Understanding religious extremism in Pakistan

Believe it or not, yesterday, more than a quarter century after I was brought onto this planet in a space shuttle (or so my Mom tells me) to save it (#MessiahComplex), I finally set foot in the United States for the first time. I am told that it’s a huge country – the flight path screen and the sheer amount of time it took to make it here, seemed to confirm this. But so far what I have seen between Campus Drive East and the Main Quad, is very pretty, and makes me very happy – I can’t help but grin from ear to ear when I pass by that fountain just down the road from Schwab.

Now, I have been urged by loved ones to use my time in the United States, to both obtain a richer understanding of this country (I maintain, in my somewhat signature arrogant style, that I already understand it a lot – I have watched plenty of Family Guy and American Dad), and spread much required understanding of Pakistan. Decent idea!

I start with a very interesting and important policy-ish dilemma that we face in Pakistan – if we educate and urbanize the population, which is the natural next stage of our development, where almost certainly no other path exists, other than industrialization on a massive scale (large scale education and urbanization being key ingredients), we, to a very large extent, risk fueling an Islamic Reformation Movement, the core of which is “opposed to American interests” (at least humor me by thinking in the direction of the Middle-East, and not blaming everything on more complex and local factors) and the extreme fringe of which can use modern technology to turn violent, and make their presence felt, no matter how small it actually is in terms of power, both numbers and proportions – and not to mention how morally convoluted and practically short-sighted the strategy of this group is.

The roots of this reformation movement lie in the Indian Sub-Continent of the 1800s. Sunni Muslims, which today make up roughly 70% of the Muslim population of the Indian Sub-Continent, split into two schools (literally). The Deobandis on the right side of the political ring, came out of Deoband in modern day India, and are a puritan reformist movement – think of the Great Schism in 16^th Century Europe. The Barelvis, on the left, were a reaction to the Deobandis, and sought to preserve the status quo – think of the Catholic Church. Recent numbers, including votes for the Deobandi Islamist Political Parties, Islamic Banking Penetration, and just the numbers which my gut reports regularly to my brain, seem to suggest that today roughly 20% of the 70% of Sunni Muslims are Deobandi, and roughly 50% of the 70% are Barelvi. The field is divided – there is a massive rift or schism. The most fundamental question is how to view or even interpret (especially if you hold very strong faith and will not listen to secular arguments) religion, in the context of its role within the state.

Understanding the status quo and those who seek to preserve it – The Barelvis

It’s been almost 1,300 years since Islam first arrived in the Indian Sub-Continent. Today only 30% of the population is Muslim, even though Muslim rulers have controlled much of the centralized state for much of this period. What this tells me is that while people have clearly tried, spreading Islam has been difficult – the traditional religions of the Sub-Continent, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism had to be reconciled with the radical views of this new religion. What emerged from this process was a hodge-podge of beliefs, and rituals, at the core of which is a strong appreciation for secularism and pluralism – love, peace and humanity.

There are hundreds of Sufi Saints in Pakistan today. These Saints were primarily missionaries, and almost all of them claim to be descendants of the Prophet Mohammed. After they died, cults formed around them and their exploits – so they are revered, and even worshipped. Their Shrines are quite a sight, one reason being their striking resemblance to the shrines of other religions in the area – instead of idols and deities, you will have a grave covered with colorful cloths and worshippers lined up around it. Instead of Bhajjans (traditional Hindu religious songs) you will have a drum beating (dhammal) and lots of intoxicants, the primary one being Bhang or Cannabis. I urge any potential visitors to Pakistan to visit around the time of these Festivals, which celebrate the Death Anniversary of any one of these Saints. Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, in Interior Sindh, is the most popular one, although a little bit inaccessible. Bulleh Shah, in Kasur near Lahore is another very popular one, and a quite a bit more easily accessible.

Now, these Saints preached what any hippy (or good person) preaches – love, peace and humanity. Some of these Saints, for example, Bulleh Shah and Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, earned their reputation through their poetry, which is very powerful, and forms the much of bedrock of the very rich and sophisticated spiritual and metaphysical inclinations of the populace to this day.

But the interesting twist here is that these Saints accumulated a lot of wealth, through their power and prestige, and their roles were passed down and on to their descendants. To this day, the people of Pakistan revere and visit these “modern day” Hereditary Saints or Pirs. Even my parents, who are highly educated and part of the upper middle class, have visited some of these folks – they appear just like ordinary mortals, but the services they provide can appear to be extra-ordinary to the less than skeptical eye, ranging from praying on your behalf (often for very sick or otherwise troubled persons, which there is never any shortage of), to fortune telling.

If my parents have engaged and indulged in such superstition, who can really blame a poor uneducated rural farmer? These Saints have a massive strangle-hold over the rural population, and use this power through the modern democratic process, to control the many arms of the State. Today, almost 50% of the seats in Parliament are held by these Hereditary Saints, and it is difficult to unseat them through the electoral process, because there is such a strong cult around each of them.

Traditionally, these Hereditary Saints have also held a monopoly over education, quite openly and staunchly denying it to their constituents (or effectively subjects). There are poetic verses which support this – one of the most beautiful and famous of these verses was authored by Bulleh Shah, which I (and many others) interpret to be a tongue-in-cheek reinforcement of this value system (although holding much deeper and broader meaning). The traditional method of home schooling, with a Master (or older Saint) and an under-study, lingered on in a very prestigious and exclusive fashion for a long time until the advent of the modern private school, from where many of these Hereditary Saints today graduate, in addition to completing their traditional education. This strong-hold on education, and strong culturally embedded impulse against education, particularly for the lower classes, is why improving primary enrollment in Pakistan, and making the public school system work has been such a challenge. As one expert on this topic once stated – “Illiteracy in Pakistan is not a problem that the State is facing or dealing with; it is actually the policy of the State”. Cynicism, you ask? May be to some extent, but also quite rich and telling.

With no education, there was traditionally no middle class in the rural areas. Either wage laborers, sometimes bonded (essentially slave-like) generation after generation to landlords (or essentially their slave owners) through the accumulation of massive amounts of family debt, or very large and powerful landholders, who (essentially) owned (or controlled) these subjects and were also their spiritual (and God-like) leaders as Hereditary Saints. These powerful families, who today control the state (through 50% of the seats in Parliament), in the best case display complete apathy towards performing their responsibilities as functionaries of the state, since their power is very unlikely to be challenged, and in worse cases are incompetent or worse still engage in corruption. The system holds little structural room for merit or accountability.

But, these Hereditary Saints do after-all spread the message of love, peace and humanity – and so they form the deepest rooted barrier against religious extremism in the country. Indeed, many external Actors (think in the direction of America) have been accused of perpetuating these Hereditary Saints’ hold on power – for example, by brokering the deal between Benazir Bhutto and Musharraf in 2007. And so, the other large and emerging powerful group, the Deobandis, which already views the Barelvis with particular disdain, is quite frustrated with these external actors. Hard to balance local complexities in alien political systems, especially without fully understanding them – isn’t it? Doesn’t it make China’s attitude of not meddling anywhere seem like such a good idea? How can a powerful actor hold itself back though? Wouldn’t the likes of Billary Clinton be out of a job? All interesting questions, in my view.

Understanding the reformists and the momentum behind their movement – The Deobandis

When the Sub-Continent became British controlled in the 1800s, the British sought to build structures to support the modern centralized nation state, primarily to support their massive infrastructure projects such as the roads, railways, and the new modern irrigation systems opening up vast canal colonies for agriculture (where my forefathers resettled in what is today Pakistani Punjab, from their previous home in what is today Indian Punjab). They educated a new generation of high potential Indians, within which the Muslims were well represented, because of their strong legacy as previous rulers of India (even though they later persecuted them after the 1857 rebellion).

My forefathers also went through this process, which is why I am a real boy sitting in Palo Alto today, and not some Japanese Spitz canine, whose ancestors did not bother to lay a good foundation for their progeny. My Great Grand Father was the village administrator. He maintained the land records and collected taxes, a position which has been passed down through the family to the eldest son, and is today formally held by my father (even though his father’s first cousin executes this responsibility on the ground today, being the closest member of the family still living in the village). My Grand Father joined the professional civil service, and became part of a new class of educated and progressive people – also known as the (upper) “middle-class”. He also sported an Islamic beard towards the end of his life.

With education came empowerment, and people began to question, and even cringe at the (Barelvi) status quo. They turned against everything associated with it – the deity like Saint worship, the intoxication in the religious festivals, etc. In order to make this movement take ideological root, they had to turn towards a very strict and puritan version of Islam. The Wahabis in the not so distant Najd, what is part of modern day Saudi Arabia, provided ample ideas and inspiration.

The Deobandis started out small, but are today both sizable and fast growing. Urbanization and education have provided momentum to their growth, as people arriving to the cities lose touch with their traditional roots and seek new ways to find meaning, purpose and engage themselves ideologically. This group as a whole is aligned in their core beliefs – they seek a radically different political and social system, grounded and guided by Islam, which delivers the basics of justice and economic development – and in more fanciful and ambitious cases, restores the pan-Islamic caliphate, which existed only for a very few number of years after the prophet’s death (because non-religious political complexities, which these folks fail to properly acknowledge and understand, have made such a state impossible). Thus, this group could be accused of being largely “opposed to American interests” (again, please humor me by thinking in the direction of the Middle East – some of the causes are local but it’s hard to argue that there isn’t a broader external theme of justice, or lack thereof). But while these groups agree on their core beliefs, they are in fact very heterogeneous in their strategies and their road-maps to achieving their ends. This is where things become complicated.

On the nice-ish one end are the progressives – these are highly educated Deobandi Muslims, who belong solidly to the middle-class. They are represented by a small but highly organized political party called the Jamaat-e-Islami. When this party appears on television, it almost always sends a woman spokesperson, fully covered from head to toe, expect for the eyes, to represent it. This, it claims very openly and honestly, is in order to promote gender equality – in fact, their strategy is brilliant, and much of their support comes from middle-class women who feel empowered by their approach and agenda. They are a non-violent bunch, and preach engagement through mainstream democratic channels. They have a strong student arm which is particularly well organized, and recruits from the top public universities of the country. One sub-segment within these progressives is the Tableeghi Jammat, or literally the “Missionary Movement”. They go door to door, and preach a lot – in fact I remember them showing up outside my house back in 2003. They couldn’t convince me to come with them to the mosque, but they did try very hard and were very respectful in their approach.

At the end of the day, they employ reason and argument – and while they do so to preach adherence towards some very strict rules (such as covering everything except for your eyes if you’re a lady), they also believe to a large extent in individual rights and freedoms, and strongly preach non-violence. They run quite a few of the madrassas in Pakistan, commonly misunderstood and homogenously viewed as hotbeds of hatred. If you take strong (and possibly unjust) measures against them, some of them will very well start to become angry and move towards the other more extreme fringe of the spectrum – why does this surprise anyone?

Somewhere in the middle of this spectrum or perhaps not even within this spectrum, but claiming to be part of it, are the cronies – they also advocate non-violence and engagement through the political system. My strong personal sense is that these folks are a little less educated and well-off than the progressives, and are composed of the lowest rungs of the urban service class – it is literally truck driver mullah turned political leader resonating with fellow truck driver voter and mosque attendee of the same ethnicity. My somewhat strong judgment and conclusion is that they are largely using religion as a farce to extract patronage from the state. They are represented primarily by the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, more specifically the party led by Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman (abbreviated by JUI-F). JUI-F on the one hand opposes US drone strikes in the Pakistani tribal areas, but on the other hand has been part of every coalition government which has allowed these drone strikes to take place – both the Musharraf and the existing Zardari administrations. Fazl-ur-Rehman has been targeted by suicide bombers, which lends weight to his peaceful credentials. But Fazl-ur-Rehman, according to the Wikileaks dossiers, has also asked the American Ambassador at the time to support him in becoming Prime Minister (presumably by exerting American influence on the other power actors in the country).

In other words these cronies are opportunistic hypocrites, who have abused religious ideology and the continuity of the apathy, incompetence and corruption within the Barelvi-dominated political system, to extract a few gains here and there. The population has become highly vary of them, and the latest polls in some of their strongest areas of traditional support, such as the Pashtun Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the mega-city of Karachi, show that their popularity is now negligible.

And on the very extreme other end you have none other than, what I will call – the extremists. They form a small fringe of this overall spectrum, but their actions are such, that they get a disproportionate amount of attention. I do not understand their strategy, and neither do the progressives and the cronies, even though they do sympathize with their core ends – I just do not see a path through which they can use this strategy to achieve their ultimate goals.

Some of what they do can be explained by delusion – either the short-term incentives of paradise, virgins and the like, or some long-term can-do attitude which makes them believe that anarchy is on the pathway to power and a strong Islamic State. Socio-economic underdevelopment and injustice creates anger, a fertile environment for these delusions to take hold. But delusions are delusions – some of the most destructive ones often exist in the best of environments. We all have folks in our societies, who at least from our own perspectives are deluded – sometimes they believe in some ancient fairy tale which justifies their strong positions held in almost unquestionable place by very sophisticated modern approaches (e.g. heavy and very effective lobbying, etc.). Many others view these same positions and methods as incorrect and unjust.  It is important at least to understand where everyone is coming from, and the sad truth is that some groups are so powerless that all they can use are crude means, which have become wide spread and easy to deploy due to modern technology.

What I try to explain to everyone (particularly those in the direction of America) is that traditional 19^th and 20^th century power structures (largely built around strong Nation States – think International Relations) have to a large extent broken down in today’s world, with so many ideologies, so many non-state actors and so much technology which both spreads ideas fast and makes violence easy to carry out. One can no longer undertake any actions or support old positions which cannot be justified under basic and universal principles of justice, fair-play and humanity. The band within which we can exercise our traditional power, and hold our societies (nuclear armed one’s even) from becoming anarchic, has become so small, that if we do not realize this soon enough, we might all be in a lot of trouble.

The policy-ish dilemma

There is strong evidence that the lines between the progressives, cronies and extremists are sometimes crossed – even intuitively one can imagine that it requires a lot of wisdom and a very strong temperament to hold yourself back from constantly changing your personal view of what the overall strategy should be.

Given that the situation lends itself to easy crossing, the question is as follows – if you take a development pathway as a country (through industrialization and by implication education and urbanization), which will almost certainly increase the momentum behind this movement, how do you control it? Do you go down the Turkish route and try to embed within the educational system and the national ideological reinforcement process, a requirement to brainwash the population towards secularism? Will a fringe always be out of line, perhaps quite simply, just by rebelling for the sake of rebelling, and more complexly through all the crazy things in the world which cannot be solved all at once, and many of which will never be solved? And does this Turkish approach become a non-starter for most Pakistanis who at the end of the day are somewhat conservative and would have to endorse such a plan to reform themselves through the ballot box?

Or do you make an honest but ideologically religion-agnostic attempt to cook the recipe of strong economic development, and wait for the situation to play out, such as what is currently happening in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood (which the US seems to be very afraid of)?

Indeed much of the momentum behind this movement lies in the failure of the state and the justice system. There’s very simple day-to-day tactical justice delivered through courts; there’s more structural social justice delivered through policy and the arms of the state; and there’s even justice in the context of major international conflicts delivered through sovereign states holding strong universally principled positions. The population will obviously demand these things, as it becomes empowered both through education and the right to exercise their vote. So delivering on these basics, while making many of us uncomfortable, is almost certainly the solution to this problem.

The one political party which explicitly makes these promises, and has the will, and the political and intellectual resources to deliver on them is the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) led by Imran Khan. Unfortunately, Imran Khan makes the US as nervous as the Muslim Brotherhood does in Egypt, due to his strong position against US drone strikes in the Pakistani tribal areas, and his background as a born-again Deobandi-ish Muslim (even though he was a bit of a Playboy in his earlier years).

What is very interesting is that this is a very complex problem, especially in the global context and any sort of complexity will create massive confusion in Washington – everyone wants simplistic solutions like bombing a less than trivial percentage of the population out of existence, or shutting down all the madrassas which provide more than just a trivial share of the literacy in the country

It’s complex but nobody who makes an effort to understand the world wants an unstable and underdeveloped Pakistan anymore – a good argument is that it is home to 180 million people or 3% of the world’s humanity which deserves its fair share of justice, dignity and self-esteem. The argument which often resonates though (grounded in very outdated 19^th and 20^th century nation state politics) is that it is nuclear armed and an indirect threat to certain national interests. Whatever the argument, the need for Americans to really understand Pakistan is extremely important – I hope this post has at least been somewhat useful.

Religion to the extreme II

I have been reading a multi-part series of articles by Ajmal Kamal, published in the Express Tribune titled the “Development of the modern maulvi” (a maulvi is literally a pastor or a theologian, but more often a reference to a very religious person, often a religious radical). Part VI has been published in today’s paper. There seem to be more parts to this series, but the first 6 are already very interesting and already worth writing about.

Ajmal Kamal is one of the foremost scholars on this topic. I have heard him speak at Karachi’s T2F (The Second Floor – their mission is to “reduce intellectual poverty”, but they also serve great coffee), and also read some of his earlier work in the papers. What I have learnt from him informed much of my earlier post a couple of months back: Religion to the extreme (http://mambojambosalama.blogspot.com/2011/07/religion-to-extreme.html).

The articles in this particular set require quite a bit of knowledge of context and are a bit long and dry, and also tend to veer slightly off track – it takes some deep pools of interest in the topic to get through them. Let me try to briefly synthesize and tie them together for a universal audience:

i)                    POWER CREATED: In the middle part of the second millennium a stronghold on (Islamic) religious education and spirituality took root in the sub-continent – it was driven by a strong belief in the tradition of “apprenticeship” – teaching was reserved for “pirs” or “masters”, a highly spiritualized profession, which earned much patronage, and was passed on from generation to generation – education was exclusive; reserved for the “learned classes” – all this whilst my ancestors (from the “farmer” caste) structurally could not do much more than just plough their fields – no belief, no motivation, no infrastructure to provide means of transport, etc.

ii)                   POWER CONSOLIDATED: In fact, to preserve this stronghold (with its many social and economic benefits), several prejudices were created and perpetuated by the elite ruling educated class – mainly against non-Muslims, minority Shiites and lower-castes, but also cutting across other dimensions, e.g. gender – pluralism died (or was never really born) as we not only learnt to, but developed a habit of judging others, and accusing anyone and everyone of being a kafir (infidel) or at least believing without question that they were either destined for hell (the non-Muslims or Shiites in this case), or that they deserved their lower social status (the lower castes, such as my “farmer” ancestors, or women in this case)

iii)                 POWER SHAKEN-UP: Colonialism shook things up – old traditions were uprooted or were seriously threatened by rapid changes in the socio-economic dynamics of society; modern education, canal systems, new infrastructure and civil works, postal systems, civil service institutions, etc. provided unprecedented access to many more (such as my farmer family, which had by now become educated civil servants) and catalyzed the creation of the “Deoband” school (they fall just behind the Taliban on the extremism spectrum – in a very controversial way, a precursor to the Taliban). This was exacerbated by the identity politics or crisis faced by old school Muslims in the sub-continent – who for the first time in hundreds of years, were no longer in positions of privelege, power and control.

iv)                 RIVALRY & CONFLICT: The Deobandi School borrowed almost all of its ideology from the Wahhabis in Najd (present day Saudi Arabia – where women cannot drive, and men are castigated if they are idling around at prayer time). These were reformist ideas which were appealing or well suited to the times – on the other side of the spectrum to the more traditional “sufi”ish ideas. But there was a twist – the Deobandis cleverly, took over teaching and spiritualism from the old school (sufi-ish) guys, who as we know bequeathed them from their ancestors (by now known as the Barelvis – the Barelvi movement was started in the early 1800s as a reaction to the threat that their interests faced), thus ending their monopoly. As Ajmal Kamal points out in a story of Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, an early and highly influential Deobandi, they cunningly preserved the old traditions of patronage of religious teachers and scholars.

His six parts sort of end on this note – but as we all know, what ensued was a bitter rivalry, and a tussle for this power, which eventually turned violent, and took on other political dimensions as well.

What this also teaches us, and what I also highlighted in my previous post on this topic, is that religious extremism was fait accompli or largely deterministic for Pakistan – rooted in hundreds of years of history – whilst both our political and military leaders have never been principled enough, if at all held any principles what so ever, or not had the spine to tackle this visible and dangerous trend, events such as the Lahore riots of the 1950s, or Bhutto’s declaration of Ahmedis as apostates, or his introduction of prohibition, or even Zia-ul-Haq’s super acceleration of the entire process, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, were mere milestones in the continuous running process.

The slide continues – It’s not just religious violence now, but more so all the ethnic and other divides which define and drive the politics of our country today. Let’s hope we don’t splinter into a bunch of  theological and ethnic fiefdoms run by maulvis and warlords – or to put it simply – a state of anarchy.

Religion to the extreme

Readers – This post is a couple of days overdue. I have been in Jinja, Uganda over the weekend with a group of friends, white water rafting at the source of the River Nile. It was an incredible trip. There are lots of reflections from the trip which I will be blogging about over the next week or so. Jinja is an interesting place. It’s a sleepy mid-sized town, the second largest in Uganda, known as the adventure capital of East Africa. It was once an up and coming industrial hub, strategically located on the Mombasa Kampala Railway line, super charged with abundant hydro-power and the entrepreneurial spirit of second and third generation Indian migrants, whose fathers and grandfathers decided to settle there after building the railway line. Who can blame them? The place is so gorgeous, even I am seriously considering spending the next year there, doing nothing but learning kayaking and white water rafting (and of course blogging more frequently).  Over the years demand for electricity outstripped supply. I guess there was no “Economic Hit man” (please read the book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man) to over extrapolate demand trends. Also, Idi Amin’s expulsion of Indians from Uganda in 1972 (Idi Amin was Uganda’s crazy strong man dictator), which was apparently a commandment from God communicated to him in a dream, took a heavy toll on the town.

This fits in nicely with today’s topic, which is an extremely heavy one, but nevertheless (at least in my opinion) the single most important issue we need to get a handle on, in the first quarter of this century. The issue is religion and violence, and this post is specifically in the context of Pakistan. It is written mostly in an Op-Ed style and also attempts to provide some historical background on Islam in Pakistan, tailored especially to those who might not be very knowledgeable about the topic or even the country (90% of Pakistanis don’t know this stuff, including myself not so long ago, so it’s very educational). It deviates a little bit from my usual style of telling a few personal stories, and providing a few contemporary examples, a style which friends and family might find more entertaining. I will nevertheless try to keep it a structured, flowing, easy and interesting read. I will end this paragraph and start with real content, after a bit of a quick disclaimer. I am not even remotely close to being the expert on this topic. I am well aware that my opinions are highly controversial, but to the extent possible, I will try to position them to offer the utmost respect to anyone and everyone who might be reading.

We can all agree that violence continues to get worse by the day in Pakistan. A lot of it is not fuelled by religion. The target killings in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, a melting pot of around 18 million people, from virtually every ethnicity in Pakistan (including 1 to 2 million Afghan refugees), probably claim the highest number of lives. I recently spent 9 months in Karachi, and my estimates are that 50 to 100 people are killed on average every week, and that there are 2 to 3 incidents every day, even though only those involving high profile politicians are usually covered by the media. The gunmen are usually on motorcycles, and manage to escape through traffic almost every time, rendering direct law enforcement completely ineffective. These killings are fueled by ethnic, political and gang rivalries, and a deeply short-sighted inability to get along, or as Obama has famously and very inspirationally said, “by those who cannot build, so they destroy”.

But “religious” violence (as I decide to tag it; my definition is simple – any violence that is carried out in the name of any faith) has become a very serious problem as well.  Religion was first twisted as a useful ideological catalyst to create proxies to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and was later conveniently channeled to “bleed” the Indians in the 1990s, mostly in the disputed territory of Kashmir, over which India and Pakistan have fought four conventional wars. Religion is also the cause for internal sectarian conflict in Pakistan, mostly between the Shiites, Sunnis, and Ahmedis, and also within the Sunnis, most commonly the Barelvi and Deobandi schools of thought. Post 9/11, it started to unite and provide seemingly never ending fuel to the various belligerents in the war on terror. It is also exacerbating multiple ethnic and tribal insurgencies in various parts of the West and North. Most recently and most worryingly though, it threatens to destroy the Pakistani state, and the fundamentally secular and pluralistic nature of our society. What this monster could evolve into beyond this is scary and unpredictable. Pakistan was once a fairly strong state, so it managed to develop nuclear weapons and advanced delivery systems. If it becomes a failed state, like Somalia or Afghanistan, there is a good chance that petty piracy is not the only fallout the world is going to have to deal with.

The link between religion and violence is complex. My view is that religion is typically not the root cause, and that historical, political, socio-economic and cultural factors are usually the underlying drivers for violence. In particular, it would be wrong (almost blasphemous) to single out Islam as intrinsically the single most violent religion in today’s world, even though it has come to be the only major religion associated with violence. One simple thought experiment is to imagine today’s world without Islam. What constitutes the “Islamic World” today would probably hold the Eastern or Greek Orthodox faith. It’s hard to predict whether this Eastern Orthodox population would be at odds with the “West”, but at least I would put my money behind that hypothesis.  This is a real shame, because Islamophobic attitudes in the “West” (expressed e.g. through the cartoons of the Prophet, published in the Danish newspaper, Jylands-Posten), and the backlash they create in the Muslim world (expressed e.g. in a “peaceful” form through Facebook Groups condemning the cartoons; but most often portrayed in the Western media as angry young men in Green turbans shouting anti-American slogans, and burning effigies), are not helping us understand each other. They neither promote a more secular pluralistic society in the Islamic World, nor does the counter reaction help convert the Dutch and Danes in droves to the Islamic faith.

Those who argue for a stronger link between religion and violence, typically cite religion’s ability to hold its followers from thinking critically and independently, and for creating another set of unnecessary differences amongst us (amongst all the other differences e.g. tribe, ethnicity, etc.). It is hard to refute these arguments, except to make the counter-argument that there are many Muslims who hold strong faith, yet they read and critically interpret the scriptures. So the ability to think critically and independently is independent of religion, but I am not entirely convinced, because faith does require, at least to some extent, belief without question or doubt. Also, there is the question of the correlation between piety and violence. Whilst it is true that those who subscribe to violent religious ideology are by definition very pious, there are also some very pious followers of religion, who advocate love, and non-violence. My view is that once one falls into the “piety” funnel (please excuse me for applying consulting techniques here), the lines become blurry and permeable. Many groups form. Some want to attack only one country, and not the others. Some want to attack all countries, including the Pakistani state. And some will have their followers wear scary green turbans, and grow long beards, but will otherwise be completely harmless.

Indeed, I subscribe to the notion, that religious ideology (not religion) is most often simply the banner or final catalyst, and can be channeled for any of these aims, peaceful, spiritual, altruistic or politically violent. It takes just a little bit of faith and just a few sermons from a violent all-out Jihadist to convert a peaceful green turbaned, long-bearded member, for example of the Tableeghi Jamat, a largely peaceful grass roots missionary group, into a hardcore violent jihadist. How does this happen? Richard Dawkins (a controversial character to bring into this post) and Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani physicist and prominent intellectual might have the answer in “Memes”. Wikipedia defines memes as the following:

“A meme is an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. While genes transmit biological information, memes are said to transmit ideas and belief information.”

Simply stated memes are the cultural or ideological cousins of genes. We all know that genes are self-propagating, evolve or mutate over time, and actively compete with other genes (often, but not always destructively). The big “so what” here is that we find ourselves in this twisted state, by twist of fate. The meme has taken hold, and is self-propagating, and mutating into more and more dangerous forms. The other big “so what” is that if we want to get out of this rut, we need to create and propagate some memes of our own, those which promote co-operation and non-violence. Indeed, great individuals like Gandhi and Mandela have done exactly this with far reaching consequences. The problem though is that without the zing or zeal of faith, apartheid or colonialism, reaching critical mass or critical speed can be very challenging. It’s not clear whether there is a catalyst to turn non-violent ideas into a movement in Pakistan, especially in our present slow destructive state. What I can do for the rest of this blog though, is to provide a few case examples from the history of the sub-continent, to show how Islamic fundamentalism turned into such a large movement. It did not just happen in the 1980s with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as many people believe, but started much before that.

Another caveat: This is not a comprehensive history of Islam in the sub-continent. I have neither studied the history of Islam in the sub-continent, nor have I thoroughly researched the topic. This is indeed a very heavy topic in of itself, and one can devote one’s entire life to scholarship in this area. Most of what I know is through what I have read and what I have heard from others, especially through top speakers in lecture circuits. The rest of this post outlines a concise and simplified set of events, and attempts to show through historical events, how the “Meme” has worked its way into Pakistani society.

Islam was brought into the sub-continent by the Umayyad Caliphate, through Muhammad Bin Qasim, a Syrian general in the 8^th century. A few wars took place, and he made inroads all the way into Multan, some 750 kilometers inland. This sparked trade with the Arab world and significant cultural exchange. Conversions amongst the local population ensued. The early Muslims in the sub-continent were not far from controversy, accused of replacing the existing systems of religious codes and ethics, by force. Later on in the 11^th century, Mahmud of Ghazni (a town in modern day Afghanistan), and Muhammad Ghauri (also from a town in modern day Afghanistan), launched a serious of expeditions one after the other, making significant inroads into the heart of the Indian sub-continent. Both of Pakistan’s main ballistic missile systems are provocatively named “Ghaznavi” and “Ghauri” after these gentlemen. This not only angers the Indians, who tend to view these as dark chapters in their history, but also the Afghans, who have of course created personality cults around them, and see them as their own heroes. They are accused of looting and destroying temples, and imposed the “Dhimma” contract on non-Muslim subjects, effectively subjugating them to second class citizenship under Shariah Law.

Upon Ghauri’s death the Delhi Sultanate was formed, followed by the Mughal Empire. The Mughal emperors came from Central Asia in the North West, and ruled almost all of the Indian sub-continent, as it is known in the present day. The peak of the Mughal Empire was a period of renaissance especially for Muslims, where much cultural and economic progress took place. The Mughals created such splendid monuments as the Taj Mahal, and made innovations in cuisine, creating some of the Indian dishes which we continue to enjoy to this day (think Kulfi, Mughlai Chicken, Seekh Kebabs and Shami Kebabs). Akbar the Great, a Mughal Emperor who ruled for half a century, was a hard-core secular liberal, inspired by Sufi mysticism, which was now being practiced all over the sub-continent. He tried to form a new religion called “Din-i-Ilahi”, literally translated to “The Divine Truth”. It did not take off as a religion, due to deeply entrenched religious views, especially in the Muslim and Hindu orthodoxy, but functioned as a very powerful think tank, promoting healthy debate between practitioners of different religions, and helping find common philosophical ground across them.

Sufism was spreading quickly through the sub-continent over this period. It is similar to Buddhist or Hindu mystics and Christian hermits or monks, the esoteric dimension of religion, stressing self-discipline and self-devotion, a backlash against the materialistic and political concerns of the new “Islamic Empire”, which ruled for several hundred years after the Umayyads. The Sufis largely advocate love, peace and tolerance, and ask their followers to seek God within oneself. But, to practice Sufism one must find a “teacher” or “master”, with a full line of succession all the way to the Prophet. Pakistan’s current Prime Minister is one of these “masters” or “Pirs”, from Multan, the Sufi capital of Pakistan. It is no wonder that he keeps getting elected from this constituency, in spite of questionable competence or integrity. The Sufis believe that one can only learn from another person, who must learn from yet another person. This makes education and spiritual healing an exclusive club on the supply side, one which can only be offered by a select few, and which has become a highly lucrative business. Some people argue that the failure of education in Pakistan is rooted in this practice. As one somewhat cynical speaker, whose lecture I attended put it: “It’s not a failure of policy that we are not able to provide education; rather it is the policy.”

Then British Colonialism arrived, and Muslims were sidelined in the new British India, for being associated with or suspected of having ties with the previous Mughal regime, where they were a disproportionately powerful minority. Under threat and in a bit of a crisis, a number of Islamic reformist movements were started in the British Sub-Continent, the most notable of which are the Deobandi and the Barelvi movements, founded in 1866 and 1880 respectively. The Deobandi movement, founded in Deoband, present day India, is part of Sunni Islam, but closer on the spectrum to the Wahabis in Saudi Arabia, with their strict interpretation of Islamic Law. The Barelvis, on the other hand, were founded by an individual called Barelvi, and were closer to the Sufis, defending the status quo. The Deobandis rejected the Sufi tradition of having “teachers” or “masters”. They (the Deobandis) were initially declared apostates by the Sufis or Barelvis, who were more numerous or had a more popular following, and who were trying to defend their lucrative supply of teaching and spiritual services. The Deobandis had a point though. One can learn about religion through educating oneself and independently reading and critically interpreting the scriptures, and does not require “teachers” or “masters”. But this started the meme of accusing just about anyone and everyone in the sub-continent if being a “Kafir”, an apostate, or infidel, a tradition which holds to this day, and which is a major reason for much of the sectarian violence in the country. We have become so interested in other peoples’ business, particularly judging their faith, that we have lost the ability to properly understand our own. Realizing that their very existence was under threat for being declared apostates, the Deobandi’s quickly took a softer line, and the Barelvi’s allowed them to thrive.

Since the Deobandi version of Islam is stronger, it forms much of the foundation of today’s violent Islamic extremists, especially in Pakistan. It’s following continues to grow strongly, fueled in large part by the well-known “madrassas” or religious seminaries, which provide free good quality education, a strong pull, especially for poor and lower middle class urban families. I was watching a documentary on the state of education in Pakistan recently, where the head of a madrassa was boasting about marble flooring and air-conditioning, as the facilities provided in his madrassa, whereas the local government school does not even have desks and chairs (Note: The Barelvis are also starting to get politically charged and violent – The Sunni Tehreek, primarily based in Karachi, is a Barelvi political movement, founded very recently in 1990, and has been associated with violence. Their Graffiti or wall chalking is all over the city of Karachi, and some of the slogans are very scary. The new dangerous memes are taking hold, and replacing the old Sufi ones).

As the Deobandis grew, both the Barelvis and Deobandis ganged up on the Ahmedis, a group declared apostates in Pakistan, and that too officially by the state. It’s a large movement, and Pakistan is said to house over 4 million of its followers. The Ahmedis are followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who claims to be the Messiah promised to the Muslims, a claim which the other sects staunchly reject. In order to get a passport in Pakistan today, one has to sign a declaration rejecting Mirza Ghulam Ahmed as an apostate. It is a shocking thing to do, which I have personally had to do on three occasions, because without doing it, I wouldn’t be able to obtain a passport. One of my friends is an Ahmedi by birth (but a secular agnostic now), and one of the smartest, and most inspirational people I know. The common perception in Pakistan is that the Ahmedis had it worst under General Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s military dictator in the 1980s, who was a staunch Deobandi, and a great friend and ally of the United States. He is the one who helped the United States seed the mujahideen to fight as proxies against the Soviets in Afghanistan. A lesser known fact, however, is that the first acts of violence against the Ahmedis were the Lahore riots of 1953, just 6 years after the formation of Pakistan, where the military had to be called in to restore order. It was in fact Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s democratic government which officially declared the Ahmedis as apostates and non-Muslims through an act of parliament in 1974. It has of course been downhill since. The persecution against Ahmedis is so bad now, that Pakistan’s star nuclear physicist, Dr. Abdus Salam, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, the only Pakistani to this day to have been awarded the noble prize, had the word “Muslim” erased from his gravestone for being an Ahmedi. It is so bad, that some of my own relatives will discuss Ahmedis in our living rooms as if they were infidels, destined to spend eternity in hell.

My Ahmedi or rather secular agnostic friend argues that contrary to popular perception, religious extremism in Pakistan is fait accompli, and not something that was entirely engineered under the military dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s. I agree with him, but also subscribe to the notion that Zia-ul-Haq really helped accelerate the downfall. What happened since is well known. The Soviets came and left. India got a piece of the action, and more recently Pakistan itself is under siege. Also, another school of thought is that the partition from India made us loose our sense of pluralism, and thus created this monstrous “meme”. The idea is simple. As long as we were exposed to other religious practices, especially those which are fundamentally different to our own, as would be the case today in a United India, with just 30% Muslims (versus 98% in Pakistan), we would have continued to think and question. This is indeed what made home grown philosophers and poets like Bulleh Shah, Mirza Ghalib and Allama Iqbal, from the 17^th, 18^th & 19^th centuries respectively, who had such great exposure to other faiths in British India, such great intellectuals, with religion and spirituality forming a key part of their work. The moment the fundamentals came “out of question” simply through lack of counter exposure (98% Muslims in Pakistan), serious fundamentalism took hold. This might be partly true. But who knows what would have gone down if we were part of a United India to this day. One scenario is that we might have continued to live in intolerant religious silos, sparking significant religious conflict within a United India, which might have been worse than the existing conflict across India and Pakistan.

Finally, and as my last argument for the “meme” hypothesis, I need to refute the pure socio-economic root cause argument, which is often misunderstood as the main solution to the problem. Tom Friedman, the New York time columnist, was searching for answers after 9/11, especially after all the terror incidents in Europe carried out by “home grown” terrorists. He concluded that the root cause was not a “poverty of wealth” but rather a “poverty of dignity”. Indeed, most of the home grown belligerents in the war on terror in the West have been middle-class individuals. This is also true in Pakistan, where rock stars and top cricketers have become members of the Tableeghi Jamat, the grass roots missionary off-shoot of the Deobandi movement. They claim to be staunchly peaceful, but as I wrote earlier, the lines are blurry and permeable. One of these individuals, Junaid Jamshed, wrote such classic songs as “Dil Dil Pakistan” (a highly popular and catchy patriotic song), and “Ye sham” (a highly romantic song which I will be singing to all the lucky ladies I will be marrying – I believe in polygamy, not divorce). Another individual is a top Pakistani cricket batsman, who went straight from Christianity to the Deobandi school, changing his name from Yousaf Youahana to Mohammad Yusuf. Exhibit A, below is a before and after snapshot of both individuals. I will go one step further than Tom Friedman in my hypothesis. These individuals were neither lacking wealth, nor dignity. Junaid Jamshed has at least ten No. 1 hit singles, and Yusuf Youhana has raked up thousands and thousands of runs in all forms of cricket. They were simply human beings seeking meaning, and the Deobandi “meme” came and took root, providing them with what they were yearning for. What can we do now besides respecting their decision, and continuing to admire their work?