The Meaning of Pakistan Responses to ``Muslims in India`` article in The Friday Times

Muslims in India

Sir,

This is with reference to Taimur Bandey`s article ``To be a Muslim in India`` (TFT March 16-22). Being a Punjabi, I first came in contact with Indian Muslims when I went to study in Bhopal. My Muslim friends would see me as a fellow ``minority`` and talk freely with me. Generally speaking, they had a disdain for Hindus and a love for Pakistan. If there was an India-Pakistan cricket match, we would know Pakistan had won because firecrackers would burst in our mohalla.

In spite of the 1984 Sikh massacre, I love my country. I wish the Muslims in my country who chose to stay on after partition would show India the same love.

Amarjeet S. Rumdhil, New Delhi.

Muslims in India II

Sir,

In ``To be a Muslim in India`` (TFT March 16 - 22), Taimur Bandey rightly concludes that the problems of Muslims living on either side of the border are the same. However, he is either naive or he deliberately misrepresents the facts when he makes statements which imply that Muslims live in mortal fear of Hindus, without any recourse.

As an Indian Muslim, I can safely say that in India, Muslims are as empowered as they are in any other democratic society. Despite their vast majority, Hindus are much more secular and tolerant than Pakistani Muslims, who cannot even tolerate the existence of different sects within Islam.

Moreover, I would like Mr. Bandey to enlighten me as to how Pakistanis have benefited from partition. Pakistan is not really a homeland for the subcontinent`s Muslims, since Indian Muslims are now barred from entering. Pakistan is not even a haven for those who inhabit it - Ahmadis are not allowed to call themselves Muslims, and Shias have to pray at home in order to avoid attack. It is a Muslim state that has done more harm than good to the interests of the subcontinent`s Muslims.

I have no doubt that as the years go by, Pakistanis will realise that their brethren across the border are better off and more progressive than themselves. Hindu hard-liners will still exist, but there will be a secular majority to keep them in check. We, the Muslims of India, do not need Pakistan to fight for our rights. We can take care of ourselves.

Arif Sayed, Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh.

Sorry state

Muslims in India III

Sir,

Taimur Bandey`s ``To be a Muslim in India`` (TFT March 16 - 22) made interesting reading, especially for a Muslim from India.

The author`s observations of the obvious betray pre-disposed notions and a lack of knowledge. He has seen what he wanted to see, not what is, and ignored what is beneath the surface.

It was refreshing to see that the writer did not look down upon the Muslims of India, who are often in a wretched state due to no fault of their own. They have been ignored by their leadership. The creation of Pakistan was never supposed to mean that India`s Muslims would be left to the vultures.

On the whole, I appreciate the article. What is best about it is that Mr. Bandey does not degenerate into self-congratulatory mode, removing his self-doubt by looking at the plight of others. I`d like to see more where that came from.

Syed Burhan Qadri, Jeddah.

So be it

Muslims in India IV

Sir,

Taimur Bandey`s ``To be a Muslim in India`` (TFT March 16-22) is one of the better and more objective pieces on the subject that I have read.

I do have one objection. I could not understand his observation that you have to go to India to see why partition happened. If he means that Muslims are subjected to unnecessary hardship (by the state or their countrymen) then I must disagree.

The problem with India`s Muslims is that they do not want to be part of the mainstream. Every Indian citizen is divested with equal rights and has the same duties towards the Indian state. Most Muslims are ignorant of either their rights or their duties. The majority give more weight to what the local clergy says, and more often than not they are asked to resist anything that the mullah feels is detrimental to his influence. By this practice, Muslims undermine our nation and perpetuate their disenfranchisement.

Other communities do not have such a negative approach towards operating in a pluralist society. Mr. Bandey may have found that other minorities are generally better-off than most Muslims. The reason is that, save Muslims, everyone else has integrated themselves into the larger society.

It is not only the Muslims` fault. Vested interests have prevented them from enjoying all the benefits of a secular, democratic, and free nation - I point my finger at most of the Ulema, politicians of all faiths, and fellow citizens.

The trend has shifted of late, and an increasing number of Muslims are joining the mainstream. I only hope that they start flying their own flag - that of India.

Sunil Negi, New Delhi.

Help Afghanistan

Muslims in India V

Sir,

Taimur Bandey`s ``To be a Muslim in India`` (TFT March 16 - 22) pinpointed the fact that we Pakistanis do not value freedom. The author should realise though, that Muslims are ambitious in their attempts to educate their children, but often they do not have the means. Also, Indian education glorifies Hindu philosophy and claims that everything the Muslims have done is bad. Hence many Muslims are turning to madrassahs.

An Indian Muslim friend of mine repeatedly narrated stories of injustice and police harassment in Bombay. He told me how his father died of a heart attack, because a Hindu trader, with the help of the police, made his life miserable until he lost possession of the only property he had, from which he eked out a living by renting it. The family were destitute.

At one point, Mr. Bandey asks himself if Pakistan should exist, or if it should have stayed with India. In order to answer the question, we must first ask ourselves if we would have fared better ruled by Vajpayee, Advani, Thakeray, Rajiv Gandhi, or Indira Gandhi. The answer is no. Indians have nothing that Pakistanis do not have.

Pakistan was a concept waiting to happen. Whether it was in 1947, 1957, or 1997, the creation of Pakistan was inevitable. Muslims and Hindus are essentially two different nations, with two opposing perceptions of history, culture, and of course, religion. A war between the two would have been a bloodbath that no UN peacekeepers could stop. Think of it this way: Pakistan was a favour to both Hindus and Muslims.

Khalid Ahmad, London.

India Unvarnished On the Misportrayal of India:

Toward a New Look at Indian History

by David B. Gray, PhD

http://www.infinityfoundation.com/ECITmisportrayalframeset.htm

Copyright 2001, The Educational Council on Indic Traditions

Presented at the Asian Studies Development Program National Conference on March 21, 2001

at the College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL

Introduction

The study of India in the West has long been overshadowed by the concerns of Eurocentric historians, who, to the extent that they studied India at all, did so in a manner that privileged Europe as the motivating force of world history. India has, ever since the classical Greeks make contact with the Persians to the East, been an object of curiosity for Europeans, although until recently their knowledge of India was largely second-hand and imprecise. As Europeans gained greater access to India, it was under the context of the British conquest and colonialization, and this significantly affected the resulting portrayal. India has been represented as lacking historical agency, and serving a role in history that is subservient to the agenda of Europeans. Despite the many recent critiques of colonial orientalist historiography, elements of this tradition linger on in contemporary studies of India, and, in particular, in textbooks geared for secondary school and undergraduate students.

The purpose of this essay is twofold; it will attempt to undertake the following aims:

1. Elucidate the paradigms of Indian historiography that have prevailed in academic writings, especially the notion that India lacks a historical tradition per se, and that India was a passive field activated primarily by the incursion of invading groups.

2. Counteract this notion and restore the historical agency of Indians by stressing the numerous ways in which India served as a powerful civilizing and economic force in the world, not because of invasions but in spite of them. Evidence concerning centrality of India in the pre-modern and early modern world economies should be presented in secondary and undergraduate level texts.

In this paper the former task will largely be addressed. Given the time constraint, it will only be possible here to suggest an alternative approach to the study of Indian history.

Much ink has been spilled concerning the issue of orientalism; in the context of India, Ronald Inden and many others have shown the degree to which the orientalist enterprise was deeply intertwined with colonial institutions. Histories of India produced by this school tended to represent Indian history in a fashion that legitimated colonial rule. This paper will explore one aspect of this historiography, an aspect which is unfortunately alive and well in many current accounts.

One might hope that by now a new model of Indian historiography would have developed, one that stresses the agency of Indians and rejects contrived culturally chauvinist constructions. Fortunately, new models are emerging, but unfortunately they have not yet fully supplanted the older models, which still linger on albeit in weakened forms. One model is what might be called the ``invasion theory`` of Indian history. In its strong form, it is simply a version of the Hegelian portrayal, the assumption being that India as a passive, unchanging entity has only undergone historical change when motivated by outside forces, namely active aggressors. While the explicit version of this model has fallen out of fashion, it remains in an attenuated forms in narrative accounts of Indian history that are structured around invasions, making them implicitly appear to be the central events in Indian history.

Now, India was of course invaded over the course of its long history, usually from the interior of Asia. This is not peculiar to India, but is a pattern seen throughout Eurasia, in which sedentary agricultural societies situated along the coasts or in river valleys were periodically invaded by nomadic, pastoral peoples from the interior. This pattern is also seen in East and West Asia as well as in Europe; it is unlikely that India suffered invasions with any greater frequency than these regions. In fact, it seems likely that East and West Asia were invaded more frequently simply because they are far more geographically open to attack. China`s northern border, for example, is simply the open steppes of central Asia, whence invaders descended with alarming frequency. Lacking a natural barrier such as the Himalayan and Hindukush mountains that admirably shield India`s northern border, the Chinese expended incredible time and energy constructing a series of walls and guard posts. Naturally, no barrier is impermeable; walls can be breached and mountain ranges have passes. Since India is no exception in this regard, there is thus no good reason to particularly dwell on invasions as a motivating force in Indian history.

Hegel played an important role in this model of Indian historiography. In so doing, he ignored and indeed discredited the extensive influence India had on other Eurasian civilizations. He wrote in his Philosophy of History that

On the whole, the diffusion of Indian culture is only a dumb, deedless expansion; that is, it presents no political action. The people of India have achieved no foreign conquests, but have been on every occasion vanquished themselves. And as in this silent way, Northern India has been a center of emigration, productive of merely physical diffusion, India as a Land of Desire forms an essential element in General history … From the most ancient times downwards, all nations have directed their wishes and longings to gain access to the treasures of this land of marvels, the most costly which the earth presents; treasures of nature - pearls, diamonds, perfumes, rose-essences, elephants, lions, etc. - as also treasures of wisdom. The ways by which these treasures have passed to the West, has at all times been a matter of World-historical importance, bound up with the fate of nations. Those wishes have been realized; this Land of Desire has been attained; there is scarcely any great nation of the East, nor of the Modern European West, that has not gained for itself a smaller or larger portion of it. 1

India so characterized makes the Western colonial aggression and resultant theft of resources appear as an essential an inevitable stage of history; this indeed is the ulterior motive, conscious or unconscious, in constructing an essentalized version of Indian history. The conclusion of this passage, which portrays the colonization of India as something practically every ``great nation`` has done, is also clearly an attempt at the legitimization of the colonial enterprise.

It is now widely recognized that such theories of history are basically ethnocentric justifications of European colonialism. While they are rooted in the very real hegemony achieved by the Europeans of most of the world during the nineteenth century, they err in assuming this achievement was due to an intrinsic superiority of the Europeans. This myth of the superiority of the West is in fact based upon a systematic erasure of the interdependency of humanity, and the negation of the many and real contributions of other regions of the world that made the European rise to power possible.

The colonial perspective lingers on today in what might be termed the ``invasion theory`` of Indian history. This narrative assumes (usually implicitly) Hegel`s idea that India is an intrinsically static, passive civilization, incapable on its own of having a history. Indian history then is taken as the result of a long series of invasions, beginning with the mythical ``Aryans`` and culminating in the invasion by the British. While there was at times warfare between India and her neighbors, sometimes culminating in invasion, India here is no exception to the general trends of ancient and medieval history. To assume that invasions are THE motivating force in Indian history is to fall into the self-justifying theory of Indian history developed by the British to legitimate their exploitive colonization of India.

This pattern is often repeated in contemporary histories of India. These typically begin with a cursory description of the Indus-Saraswati civilization, before moving on to describe the destruction of this civilization by the ``Aryans``, a nomadic people, supposedly originating in the steppes of Central Asia, whose invasion destroyed its older precursor, but who introduced to India their own culture which was to give rise to glories of the Vedas and classical Indian Vedic civilization. This is the first of the invasions that mark the ``invasion theory`` narrative. It is based on one bona fide fact: that there is in fact a strong linguistic connection between European and Indian languages. This theory slips from the factual and into the mythical, however, in making several assumptions. The first is the equation of language and race. The second is that language transfer was necessarily effect through the medium of invasion, rather than by diffusion, peaceful migration or some other means.

There are several inconsistencies with this theory. One is that there is actually no evidence that invaders destroyed the Indus-Saraswati civilization; this theory is in fact based upon the interpretation of several ambiguous Rig Veda hymns. As Shaffer and Lichtenstein have pointed out, archeological evidence points to a gradual abandonment of Indus Valley sites due to climate change, and particularly due to massive tectonic activity around 1900 BCE which changed the course of the Saraswati river and rendered the numerous cities located on its former banks uninhabitable. These changes occurred several centuries before the Aryans supposedly even arrived in India, which is usually dated around 1500 BCE. These changes led to the gradual migration of peoples East, into the Gangetic Valley, a event which is attested both in the archeological record and in the Vedic texts themselves. As Shaffer and Lichtenstein put it,

The modern archeological record for South Asia indicates a cultural history of continuity rather than the earlier eighteenth through twentieth century scholarly interpretations of discontinuity and South Asian dependence upon Western influences. The cultural and political conditions of Europe`s nineteenth and twentieth centuries were strong influences in sustaining this interpretation. It is possible now to discern cultural continuities linking specific social entities in South Asia into one cultural tradition. This is not to propose social isolation nor deny outside influence. Outside influences did affect South Asian cultural development in later historic periods, but an identifiable cultural tradition has continued, an Indo-Gangetic Tradition linking diverse social entities which span a time period from the development of food production in the seventh millennium BC to the present. (Shaffer and Lichtenstein 1999:255-56)

It is not my point here to argue that there was or was not an Aryan invasion. Given the ambiguity of evidence, it is a topic on which I must remain agnostic, although I should add that the burden of proof lies with those who insist on its veracity. Here I would only like to point out the peculiar fact that on such a tenuous hypothesis rests an entire edifice of Indian historiography. The assumption of Aryan conquest of Northern India was elaborated into timelines of Indian history as well as theories of social geography and demography that are extended well into the historical era, as if this one event of the distant past is the key to understanding all of Indian history. As Inden points out,

Presupposing their Aryocentric geography and oriental demography, scholars have represented these states on their maps and read the political history they fabricated from them. That history consisted of the narrative of a society that was made to be inherently dependent on the intervention of a Western political economy for its unity and prosperity. (1990:187)

The next invasion in the invasion theory timeline is that conducted by Alexander the Great. Our sources for this invasion are Greeks, who may have had a natural tendency to exaggerate the significance of this event, which in fact made no impression whatsoever on the Indian historical record. Even in the Greek sources, Alexander`s sojourn in India is admittedly brief; having made it to the Indus River he quickly returned West again. The consequence of this event was the establishment of the Seleucid Greek kingdom in Persia and the Middle East, as well as the establishment of a smaller, independent Greek kingdom in Bactria, in what is now Afghanistan. Their expansion into India proper was prevented by the rise of the Mauryan dynasty in the late fourth-century BCE, which succeeded in uniting most of India under centralized rule.

There is no doubt that the Greeks had an influence in North India and were in turn influenced by the stay there. But this influence has been exaggerated, extending beyond the realm of the probable and into the realm of the wildly improbable. Greek influence was particularly attributed to the rise of Buddhist art and the development of Mahayana Buddhism, casting India`s most significant cultural export as a product of European influence. These theories have been largely discredited, however, and exposed as what they truly are. As Stanley Abe put it,

The late nineteenth-century interest in claiming an originary role for the Greek tradition in early Buddhist art must, at least in part, be understood in the context of this larger European project to construct a cultural lineage back to purely Aryan Greece. The erasure of the non-Aryan within the West was played out in the assertion of Greek (Aryan) influence onto Gandhara. In this sense, the discovery of Greek influence in Gandhara has as much to do with the need of the West to secure its own internal dislocations and self-representation as it does with Buddhist art. (1995:84)

Following the Greeks, the invasion theory timeline moves on to the Mauryan dynasty, and then to the invasions of the Kushans and Sythians. The Gupta dynasty is then covered, only to move on to the devastation caused by the invasion of the Huns. Following the Huns, India is usually portrayed as undergoing a political decline characterized by fragmentation and decentralization, as well as a cultural decline, resulting in the rise of ``unorthodox`` religious traditions such as the Tantric schools of Buddhism and Hinduism. India was then purified by the violence of the Islamic invasions, resulting in the re-establishment of centralized rule under the Moghuls.

This narrative framework is found in many histories of India, including some quite modern ones. The classic version of this history is Vincent Smith`s The Oxford History of India (1919), which has been duly deconstructed by Inden, who makes quite clear the ideology underpinning the ``invasion`` narrative. Inden wrote that

To have represented the kingdoms of India as relatively autonomous agents, as complex, inter-related polities that could unite through pacts as well as `force` within a single imperial formation and create new centres not determined by a fixed military topography, would have undermined this whole orientalist project. So Smith dispatched cruel Huns to prepare the way for the still worse advent of Islam, which would in turn, clear the way for the miraculous arrival by sea of the better Aryan, the Western or European. He could clip the Dravidian jungle and prevent the Russians setting fire to the whole green expanse. The history of medieval decline did not stop, however, by preparing for the modern. If Smith`s history of ancient India was, in effect, a history of its present, his narrative of medieval India was really a parable of the future, of what would happen in India if the British withdrew. (1990:188)

At issue here are not necessarily the ``facts`` of history, but rather the ideology that underlies certain configurations of ``facts``, and the relative degrees of emphasis placed upon them. Even if all were true that would not render the ``invasion theory`` histories unproblematic. Histories are, after all, narratives, and as such are selective in the narrative elements in which they choose to convey. Histories are ideological in precisely this way; ideology is present in the choices historians make. This is not necessarily a conscious process. As Edmund Leach noted,

``Bad`` history is seldom constructed out of fantasy; it is simply that we tend to accept as good history whatever is congenial to our contemporary way of thinking. The good history of one generation becomes the bad history of the next.

In presenting an essentalized view of India as a passive land of invasions, historians of the colonial era concocted histories congenial to their contemporary way of thinking. For us now, presumably, these are bad history, but one might wonder if the persistence of this narrative might indicate that we are not as far from the colonialist mentality as we would like to believe.

How might a new history be constructed? At this point I cannot answer this question definitively, but only offer a tentative solution. This would be to depict cultural influence not as a one-way street, but as a result of complex interdependencies between cultural regions. A more accurate portrayal of India would treat the influence of India on the rest of Eurasia at least as extensively as the influence of other cultures on India. So doing would require a conceptual framework that transcends the academic regional pigeon-holes such as West Asia, South Asia, East Asia and so forth and focus instead on the dynamics of inter-regional connectivity. Such would probably best be undertaken not by a single scholar, but by a group of scholars representing numerous methodological and regional specializations.

Here we should conclude with the hope that new histories do not fall into the same trap of essentalizing India. While we can and should seek a history that places greater emphasis on India`s historical agency, we should not do so with the assumption that there is any essential ``India`` out there which needs to be rediscovered. India is and probably always has been a complex of different cultural and ethnic groups who cannot be reduced to any particular essence. But in writing a history, such diversity must be respected, while at the same time paying more attention to the ways in which Indians throughout history have played an active role both in constructing their own history as well as in acting as influential players in the world.

Notes

1. Hegel 1956, pp. 141-42, op cit. Inden 1990 p. 70.

Works Cited

Abe, Stanley K. 1995. ``Inside the Wonder House: Buddhist Art and the West``. In Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism Under Colonialism. Donald S. Lopez, ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 63-106.

Hegel, G. W. F. 1956. Philosophy of History. J. Sibree, trans. New York: Dover.

Inden, Ronald B. 1990. Imagining India. Cambridge: Blackwell.

Leach, Edmund. 1990. ``Aryan Invasions over Four Millenia``. In Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, ed. Culture Through Time: Anthropological Approaches. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 227-245.

Shaffer, Jim G. and Diana A. Lichtenstein. ``Migration, Philology and South Asian Archeology``. In Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, Interpretation and Ideology. Johannes Bronkhorst and Madhav M. Deshpande, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 239-60.

Smith, Vincent A. 1919. The Oxford History of India. fourth edition, Percival Spear, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958.

The Meaning of Pakistan http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/03/27/text/p7s1.html

N. Pakistan, where guns are the jewelry of men

By Scott Baldauf Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

In his tiny shop inside the Khyber Pass near the Afghan border, Shoaib Khan pulls out his bestseller: the Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle.

``Every man should have at least one gun of his own,`` he says, briefly interrupted as three shots ring out nearby: A customer at another shop is shooting a weapon into the air to test it.

``Weapons are the jewelry of men,`` he smiles. ``Women wear jewelry, men wear guns.``

Twelve years after the Soviet Union left Afghanistan in defeat, the weapons bazaars of Pakistan`s northwest are making and selling guns as if the war never ended. In part, this meets the demand of Pakistan`s Pashtuns, whose tribal code enshrines revenge as the preferred form of justice. But the weaponization of this province is also a legacy of the cold war.

``Pakistanis have always loved to hunt, but it`s one thing to talk about hunting rifles, and it`s another thing to talk about rocket launchers,`` says Afrasiab Khattak, chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in Peshawar. ``It was not until the Afghan jihad ... that we saw such weapons, and the arrival of Pakistani gun culture. It destabilizes not only Afghanistan but also the whole region. These weapons reach as far away as Sri Lanka, through smuggling.``

Guns certainly have a history in this part of the world. In 1809, British explorer Mountstuart Elphinstone saw Pashtun craftsmen making muskets. By 1897, the Pashtuns were manufacturing decent copies of a British rifle. To maintain free access to the Khyber Pass, the British gave the Pashtuns broad autonomy, including the right to carry and make weapons.

Today, in tribal areas, petty arguments, such as a muttered insult, turn deadly. And the tribal code requires a family to avenge the death of their kin, even if it takes generations.

The slow economy, with especially high unemployment in tribal areas, only exacerbates the problem. And because murder statistics aren`t kept in tribal areas - so-called honor killings are not considered to be murder - it`s hard to measure whether the death toll has gone up or down.

Pakistan`s laws don`t affect tribal citizens governed by their own codes, but tribal gun dealers are still affected by politics outside their borders. Afghanistan has cut off the main source of weapons by cracking down on gun smugglers. Pakistan, through Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider, banned the open display of weapons. The ban was aimed at religious extremists and Kashmiri separatist groups operating within Pakistan, but it has also raised ire in tribal areas.

``Before the restrictions, a common shopkeeper could sell 50 guns a week,`` says Muhammad Alam, a shy, soft-spoken gun dealer in Landikotal. ``Nowadays it`s hardly 8 to 10 guns a week.``

A villager hands Mr. Alam a Chinese-made AK-47 so he can estimate its value. He takes out the firing mechanism, removes the fully-loaded clip of bullets, and stares down the barrel. If a gun has been used too much, the barrel expands and the gun becomes less accurate, he explains. Alam gives his price: 6,000 rupees, or just under $100. ``Mainly the people are in family feuds, and they need the weapons for their own protection,`` he says.

Not everyone in Landikotal carries weapons, however. Abid Ali, a college student and shopowner, says he`s seen a decline in the gun culture since the war against the Soviets ended.

``I don`t like guns, and I don`t have any enmity with anyone so I don`t carry a gun,`` says the tall, scruffy youth, whose store is full of sodas and hard candies. A photo of Diana, Princess of Wales, takes the favored spot over his cash register. ``As people get more educated ... they fight less, and this trend is discouraged.``

Nonsense, says Pervez, a driver whose truck is idling outside of a tea stall. ``I have seen so many deaths, I see it daily,`` he says with a sigh. ``People are without jobs, and what else can they do? Small arguments turn into big tragedies.``

For Shoaib Khan, however, small arguments mean big business. ``We are tribal people, we are least bothered by the government in the settled areas,`` he says, brushing aside a question about Pakistan`s ban on carried weapons. ``Besides, with so many family feuds, we can hardly keep up with the demand.``

All About Nothing Nothing reminds me of this..

Something from Nothing

Perhaps no one has embraced nothing as strongly as the Indians who, Seife notes, ``never had a fear of the infinite or of the void.`` Hinduism has embedded within it, a complex philosophy of nothingness, seeing everything in the world as arising from the pregnant void, known as Shunya.

The ultimate goal of the Hindu was to free himself from the endless cycle of pain found in continual reincarnation and reconnect with the Nothingness that is the source and fundament of the All.

For Indians, the void of Shunya was the very font of all potential; nothingness was liberation. No surprise then that it is from this sophisticated culture that we inherit the mathematical analog of nothing, zero. Like Shunya, zero is a kind of place holder, a symbol signifying a pregnant space where any other number might potentially reside.

The earliest known example of zero appears in a Jain manuscript on cosmology from AD 458, though indirect evidence suggests it must have been in use in India as early as 200 BC.

In the 7th century after Christ, the Indian astronomer Brahmagupta formally defined zero and spelled out the algebraic rules for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing with it. Yet the West was appalled by this enigmatic symbol when European scholars first encountered it via the Arab world.

How could you signify nothing? To do so was to acknowledge its existence, the very position early medieval thinkers had so sought to avoid.

Nothing’s Forever Nothing reminds me of this..

Something from Nothing

Perhaps no one has embraced nothing as strongly as the Indians who, Seife notes, ``never had a fear of the infinite or of the void.`` Hinduism has embedded within it, a complex philosophy of nothingness, seeing everything in the world as arising from the pregnant void, known as Shunya.

The ultimate goal of the Hindu was to free himself from the endless cycle of pain found in continual reincarnation and reconnect with the Nothingness that is the source and fundament of the All.

For Indians, the void of Shunya was the very font of all potential; nothingness was liberation. No surprise then that it is from this sophisticated culture that we inherit the mathematical analog of nothing, zero. Like Shunya, zero is a kind of place holder, a symbol signifying a pregnant space where any other number might potentially reside.

The earliest known example of zero appears in a Jain manuscript on cosmology from AD 458, though indirect evidence suggests it must have been in use in India as early as 200 BC.

In the 7th century after Christ, the Indian astronomer Brahmaghupta formally defined zero and spelled out the algebraic rules for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing with it. Yet the West was appalled by this enigmatic symbol when European scholars first encountered it via the Arab world.

How could you signify nothing? To do so was to acknowledge its existence, the very position early medieval thinkers had so sought to avoid.

The Meaning of Pakistan How good is Pakistan to its minorities?

Khaled Ahmed`s



We try to obfuscate reality through rejection and rage. Statistics on the human rights performance of Pakistan are available but are rejected as lies. The NGOs who undertake to publicise these statistics are angrily condemned as foreign-funded institutions carrying out foreign agendas in Pakistan. When organisations like Amnesty International reveal Pakistan`s negative record, they are rejected; but when they reveal India`s negative record their findings are highlighted





In a very interesting letter to Mr Irshad Haqqani ( Jang 6 March 2001) a student of Barani University (Mass Communication Department) described the treatment of the minorities in Pakistan. He maintained that violation of some human rights take place because of the tough living conditions and poverty in the country. The letter however displayed all the collective blind spots about human rights. It presumed certain conditions to exist against objective evidence to the contrary. It talked about the minorities in Pakistan without being aware of their view of how they were being treated.

A typical one-sided view:The letter stated that in Pakistan the minorities had complete freedom of worship, but forgot the disabilities imposed by law on the Ahmadis and the constitutional removal of the word `freely` where the Preamble, inserted into the body of the constitution, talks of their right to practise religion. It talked about Christian churches in Islamabad but it neglected to mention the separate electorates the Christian and other non-Muslim communities have refused to accept. It asserted that the administration treated the non-Muslims well and gave them concessions, but neglected to mention that many state institutions restricted these `concessions` to reserved seats while outlawing entry into free competition with Muslims. Comparing Pakistani society to American society, the letter ignored the fact that international reaction against Pakistan was in the sphere of law-making, not of society.

The attitude is typical of most Pakistanis. Most of us plunge into argument with foreigners without preparing ourselves. We try to obfuscate reality through rejection and rage. Statistics on the human rights performance of Pakistan are available but are rejected as lies. The NGOs who undertake to publicise these statistics are angrily condemned as foreign-funded institutions carrying out foreign agendas in Pakistan. When organisations like Amnesty International reveal Pakistan`s negative record, they are rejected; but when they reveal India`s negative record their findings are highlighted. Given below is a survey of the treatment of the non-Muslims in Pakistan, taken from State of Human Rights 2000, by Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Targeting of Christians:The Christian community continued to complain of discrimination in various forms. The most pressing demand of the community remained an end to the separate electorates system, which was denied to them through the year. Christians in Lahore and Ferozewala also made charges of a refusal by police to treat attempts by them to file cases with the urgency they deserved, and an apparent willingness of authorities to ignore crimes such as rape when they were committed against members of the Christian community. Christians in Ferozewala were able to get a case registered against those responsible for the gang-rape of seven teenaged girls only after continued persistence spread over many days.

Similarly, in Lahore residents of predominantly Christian katchi abadis located along Ferozepur road complained in September and October of a deliberate effort to harass them by making threatening phone calls to houses, warning of an attack by rapists. The calls created panic in the area for a period of around a week, while residents complained the police had failed to either provide them any assurance or investigate the complaints.

Targeting of Ahmadis:Persecution of Ahmadis also seemed to be on the rise across the country during the year, with the number of episodes climbing during the later months of 2000. The incidents reported included those of Ahmadi places of worship being taken over, bodies of Ahmadis buried at graveyards being disinterred and religious edicts (fatwas) issued against Ahmadis. At least four Ahmadis were murdered over the year in cases that appeared to stem from intolerance for their beliefs. Cases also continued to be registered against members of the community under specific sections of law introduced under the constitutional amendment of 1974. A representative of the Ahmadi community appeared in October before a panel of the US Commission of International Religious Freedom, stating that from April 1984 to December 1999, as many as 753 Ahmadis had been arrested for displaying the `Kalima` and another 379 for `posing as Muslims.`

Maulana Manzoor Ahmed Chinioti, one of the most active anti-Ahmadi leaders in recent years, again played a leading role in this respect. On August 24, he spoke as a guest at a Multan mosque, where he was introduced as the `Conqueror of Ahmadis`. Maulana Chinioti detailed to the audience over a two-hour period how his thirty-year `jehad` against Ahmadis had resulted in the name of Rabwah, the name given to a settlement of Ahmadis based on land leased by the community from the Punjab government soon after independence, being changed to Chenabnagar. Attacks on Ahmadis or on places of worship, continued to come in through the year from Karachi, Okara, Sargodha, Jhang, Manshera, Kotli and other locations. In many cases religious edicts had contributed to an incitement of hatred against Ahmadis.

A new trend which gained momentum over the year was the disinterring of the bodies of Ahmadis buried at common graveyards. One case which came to light took place in August, at Chak 203 R/B near Faisalabad. After an Ahmadi, Malik Nazar Mohammad, was buried at the graveyard, where 15 Ahmadi graves already existed, extremists sent an application to the Deputy Commissioner, who directed the Superintendent of Police to take action. The Ahmadi community was then directed by police to disinter the body and take it elsewhere. Despite appeals by community elders to the local magistrate, the district administration, apparently under pressure from extremists had the body removed from the grave and shifted, ignoring protests from helpless Ahmadis.

Justice Mamoon Qazi`s warning:A note of warning of the potential misuse of section 298-B(2) and 298-C of the Pakistan Penal code, which prohibit the Ahmadis from calling themselves Muslim or their faith Islam, was raised by Justice (retd) Mamoon a Kazi, a former Supreme Court judge, in a major Karachi-based English language daily in July. However in other cases, the press did not fully realise the injustice and dangers in sensationalising such cases, leveling false allegations or contributing to the harassment faced by Ahmadis everywhere in the country.

In November, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) accepted a petition to set up a larger bench to hear a case challenging the decision of the NWFP government to ban books by Ahmadis. The Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) was made a respondent in the case. On April 12, the district and sessions judge Jaranwala, district Faisalabad, rejected a plea by Dr. Saeed against the application of section 295-C in his case. The defendant had been charged for preaching his faith two years ago. later, a magistrate added a charge under Section 295-C. On January 31, in Haroonabad, District Bahawalnagar, Ataullah Warraich was sentenced by a civil judge to three years in jail. He was charged by a magistrate in a case registered late last year for building a niche and minaret at the local prayer house.

In February, Sahib Khan who had recently become an Ahmadi was accused of preaching by his father in Mangat Unchai, district Hyderabad. He was arrested along with his teacher, Fazil Ahmed and another Ahmadi Sikander Hayat. On July 30, two Ahmadis from Karachi, Khalil Ahmed and Saeed Ahmed, were arrested after a case was registered against them by local clergymen while they were attempting to visit an acquaintance in a village they had travelled to. On August 19, three Ahmadis were arrested in village Chak 37/12-L, district Sahiwal on the accusation of posing as Muslims. A land dispute was reported to lie behind the case against Ghaffar Ahmed, Ilyas Ahmed and Manzur Ahmed registered on a complaint made by an opponent. On august 29, in Sarai Siddhu, District Khanewal, three Ahmadis, Abdus Sami, Bashir Ahmed and Mohammad Ismail were arrested. They were accused of an offence under 295-B by local activists of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, following an altercation between Abdus Sami and a local.

Targeting of the Hindus:An alarming increase was seen in attacks directed against the Hindu community, with the persecution directed against them especially in Balochistan forcing hundreds to flee their homes and cross over into Sindh. Three Hindus were reported to have been killed in the town of Chaman after clashes between Hindus attempting to protect their homes and Muslim mobs in October. Temples and homes were set ablaze and property including Hindu shops destroyed as the growing social intolerance assumed alarming new proportions in Balochsitan. In all cases, local extremist groups played a role in triggering the attacks.

Though the precise number of families which fled was unknown, reports suggested almost half the community of 10,000 Hindus in Lasbela had been forced to leave their homes over they year. In almost all cases, the increased activism by militant religious groups imposed new strains on relations between the majority Muslim and Hindu communities, who had lived peacefully alongside each other for many decades.

Forcible conversion of non-Muslims:The efforts to forcibly convert Hindus, especially female school students, had a direct role to play in violence against Hindu settlements. Some of the worst incidents came in Bela, in the Lasbela district of Balochistan, located 500 kilometers southwest of Quetta. In May it was announced by two school teachers that one of their pupils, 13-year-old Rajunati Kumar, had renounced Hinduism and embraced Islam, taking for herself the name Ayesha. The `conversion` was made public in a phone call made by the school principal to local authorities. Days later, both the girl herself and her family firmly denied the account. Local Muslim clerics however refused to accept this, insisting the child had been forced to renounce her conversion by hr parents and members of her community. Amid the uproar created mainly on the conservative clergy, Rajunati and her family fled to Sindh.

Attacks on places of worship:At least five Hindu temples were vandalised over the year, with their structures damaged and the idols and other objects of worship placed in them broken. Amid the uproar caused by the conversion issue in Lasbela, activists of religious parties on May 19 launched an assault on two old Hindu temples in the area. Idols placed in them were thrown to the ground and an attempt made to set the buildings ablaze. Steps by the district administration against the mob prevented the temples from being set a alight.

A few days later, after authorities refused to take the girl who it was claimed had embraced Islam away from her parents, another temple was attacked in the same area. A new upsurge of violence against Hindus took place in Balochistan in October, in the towns of Dalbandin and Chaman. Accusations that a local Hindu woman in Dalbandin had distributed sweets wrapped in pages of the Holy Quran led to the violence. Despite confirmations by local police and district officials of accounts by Hindu community leaders, that the illiterate woman had not known what was contained in the pages she had used and had believed them to be pieces of paper from her children`s textbooks, a temple was ransacked and burnt. Property placed within it had been destroyed earlier. The violence swiftly spread over to the town of Chaman from Dalbandin, where another place of worship was attacked by a mob,. Hindus attempting to protect the temple and the gods placed within it were also injured as a result of the clashes.

The Meaning of Pakistan http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-200132122648.htm

Bin Laden is `cult figure` of Pakistani Muslims

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Demonization by the West of the world`s most wanted terrorist has turned Osama bin Laden into a ``cult figure among Muslims,`` says Pakistan`s military ruler

The Meaning of Pakistan Paks Not Desi, Please!

By Pervaiz Alvi via e-mail

Growing up in Pakistan, one was familiar and felt comfortable with the word `desi`. It generally meant something of local origin. The word has its roots in many of the indigenous languages. Similarl,y the word `des` stood for land and country and was frequently used in nationalistic songs. The separatist movement in the then East Pakistan gave the word a new use and it became part of the new name for the new country - `Bangladesh` (in Bangla `des` is pronounced as `desh`). However, in the USA this word has taken a new meaning. Here of late the word `desi` is used in some circles to describe people or objects of South Asian origin. Whereas other nationalities could be described as desis, it is not right to refer to Pakistani-Americans as `desis`. Pakistan is a sovereign and independent country located in close proximity of South and Central Asia, and Pakistanis are a distinct group comprising many ethnic subgroups of both South and Central Asian extraction. To identify ourselves as South Asians will deny us the special heritage that we possess, and to call ourselves as `desi` would be certainly demeaning to our identity. We are proud Pakistani-Americans and must always refer to ourselves as such. Just like our kins, the Afghans, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Turks, we should refer to ourselves as Paks but not as `desi`, please!

Pakistan Link

The Meaning of Pakistan Check out this article

Muslim Identity in India

Ramesh N. Rao

The Meaning of Pakistan Concerned,

I had exactly the same feelings you had. You spoke to the point.

This is regarding the article ``To be a Muslim in India``.

The Meaning of Pakistan Ali1,

This is what some Pakistani think about India and Hindus.

Jamaat-e-Islami

Q:Please tell us about your stay with Qazi Hussain Ahmed

A:Qazi has two bungalows in Peshawar. We spent lot of time in both the houses. The first house is where his family lived and the second house was his office and rest house. But he used to meet all his friends and relatives and political workers only in his family house. He made sure at least for 3 days in a week, Qazi and his close friends used to spend time in his rest house. Unlike his family house, the rest house had all the amenities that one can think of. It had 36-inch television. 2 satellite dishes to receive all kinds of telecasts from all over the world. He had made extensive notes on all the telecasts. We used to discuss all the things under the sun in his rest house.

I had a habit of drinking small amounts of wine. Qazi never drank or smoked. Qazi knew about my weakness for wine. He advised me not to drink and asked me to follow the steps of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) . Though I had a habit of drinking only in very small amounts of fine wine just before dinner, on Qazi`s insistence, I left that habit. When I was studying in engineering college, I had started the habit of smoking too. I left that habit after Qazi`s advice on smoking.

I stayed with Qazi for almost 6 years in Peshawar. I did not agree to some of the strategies used by JI during the after Zia years. Qazi is a very practical man while I was more of an idealist at that time. I was insisting that the JI should not rely on ballot as the only route to power. Qazi was insisting that ballot is the only way for JI to come to power in Pakistan. This introduced a sense of alienation between Qazi and me. Hence when I went to Baluchistan to meet my parents, I stayed back rather than going back to Peshawar. Even though almost weekly once we talk over phone, Qazi never called me back to stay with him and I found my work as the Jamaat teacher in Quetta where I stay now with my parents and family.

Yet, my years with Qazi in Peshawar and around the world with him were the most satisfying years in my life intellectually.



Q: What are Qazi`s views on Islam and Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)

A: Qazi was a great admirer and student of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) . He modeled his whole thoughts and life on the life and teachings of Mohammad (PBUH). I was astounded many times by Qazi when he does a small thing, he will immediately compare that incident with an incident in Al-Hadith and explain that he did what Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) did 10 centuries ago. I had never seen a person who had modeled his whole life on sayings and teachings of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) like Qazi.



Q: The women issue is very controversial nowadays. Taliban and some fundamentalist organizations restrict the freedom of women. While some progressive Muslim intellectuals are insisting that the women are equal to men in all spheres. What are Qazi`s views on women?

A: As I said earlier, the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)`s views on women are the exact views of Qazi. Equality of men and women is stupidity. What men can do, women cannot do and what women can do, men cannot do. Women are weak physically and mentally compared to men. For this we do not need any proof other than to just look at men and women. Men have to take care of women all the time. If some women do not have any male relatives, then they have to find a man and marry him so that he will take care of her. Women should not have life outside the family. Education can be provided to them but not to compete with men in public. Neither they can fight in war nor they can be of use in peacetime politics. Qazi had said once that JI comes to power in Pakistan, he will abolish the voting rights of women and minorities. Only the Muslim men can participate in voting or standing for elections. When I asked the proof from Hadiths, he had quoted many Hadiths in support of that. I asked him why is that it is never talked openly in the public by Jamaat. Qazi had said that the hints are all over the place. But JI did not make it a big issue since the women who currently have the voting may vote against JI in the elections if such a thing is said openly. For this I was against. in my opinion, since all the main leaders of Jamaat believes that women will not have voting rights after they come to power, they should openly say that. If you do not say now and then you remove the voting rights later when you come to power, that is going to build a resentment among the people. But Qazi was firmly of the opinion that JI should not say that now.



Q:That brings us to the question of minorities. Will they have to pay Jizya tax?

A:Yes. They have to pay the tax. As explained by Qazi, the idea of Jizya is not protection money. But it is a monetary force on the non-Muslim to convert to Islam. Once the Jamaat comes to power, the minorities will be induced (forced) to become Muslims either by monetary or psychological factors. JI is already equating the India with Hindus so that the Hindus of Pakistan will be forced to become Muslims. This was very successful strategy during the Babri Masjid riots. JI actively involved in destroying the Hindu temples in Punjab and Sindh. We ordered the destruction of the Hindu family property too. But our main aim was to destroy the Hindu temples. We wrote the JI pamphlets that destroying each pagan temple make a Muslim move closer to heaven of Allah. We used the Hadiths in all the pamphlets. Babar destroyed the Ram temple in Ayodhya. Because he was a true believer. The same way every Muslim should take upon himself to destroy the Hindu temples in Pakistan. Our idea was to encourage the Muslims of India also to destroy the Hindu temples in India. But this was not met with much success since the Hindu police in India started attacking the Muslims who were doing the Allah`s duty.



Q: What kind of government that JI envisages for Pakistan?

A: It will be the Sharia govt. Sharia will be made our constitution so that the eminent Muslim scholars who had completed the schooling in Madrassas will be appointed as the Judges in every court. Qazi wanted to make the presidium on the same model as the Khalifa. Presently our ideas is that the entire top leadership of JI as well as all three military Generals will be part of the presidium for which the Qazi will be the Kalifa. We are keenly watching the progress of Taliban and learning from it. We are impressed with the Taliban on the women issue, minorities issue and law and order issue. Mullah Omar is a great friend of Qazi. Omar had visited his house many times. In the tentative talks, we had decided to form union of Pakistan and Afghanistan once the right conditions are set in Pakistan (i.e. the JI government in Pakistan). Our motto is Constant Jihad. The idea is to keep Pakistan in a constant state of Jihad all the time. Qazi`s vision is that Pakistan will be center of the new Islamic Empire that stretches from Burma to Afghanistan and from Srilanka to Tajikistan including Kashmir. Towards that end, Jamaat will use all tactics from terrorism in the kafir-controlled areas to negotiations in the Muslim controlled areas. Already the Jamaat leaders of Bangladesh and Jamaat leaders of India had accepted the primacy of Pakistani leadership in this regard.



Q: Do they come to Pakistan?

A: Yes. We had made arrangements once in Peshawar and another time in Multan during the Zia time. But the understanding remains even now.



Q: What about Srilanka and Burma?

A: Both are Buddhist nations. For that matter even Baluchistan and Afghanistan were Buddhist once while Sindh and Punjab were Hindu earlier. Buddhists are generally weaker in matters of faith. Hence we hope they will become Muslim with a little pressure. But that will happen only after Jamaat conquers first Pakistan and then India.



Q: What are the plans for India? It looks like entire India policy of Jamaat revolves around Kashmir.

A: Yes that is true. But that is for a very good reason. See Kashmir is like a keystone that sits on a top of the arch. It is true that the arch holds the entire weight of the keystone. But if you remove the keystone, then the whole arch falls down. That is why it is called keystone. Kashmir is the keystone for India. Once you remove that, then India can no longer be secular and it will not be a united country either. like the stones of the arch, all the bricks will fall down. Qazi impressed this idea upon Zia. Hence Zia started the Operation Topac. Operation Topac`s idea is not to get Kashmir for Pakistan as thought of by Indian analysts. Operation Topac is much more. The ultimate aim of Operation Topac is to make India a million pieces so that it is easy for Pakistan to swallow India once piece at a time. That is why Pakistan was encouraging the militancy movements all over India. Once Kashmir is taken out, these militancy movements will break India by asking the similar freedom for Nagaland, Kerala, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, Assam, Jharkand, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Khalistan. But Benazir destroyed our whole plan by giving away the details of the operation Topac to Indian govt. led by Rajiv Gandhi. That was a big set back for our vision. But yet we are moving ahead.



Q: I heard that she gave away only details about Khalistan movement.

A: That is true. In my opinion, that is why I think the damage is limited. India thinks and deals with separatist movements in different parts of India as if they are genuine movements even now. In that way, I say, the damage is limited.



Q: Do you think if the states if India became independent countries, no such similar movement will start in Pakistan itself?

A: No. Jiye Sindh movement and small separatist movements in Baluchistan and Peshawar are contained. We are not going to deal with the separatism in Pakistan as India treats the separatists. It will be Taliban style. Actually we do not foresee any position for opposition in JI ruled Pakistan. Hence the BNP and Pakhtoonkwa leaders will be made irrelevant.



A: Coming back to the same point, If India to become many countries how do you deal with the individual Hindu states. They may even become big enemies of Pakistan. Or they may again regroup to challenge Pakistan.

A: Qazi and other people had already discussed this possibility. In our opinion, such a thing is not possible since the language and cultural differences between states in India are enormous. There is no language like Urdu to bind all Indians. English and not Hindi that is common language between all the states of India. Hence we have planned to start riots in each state against the neighborhood state people so that the states will always be at the state of war. For example there are lot of Kannadigas in TamilNadu and Telugu in Madras. We will start the anti -telugu riots in Madras, which will keep the Andhrapradesh and TamilNadu fighting. If we keep a bomb in Telugu Cinema Theater in Madras and keep a bomb in Tamil Movie Theater in Andhra, the war between Tamilnadu and Andhra will run for eternity. The similar things can be done in Assam cultural center in Bengal and Hindi prachar sabha in Orissa. Given the differences between the nationalities in India, the options for Pakistan are endless. Qazi`s vision is to make entire India a 100% Muslim Nation. A United India, where Hindus are majority is an impediment to that. Like Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) made Muslims out of pagans of Arabia, Qazi also wants to make Muslims out of the pagans of India.



Q: This is a great vision since this was not even possible for the Muslim dynasties and Moguls who ruled India for the last 700 years.

A: True. That is because they had never really established the Muslim Empire. Though the Kings were Muslims they had entertained the Hindus in positions of power. When you make an unequivocal statement that only Muslims are voters and declare that India is Islamic republic, then automatically the people will become Muslims. Little bit of terror had to be applied to the heart of Hindus and Christians. I will give you a best example. The portions now constitute Pakistan had 25% Hindu population before Independence. After independence lot of Hindus migrated to India. Yet after the migration, Pakistani Hindu population was 15%. Do you know what is the percentage now? It is less than 1%. How was this made possible? How did the Hindus converted to Islam in a short span of 20 years whereas for 700 years they had never converted to Islam? That is purely because of the terror of the partition. That terror forced the Hindus who remained in Pakistan to become Muslims. Pure and simple. JI used similar techniques in Punjab and Sindh each time a riot breaks out in India, we had used that pretext to strike terror among the Hindus, Christians and Ahmaddiahs. The similar terror will be at the heart of the every non-Muslim both Hindu as well as Christian in coming years in entire India. Qazi is a analytical genius who knows every strategy that is used by Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) will be and should be used in India to achieve the total submission to Allah.





Q: Do you envision a possibility that when the Kashmir becomes part of Pakistan, there could be large-scale riots in India against Indian Muslims? Hence unwittingly Kashmir could lead to more deaths of Indian Muslims and damage Islamic Ummah.

A: Yes that is a possibility. But our ideology is based on Quran and Hadiths. Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in numerous Hadiths and Allah in Quran had said that any Muslim who associates with a polytheist in a polytheist. Muslims cannot be friendly with a non-Muslim. This includes the Christians, Jews and Hindus. Also Mohammad (PBUH) says that even if the Muslim ruler is not good, the Muslims stay with the ruler than to go out to a non-Muslim country. Hadiths and Quran are very explicit regarding this. All the Muslims who did not migrate to Pakistan during Partition are in essence Hindus. They may think that they are Muslims. But not before Allah. They are as self-deluded as the Ahmaddiahs who think they are Muslims when everyone knows that they are not Muslims. Hence the Muslims of India who had decided to stay in India during partition are not Muslims and their progeny are not Muslim (since they did not migrate to Muslim lands). Another thing that I noticed in my journeys in India is that the Hindu farmers generally offer their entire harvest to their gods at the end of their harvesting season. This makes the entire crop as haram for Muslims. Yet these so called Muslims of India are forced to eat this food which was already offered to some other God other than Allah thallah. This is explicitly forbidden in Quran. And this is one of the serious problems of living in non-Muslim countries. Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) knew such things; that is why he ordered Muslims not to live in non-Muslim areas. Yet knowingly these so called Muslims live in India. Again all the Muslims who migrate to other countries and US are non-Muslims. Only the Muslims who intend to come back are Muslims not the ones who decide to stay in such countries.

Hence we do not care if such Indian Muslims die in the riots. But due to strategy reasons we do have excellent relations with these Muslims. All the Muslims who work for Pakistan and for glory of Ummah are real Muslims. They are our front line troops in non-Muslim countries. Hence we have to distribute the arms and ammunitions to these real Muslims in case of riots come to their door.

Whereas the Kashmiri Muslims are pure Muslims who are toiling under the yoke of Hindu rule. They are victimized by the international conspiracy to keep them under the Hindu rule. That issue is part of the incomplete partition. Whereas the Indian Muslims have accepted partition and stayed on in India knowingly.



Q: Yet the popular uprising in Kashmir was missing in 1965 as well as in 1948.

A: That is true. That may be because of the clout of Sheik Abdullah of Kashmir during 1948 war. Actually the Muslim population in Jammu Kashmir was only marginally higher than Hindus. Muslims constituted 58% while the non-Muslims constituted the 42%. Hence the operation Topac aimed at eliminating the Kashmiri Pandits from the valley. We thought all of them will go to India. Instead many went to Jammu and only very little went to India. Hence we had to ask Harkatul to start terrorising the Hindus in Jammu. We also expected large scale war against Muslims in Jammu as well as in all the parts of India because of the killings. Indian govt suppressed these information. Another thing that was not done is the complete removal of Buddhists and Hindus from Jammu and Kashmir. We could do only in Valley and not in jammu and Ladakh. Hence the population of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir is around 65% only according to Harkatul.



Q: Tell us about your stay in Saudi Arabia.

A: We embarked on a Umra as team of JI leaders. of course, Zia had arranged every convenience for us. We were accommodated in a Sheik`s house. He is one of the richest Builders in Saudi Arabia. He owns few gold shops in Qatar too. Sheik was a personal friend of Zia Ul Haq. During the time of Zia, we were not politically active. Since Zia did whatever Qazi wanted, there was no need for political power either. Hence we had lot of time. That is the main reason why we stayed 3 full months in Sheik`s palace. This sheik comes from a Bedouin family of southwestern Arabia. He had the habit of drinking camel urine and camel milk early in the morning. I asked him why does he do that? He replied that it is the family tradition as well as Islamic practice that is supported by Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). I was astounded. But Qazi explained to me that it is true. He told me three or four Hadiths in which the camel urine and camel milk drinking is suggested. So Qazi wanted to drink the camel urine and camel milk along with the Sheik. Since I could not bring up myself to drink the camel urine, I drank only fresh camel milk, which was thick and frothy. But Qazi drank the camel urine and camel milk the same amount and same time as the sheik. Qazi astounded me in this incident. I am amazed by the fact that Qazi was ready to go any length to mould his life in the teachings of the prophet.



Q: Does he continue to do that even today?

A: No. He bought a camel after coming to Pakistan. Three years later he had kidney stones problem. As per the doctor`s advice he had to stop drinking the urine while he continued the drinking camel milk. Doctor advised him to stop drinking the milk as well since the camel milk is rich in calcium compared to the cow milk. I think he stopped drinking any milk or milk products. But he had said that once JI comes to power in Pakistan, he will popularize the camel milk and camel urine drinking in Pakistan. But I doubt he can do that. In my opinion, only camel milk can be popularized.



Q: That is quite news to me. How was your stay in Arabia otherwise?

A: First I have to tell you that Saudi Arabia, as a country name, is wrong. It is Just Arabia. Only that Saudi dynasty rules over some parts of Arabia. You cannot put your name before a holyland as if you own that land. For Pakistan if Nawaz rules it, will it become Sheriff Pakistan and tomorrow Bhutto rules it and will it become Bhutto Pakistan?

Anyway, one thing we noticed is that the Arabians own slaves. Though Allah says that the slaves should be treated in a nice manner, he did not advocate the abolition of slavery. If slavery is bad as considered in today`s world, Allah certainly would have said that the slavery is wrong. Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) also said that the slaves should be treated in a good manner and the slaves should be released often. But if there is no slavery how can anyone release slaves? Hence the reintroduction of slavery in Pakistan is one of the future plans of Jamaat. All the captured Hindu Indians and Srilankans will be made slaves to work for Pakistani Muslims. Every God abiding Pakistani Muslim will get slaves once we conquer India. All the slaves who embrace Islam will be set free. Slavery is Islamic. Jamaat is the only political party, which does not voice any opposition to the slavery of Harees (defeated) in Pakistan.

We went around all over Arabia. We were surprised to know that there are some Hindus in Yemen. These ancient Yemeni Hindus are not Indians. In my opinion, these Hindus are traders from India in the ancient times. I was also surprised to know that they have a Shiva temple in Yemen. Qazi was very unhappy over this. When he talked to Yemen leaders, he broached this subject. But the Yemeni leaders refused Qazi`s suggestion of forced conversion of these people to Islam. I don`t know why they refuse. I think it may be due to the large population of Hindus from India who work in Yemen and Arabia. He disliked the current leadership of Arabia for this reason. In his opinion, Arabia should not allow any non-Muslim into holy lands of Arabia. Arabia should be 100% pure. Large number of Hindus in Arabia is corrupting the Arabians. Though they live as contractors, they have the potential of corrupting the minds of the Arabians. One such thing is the presence of Arabians in Qatar Hindu temple. First the king allowed the Hindus to build a temple and church in the holy lands there by polluting the Holy Land. Second is that even a member of the Royal family visit that temple to inaugurate that temple. To the horror of Qazi he had learnt that one of the powerful member of Qatar royal family is a devotee of a god called Aayanppan. This news resolved Qazi to fight the force of the devil thousand fold.



Q: Such things happen in Pakistan today. I mean a friend of mine goes to a Hindu temple. Another friend goes to church meetings.

A: Yes. One of Qazi`s relatives wanted to become a Hindu. He did not have a child for many years and it seems he had prayed to a Hindu God and got the child. Hence he felt thankful to that god and wanted to become a Hindu. Qazi got to know of this and called him and threatened him dire consequences. That relative did not become a Hindu. But that incident made Qazi read more about apostasy. Quran and Hadith clearly say the punishment for abandonment of Islam is death. Since Sharia is not the law in Pakistan, and the current Pakistani constitution grants right to change the religion, it is legally correct to declare oneself as Hindu or Christian. But once JI takes over the government, it will make Sharia as the constitution. Then Pakistan also legally execute any person who leaves Islam and joins Ahmaddiah, Christianity or Hinduism the same way Iran and Taliban treats its apostates. He also opined that the presence of the Hindu temples in Pakistan is the root cause of the problem and hence we want to destroy all the Hindu temples and Churches in Pakistan.



Q: This brings us into another area. Right now Internet is becoming widespread. Even Saudi Arabia is connected with outside world. Destroying the temples may be good but how we can insulate the Pakistani and Muslim people against the corrupting knowledge totally?

A: JI had taken a principled stand on the matter of science and religion. Religion is far superior to science. Whatever man needs to know is in Quran and Hadiths. Knowing more will create problems like the Atom bomb and Television. Quran and Hadiths are explicit in denouncing pictures. Yet the lure of Satan in the form of photography and television is eating our lives. Music previously was confined only to the vocal singing. Now science and technology made the music widespread at a cheaper price. These are the lures of Satan. We have to on guard against these harami things.

Hence more science and technology is bad for the civilization. I had completed civil engineering. Hence I am privy to scientific knowledge. I can tell you how corrupting that is. It even makes you question the glorious Quran. There are many Hadiths, which say that the earth is flat. But any science will tell you the earth is a sphere. But you can use the same science like relativity theory to prove that the earth is flat. It is the same case with evolution. But the point being that the doubt is sown in the minds of the people on the validity of Quran as the word of God. More and more we work hard in proving the Quran`s scientific correctness, more and more people will get apprehensive of the truth of Quran. This is an abomination. This is why when we talk of education, we talk of religious education and not scientific education.

It is true that science grew after Prophet`s revolution in Arabia. That was start of science. Now each and every science is filled with anti-god stuff. If you want to become a doctor, you have to read evolution. If you have to read any engineering you have to believe in the billions of years old universe theory which effectively says that the human beings came to world only in just one or two million years back.



Q: But we still need the arms and knowledge of western world, which believes in science. And again you had referred to television as evil. If we abolish photography how can we have passports or identification cards?

A: Yes. That is strategic. With the help of Allah, we will be given oil for them to run their cars and we will have arms in that place. We will use their arms to destroy them in the course of time. As for as photos are concerned, they will be banned as it is done in Afghanistan. If there is no need for people to go out of Pakistan where is the need for the passports? For those who have to travel to other countries like the leaders of the revolution, they only will be given the passport with photos. For that, we will allow limited photography licensed only to govt. And the biggest corruption in today`s Pakistan is Indian satellite TV and Indian cinemas and Indian songs. We have to abolish these too.



Q: Currently we have lot of opposition from Mohajirs regarding reservations. What kind of reservation policy that JI will have in Pakistan?

A: We approach that problem as the problem of language. Urdu speaking Muslims and Sindhi speaking Muslims are fighting now. We plan to abolish all the regional languages like Pashto, Sindhi, Baluchi, Urdu, Punjabi and Brahvi. We want all the people of Pakistan to speak Arabic which is our divine language. This will make everyone equal before everyone else and there would not be any need for language or region based reservations. We also hope that this will make the Quran and Hadiths easier to understand and will make the people follow Quran and Hadiths to the letter.



Q: There could be language riots. One such language riot resulted in Bangladesh.

A: Bangladesh was not a result of language riot. The very idea that they are Muslims will bring the Bangladeshis to Arabic. We already fund heavily on the Arabic language courses all over India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. From Morocco to Iraq speaks in Arabic, I don`t see any reason why from Morocco to Burma we will not bring Arabic to the people. Even Bangladesh will start speaking in Arabic. That time there won`t be any Bangladesh where the country name itself has the name of the language. Yes. Right now our aim is just for reunification without touching on the language issue of Bengali. JI of Bangladesh is working towards this aim.





Q: The secular journalists of Pakistan oppose JI. For example the Dawn and News are very critical of JI. How do you see their role in future?

A: Ardheshir cowasjee is able to work only because of the present constitution of Pakistan. When Sharia becomes constitution, he cannot even approach the court, as he is a kafir. We see secular journalists as our main enemy in the current struggle to reach the power. These secular journalists are digging our statements we made during the pre-independence days and trying to beat us. Of course we opposed the creation of Pakistan during the British times. But that was a different Jamaat. Our history starts with independence. Secular journalists are not Muslims even though some of them are carrying Muslim names. Let them come to us and let us ask questions on Quran and Hadiths. We will prove each and every thing we say is from Quran and Hadiths. Let them prove what we say are wrong from the Quranic angle. Then we will accept them. But they cannot. They can not match us in any debate concerning the Quran and Hadiths. We can comprehensively prove that they are indeed non-Muslims. They are like Quadianis who say that the Muslim need not take upon Jihad as an obligation. That is pure nonsense.



Q: What is your plan in Quetta?

A: I have family in Panj-gur. I have my work in Quetta. Hence I travel all the time. Though I am a close friend of Qazi, and though he asked me to take up organizational work, I refused that since I am not really good in organizational work. There are very good people who are very good in organizational work in Quetta. I am being contented with the closeness of Qazi and being an ideologue of JI. Sometimes I speak in the Jamaat meetings. Otherwise my time is spent in reading and sending notes to Qazi.

Q:Thanks for your time.

A: May Allah`s blessings be with you.

Lets Destroy The Bamiyan Buddhas! http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010313/wl/afghanistan_buddhas_5.html

More Buddhist Statues Destroyed

By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer

GHAZNI, Afghanistan (news - web sites) (AP) - At least two weeks before Afghanistan`s supreme ruler ordered all statues in the country destroyed, zealous Taliban soldiers wielding pickaxes hacked an ancient Buddhist complex to rubble, scrawling graffiti on the walls, a Taliban guard said.

``We confront the idols of non-Muslims and destroy them,`` read one message etched in a wall in Pashtu, the language of Afghanistan`s majority Pashtun ethnic group.

Arriving packed aboard four pickup trucks, the soldiers spent several days swarming over the complex, built in tiers up the side of a hill from the second to seventh centuries, said Mullah Saeed Jan, a Taliban guard at the site.

An ancient baked clay statue of Buddha, beheaded decades ago, was hacked into small pieces, among the relics destroyed at the complex at Ghazni, 120 miles southwest of the Afghan capital, Kabul.

``The Buddha was here, but we have smashed it,`` Jan said Tuesday, wrapped in a dirty brown blanket to protect against the cold wind sweeping the arid plains.

Jan said he knew little of the international outrage over the Taliban`s destruction of its pre-Islamic heritage, including two towering statues of Buddha in central Afghanistan.

``I don`t know what the world thinks, but it is in Shariat (Islamic law), so what can we do?`` he said.

The destruction at the Ghazni complex came at least two weeks before the Taliban`s reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, issued his order to destroy all statues, decreeing them idolatrous and offensive to Islam.

Taliban soldiers using explosives last week demolished two towering statues of Buddha hewn from a cliff face in central Bamiyan in the third and fifth centuries. The taller of the two, at 170 feet, was believed to be the world`s tallest standing Buddha, while the other measured 120 feet.

The Taliban have refused to allow anyone to go to Bamiyan.

On Tuesday, Jan displayed bits of clay that used to be part of a Buddha statue kept inside a chamber sealed with wooden slats. In another chamber, all that had remained of one ancient statue, the feet, were pounded into rubble and even the altar was demolished.

``I don`t know. They have gone completely mad, I think,`` said Nancy Dupree, a historian and Afghan expert, who has chronicled the history, culture and traditions of Afghanistan.

A founding member of the Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan`s Cultural Heritage, Dupree said the Ghazni ruins were a rich mix of Buddhist and Hindu traditions.

``This was toward the end of Buddhism in the area and the coming of Hinduism into Afghanistan,`` she explained. Some of the chambers contained Hindu statues, long since lost, destroyed or sold.

Smack in the middle of the ancient trade route between China and central Asia, Afghanistan`s history is a rich blend of cultures and religions.

``There`s an unbroken cultural history of 50,000 years,`` said Carla Grissmann, who spent several years inventorying the thousands of artifacts, most of Buddhist in origin, at the Kabul Museum.

The Taliban`s Foreign Minster Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil said Sunday they had all been destroyed.

For Afghans, Ghazni is considered an Islamic cultural mecca because religious leaders are buried there, Jan said.

Some of those leaders shared the same version of Islam that is followed by today`s Taliban.

Take Afghanistan`s 12th-century ruler, Sultan Mahmood Ghaznavi, who rampaged across most of northern India converting Hindus to Islam and smashing Hindu statues.

He is said to have taken Hindu statues and put them at the entrance to a mosque in Ghazni so the Muslim faithful could use them as stepping stones.

Afghanistan still has a relatively large Hindu and Sikh population, although hundreds fled between 1992 and 1996 when warring Islamic factions, who threw out the communists, destroyed much of Kabul.

The Taliban took control in 1996 and have allowed Hindus and Sikhs to practice their religions. A Sikh temple in Karte Parwan neighborhood is a giant marble hall where the soft melodies of Indian music can be heard.

Despite the Taliban`s ban on music, they have not interfered with music played by other religions.

``At the moment, we have no difficulties. But no one can guarantee the future,`` said a Hindu resident of Kabul, who identified himself only as Makan.

``We don`t want to talk politics,`` said a nervous Andar Singh, a Sikh. ``Everything for the moment is calm and normal.`` An estimated 450 worshippers come daily to a Sikh temple in Kabul, while in Jalalabad, there are 520 Sikh worshippers, Singh said.

Dupree clings to the hope that some of the statues may have been brought to Pakistan to be sold, despite the Taliban`s repeated denials that any artifact was sold.

``It is as wrong to sell as it is to have`` the statues, said Mullah Mohammed Hassan, deputy administrator of Kabul.

Open Letter to Prime Minister Vajpayee http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010313/wl/afghanistan_buddhas_5.html

More Buddhist Statues Destroyed

By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer

GHAZNI, Afghanistan (news - web sites) (AP) - At least two weeks before Afghanistan`s supreme ruler ordered all statues in the country destroyed, zealous Taliban soldiers wielding pickaxes hacked an ancient Buddhist complex to rubble, scrawling graffiti on the walls, a Taliban guard said.

``We confront the idols of non-Muslims and destroy them,`` read one message etched in a wall in Pashtu, the language of Afghanistan`s majority Pashtun ethnic group.

Arriving packed aboard four pickup trucks, the soldiers spent several days swarming over the complex, built in tiers up the side of a hill from the second to seventh centuries, said Mullah Saeed Jan, a Taliban guard at the site.

An ancient baked clay statue of Buddha, beheaded decades ago, was hacked into small pieces, among the relics destroyed at the complex at Ghazni, 120 miles southwest of the Afghan capital, Kabul.

``The Buddha was here, but we have smashed it,`` Jan said Tuesday, wrapped in a dirty brown blanket to protect against the cold wind sweeping the arid plains.

Jan said he knew little of the international outrage over the Taliban`s destruction of its pre-Islamic heritage, including two towering statues of Buddha in central Afghanistan.

``I don`t know what the world thinks, but it is in Shariat (Islamic law), so what can we do?`` he said.

The destruction at the Ghazni complex came at least two weeks before the Taliban`s reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, issued his order to destroy all statues, decreeing them idolatrous and offensive to Islam.

Taliban soldiers using explosives last week demolished two towering statues of Buddha hewn from a cliff face in central Bamiyan in the third and fifth centuries. The taller of the two, at 170 feet, was believed to be the world`s tallest standing Buddha, while the other measured 120 feet.

The Taliban have refused to allow anyone to go to Bamiyan.

On Tuesday, Jan displayed bits of clay that used to be part of a Buddha statue kept inside a chamber sealed with wooden slats. In another chamber, all that had remained of one ancient statue, the feet, were pounded into rubble and even the altar was demolished.

``I don`t know. They have gone completely mad, I think,`` said Nancy Dupree, a historian and Afghan expert, who has chronicled the history, culture and traditions of Afghanistan.

A founding member of the Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan`s Cultural Heritage, Dupree said the Ghazni ruins were a rich mix of Buddhist and Hindu traditions.

``This was toward the end of Buddhism in the area and the coming of Hinduism into Afghanistan,`` she explained. Some of the chambers contained Hindu statues, long since lost, destroyed or sold.

Smack in the middle of the ancient trade route between China and central Asia, Afghanistan`s history is a rich blend of cultures and religions.

``There`s an unbroken cultural history of 50,000 years,`` said Carla Grissmann, who spent several years inventorying the thousands of artifacts, most of Buddhist in origin, at the Kabul Museum.

The Taliban`s Foreign Minster Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil said Sunday they had all been destroyed.

For Afghans, Ghazni is considered an Islamic cultural mecca because religious leaders are buried there, Jan said.

Some of those leaders shared the same version of Islam that is followed by today`s Taliban.

Take Afghanistan`s 12th-century ruler, Sultan Mahmood Ghaznavi, who rampaged across most of northern India converting Hindus to Islam and smashing Hindu statues.

He is said to have taken Hindu statues and put them at the entrance to a mosque in Ghazni so the Muslim faithful could use them as stepping stones.

Afghanistan still has a relatively large Hindu and Sikh population, although hundreds fled between 1992 and 1996 when warring Islamic factions, who threw out the communists, destroyed much of Kabul.

The Taliban took control in 1996 and have allowed Hindus and Sikhs to practice their religions. A Sikh temple in Karte Parwan neighborhood is a giant marble hall where the soft melodies of Indian music can be heard.

Despite the Taliban`s ban on music, they have not interfered with music played by other religions.

``At the moment, we have no difficulties. But no one can guarantee the future,`` said a Hindu resident of Kabul, who identified himself only as Makan.

``We don`t want to talk politics,`` said a nervous Andar Singh, a Sikh. ``Everything for the moment is calm and normal.`` An estimated 450 worshippers come daily to a Sikh temple in Kabul, while in Jalalabad, there are 520 Sikh worshippers, Singh said.

Dupree clings to the hope that some of the statues may have been brought to Pakistan to be sold, despite the Taliban`s repeated denials that any artifact was sold.

``It is as wrong to sell as it is to have`` the statues, said Mullah Mohammed Hassan, deputy administrator of Kabul.

The Meaning of Pakistan http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CC14Df01.html

Is Pakistan closer to Arab world or India?

Paying tribute to ``Hindu`` basant is a risky business. One has to appease or stand up against not only Islamists and Two-Nation Theorists, but also those who are bent upon changing Pakistan`s geography and want to shift it from South Asia to the Middle East.

Asks Rahman, ``Whether the rightists like it or not, it is a fact that we have more cultural similarities with India than with our Muslim brethren in Iran or Afghanistan. Who in Afghanistan or Iran chews pan? Where else but on the subcontinent are red chilies an essential ingredient of our food. Do Arabs wear dhoti, shalwar or sherwani? Our marriage customs and the rituals we follow after a person`s death are common with India, except for the religious parts. We watch Indian movies and TV because they produce entertaining and glamorous programs. We understand the language and the family problems they present are similar to ours. In which other country is the saas-bahu (mother-in-law versus daughter-in-law) relationship the subject of so many plays and movies?`` But he still feels the need to insist, ``In spite of all these cultural similarities with India, we are and will remain a separate nation``.

It is tempting to deride Pakistani intellectuals. But with 15,000 madrasas (seminaries) producing on an average 500,000 graduates believing in Talibanism or jihadism and about 50,000 jihadi graduates from armed training schools being produced every year, adding to the list of 1.7 million trained jihadis already in the country, it cannot be much fun for the liberal intellectual to live and stand up to the jihadi mentality. If they are still clinging to sub-continental traditions such as basant, and defending it publicly, one can only applaud them for their courage

Lets Destroy The Bamiyan Buddhas! Educated Arabs support blasting of Gautam Buddha statues. The question posed on the arabia.com poll was:

Taliban`s decision to destroy Buddha statues:

_Is justified

_Is horrific

_Highlights hypocrisy of the international community

The informal online poll results thus far out of 1250 voters thus far was

42%- Is justified

38%- Is horrific

20%- Highlights hypocrisy of the international

community.

Open Letter to Prime Minister Vajpayee Islamic ban knots up Malaysian puppeteers` strings

By Marty Logan

KETEREH, Malaysia (Reuters) - The shadows projected on a screen to bring alive old myths for generations of Malaysian villagers are fading after the Islamic rulers of Kelantan state banned the ancient art of ``wayang kulit``.

Wayang kulit, or shadow puppetry, is an Indian import and one of a handful of art forms to have taken root in the largely rural state whose population is overwhelmingly Muslim.

For centuries cultural waves from most of Asia have lapped Kelantan, nestled in the northeast corner of peninsular Malaysia next to Thailand and near the South China Sea.

But the Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) sounded the death knell for wayang and traditional dance theatre such as makyong and menora when it labelled them `un-Islamic` a decade ago, ageing exponents of these arts say.

Abdullah Ibrahim, 62, the dalang or troupe leader of a wayang team, says the only education he got growing up in Kelantan was reading the Koran.

Wayang stories are derived from the Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

``The teacher would teach the religious class, then go watch me do wayang,`` says Ibrahim, better known as Pak (Uncle) Dollah, as he sits in his home, a 45-minute drive from the state capital Kota Baru.

Today, PAS says Kelantan is no place for wayang, with its Hindu roots and the religion`s worship of many deities, which is at odds with Islam`s core principle of monotheism.

``We think -- not to say it has no value -- but that we are not losing a valuable thing,`` said PAS executive councillor Takiyuddin Hassan. ``From our religious point of view it is inconsistent with Islam.``

SURROUNDED BY PUPPETS

The dalang sits cross-legged, a bare lightbulb suspended between him and a large white screen.

Scattered on the floor are the puppets, cut from buffalo or goat hide and painted in bright colours to represent patience, goodness, courage, and other virtues.

Seated in the dark, the audience watch the figure of virtuous Sri Rama suddenly appear. Then the black shadow of the evil demon Ravana swoops to confront him.

The figures feint and threaten. The dalang works their jaws, speaking a mix of Kelantanese and Thai while the sound of drums, gongs and horn rises to a crescendo.

Until the 1980s Pak Dollah and his troupe performed almost nightly for up to 800 people.

Shows marked birthdays and harvests or when an individual who needed to cleanse himself of `bad air`, which could be mental or physical, hired a group to perform.

Pak Dollah does not deny wayang`s mystical side. He says his apprenticeship began with ``outer knowledge`` -- the stories. Then came inner knowledge, including how you ``give life`` to puppets.

``It has nothing to do with worship of good or evil spirits,`` he says. ``We start by invoking the name of God.``

Kelantan permits one wayang show weekly for tourists, where Dollah occasionally works. He also puts on illegal performances in nearby villages, organised with the help of writer Eddin Khoo.

The former journalist saw Dollah perform 10 years ago. ``Afterwards I went and talked to him and told him I`d like to visit him in Kelantan,`` Khoo said.

CULTURAL VULTURE

Today Khoo, 31, is completing a master`s degree on wayang, establishing an organisation to support traditional arts and actively defies the PAS ban.

``I came into this (culture) late and I`m not going to let anyone take it away from me because it`s mine,`` he says.

Supporters decry the decline of wayang but fans who once gathered for shows several hours long may be less concerned.

When a video cassette craze began in the 1980s one dalang hung up his puppets because he could attract bigger crowds by showing movies on a television set.

Soon after the wayang ban was announced in 1994, a rickshaw driver said, PAS provided even better entertainment. ``We all go for the political talks these days, it is better than the wayang kulit,`` said 70-year-old Mustafa Mat.

``NOT DUSTY YET``

Pak Hussin is one of many dalangs who left Kelantan after the ban. ``There`s no more performances, no way to make a living. If it stays like this it will die.``

Today he demonstrates wayang for students at a university near the capital, Kuala Lumpur. Hussin says he would like to pass on his skills but doubts he`ll find an apprentice.

Pak Dollah gets by with an occasional well-paid show in Kuala Lumpur and taps rubber trees to earn extra money.

Pessimistic about wayang`s future, Dollah is nevertheless confident he will perform again. ``I can still perform,`` he says looking at the still figures on the wooden floor.

``The proof is in my puppets -- they`re not dusty yet.``