ATP Quiz: Guess Who This Is (More Hints)

Posted on January 22, 2007
Filed Under >Adil Najam, ATP Quiz, History, People
25 Comments
Total Views: 33874

Adil Najam

Thank you to those who have so actively responded to our current ATP Quiz where we gave you some quotes and asked you to guess who they are from (here). Many of you have gotten to the bottom of this, but others are still further away. For those who have not seen the first set of hints, do so here; also, a number of comments already posted on that may be helpful.

Largely becasue I wanted to post the following quotes anyhow, and partly by way of giving more clues to teh identity of the person we are thinking of, here is a little more from him.

Let me first finish the story where we left it – his going to Gen. Zia ul Haq’s Majlis i Shura. Here is what he did there:

On the 12th of July 1984, I finally stood up to speak and the venerated members of the assembly, along with General Zia ul Haq straightened up to listen…. “You formed this Shura according to Islamic concepts… [but] when there are no human rights, domestic laws, facilities for health and education, protection for domestic servants and kisaans, there is also no Shura. Does anyone still want to call this assembly an Islamic Shura? …Have you converted mosques into courts of genuine Islamic justice or into schools for the illiterate? Are you using Zakaat funds for development programs? Are you rehabilitating destitutes on a provincial and district level from the Bait ul Maal? Are you reducing unemployment by giving small loans and setting up small industry? … As a rule based on victimisation, self-preservation and greed is visionless, it is also destructive. This country needs help, help to recover from its past and now its present. The people have been neglected long enough, one day they shall rise like mad men and pull down these walls that keep their future captive. Mark my words and heed them before you find yourself the prey instead of the predator…. If you talk of an Islamic system, let me guide you towards the West which has adopted it…. When you push people against the wall, they reject you. As Martial Laws and restrictive methods are tantamount to terrorism, they are the mother of terrorist activities.” … Somebody shouted, “Ghaddar, Ghaddar,” but another urgently silenced him.

So much for his direct involvement in politics. But his passions went outside of parliament and created furors.

Extremist groups … rose against me without understanding what I propounded. Some said I was from the Aga Khani sect, others declared me a Shia, a Qadiani, even an atheist… I noticed a huge banner declaring me a non believer outside [a] mosque… A letter from the Imam of a mosque in Islamabad arrived saying, “I believe you are a good man. Your ideas and interpretations are, however, adopted from the Aga Khan faith. If you come to me I will convert you into a true Muslim.” …I issued a press release, “Nobody in the world is in a position to declare my faith except I, myself.”

[Speaking to a group of Pakistanis in USA] I objected, “You have spent four and a half million dollars towards a mosque when another stands just one and a half kilometers away. Reevaluate your priorities and your responsibilities.” Pakistan’s Muslims are split into hundreds of sects. All they do is try and establish what is haram and what is halal…People had conveniently forgotten that I propagated a concept that Sufi saints had already preached…. The humanitarian traditions of sufism spread Islam in the Subcontinent, and Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Muslims were equal before God. The inspiration derived from Sufi character was an advantage to our faith, and the tolerant and refined image of Islam was the ideal…

So, does this help us in getting to an agreement on who this person is?

25 responses to “ATP Quiz: Guess Who This Is (More Hints)”

  1. […] My posts over the last few days have all been designed to build up to this (here, here and here). Irrespective of whether Abdul Sattar Edhi is a Pakistani or not, irrespective of how much most Pakistanis hold his selfless zeal in reverence – and irrespective also of all the ways in which a few have tried to malign him – I believe that Abdul Sattar Edhi deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. […]

  2. Adil Najam says:

    Friends, the result is now available, so we will discontinue comments here and move the discussion to the results post.

  3. […] I have really enjoyed this ATP Quiz thread (here and here). I had hoped that this method will get people more engaged than just writing a post on Edhi sahibs work. I also really wanted people to read and think about the passages that I had included from his autobiography – Edhi: A Mirror to the Blind. They are thought provoking passages and worthy of our attention. I was surprised by many things in the book, and it is obvious from the comments that so were you. A lot of you actually got the answer fairly early on but it was interesting to see how some of the facts were so surprising and so contrary to our popular perception of the man that it kept many others wondering. So, first of all, thank you for your participation and your patience. […]

  4. Manzoor says:

    Edhi had to left his madrassah, in his own words,”I became the team leader in the Madrassah and used to divide all the kids into two teams for games. Later, I had a fight in the madrassah as a result of which I had to drop out of my fourth grade.”

  5. Manzoor says:

    Shahab was an ICS bureaucrat, highly educated and during 1960s he was secretary or something like of the Ayub Khan. It was later during the Yahya days he went on an exile in London. I doubt Edhi being a political activist. But I remember when he went to London on an exile during the unrest in Karachi he was even branded as an Israeli agent by one of our national newspapers who get his commando training in Lebanon and same kind of non-sense. Other person from Sindh was GM Syed who also hasn’t any formal education. But he was anti-establishment. Utterly confused……………… ………

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*