Adil Najam
Report from News (21 February, 2007):
A fanatic shot dead Punjab Minister for Social Welfare Zill-e-Huma Usman “for not adopting the Muslim dress code” at a political meeting here at the PML House on Tuesday. A party worker caught the accused, Maulvi Sarwar, and handed him over to the Civil Lines Police. Huma was at the PML House to hold an open Kachehry. As she was busy meeting the PML women activists, the accused sitting in the audience approached her with a pistol and pumped bullets into her head from a point-blank range… The accused, M Sarwar Mughal – popularly known as Maulvi Sarwar – is a resident of Baghbnapura in Gujranwala. Two police stations of Gujranwala and the Tibbi police of Lahore had booked Maulvi Sarwar for the murder of six women, but he was acquitted for want of sufficient evidence. His alleged spree of killing “immoral” women started in the year 2002. In his confession statement before the police on Tuesday, he said he was opposed to women holding public office. He added that after he read in the newspaper that the minister was holding an open court, he decided to kill her.
Sometimes you just wonder why! Sometimes you just want to give up!
I have been feeling sad and numb and down and dejected all day. I heard about the brutal murder of Punjab Minister Zile Huma Usman’s murder by a crazed fanatic some 10 hours ago. And I have been in utter shock.
I have tossed and turned. I had thought earlier that I would not even write about it. What is the use? When a society goes so mad that a woman is killed just because she is a woman, what can a blog post do. Just ignite more silly debates; more childish heckling; more immature point-scoring; trying to show how smart you are; or, more likely, trying to show how idiotic others are; reaffirming your own belief that you are always right, and everyone else is always wrong; single-track chest thumping; self-righteous finger-pointing. No remorse. No compassion; not a word of sympathy; not a shred of caring. All there is, is anger; getting high on our own anger; anger for its own sake; getting so very angry that you even forget what or who you are angry at.
But now I do want to write about this. We, as a society, have some serious thinking to do.
What killed Zille Huma Usman? Not religion. Not madness. But anger. Uncontrolled anger.
A society that seems to be fueled by anger. No conversation is seen to be legitimate unless it is an angry conversation. And the solution to everything seems to be violence. ‘Kill the infidels’ say the believers. ‘Kill the mullahs’ shout the modernists. ‘Hang them by the gallows.’ ‘Put them in boats and let them sink.’ ‘Death is what they deserve.’ We have heard it all right here. I suspect we will hear it again. That dastardly, self-righteous anger. This violence in the language, as Zille Huma so tragically found, becomes the violence of bloodshed all too easily. Today it was in the name of religion. Tomorrow it will be something else.
So, do me a favor folks. Give her some dignity. Hold your anger. Think about what happened. Ponder. And pause. For the sake of whatever is sacred to you; please pause!
An innocent woman’s life has already been taken by our inability to put a lid on our passions and our anger. Let us please not make a tamasha out of her death by making her a poster child for whatever ’cause’ we are parading for right now.
Mr. Khan, I’m not sure if you have noticed or not but you are at a blog entry which was initiated because a guy in Pakistan who, in his own mind, was following the Quran and the Hadith shot a woman to death in the process.
It’s a dishonest to just kill a dialogue by saying that we must follow Quran and Sunnah and all our problems will be solved.
Dear MQ:
You are right that it becomes a question of our interpretation vs theirs, but this is precisely what I was referring to.
Why have we allowed Jahil and idiot Mullahs to monopolize interpretting Islam? I think we have to accept our share of the responsibility in this regard.
Most of the louder voices that claim to be opposing the Mullahs are often those who would like religion to be sidelined altogether. Hence one regularly hears/reads statements calling for an outright ban on religion, or some other rhetoric that implies that the problem lies with religion itself and not with Jahalat. This kind of reasoning then turns the whole issue into an Islam vs ‘anti-Islamism’ battle.
This is seriously problematic for two reasons:
(a) for any Muslim, this should be problematic because it it is a clear bashing of his religion
and
(b) The extremist Mullahs can only be defeated by pointing out that what they preach is against the teachings of Islam, and not by issuing statements calling for a ban on religion or blaming Islam for their Jahalat. The latter is a recipie for polarizing the society further and fueling extremism even more.
Brother Atif Nizam this is the main message of islam that “do this” and “dont do this”if we just follow the QURAN and hadith,we will find what to do and what not to do,and we will free from all the problems,and the life of MUHAMMAD(PBUH) is the ideal for the muslims for all times.I would like to invite every one to read QURAN with understanding that we will find the solutions of all our problems and frustration.May ALLAH protect pakistan and all of you.
[quote comment=”35243″]Brother Akif Nizam whould you will like to tell us what is the central message of islam?
May ALLAH protect pakistan and all of you.[/quote]
Mr. Khan, my comment said that we must first find the message of Islam. As of now, there is no message. There are a lot of “do this”, “don’t do this” but there is no message, there is no underlying philosphy, there is no ideal in today’s terms, there is no room for introspection, or for individuality, or for creativity.
It just is; take it or…..actually, it’s just ‘take it’.
Brother Akif Nizam whould you will like to tell us what is the central message of islam?
May ALLAH protect pakistan and all of you.