Connivance by Silence: How the Majority’S Failure to Challenge Politically Motivated [Mis]Interpretation of the Qur’An Empowered Radicals to Exploit Islam and Propagate Radicalism

By Arif Humayun

This book covers several themes and many message to different groups of Muslims around the world. The underlying message is that under a defeatist mindset, Muslim scholars adopted politically expedient positions through fatwas many of which are contrary to the scripture. This was established through the Investigative Commision established in Pakistam in 1953-54. Their report documents this fact (covered in Chapter 6 and Appendix 2) and exposed the many inconsistencies in the radical's doctrine. The book essentially revolves around the findings of this report. The recent terrorist events in Europe and the US, and increasing radicalism in these societies, can all be traced to the findings of that report. The interconnection between the radicals' doctrines and terrorist actions is overwhelming.

Terrorists and politicized clergy use those flawed interpretations to radicalize and recruit youngters to their cadres. Many Muslim scholars and leaders justify the terrorist strikes as retaliatory actions against the US or Western anti-Islamic policies. The only way to reverse this destructive trend is for Muslims to understand and reject the incorrect interpretations.

There are consequences for Muslims living in non-Muslim countries because Muslim scholars and leaders testified that Muslims cannot be faithful citizens of a non-Muslim government. Europe has seen this trend and it is now starting in the US. The Muslims living in non-Muslim countries should clearly establish their loyalties. It is therefore imperative for Muslims to be clear that Islam requires them to be faithful to their country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 29, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453595725

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Copyright © 2010 by Arif Humayun.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010915167

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4535-9571-8

ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4535-9570-1

ISBN: Ebook 978-1-4535-9572-5

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CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1:   In a Nutshell

Chapter 2:   My Motivation

Chapter 3:   Historical Perspective

Chapter 4:   Global and Indian Events from WWI till 1947—Muslims’ decline

Chapter 5:   Rehabilitation and Positioning by Politicized Clergy (1947-1949)

Chapter 6:   Inciting Civil Unrest and Propagating Hatred (1949-1954): The Clergy’s Demands and Detailed Examination by the Munir Commission

Chapter 7:   The Munir Commission and its Findings

Chapter 8:   Deformed Theology—Radicalization of Muslims in the West

Chapter 9:   Concluding Comments

Reference and Notes

Appendix 1   Jirgah [Pakistan’s GEO TV talk show telecast on 2 July 2009]

Appendix 2   The Roots of Extremism in Pakistan, Pervez Hoodbhoy.

Appendix 3   Musalman and Ahmadi Beliefs (Excerpted from the Munir Commission Report, pp 9-13)

Appendix 4   Detailed Report to Governor by Mr. Anwar Ali, DIG, CID on 19 June 1950 (Excerpted from the Munir Commission Report, pp. 19-22)

Appendix 5   Pakistan’s President Gen. Zia-ul-Haq’s and Punjab Chief Ministers facilitations to Khatm-e-Nubuwwat Conference Organizers in the UK and USA respectively

Appendix 6   Munir Commission Investigation of Scriptural Basis of Demands(Part IV of Report, pp. 183-235)

When the Nazis came for the communists,

I remained silent;

I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,

I remained silent;

I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,

I did not speak out;

I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,

I remained silent;

I wasn’t a Jew.

When they came for me,

there was no one left to speak out.

—Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller

PREFACE

The killings continue. Since the completion of this manuscript in August 2010, additional suicide bombings have been reported in Pakistan during the month of September. The same pattern of condemnation and claim of responsibility by a militant Islamic group followed. The Pakistani Taliban has threatened to launch attacks in the United States and Europe as retaliation against them being characterized as a terrorist organization by the United States. This is cause for concern, particularly for Muslims living in the United States and other Western democracies. This book addresses the destructive ideology that fuels terrorists to launch suicide attacks and other acts of terror around the world.

These seeds of hatred that culminated in the September 11, 2001, attacks were sown in Muslim societies in the aftermath of World War I. Nineteen Arab hijackers, who called themselves Muslims and killed innocent people in the name of Islam, have left a black mark on the second largest religion in the world. They have forever changed the complexion of Islam in the minds of the world. The subsequent decade of destruction that followed against the Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan shows the enormity of this monster that is fueled by misrepresented interpretations of Islam.

The non-Muslim view of the enormity of radicalism can be gauged from the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s recently published memoirs and his press interviews: And its [Islamic radicalism] roots are deep, its tentacles are long and its narrative about Islam stretches far further than we think, into even parts of mainstream opinion who abhor the extremism, but sort of buy some of the rhetoric that goes with it.1 Similarly, in an interview with Christian Amanpour, Blair observed:

The extremism we fear is a strain within Islam. It is wholly contrary to the proper teaching of Islam, but it can’t be denied that its practitioners act with reference to their religion . . . I feel we too often shy away from this assertion, as if it stigmatises all Muslims. But if it is true—and it is—it has to be faced, not just because it is true, but because otherwise we don’t analyse the problem or attain the solution properly, . . . [even if extremism was] a strain within Islam, the answer lies, in part at the very least, also within Islam . . . The eradication of that strain can be affected by what we outside Islam do; but it can only be actually eliminated by those within Islam . . . But their [terrorists’] narrative—which sees Islam as the victim of a scornful West externally, and an insufficiently religious leadership internally—has a far bigger hold. Indeed, such is the hold that much of the current political leadership feels impelled to go along with this narrative for fear of losing support.2

Sadly, Blair’s observations about the magnitude of the problem and the prescription for its eradication are correct.

And that is exactly the objective of this book—to identify the sources and explain the causes of misrepresented Islamic teachings that terrorists exploit to justify violence. This understanding will empower average Muslims to forcefully reject these twisted interpretations and peel the Islamic veneer off the terrorists’ justifications and expose the criminals. Each of us, irrespective of our religious affiliation, must also understand how these misinterpreted ideologies evolved and their inherent contradictions. This knowledge will empower us to question the religious rationale of such flawed ideologies.

Continuing terrorist strikes confirm that the barbarians are threatening the world. Most non-Muslims are not sure on which side of the fence the Muslims stand. While Muslims proclaim their faith’s peaceful credentials, they are not unanimous in forcefully condemning the criminal behavior perpetrated under Islam. If Muslims living in non-Muslim countries as minorities support the majority’s view about the terrorist threat, they must forcefully reject the terrorists’ claim that their actions are somehow justified by Islam. Without this clear definition, Muslims may be accused of supporting or sympathizing with the radicals’ view. These are very serious questions and must be responded to in very clear terms. The trajectory of events emerging from Muslim countries—Pakistan and Afghanistan, in particular—only seem to come in the form of more terrorist attacks, threats against Western democracies, and more dashed hopes.

Muslims must realize that change will come only when they rise above the false defenses, excuses, and accusations and take responsibility for the actions of their coreligionists. In other words, Muslims need to understand the nature and magnitude of the misinterpretations that promote terrorism. They must pledge to understand Islamic teachings and reject the terrorists’ justification for their criminal acts. Such personal pledges and actions will change our own ways and then change the world around us. This effort would hopefully change the outlook of those Muslims who, in denial mode, deliberately choose to ignore the inconsistencies in their understanding of their faith. That is when the needed change will start to become effective. This is the motivation for writing this book.

CHAPTER 1

In a Nutshell

Over the last twenty-five years, the perception of Islam among three quarters of the world’s population has deteriorated sharply. Generally, the world’s non-Muslim majority considers Islam to be a religion that encourages barbaric justice, intolerance, repression and, even, violent revolution. These viewpoints are, admittedly, based on ignorance of the Islamic religion. However, the negative perceptions are formed from, and are overwhelmingly reinforced by, the brutal terrorist strikes, acts of violence, and the denial of fundamental human rights that are routinely perpetrated throughout the Muslim world under the banner of Islam.

Although a minority of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims conducts such acts of terror, the overwhelming, peaceful majority clearly fails in its responsibility to effectively challenge these criminals and prevent their words and deeds from maligning the faith. Unfortunately, the silent majority’s failure to forcefully and unequivocally condemn any justification that terrorists seek from Islam renders them unwilling accomplices and, in effect, adds credence to the general view of the world’s remaining 4.5 billion non-Muslim citizens. Qualified condemnations, explaining violence as justifiable reactions to US and Western government policies, and the war against Al-Qaeda and Taliban by Muslim leaders simply add insult to injury.

The non-Muslim citizens of the world, in effect, accept Qutb’s3 view that a Muslim has no nationality except his belief. Professor Ajami,4 writing in the Wall Street Journal reflects their apprehensions: The Islamists are now within the gates. They fled the fires and the failures of the Islamic world but bought the ruin with them . . . Globalization, the shaking up of continents, the ease of travel, and the doors for immigration flung wide open by Western liberal societies have given Qutb’s worldview greater power and relevance.5 Both Major Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood assassin (5 November 2009) and Faisal Shazad, the Pakistan-born Times Square (New York City) car bomber (1 May 2010), acted on Qutb’s doctrine. Ajami cites similar examples of British Muslims who bombed the London Underground (7 July 2005). The Nigerian arrested for carrying explosives aboard the Delta flight (25 December 2009) and Najeebullah Zazi (9 September 2009), the Afghan who lived in Colorado and traveled to New York to attack transportation facilities, also exemplify these trends, as do the five youngsters from Virginia who were arrested in Pakistan attempting to seek jihadi training. Increased Muslim immigration and the interplay of these convoluted interpretations in the West, create situations where the perpetrators’ erroneous belief that loyalty to Islam supersedes loyalty to a country, especially if ruled by a non-Muslim government, becomes unbearable.

Fundamentally, it is critically important to recognize that the terrorist image of Islam is in no way consistent with Muslim scripture—the Qur’an—which does not condone any act of terrorism and grants absolute freedom of choice, especially in matters of faith; it acknowledges that belief cannot be coerced and describes the Prophet’s role as a messenger and not an enforcer. Islam requires loyalty to the country and prohibits the defying of authority. It invites humans to reflect, research, and properly understand the underlying principles so as to establish a society based on equality, peace, and justice. The Qur’an claims its message to be universal and consistent with human nature. It describes the purpose of religion as enhancing spiritual and human development. The goal is to gradually raise a person’s awareness from the lowest (instinctive) stage—where the minimum behavioral requirement is justice—through the moral stage, which requires benevolent behavior, to the highest stage—the spiritual stage—that requires overwhelmingly benevolent behavior. The contradictions between the Qur’anic message and the terrorists’ (Al-Qaeda and Taliban) philosophy are obvious and very clear. This raises the most obvious question: why is there such a clear divergence between scriptural principles and radicals’ practices? In fact, an often-overlooked investigative commission was instituted in 1954 under the leadership of Pakistan’s chief justice, Mr. Mohammad Munir, who together with another supreme court judge, Mr. Kayani, responded to questions. The Munir Commission will be discussed in detail in later chapters and, in fact, provides reasonable answers to this fundamental question.

The Munir Commission was formed to investigate the cause(s) of severe and widespread rioting that occurred in parts of Pakistan after the government rejected the demands of so-called Muslim scholars. Peace was eventually restored when the affected parts of the country were placed under martial law.

Following extremely thorough investigations, the commission concluded that no scriptural basis existed to justify the demands. Instead, the commission concluded that the so-called scholars had misrepresented Islamic teachings to incite violence. This is a very serious conclusion. For example, the common perception that apostasy6 in Islam is a capital crime has no scriptural basis but is an erroneous view developed in Afghanistan in the 1920-30s and propagated, through a fatwa (religious edict) by the Muslim sectarian seminary in Deoband (India). Similarly, the scholars’ justification of jihad to kill non-Muslims requires that other Quranic verses that prohibit killings have been abrogated,7 necessarily negating the completeness of the scripture. One fundamental rhetorical question would be: Who is qualified to abrogate Qur’anic verses? Belief in the Qur’an as a divine book is a fundamental article of faith! Although not covered in the commission’s investigation, the concept of blasphemy has been similarly engineered and has no scriptural basis. It should be noted that most of the Taliban leadership that assumed power in Afghanistan in 1996, were trained in Deobandi madrassas in Pakistan.

The radicals’ demand for imposition of sharia in Muslim countries is premised on the myth that sharia is a set of static commandments and rules included in the Qur’an. In reality, sharia was developed in the ninth and tenth century as an equitable system of governance based only on Qur’anic principles and do not substitute or represent Holy