Thursday, August 11, 2016

Did Pakistan's Founder Envision an Islamic Republic?

"Who am I to give you the constitution? The Prophet of Islam had given us a constitution 1300 years ago." Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah

Did Quaid-e-Azam envision Pakistan as an Islamic Republic? What constitution was he referring to when he said "the Prophet of Islam had given us a constitution 1300 years ago"? These questions need to be explored and answered to understand what Pakistan's founder intended.


Misaq-e-Madina:

The Islamic state the Prophet of Islam established 1400 years ago was the state of Madina. The constitution of this state is referred to as "Misaq-e-Madina" or the Charter of Madina.  Let's examine the contents of this document.


Here's the opening line of Misaq-e-Madina:

"This is a document from Muhammad the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), governing relations between the Believers i.e. Muslims of Quraysh and Yathrib and those who followed them and worked hard with them. They form one nation -- Ummah."

It clearly says that all citizens of "Yathrib" (ancient name of Madina), regardless of  their tribe or religion, are part of one nation--"Ummah". So the word "Ummah" here does not exclude non-Muslims.

Further into the "Misaq" document, it says: "No Jew will be wronged for being a Jew. The enemies of the Jews who follow us will not be helped. If anyone attacks anyone who is a party to this Pact the other must come to his help."

The Mesaq assures equal protection to all citizens of Madina, including non-Muslim tribes which agreed to it. The contents of Misaq-e-Madina, Islam's first constitution approved by Prophet Mohammad 1400 years ago, appear to have inspired Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah vision of Pakistan where people of all religions and nationalities live in harmony with equal rights and protections under the law.

Quai-e-Azam's Pluralistic Vision:

Pakistan's founder's pluralistic vision is reflected in the word's of what he described as Prophet Muhammad's constitution. It is also found in Quaid-e-Azam's other speeches that are mistakenly seen by some as conflicting with his quote: "Who am I to give you the constitution? The Prophet of Islam had given us a constitution 1300 years ago."

Here is another quote that reaffirm Jinnah's pluralistic vision of Pakistan:

"You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State"


Two-Nation-Theory:

Some might now ask what was the need for the Two-Nation-Theory given the above vision of the Quaid? The Quaid's search for Pakistan as an independent state for Muslims was inspired to give India's minority Muslims better opportunities to grow and prosper. While it's true that Pakistan has not lived up to the Quaid's expectations, it is also true that, in spite of all their problems, Muslims in Pakistan are still much better off  than their counterparts in India.

The growing intolerance in Modi's India and the Indian government commission headed by former Indian Chief Justice Rajendar Sachar confirm that Muslims are the new untouchables in caste-ridden and communal India. Indian Muslims suffer heavy discrimination in almost every field from  education and housing to jobs.  Their incarceration rates are also much higher than their Hindu counterparts.

According to Sachar Commission report, Muslims are now worse off than the Dalit caste, or those called untouchables. Some 52% of Muslim men are unemployed, compared with 47% of Dalit men. Among Muslim women, 91% are unemployed, compared with 77% of Dalit women. Almost half of Muslims over the age of 46 ca not read or write. While making up 11% of the population, Muslims account for 40% of India’s prison population. Meanwhile, they hold less than 5% of government jobs.

Those who say that the Two-Nation-Theory died with the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 are wrong. They need to be reminded that the Lahore Resolution of March 23, 1940, in fact called for two "independent states", not "state", in Muslim majority areas of India in the north east and the north west. The other fact to remember is that Bangladesh did not choose to merge with India after separation from Pakistan.

Summary:

The Quaid-e-Azam sought to follow the Misaq-e-Madina, a very progressive and pluralistic charter, when he said, "who am I to give you the constitution? The Prophet of Islam had given us a constitution 1300 years ago." The rise of fanatic Hindu Nationalists in India and the worsening conditions of Indian Muslims have reinforced the rationale for the Quaid insisted on pursuit of the Two Nation Theory.  Pakistan has indeed been a great blessing for vast majority of Muslims who chose to make it their home.

Here are a couple of video discussions on this and other subjects:

http://vimeo.com/82796819

http://vimeo.com/103030587


Nawaz Sharif Govt Survival Questioned; ISIS Advances in Iraq from WBT TV on Vimeo.


Jinnah’s birthday, Bangladesh Independence, Abdul Qadir Molla hanging, Aam Aadmi Party success India from WBT TV on Vimeo.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Upwardly Mobile Pakistan

Jaswant Lauds Jinnah

Are Muslims Better Off in Jinnah's Pakistan?

Comparing Pakistan and Bangladesh

Is This a 1971 moment in Pakistan's History?

Is Pakistan Too Big to Fail?

Pakistan: A Great Blessing for Muslims


10 comments:

Majumdar said...

Prof sb,

Within a few years of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) misaq-e-Madina, 3 of the first 4 rightly guided Caliphs got bumped off by fellow faithfuls. And within a generation, his family was massacred at Karbala by fellow faithfuls. Hopefully, Bakkkiland would have a different fate.

Regards

Riaz Haq said...

Majumdar: "Within a few years of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) misaq-e-Madina, 3 of the first 4 rightly guided Caliphs got bumped off by fellow faithfuls. And within a generation, his family was massacred at Karbala by fellow faithfuls. Hopefully, Bakkkiland would have a different fate."

It's easy to criticize them for their actions in the 6th century by judging them by today's standards. Even their extreme actions were mild compared to the norms in that period.

The fact is that they rose fro the barren Arabian desert to great heights of human civilization within a short period of time and remained at the peak for centuries.

Arts, literature and sciences flourished under Muslim rulers for several centuries as they made great contributions in every sphere of life.

http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/06/obama-islam-and-science.html

http://www.riazhaq.com/2015/05/rise-and-fall-of-islamic-civilization.html

Even India's reputation as "golden bird" was built under Muslim rule.

Here's an except of a recent Pankaj Mishra piece published in NY Times:

Mr. Modi doesn’t seem to know that India’s reputation as a “golden bird” flourished during the long centuries when it was allegedly enslaved by Muslims. A range of esteemed scholars — from Sheldon Pollock to Jonardon Ganeri — have demonstrated beyond doubt that this period before British rule witnessed some of the greatest achievements in Indian philosophy, literature, music, painting and architecture. The psychic wounds Mr. Naipaul noticed among semi-Westernized upper-caste Hindus actually date to the Indian elite’s humiliating encounter with the geopolitical and cultural dominance first of Europe and then of America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/opinion/pankaj-mishra-nirandra-modis-idea-of-india.html?_r=0

Syed S.S. said...

Riaz:
The Quaid was forced to consider the two nation theory when the Hindu nationalists, in retaliation for the 'Hindu Code Bill' that was initiated by a British Viceroy,in 1880s, who forbade and outlawed 'Satee' and 'Kanya Daan' - which had remained a part of the Hindu traditions for ages. Then the task of putting these into law was assigned to Dr. Ambedkar who worked, with Congress Party support, on changing the archaic Hindu laws more in line with natural laws. The Congress party government passed the Hindu Code Bill into law in 1953.
The Hindu nationalists had started to oppose any change in their traditional Hindu laws and when they felt they can not win the battle they asked to do similar realignment into the Islamic jurisprudence to be at par with the forthcoming change in the Hindu religion.
This issue came to head about early 1930s - when the Muslims of India stood up to oppose all anticipated change of Islamic laws in free India. The RSS types then indicated they would force the change because Hindus would be in a majority in a free India and can force a change in Islamic law because of their plurality. That was when many Muslims including the Quaid decided to ask for a separate nation, Pakistan, to preserve the Islamic laws.
Though, it was nowhere the Quaid wanted to create a theocratic Islamic nation. The purpose of Pakistan was only to insulate the Indian Muslims from the changes in Muslim laws the Hindu majority wanted to impose on Muslims in a free India.

Thanks

Kal said...

"Even India's reputation as "golden bird" was built under Muslim rule."
What does that mean? Even the Muslim rulers were product of intermarriage. Muslims of all ethnicities from Bengali to hydrebadi and in addition to Marathas and Rajput elite are responsible for the golden period. Even then the masses were ignored or heavily taxed.

Sarmad said...

Excellently written. You seem to be one of the few people, at least online, who understand what the great Quaid really wanted.

Thank you

Riaz Haq said...

No Improvement in Condition of #Muslims in #India Ten years after Sachar Report. #Modi #BJP http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/ten-years-after-sachar-report-no-major-change-in-the-condition-of-indias-muslims-4444809/ … via @IndianExpress

On November 30, 2006, the 403-page report of the Sachar Committee, on the social, economic and educational condition of Muslims in India, was tabled in Parliament. The Committee, headed by former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court Rajinder Sachar, was set up soon after the UPA 1 government took over, and it submitted its findings in less than 2 years.
The Report highlighted a range of disabilities faced by the community, and made a slew of recommendations to address the situation. It placed Indian Muslims below Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in backwardness. Among the many issues it highlighted were the huge mismatch between the percentage of Muslims in the population and in decision making positions such as the IAS and IPS, and the general poor representation of the community in the police.

An analysis of government data show that most indicators have not seen significant improvement in the years since the Report was submitted. In some cases things seem to have, in fact, deteriorated — in 2005, for example, the share of Muslims among India’s police forces was 7.63%; in 2013, it fell to 6.27%. The government subsequently stopped releasing data on police personnel broken down by religion.
In the years both preceding and following Sachar, Muslims continued to have the lowest average monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) among all communities. The work participation rate for Muslim men increased only slightly to 49.5% in 2011 from 47.5% in 2001; for Muslim women, the increase was even smaller, from 14.1% in 2001 to 14.8% in 2011.

Perhaps the most telling figures are in the IAS and IPS, the country’s top officialdom. The Sachar Committee recorded the percentage of Muslims in the IAS and IPS as 3% and 4% respectively. These numbers were 3.32% and 3.19% respectively on January 1, 2016, Home Ministry data show. The fall in Muslim representation in the IPS was due primarily to a steep fall in the share of Muslim promotee officers in the IPS — from 7.1% in the Sachar Report to merely 3.82% at the beginning of 2016.
As per the Census of 2001, Muslims were 13.43% of India’s population; in 2011, they were 14.2%. The increase of 24.69% in the population of Muslims between the two Censuses was the smallest ever recorded for the community.
The sex ratio among Muslims remained better than that of India overall in both 2001 and 2011, and the percentage of Muslims living in urban centres too remained higher than the national average in both Censuses.


Riaz Haq said...

Global Center for Combating Extremism in #Riyadh uses new ways. #moderation #terrorism #Trump http://ara.tv/2rhre via @AlArabiya_Eng

- The center is established as a result of the international cooperation in facing the extreme ideology leading to terrorism, the world’s first common enemy.

- It was founded by a number of countries who chose Riyadh as its headquarters in confronting extreme ideologies by monitoring and analyzing it, to confront and prevent it, cooperate with the governments and organizations to prevail and promote a culture of moderation.

- The center was established on three basic pillars: confronting extremism by the latest intellectual, media and numerical methods and means

- The center has developed innovative techniques that can monitor, process and analyze extremists’ speeches with high accuracy, all phases of data processing and analysis are done in no more than six seconds once the data or comments are posted on the Internet, allowing unprecedented levels of facing extremist activities in the digital world.

- The Center works to refute the hate and extremist speech and promote concepts of moderation, accepting the other, and the production of media content that confront the content of the radical thoughts in order to defy it, and reveal its promotional propaganda.

- The center includes a number of international experts specialized and prominent in confronting extremist speech on all the traditional media means and electronic world.

- The center operates in the extremists’ most widely used languages and dialects. Advanced analytical models are being developed to locate digital media platforms, highlight extremist focal point, and secret sources of polarization and acquiring activities.

- The importance of establishing the center lies in that it is the first time that the world countries seriously come together to face the threat of extremism, which poses a threat to the communities and endanger them, therefore it is the center’s duty to fight together to win and to be able to protect people from its danger.

- The selection of the (12) representatives of the Board of Directors from states and organizations; reflects the independence of the center's work, which is characterized by a governance system that applies international management best practices of major international organizations, which allows neutrality, flexibility, efficiency and transparency to fulfill the Center's functions and achieve its objectives.

Riaz Haq said...

SMOKERS’ CORNER: CREATING PSEUDOHISTORY
Nadeem F. ParachaUpdated January 26, 2020Facebook Count


https://www.dawn.com/news/1530114/smokers-corner-creating-pseudohistory

“...historian and author Dr Yaqoob Khan Bangash argues in his essay for the June 5, 2016 issue of Political Economy, that latter-day ‘leftists’ who censure the resolution are largely unfamiliar with the idea of Islam held by the founders of Pakistan.

He writes that this idea was radically different from the one held by ‘Islamists’ from the 1970s onward. He gave the example of how Mian Iftikharuddin, a staunch secularist and socialist, defended the Objectives Resolution when it came under attack in the assembly by non-Muslim members.

Like Jinnah, Iftikharuddin described Islam as a ‘progressive and democratic faith’ which, when applied politically, would benefit Pakistan’s ‘Muslim and Hindu have-nots.’
...
PM Liaquat Ali Khan insisted that the resolution was opposed to theocratic rule and was greatly mindful of minority rights, Islamic scholar Abul Ala Maududi was not amused.

The Objectives Resolution was a preamble of Pakistan’s first constitution passed in 1956 and then again of the 1973 constitution. But Burki points out that the 1956 constitution was not even half as ‘Islamic’ as the 1973 one. This is because, as some commentators have noted, the meaning of Islam in the political context began to dramatically mutate from the mid-1970s, becoming more populist and then stringent (compared to what it was in the 1950s and 1960s).”

Riaz Haq said...

Excerpt of Prophet Muhammad's last sermon:

"All mankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab; a white has no superiority over a black, nor does a black have any superiority over a white; [none have superiority over another] except by piety and good action".

https://youtu.be/iRHMvnPrhao

Riaz Haq said...

How Pakistan was envisaged -


Quaid e Azam M.A Jinnah quotes:

These are gems plz Circulate widely, folks!

1. “No nation can ever be worthy of its existence that cannot take its women along with the men... It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live.”

2. “You are free; you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the state.”

3. “Do not forget that the armed forces are the servants of the people. You do not make national policy; it is we, the civilians, who decide these issues and it is your duty to carry out these tasks with which you are entrusted.”

4.“ Corruption and bribery are like poison and a horrible disease which need to be put down with an iron hand “