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.
Dear MQ:
You can leave aside more contested issues for a moment, but even on much simpler matters, there are many things on which the Quran is quite explicit, and yet, you come across Mullahs making statements that are completely at variance with the Quran. If you point out their contradiction, you are told that only an Aalim can understand these things. Even if you quote something very clear from the Quran, they will continue to tell you that you are unqualified to make such statements. This is where the society has been responsible. It has left interpretting Islam to Jahils, and allowed them to claim a monopoly on interpreting Islam.
One example: some MMA woman even said (on TV) that the hadood laws were perfect. When the host pointed out that the ordinance was written by human beings and
not the words of Allah in Quran, she still insisted that the ordinance was perfect and any amendment would not be acceptable. But there was noone to pick up on it and point out that this statement was amounting to shirk since only Allah is perfect. Whether the Hudood ordinance is Islamic is a separate debate, but calling it perfect and insisting that it is flawless is the kind of thing that we should not let the Mullahs get away with at all. But we do.
Just read the artical and its heart breaking, its a shame that we as muslims dont understand our own religion propley, we give chances to others to point finger at us because of our own Stupid mistakes,and then we moan and groan that others (non muslims) are pointing fingers at us. Another innocent life is lost because one luntic individual decided to play the role of god( if This lady has right to live or not)….some of us just dont no where to draw a line. May Allah grant her Jannah ameen,sum ameen
quote comment=”35316″][quote post=”583″]he was interpreting islam wrongly[/quote]
If a prisoner is poked with a safety pin in Guatanamo, hundreds of thousands gather in the streets of Lahore and Karachi to condemn the barbaric act. Here a women is murdered a hundred miles from home in the name of Islam and not a murmur out of them? Where is the outrage from the sections of Islam who interpret the Quran correctly? Why are they not up in arms about the fact the the name of their faith is being taken in vain and their religion is being hijacked?[/quote]
Akif, I agree with your statement. The answer to your valid question was posted by Sharmeen above. The truly sick part is that a lot of so-called Muslims (I wouldn’t blame Islam for this) think deep down that she got what she deserved. Their ill-bred mind tells them that no woman should be running around telling men what to do. How dare she get out of her house and become a leader? This misogyny is in fact a cancer that is spread deep and unless the government starting with Musharraf unequivocally denounces crimes against women and makes this their #1 priority for the country all this talk of development, FDI, and image building is utter hogwash.
The people afflicted with this misogynistic cancer do not believe that women are their equal for God’s sake, how can you expect them to talk about Islam or enlightenment? And I repeat, where are the symbolic gestures by Musharraf or Shoukat Aziz? They took minutes to praise the Hatf missile test yesterday in the glory (!) of the country, yet I read nothing in the papers about their condemnation of the murder of their own female minister in the name of religion!
As I said above this hypocrisy of the men in power further emboldens the mullahs/jihadists/religous-wannabes to further their miseducation about Islam and how it should be practiced. Yes this animal Sarwar should be punished to the fullest but the problem is not one guy it as an entire mindset. The solution to this will involve a national undertaking on the lines of the Civil Rights Act in the US.
I propose the government to set up special courts to try crimes against women. Guarantee them justice within three months for violent crimes including rape and domestic abuse, and six months for hate crimes against women involving harassment, employment discrimination, etc. Make this the War on Terror Against Women and see the effect on society in 5 years.
Until and unless every woman feels safe and is given an opportunity to become an equal partner in the development of this country all this talk of Islam and image-building will amount to nothing.
[quote post=”583″]he was interpreting islam wrongly[/quote]
Mr. Khan, it does not matter that you or the majority of muslims think that he was interpreting Quran wrongly. The fact of the matter is that millions agree with his interpretation of Islam and among those millions, there are thousands who are willing to kill in accordance with that “wrong” interpretation.
Here’s my problem with Islam today. Let’s say that you are right and that most religious leaders and scholars don’t agree with what this guy did in the name of Islam. Then why are they not on streets right now condemning this act of murder? If a prisoner is poked with a safety pin in Guatanamo, hundreds of thousands gather in the streets of Lahore and Karachi to condemn the barbaric act. Here a women is murdered a hundred miles from home in the name of Islam and not a murmur out of them? Where is the outrage from the sections of Islam who interpret the Quran correctly? Why are they not up in arms about the fact the the name of their faith is being taken in vain and their religion is being hijacked?
I might be deviating from the subject of the post but my comment is inspired —not provoked — by some of the thoughtful and serious observations made by different readers on this thread, and is intended to seek serious answers, not angry or emotional retorts.
We keep hearing that true Islam preaches tolerance and yet we see Muslim societies being among the most intolerant. We are told, ad nauseam, that no Muslim can take the life of another Muslim. Yet we see every day Muslims killing each other in the name of Islam. We hear that there is no compulsion in Islam but we see people threatened to be killed for apostasy. And we are repeatedly told that Islam was the first religion that gave women their rights and yet we see women being discriminated against in the worst possible ways and even killed in the name of Islam, as in the case of Zille Huma, the subject of this post.
The question is why don’t Muslims get the teachings of their religion right?
It is like you have an architectural drawing, which if followed properly, will give you a beautiful building. But all the engineers, contractors and builders working on it cannot build it right. Is it because they cannot read and interpret the drawing? Or is it that the building was intended to be built using different materials —stones, mud and wood —- and we are using concrete, steel, glass and aluminum?
Isn’t there, perhaps, a need to revisit the drawing and see if it needs to be adjusted to suit the contemporary building technology and building materials?