The Fault In Our Definitions!!
“I Condemn the Peshawar attack and the killing of the school children. This is inhumane, barbaric and condemnable, and has no place in Islam”.
“I condemn the Peshawar attack, This shouldn’t have happened, but you will have to look into the reasons of what made them do this too.”
“I don’t condemn such attacks.”
“We claim responsibility for the attack. Those were not children,they were adults, and therefore deserved to be killed since they were the children of the same force which is fighting for a system of Kufr and Shirk!”
So which Sect do you belong to?
These statements are not from ordinary, not-so-religious awaam of Pakistan, many of whom don’t even pray five times a day, are just busy in planning the future of their families, and have got nothing to do with implementing a twisted version of Shariah in the whole world, or the revenge against the Infidels. These statements are from the Ullemas of the major sects of Islam in Pakistan.
While the first statement implies strong condemnation for the Taliban, the other statements have a strong sense of doubt and uncertainty in them. Forcing us to think, “what If the Taliban were right?”. This kind of uncertainty is something which makes even an ordinary Pakistani feel sorry for the state of affairs this country has been going since the end of the Soviet war.
The preaching of hatred, intolerance against each other by some sects in is an open secret. Visit a local mosque on a routine Jumma prayer and you will hear your Imam say “aaj kal kuch log jo ye kehtey hain, wo Islam ko nahi samajhtey” (talking about the belief of the other sect)… then go to a Mosque of the other sect and you will hear the same words directed against that sect you just heard the views from!
Since the hatred is something which is there because of strong differences in some very basic practices, the intolerance roots from the hatred against each others beliefs. The belief involving the declarance of “Kufr” and “Shirk” is something which is, undoubtedly facing strong criticism from the international sister communities.
Okay, there is no doubt that every human being has condemned the killings of innocent civilians in the drone attacks in the recent past, but does this really provide a justification to kill innocent people who have got nothing to do with any war? Who aren’t even fully mature adults? This is something the clerics still seem to be having doubts about. Which is ironic.
Uncertain statements like these are themselves Condemnable. As these statements do favor a soft corner for the perpetrators of the attack. And having a soft corner for the barbarians is itself a terrorist act in my opinion. So why haven’t we questioned our Clerics about their doubtful statements yet?
I was satisfied when a Facebook user created an “event” to urge all the users to ask their local Imams to openly condemn the Extremists, loud and clear. The trend “#condemnthetaliban #notoapologists” gained popularity on Facebook, with people actually requesting their local Imams to condemn the terrorism! Only steps like these from the civil society can help eradicate the menace of Extremist ideologies from the minds of our average literate population.
Because sorry to say, Our Ullemas have been a failure uptil now in openly standing up against such ideologies and condemning them. The Doubtful statements from the Ullemas are the root cause of all evil in the current scenario. And it’s now or Never for us. Whether to stand up or to give up!