Adil Najam
Pakistan is a land of creative cell-phone ringtones. Sometimes, I feel, a little too creative.
You are sitting in a meeting with some very self-important and staid people – officials, businessmen, buzurg grandfather types – and one of their cell-phone rings: and the ring-tone is a computer synthesis of “Sanou Nehr Waaley Pul Tey Bulla Kay” or “Nawa Aaya Aye Soonia.”
Even though the first is one of my favorite Noor Jahan songs and the second my all-time favorite movie, my head spins and I wonders if in a society where everyone is always so proper and so cognizant of “loug kiya sochaiN gay” (what will people think?), cell-phone ringtones are like catharsis. One of the things that lets people show that little bit of their “fun side” that they were otherwise suppressing. Kind of like the otherwise all-too-serious professor in the US coming to class wearing a Mickey Mouse tie (I actually own more than one of those).
Yet, it seems that the vigilantism of the piety police that is the extremist fringe in Pakistan wants to even snatch (literally) this little pleasure from us.
Here is a small news item in the Daily Times (January 18):
Militants snatch computers from ringtone shops
LANDI KOTAL: Local Taliban militants snatched computers from ringtone shops in the main Landi Kotal Bazaar on Thursday, sources said. Earlier, they added, the militants had warned them to stop downloading ringtones onto mobiles, terming it an “un-Islamic†practice. Around 10 armed Taliban came to the bazaar and took away computers from ringtone shops at around 5pm.
Whatever else you do, folks, please do not try to answer the question in the headline. It is rhetorical. Frankly, I have very little interest in what anyone, least of all some militants, have to say about this and I am sure that God has far more important things to deal with right now than how my cell phone rings.
I have chosen to write about this question because I think there are two types of people who do take things like this seriously. So serious are they in their beliefs that they are even willing to condone violence in the name of those beliefs. I am afraid of what the fanaticism of these two extreme groups can lead to, especially in Pakistan.
One type are the puritanical extremists within Islam who think that they and they alone have a monopoly on piety and theirs and only their view is right and who are willing – even eager – to impose, even violently, their view on all others. The Taliban, of whatever ilk, are one such group. The second type are those who obsess about things that are supposedly wrong with Islam and who love to believe such nonsense because it reinforces their existing prejudices. Who are prone to taking such actions by the extremists and then project it as if all Muslims are like this. This set of people are often equally extreme in their beliefs.
Luckily, neither is a majority. Unfortunately, the ranks of both are swelling. Oddly, but not surprisingly, these two extreme types have much – too much – in common; including the monopoly they think they hold over the truth.
Sadly, but also not surprisingly, these two groups are probably the biggest threat to Islam and Muslims today, including and especially in Pakistan. Even though I fear their impact and influence in Pakistan and on Pakistan, I – like most Pakistanis I know – reject the message of both these extreme groups. I prefer, instead, to listen to cell-phone ringtones that go “Sanou Nehr Waaley Pul Tey Bulla Kay” or “Nawa Aaya Aye Soonia.”
This post brings to my mind following two quotes:
1. The people who are regarded as moral lumanaries are those who forgo ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensations in interfering with the pleasures of others.
(Bertrand Russel)
2. Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
(H. G. Wells)
I agree with the post and its title, this is not a question that anyone should answer for others. I do not know whether ringtones are haram or not, but I do know that violence is and damaging other people’s property or threatening other people’s lives is. I do not know if these people will get any eternal reward for their crusade against ringtones, but they will certainly be answerable for causing hurt and pain to their fellow beings.
Also, I don’ see the post anywhere suggesting that ringtones are halal. Or haram. But that I think is the point, the Quran (I AM CERTAIN) has nothing at all on the subject of ringtones. So the best anyone can do is interpret, and I am certainly not going to get my interpretation of religion from some gun-totting criminal type. No one is forcing anyone to use ringtones, so why should we force people not to use them.
If I want to use ringtones then that should be up to me and if I want a religious angle on it then it is between me and Allah. If you think that ringtones is what threatens ISlam today or what is unislamic then certainly, please, remove them. I guess you can put the phone on vibration mode because any tone, even a bell, is really music. But that is your choice. I will promise not to force you to do so and I will promise not to kill you or blow a bomb if you remove a ringtone. And I think you have no right to force me to or kill me if I have a ringtone either.
I am always surprised at how many Taliban supporters there are on this site. How are people defending the violence and the snatching of computers, irrespective of whether music is halal or haram. As the post clearly says, it doesnt matter whether it is halal or haram, first of all who gave these extremists the authority to first decide and then enforce their view of what is. And lets assume for a moment that ringtones are really haram for the sake of argument. Does that then make the snatching of someones phone or computer halal… I think that action will still remain criminal. Since someone gave the example of eating pork, does that mean that we now have the right to kill anyone who is eating pork? I thought that punishment and counting of virtue was God’s business, since when did Allah make these Taliban, the Lal Masjid hooligans or anyone else the enforcement police? Isn’t the whole point of the post that this is not any of our decision and we should leave to God what is God’s
Bilal Jazakallah for what you said which I could not say at all.
The extremist threat is real and it is not exaggrated rather in my point of view, we muslims have made a concious choice to either ignore or support extremist thought and actions.
We as a nation belonging to great Islamic civilization have a choice to define our challenges and reponse.
Since time immemorial, we have looked for fault and enemy as someone from outside or have built this “Saazishi – Nasim Hijazi Paranoia Syndrome”.
It is time to look hard at oursleves as as pogo would say “we have met the enemy and he is us”.