Archive for the 'Guest Post' Category

Pew Project: Global Attitudes Toward Islamic Extremism and Terrorism

Understanding Pakistan Project Team August 29th, 2007

Guest Post* : Pew Global Attitudes Project (July 2005)

Pew Global Attitudes Project: Summary of Findings

Concerns over Islamic extremism, extensive in the West even before this month’s terrorist attacks in London, are shared to a considerable degree by the publics in several predominantly Muslim nations surveyed. Nearly three-quarters of Moroccans and roughly half of those in Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia see Islamic extremism as a threat to their countries. At the same time, most Muslim publics are expressing less support for terrorism than in the past. Confidence in Osama bin Laden has declined markedly in some countries and fewer believe suicide bombings that target civilians are justified in the defense of Islam.

Nonetheless, the polling also finds that while Muslim and non-Muslim publics share some common concerns, they have very different attitudes regarding the impact of Islam on their countries. Muslim publics worry about Islamic extremism, but the balance of opinion in predominantly Muslim countries is that Islam is playing a greater role in politics – and most welcome that development. Turkey is a clear exception; the public there is divided about whether a greater role for Islam in the political life of that country is desirable.

In non-Muslim countries, fears of Islamic extremism are closely associated with worries about Muslim minorities. Western publics believe that Muslims in their countries want to remain distinct from society, rather than adopt their nation’s customs and way of life. Moreover, there is a widespread perception in countries with significant Muslim minorities, including the U.S., that resident Muslims have a strong and growing sense of Islamic identity. For the most part, this development is viewed negatively, particularly in Western Europe. In France, Germany and the Netherlands, those who see a growing sense of Islamic identity among resident Muslims overwhelmingly say this is a bad thing.

The latest survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, conducted among more than 17,000 people in 17 countries this spring, finds that while many Muslims believe that radical Islam poses a threat, there are differing opinions as to its causes. Sizable minorities in most predominantly Muslim countries point to poverty, joblessness and a lack of education, but pluralities in Jordan and Lebanon cite U.S. policies as the most important cause of Islamic extremism.

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Fact Check: Putting Ayub’s Economic Policies in Perspective - Pakistan’s Top-40 Richest Families

Understanding Pakistan Project Team August 20th, 2007

Guest Post By: Anonymous 

pk13-AAA.jpgDr. Mahbubul Haq (figure-right)–an eminent development economist from Pakistan who is considered one of the founders of the Human Development Theory and who along with Nobel Laurette Amertya Sen of India created the Human Development Index–who was, most ironically, General Zia-ul-Haq’s Finance Minister (1982-84)  is known to have said that twenty-two families controlled 66% of Pakistan’s total industrial assets, 70% of insurance, and 80% of all banking assets in Pakistan at the height of Ayub’s power. While these claims have remain unsubstantiated (Zaidi, 1999), there is little doubt that Pakistan experienced considerable concentration of wealth–by both legal and illegal means–in the 1960s and beyond. Rashid Amjad’s work on industrial concentration in Pakistan considerable evidence in his own research.

Who were these 22 families that Mahbub-Ul-Haq hinted at? Nobody knows for sure for he did not disclose the names. But here is a list of 40 of the richest families in Pakistan today that I found from somewhere on the web. Despite my efforts, I could not find a credible source for this essay. Since the data is unsubstantiated–and somewhat subjective–I would advise readers to take it with a grain of salt. However, it puts some nice context around the discussion on Ayub’s economic policies and the “monopoly houses” that immensely profitted from these. Inclusion in this list–which corresponds to 40 richest families of today, not necessarily during Ayub’s time (but there are overlaps and it might be useful to analyze during what periods of time each of these families accumulates their wealth and their political connections with those regimes)–is not a reflection on the whether the wealth was accumulated by legal or illegal means. Indeed, founders of some of these families have played an important at critical moments of Pakistan’s history. That can’t be said about all of them and we leave the judgement to our readers and the future historians.

Anyways, here is the list… Continue Reading »

Aza’adi Special: Iqbal and Jinnah’s Idea of Pakistan as an Islamic State

Understanding Pakistan Project Team August 14th, 2007

By: Allama Ghulam Ahmed Parvez 

(This is an abridged-excerpted version of a larger piece published on this website before - here.)

pk2-IQAllamaIqbal5.jpgAccording Allama G. A. Pervez Allama Iqbal was the real intellectual force behind the notion of an Islamic state and Jinnah was merely an agent to implement Iqbal’s idea. In the above-cited piece, this how he explains: 

Iqbal’s Notion of an Islamic State

This state of affairs prevailed throughout the Muslim countries for centuries together where Mazhab was accepted as true Islam. We should, however, consider ourselves fortunate in as much as a voice was raised in our time and from our own country, to distinguish between Deen and Mazhab, and the Ummah was called upon to revive true Islam in the light of the Quran. This was the voice of Iqbal, the great thinker, and still greater scholar of the Quran. This, he said, was possible only if we had a piece of land in which a State was established purely on the lines indicated by the Quran, thereby wiping out completely the rule of man, in any form, be it capitalism or priestcraft. This scheme of his he pronounced in his Presidential Address of All-India Muslim League Session at Allahabad, in 1930. Such a State, he said:

“Would mean security and peace for India resulting from an internal balance of power, and for Islam an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilise its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times.”  (Speeches and statements of Iqbal–p.15)

Two years later, while addressing the nation at the Annual Session of the All-India Muslim Conference at Lahore, on 21-3-1932, he said:

“The possibilities of the faith you represent are not yet exhausted. It can still create a new world where the social rank of man is not determined by his caste or colour, or the amount of the dividend he earns, but by the kind of life he lives; where Capital cannot be allowed to accumulate so as to dominate the real producer of wealth. This superb ideal of your faith, however, needs emancipation from the medieval fancies of theologians and legists. Spiritually, we are living in a prison-house of thoughts and emotions which, during the course of centuries we have woven round ourselves. And be it further said to the same of us– men of older generation– that we have failed to equip the younger generation for the economic, political and even religious crises that the present age is likely to bring. The whole community needs a complete overhauling of its mentality in order that it may again become capable of feeling the urge of fresh desires and ideals.” (Ibid p.55)

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Guest Post: Genesis & Ideology of Pakistan

Understanding Pakistan Project Team June 25th, 2007

Guest Post* By: Allama Ghulam Ahmed Parvez^

1. The history of mankind makes tragic reading. Down through the ages, we come across a series of sequences of the rise, growth, decline and fall, not only of nations but even of their civilisations and cultures. No doubt, man has all along shown a remarkable constructive genius, having attained many an awe-inspiring successes, despite occasional set-backs and natural catastrophes, but his constructive genius was always undermined by some inherent weakness underlying his ideas, or his way of life which ultimately brought about a disastrous end to his efforts. Nevertheless, there have been some notable exceptions in the series of sequences when the idea of universal welfare of mankind took practical shape, but the main characteristic in all those civilisations, always remained one of frustration. Man struggled hard to find some satisfactory solution to his problems, but failed.

Human intellect, limited as it is helped him little, because it is not aware of any source of knowledge other than itself. There was only one guide left for mankind in this difficult quest; and that confidently proclaimed competency to lead them to their goal:

“The God that has created all the objects in the universe has also undertaken to make them aware of their goal and guide them towards it” (20:50)

The guidance, which comes directly from God, is known as “Revelation”. It has all along been revealed to mankind through the agency of various Anbiya. But, unfortunately, due to the ravages of time and human tampering with it, the text of the Scriptures, the message delivered by the pre-Islamic Anbiya, could not be preserved long in their original form. Eventually, about fourteen centuries ago, the complete and final version of that Guidance was revealed to mankind through Mohammed ( P.B.U.H.), the last of the series of Anbiya. This version of the Divine Guidance is embodied exactly in its original form in the Quran.

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Guest Post: Pakistan & Islam: Ethnicity or Ideology?

Understanding Pakistan Project Team June 25th, 2007

Guest Post* By: Hamza Alavi

There is a pervasive belief, held more widely outside Pakistan than in the country itself, that Pakistan like Israel and Iran, is one of three confessional states in the world; that, like Israel, Pakistan’s very origin was to fulfil a religious ideal, to create an Islamic state and Islamic society for Muslims of India. Within Pakistan itself that slogan was proclaimed most stridently by the Jamaat-e-Islami, a fundamentalist extreme right wing party, which was aided and abetted by politically bankrupt regimes such as that of Gen. Zia which hoped, by exploiting the good name of Islam, to gain some spurious political legitimacy.

Quite apart from the fact that the Jamaat-e-Islami never succeeded in gaining mass public support, a fact that was confirmed in that it was routed totally even in the few seats that it chose to contest in successive elections, its fortunes have languished even further since the sudden death of Gen. Zia, its great benefactor. What much is more to the point in the present context is the time-serving quality of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s political ideology and that party’s demonstrated capacity to turn it upside down, when circumstances made that more expedient. Before Pakistan was created, the Jamaat-e-Islami’s ideological stance was exactly the opposite of what it now claims. Then the Jamaat had vigorously opposed the Pakistan movement and denounced its leadership.

Once Pakistan was created it decided to stand on its head and for the nearly half a century since the Partition it has masqueraded as the principal thekedar, the authoritative steward, of the so-called ‘Pakistan Ideology’ , an undefinable conception which it has used as a weapon with which to berate and beat down every political opponent. But behind that present image lies the truth of the fact that this was an overnight politically opportunistic conversion of faith, So much for consistency and intellectual honesty.

This is but only one of many facets of a cascade of major contradictions that underlie any suggestion that the creation of Pakistan was the result of a struggle by Muslims of India to create an ‘Islamic State’.

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Guest Post: Pre-Partition Politics and Ideology of Maulana Maududi and the Jama’at

Understanding Pakistan Project Team June 25th, 2007

By: Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr
 

Prelude to Pakistan 1941-47 (Excerpt from: In the Vanguard of Islamic Revolution: Jama’at i Islami of Pakistan)

The development of the Jama’at’s political outlook and plan of action is largely a result of its interactions with the various Pakistani governments since 1947. The manner in which the Jama’at’s political agenda has unfolded to give shape to its plan of action cannot be examined apart from the political context in which the party operated. The Jama’at’s politics, and especially the manner in which they have changed over time, are a function of the party’s experiences with the political process in Pakistan and the vicissitudes of its continuous interaction with other actors in the political arena. This has defined the party’s role in the political process.

Three interrelated processes have together served as the fundamental determinant of the nature of the Jama’at’s political activism and have also outlined the historical paradigm which has governed the party’s development. The three are the emergence of a more balanced mix of ideological fidelity and pragmatism in the Jama’at’s politics, the enclosure of the party’s ideological perspective and political aspirations within the territorial boundaries of the Pakistani nation-state, and the articulation and unfolding of the Jama’at’s legitimating function within that state. Together these molded both the impact Islamic revivalism made on the state and, conversely, the influence involvement in the political process had on Islamic revivalism. The Jama’at’s political discourse and organizational consolidation interacted with the objectives and needs of the Pakistan state to produce a symbiotic relationship between the two, above and beyond the mutual antagonisms which have characterized the relations between the party and Pakistan’s various governments.

• • •

When Pakistan was created in the summer of 1947, the Muslim League and the Jama’at were at loggerheads, though instances of cooperation continued both before and after.

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