrays the Hindus and the Indian National Congress politicans as one dimensional Muslim baiting and Muslim hating people and at the same time, also portrays Jinnah in a one dimesional mode of being the lone crusader of Muslim rights in India. There is no mention of Jinnah`s as a politican before 1930s and his role as a politican, while he was a member of the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress. The book fails to account that the Indian freedom struggle was a process, which nearly spanned 200 years, but from reading it one gets the impression that the freedom struggle only involved the Muslims and not the Hindus, who are examplied as political opportunists siding with the British against the Muslims. Reading that book, one gets the wrong impression that Pakistan and the struggle for it started in the 1930s, when Jinnah returned from his British exile and ended in 1947 with the partition.

When dealing with the issue of Congress rule, for example, in India from 1937 to 1939 and seeking to explain Hindu hatred towards Muslims, it states that every time the Muslims slaugtered one cow, the Hindus would kill a 100 Muslims in retailation. I refused to teach that bit of historic falsehood and I would openly tell my students that it is a blantant lie and they are not supposed to give it any credence. It seeks to portray the song Bande Matram as being responsible for inciting violence towards the Muslims, but fails to mention that it was written by a Muslim member of the Congress Party!

As to the issue of Islam, given the political compromises the government has made with MMA, it would be next to impossible to make any changes and the ideology of Pakistan is another issue, which seems to assuming more of a dogmatic nature in our history books. Again, if you are correct in the interpretative changes made to Islamic references, then I am disappointed because these changes smack of a political need to portray Islam as being a moderate religion keeping it in tune, with Musharraf`s interpretation of a ``moderate Islam``. Hence, Islam is being used as per our historic political traditions and exploited once again to justify a political regime`s illegitimate claim on political power. This proves that Islam is simply a political agrument in Pakistan to justify a lack of legitimate political constituency and so, in that sense nothing has changed as far as Islamic references are concerned in Pakistan Studies text books.

The issue of minority`s role and history in Pakistan is another aspect, which gets periodically ignored. Credit should be given to them (the minorities of Pakistan), because they have remained loyal to Pakistan and have been more loyal to Pakistan than some of its self professing Muslim citizens.

The newly text books, with their revisions are nothing more than a politically correct version of history to suit the present political realities and such, are a disappointment, but at least they are a step in the right direction.

One question though; do the new text books list a detailed biblography of the references used or they are again without any bibilographic references?

Ciao

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``#111 by echoboom on April 8, 2004 10:16am PT
A GOOD report (when enemy loses it is always good): Another opportunity to rub salt into the hearts & livers of the Goraagoochaaters from Pakisland. If their master is humiliated, kicked and draaged in the streets they cry in anguish. AND that is GOOD.

It is the angli Soc. pol.sci type of ghetto education where such Goochaater-thugs are produced. Hound them , ridicule them , expose them, blow their anti-Islam cover.

Think Muslim. Think Pakistan. Think anti-colonial.


To hasten the departure of democracy-dealers and freedom-peddlers and thugs from Iraq promote & propagate this article:

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(This was 2 months ago! the number must be MUCH MUCH higher now. Even mainstrean press is reporting with PICTURES! No wonder the Thug Rumsfield says no more rotation--who is willing to go now Rumsy? More draggings and bridge-hangings are needed to prevent further enrollment & deaths.) ``

The Text-book syllabi fraud. Even Condeleeza Rice admitted today that it is upon US insistence that the changes in the syllabi has been made. Muslim teachers should just teach what they think is necessary and pay no attention whatsoever to whatever is in the books. A great opportunity to turn every school into a fundamentalist`s madressa.

The goraagoochaater Minister is still lying through her teeth. The uniformed monkey is dancing to the DuG-Duggi.

Passing exam is just an exercise. Just as one does not try to get educated but only obtain a degree to get a job from goraa-universities.

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If you are not an illiterate goraagoochaater you`ll be able to read this: