What Role did Shias Play in Condemning Qadianis to Kafirdom in Cahoots with Sunni Scholars in 1974?
Chicken coming home to roost for the Shias of Pakistan
Zahir Ebrahim
February 24, 2013
In reaction to the ongoing targeted Shia killings in Pakistan as the new “kafirs” (see Some Context for Shia Killings in Pakistan and The New SAVAK in Pakistan), while researching the role of fanatical Sunni sects in condemning the Qadianis previously as the original "kafir" in
1973-74 under ZA Bhutto's Islamization drive to neutralize the American sponsored religious right, I stumbled upon the
following gem.
But first a personal note of pertinence from that era. I was only a young teenager at the time with no interest, nor
inclination, towards political matters. I had no clue what was really going on in Pakistan despite living through a most
momentous period in our country's history. India had exploded its A-bomb, our Islamic bomb was under construction, the
world's first Islamic conference had been held in my city of Lahore, the Eastern wing had been torn off into a separate
independent country, etc. We of course knew all that. But our home was apolitical, and my marhoom (late) father
considered all politicians to be more or less scoundrels, their enactment of politics in the country merely puppetshows,
and the main events being staged behind the scenes from where the real power flowed and was negotiated on the
international grand chessboard. So, while my dad kept abreast of the news as part of his job, we at home were protected
from wasting our time watching and discussing these political puppetshows. Instead, I remember watching kalyian, the political satire on these political puppetshows which was our popular weekly family television entertainment in
the 1970s. Since our family had nothing to do with Qadianis, so their ass in the fire meant little to us except the
occasional expression of genuine sadness on hearing of their mayhem in Rabwa, in Lahore, and elsewhere -- like in most
Muslim homes even today. Therefore, I had, up to this time, been under the flawed and popular impression that it was the
fanatic scholars among the few antediluvian Sunni sects who had been instrumental in bringing Qadianis the official kafirdom (under the political machinations of ZA Bhutto to save his throne) just as many of these same fanatics and their
inheritors have continually attempted to bring official kafirdom to the Shias as well, amidst the same sort of bloodshed. Well, watch this video clip, at time 1m 55 sec:
Chicken coming home to roost for the Shias of Pakistan?
Caption Quoting the Shia scholar (translation is mine): “All the Muslims in the world would not have been able to declare Qadianis kafir if 'Ali Waale' were not present!” (time 1m 55s)
When a people are not principled, when their rulers' politics is based on expeditious reasoning, and political
expediency is the foundation of rule of law, as it has been for the entire 65 year history of Pakistan, what goes around
comes around. The fact, according to the Shia scholar in the video above, that the “Ali Waale”, meaning the Shia
scholars, participated in conferring that epithet of official kafirdom upon another peoples, the Qadianis, leaves the ongoing Shia killings today in the name of their own kafirdom, with the tail wagging the dog. If anyone can let me know how to get the proceedings of that 1974 convention of the
National Assembly that brought kafirdom to the Qadianis, and what magic did the majestic Shia scholar perform to officially dispossess a people -- I would be
much obliged.
If there is substantive truth to this matter, I hasten to reason with all fairness that before the Shias (and the Sunnis
who also will not escape being made victims in similar numbers) can claim any sanctuary from these manufactured
barbarians, they must first apologize to the Qadianis. All Muslim peoples of Pakistan must together endeavor to
collectively end this long beleaguered minority's political dispossession in order to save their own respective skin. So
long as the Qadianis remain “kafir” -- that precedent-setting fault-line among Islam's followers will eventually be made
to devour all Muslims.
For each one of you, well, except for the few who are converts to Islam, your religion is your inheritance, just as it
is for me. There is absolutely no merit in you being born a Shia, or Sunni, or demerit in being born a Qadiani, and for
that matter a Dalit or any other. We were all born in our respective homes and socialized into our worldviews, our
faith, our beliefs, our loves, and also hates. Imagine being condemned and dispossessed of political rights,
marginalized and killed, because of one's inheritance.
One is criminalized in a civilized society only for one's acts of crime – and beliefs are not a crime in a civilized
society, except when it becomes Orwellian, when even thought-crimes can be defined by law to carry the death penalty. In
such a dystopian society no one is immune from being made kafir, or terrorist, or even classified as suffering from a psychiatric illness such as the newly coined “oppositional defiant disorder” --- once that cat of marginalizing a people based on their beliefs is let out of the bag!
So why were the Shia and Sunni public silent when their scholars were condemning another minority to kafirdom? I know why my family was silent, despite my parents often saying privately this was so unfair to a peoples; as already
noted above in detail, we were an apolitical home of limited financial means. My parents and grandparents having
experienced the blood-soaked partition of India and Pakistan, being neutral on a moving train was deemed to be the
safest path to both sanctuary and to prosperity in our home – to mind our own business, not to bother anyone else, not
to be unfair to another soul, to help the neighbors only when it didn't put our own ass on the line – meaning, we were
very much suicide and risk averse, to work an honest livelihood, and most important of all, to educate the children to
the limit of their abilities as their only asset – the canon of the middle class – was my father's overarching wisdom of
life to run his home. Well, many Muslims today, despite the massive corruption of our society, share in that very same
wisdom. I know most of my friends do. That wise attitude of self-preservation in a corrupt society is also the principal
first-cause of our social dysfunction and breakup. When many good people remain silent to the travails of others, the
few bad people take over and screw each good people in turn. Duh! It is for this reason that Solon, the ancient Athenian
law-giver, advocated for social responsibility as not just a moral requirement, but a legal requirement. When asked
which city he thought was well-governed, Solon said: “That city where those who have not been injured take up the cause of one who has, and prosecute the case as earnestly
as if the wrong had been done to themselves.”
To overcome that banality of evil has been the principal teaching of all religions, but specifically Islam (see Islam: Surah Al-Asr of the Holy Qur'an and Path Forward: Impacting Muslim Existence). We turned that lofty religion into a bunch of rituals, and my sect's is bigger than your sect's childish rivalry
among the few which continued to spread by way of socialization into self-righteousness. Its natural culmination is the
barbarianism now being visited upon those previously silent and too busy pursuing their own “Pakistani Dream” – both in
and out of the mosques – to give a fck about anyone else's blood being shed. It isn't my blood, my child, my wife, my
brothers and sisters, my parents – phew. Let's move on to the next channel see what's playing. Do I lie people?
What share should we apportion to ourselves for our public apathy and silence for this carnage that is now Pakistan? We
hasten to blame our national misery on the rampages of the pirates, on the greed of the politicians, and on the
emperor's armies and think-tanks playing the new great game on the grand chessboard. What has been our tacit role in
rubber-stamping their rampages with our silence, with our abiding signatures, and with our quiet compliance?
Just because you are a Shia, or a Sunni, or whatever, and your erudite turban excretes poison for others, you don't have
to go along with your tribe “United We Stand”.
Have the courage to instead “United We Stand” with moral decency, with civic mindedness, with fairness, with justice,
diligently applying the Golden Rule “do unto others as you have others do unto you” to adjudicate upon any and all matters, and today the Shia ass would not be in the line of fire of these antediluvian
manufactured barbarians – because the Qadiani ass would also never have been in that line of fire.
To be effective in stopping this carnage for one, it appears to me that the carnage must stop for all!
Unfortunately, to undo this Gordian knot is gonna take more than a few wise men, and ain't that a truth. When Imam Ali
"inherited" the caliphate due to the people finally pleading with him to take up the reigns of the Muslim nation after
the third Muslim Caliph's assassination when a Gordian knot had already been tied upon the rapidly emerging new
ruling-state that had reached the shores of the Roman Empire, Persia and India, even the singular gate to the city of knowledge was unable to undo the civil wars that besieged his 4-1/2 years in power.
There are many lessons to be learnt from history, but the one that continues to impress me as a social scientist is the
fact that once a Gordian knot is tied upon any matter, or any nation, a thousand wise men may not be able to untie it.
Perhaps the lack of so many wise persons in Pakistan can be made up by every man woman and child in Pakistan screaming
NO to their own Banality of Evil; they can stop being silent bystanders while waiting for their turn to become the next
victim of the barbarians – both the pirate and the emperor; and stand up to have their presence felt in society. What
that means can be read in Some Context for Shia Killings in Pakistan.
ENDS