Adil Najam
Mohamed Ali Jinnah, it seems, was not a “real freedom fighter” and he did “nothing for Islam.” (On Jinnah, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).
So says the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). And by what logic does Maulana Fazlur Rehman and his party come to this conclusion? According to the party spokesman: “Jinnah was not imprisoned during the independence struggle. That is why he did nothing worth remembering.”
I am left rather speechless. So, here is the news item from Daily Times (February 9, 2007) that reports on the matter:
The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) will celebrate 2007 by paying tribute to the heroes who played an important role in the independence of Pakistan ignoring Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his companions, JUI officials told Daily Times on Thursday. They said that the party would hold conventions in Peshawar and other cities of the NWFP in March to highlight the services of “real freedom fighters”
“The decision to this effect was taken at the meeting of the JUI executive council in Lahore a couple of days ago. National Assembly Opposition Leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman presided over the meeting,” they added. JUI information secretary Maulana Amjad Khan said that Jinnah and his companions would not be commemorated because they had not done anything for Islam. “Jinnah was not imprisoned during the independence struggle. That is why he did nothing worth remembering,” Khan added.
He said the JUI would remember only those leaders who had sacrificed their lives for the creation of Pakistan or who had been imprisoned by the British Raj. JUI leader Qari Nazir Ahmed said the party would remember Hussain Maulana Ahmed Madni, Maulana Qasim Nanotri, Maulana Ubaid Ullah Sindhi, Maulana Mehmoodul Hassan, Syed Ahmed Shaheed, Shah Ismael Shaheed, Mauala Rasheed Ahmed and other leaders, who had rendered great sacrifices for the creation of Pakistan. “Maulana Qasim Nanotri established the Madrasa Darul Uloom Deoband. The institute produced a large number of freedom fighters,” Qari Nazir added. He said a schedule for conventions in the Punjab had not been decided yet. JUI Lahore chapter ameer Maulana Muhibun Nabi said the party would also arrange programmes in Lahore in this connection.
Interesting, by the way, that it seems that to be a “real freedom fighter” you have ‘Maulana’ prefixed before your name or a ‘Shaheed’ as a suffix.
Note: My thank to Watandost for alerting me to this rewriting of history.
Well dear! What does u understand that “Holidays” are the true example of ‘Secularism’?
The agenda of so called Secularism, is some thing else. They want to separate the religion from the souls of Muslim.
They can accept the sound of Azan, but can’t tolerate that Islam should be practice as ‘System of state’.
Now days, in the presence of current military regime they understand that they can achieve their targets.
They condemn the Zia ul Haq as dictator, but they don’t consider Ayub, Yahaya & now Musharraf as dictator who is trying to erode our cultural, social & family values & norms from our society on the name of modernism.
In Zia tenure our families was save from vulgarity at least, but these secularist are not worried about imposing of Western values & vulgar media now a days. Any daughter of poor man doesn’t wear t-shirt & jeans or sleeve less shirts or skirt or mini skirt. But our media increasing this gap of poor & rich person by showing glamour & vulgarity, in the result crimes against women has increased; they are not worried about so many scenes of high standard life, wine, smoking, nudity, bad language, prostitution, sexual sentiments because it is their ‘Enlightened Pakistan
an appropriate article from The News today:
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=4280 7
soooo…….. was Jinnah a real freedom fighter or not ?
India has 20% muslims may be less, but both eids (baree and chotee) are holidays there.
Okay secularism is ficitious, so is religion. Santa Clause does not exist.[quote comment=”34264″]
May I ask why US residents enjoy week holidays on saturday and sunday? Everyone knows that Saturday is the holyday for Jews ,also called Shabbath and Sunday for Christians. [/quote]
Saturday & Sunday is holiday in India, china, russia, nepal also, not christian states though.