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Zulhijjah 13,1430/ December 1, 2009, # 56
With thanks to a reader in Chicago:
It's almost impossible for Americans to understand Pakistan
because of the barrier created by the secularized Pakistani
ruling class which is often "more loyal than the king" in
the White House. Dr. M. Shahid Alam, America's top Muslim
critic of Zionism, takes on the Pakistani secularists as
seen in the Daily Times newspaper and associates. Please
scroll down to this brilliant expose of America's friends in
Pakistan in their own language.
From Imam Badi Ali [Jamaat al-Muslimeen North Carolina]
Spotlight #1 : It is December 1 and President Obama just
finished his speech. I was saddened to hear it. He was
calling for war, using all the old techniques of divide and
rule, aiming at creating failed states, promising death and
destruction in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. This plan to
send in 30,000 more troops is just a gimmick. Obama is
floating around in his right wing opponents' circles,
fumbling and quite far away from any clear plan of action.
Is Obama trying to deceive the American people? Has he sold
out to the Republicans? The plan seems to be to go into
Afghanistan to kill a lot of Islamic people and to set up a
puppet regime with the promise that we will leave in 2011.
What happens if the Taliban refuse to be defeated? The
threat to Pakistan is very serious. Looks like the Pakistani
army will be used to cause more death and destruction and
then, with the army weakened, the plan seems to be an
invasion of Pakistan. What if the Pakistanis join the
Taliban? The grand scheme will collapse. Who will pay for
this expensive new adventure? Bush began the Iraq war with
expenses promised at $1 billion a month only to find that it
was $1 billion a week. The Zionist media are handling Obama
to create the impression that it is a workable strategy.This
is George Bush all over again, promising to withdraw in 2011
if the puppet Afghan army is in place. And if it isn't? They
all forget that "Afghanistan is the graveyard of
empires.'
Outreach: Eid in New York
Meet Br. Shamim Siddiqui, an Amazing Scholar of Islam+Guyana
Mosque+Salafi Mosque
by Kaukab Siddique
Nov. 26-29: New York is a very special city, probably the
most international city in the world. I spent Thanksgiving
with a non-Muslim branch of my family. I went for Eid
prayers to a Guyanese mosque in Jamaica [Queens] area. It
was packed with worshippers, mostly Guyanese but numbers of
Indo-Pakistanis and Bangladeshis too. The imam did a good
job of teaching people about the basics of Eid al-Adha. His
emphasis was on sacrifice and seeking forgiveness from
Allah. At the end he switched from English and started
making a du'a in emotional Urdu which made people cry. I was
surprised that so many people knew Urdu here. [Large
numbers of Guyanese women prayed, in a separate area of the
masjid.]
For Juma' I went to a Salafi masjid in Jamaica off the Van
Wyck Expressway. Although the Juma' is optional on Eid day,
the masjid was packed with worshippers. The Salafi imam,
speaking with a British accent, gave a very well organized
khutba with numerous relevant quotations from Hadith. Again
sisters were separate but in good numbers.
The best part of Eid was a visit with Br. Shamim Siddiqui in
Long Island. He is a learned scholar, well versed in Qur'an
and Hadith, in his 80s now and with all the health problems
one can expect, especially problems with eyesight. The
physical ailments have not detracted from his tremendous
love of Allah and the last messenger of Allah, Muhammad,
pbuh.
Br. Shamim reads the classical tafseers coming out of India
and Pakistan and has marked and commented on his favorite
passages. Maulana Maudoodi, Maulana Islahi and Dr. Israr are
his favorites.
He is on the Internet on a daily basis and his writings
appear in a number of Indian Islamic journals in English and
Urdu.
Br. Shamim spent 20 years of his life in East Pakistan
before its tragic ending. Much can be learned from his
experiences there within the framework of Jamaate Islami
with all its strengths and weaknesses.
During his stay in America, he tried to educate various ISNA
and ICNA leaders but to no avail. It appears from my three
hour discussion with Br. Shamim that the "leaders" tried to
use him and then dumped him when they found that he would
not compromise on Islamic teachings. Br. Shamim is kind
hearted and still hopes that ISNA and ICNA wil regain
genuine Islam.
Although left along the way by those who used him to enhance
their own legitimacy, he has natural support in the form of
his children, relatives and friends who are imbibing the
genuine message of Islam from him. The Salat is part of his
family's daily life.
Nov. 9, 2009: Speaking to non-Muslim students at the
invitation of Chaplain Dr. Leaman
Notes on Sex and Marriage as Seen in al-Ghazzali's
Understanding of Islam
By Kaukab Siddique
Prophet Muhammad pbuh, said: "People marry for the sake of
beauty, wealth, race and spiritual commitment. You should
marry for spiritual commitment otherwise may your hands be
rubbed in dirt" [Hadith]
Prophet Muhammad, pbuh, said: "Sexual modesty [haya] is
part of faith." [Hadith]
We must begin by accepting the fact that we are given the
ability to love by a higher power, Allah [or God for
Christians]. Without unimpaired physical, mental, spiritual
and emotional health, we would not be able to love. A great
Muslim theologian, Muhammad al-Ghazzali, gives a metaphor to
explain the way love works. On a hot day, when we take
refuge in the shade, we are pleased not only with the shade
but are thankful for the trees which provide the shade.[1]
Thus Allah is the source of love. If our love is limited to
beings other than Allah, we are very liable to be
disappointed. Why? Simply because all that humans have is
limited and is steadily passing and withering away. Then one
day we are faced with the prospect of leaving this world and
going to another level of existence about which we know
nothing if we do not love Allah.
Allah, however, is not an idol or a limited being who can be
loved the way humans love other humans. He is beyond our
limited understanding; so he helps us to understand love and
how and whom to love. To love Allah, we must love his
creation, in particular human beings. If we do not love
humans, our claims of loving Allah are not acceptable to
Allah Almighty. We must love not only all humans but all of
Allah's creatures, from the birds in the sky to the ants in
the earth.
Among the best of God's creatures are those whom He selected
to Guide humans, the most prominent of whom are Abraham,
Hajira, Moses, Asya, Jesus, Mary, Muhammad and 'Ayesha [may
Allah bless them all]. The final and perfected message of
all of these Guides was brought by Muhammad, peace be on
him. If we want to love Allah, we must love Muhammad, peace
be on him, and through him all the others who preceded him.
[2]
If our love of Allah is established and clear, then we'll
easily see whom to select as spouse for our special personal
and sexual love.
We live in a time and age when Islam is gradually but
steadily resurgent. Among the new generations of Muslims
there are increasingly larger numbers of young people who
see their personal happiness as linked to love of Allah and
acceptance of the Way [Sunnah] of Muhammad, pbuh. However,
there is powerful resistance to this resurgence from the
established feudal, military and westernized sections of
Muslim societies. For them, their aristocracies are more
important than Islam. They often marry their children to
cousins to keep their wealth within their families and to
keep their racial-family lines [genes] "pure." They, in
particular, want to evade the property rights which Islam
gives to women.
Islam does encourage great respect for mothers and fathers
and supports the family system, but it does not permit
parents to shape the lives of married couples.
In the choice of spouses, parents play a very important role
but it is an advisory role. The final choice has to be made
by the two who want to get married. Islam teaches that the
virgin who knows little of the world should have a wali to
advise her so that she may not be entrapped by a clever man.
However, in the final choice, the bride must choose freely
and without any pressure of any kind.
In all issues related to spousal life, the married couple is
commanded by Islam to seek guidance from the Qur'an and the
Sunnah, not from parents or relatives. In fact in
husband-wife relationships, there is no role for parents and
siblings other than that of compassion and caring.
Interference is allowed only when there is clear oppression
and violation of Islamic Law. Even in divorce, the Qur'an
says:
"... Wives have rights similar to those of husbands
according to what is equitable...." [The Qur'an 2:228], the
only difference being that women have to wait for a fixed
time before remarriage while men don't have to, and thus men
have a "degree" of advantage for biological reasons.
Prophet Muhammad, pbuh, commanded: "Surely you have a right
over women, just as women have a right over you." [Hadith,
Sunan of Tirmidhi.]
Husbands should not be taking personal, sexual, matters to
ANYONE outside the bedroom:
"On the Day of Judgment, terrible will be the situation of a
man who goes [sexually] to his wife, or of a woman who goes
to her husband, and then spread the secrets of their
personal life, outside." [Hadith of Muhammad, pbuh, Sahih
Muslim]
Without acceptance of the Will of Allah by both men and
women, marriage cannot be successful and should not be
carried out.
In conclusion, the four types of love human beings feel are
summarized by Imam Ghazzali thus:
i. Natural love which we have for children, parents and
siblings/relatives.
ii. Sensual or physical desire which is animalistic and is
the result of sexual drives and is aroused by the physical
shape and form of the object of love.
iii. Love based on reason and understanding, such as the
love one has for poetry or other aesthetically pleasing
objects and for morally exalted behavior. This is the
highest limit of human love outside Islam.
iv. Islamic love which is rooted in the love of Allah and
his Messenger, pbuh, and prepares one for the Hereafter.
Prophet Muhammad, pbuh, taught repeatedly that in Paradise
you will be with the ones you love. [These are the Pure
Companions of Paradise repeatedly referred to in the
Qur'an.] [3]
1. Imam Muhammad al-Ghazzali, died 1111 c.e. in Baghdad, the
greatest theologian of Islam, wrote the best discussion of
LOVE in all of Islamic literature. See his Ihya
Ulum-id-Deen, volume 4 available in Urdu and English
translation.
Allama Iqbal, the Poet-Philosopher of the East, died c.e.
1938, has some of the most powerful expression of the
meaning of the highest form of love, ISHQ, in his verses
about Self and Selflessness.
2. "And among people are those who take others than Allah as
equals to Him. They love them as they should love Allah. But
those who believe are stronger in love for Allah..." [The
Qur'an 2:165]
3. The Prophet, pbuh, asked his daughter Fatima, r.a., "Do
you love me?" She replied: "Yes." "Then," he said, pointing
to 'Ayesha, r.a., "love the one I love." [Hadith, Sunan of
Nasai.]
Native Orientalists at the Daily Times
by M. Shahid Alam
"The more a ruling class is able to assimilate the foremost
minds of the ruled class, the more stable and dangerous
becomes its rule."
-Karl Marx
A few days back, I received a 'Dear friends' email from Mr.
Najam Sethi, ex editor-in-chief of Daily Times, Pakistan,
announcing that he, together with several of his colleagues,
had resigned from their positions in the newspaper.
In his email, Mr. Sethi thanked his 'friends' for their
"support and encouragement...in making Daily Times a 'new
voice for a new Pakistan.'" Wistfully, he added, "I hope it
will be able to live up to your expectations and mine in
time to come."
I am not sure why Mr. Sethi had chosen me for this dubious
honor. Certainly, I did not deserve it. I could not count
myself among his 'friends' who had given "support and
encouragement" to the mission that DT had chosen for itself
in Pakistan's media and politics.
Contrary to its slogan, it was never DT's mission to be a
'new voice for a new Pakistan.' The DT had dredged its voice
from the colonial past; it had only altered its pitch and
delivery to serve the new US-Zionist overlords. Many of the
writers for DT aspire to the office of the native informers
of the colonial era. They are heirs to the brown Sahibs,
home-grown Orientalists, who see their own world (if it is
theirs in any meaningful sense) through the lens created for
them by their spiritual mentors, the Western
Orientalists.
Pakistanis had failed to seize sovereign control over their
country at its birth. In August 1947, the departing British
had few worries about losing their colonial assets in
Pakistan. They were quite confident that the brown Sahibs,
who were succeeding them, would not fail in their duty to
protect these assets. Within a few years, these brown Sahibs
had strapped the new country to the wheels of the
neocolonial order. Without effective resistance from below -
from intellectuals, workers, students and peasants - these
neocolonial managers have been free to cannibalize their own
people as long as they could also keep their masters
happy.
This is not a cri de coeur - only a diagnosis of Pakistan's
misery. It is a misery that only Pakistanis can remedy once
they make up their minds to terminate the system that has
castrated them for more than six decades. The best time to
do this was in the first decades after their country's
birth, when the Western imperialist grip was still weak,
and, with courage and organization, Pakistanis could have
set their newly free country on the course of irreversible
independence.
Grievously, Pakistanis had failed at this task. Pakistan's
elites produced few men and women of conscience, who could
transcend their class origins to mobilize workers and
peasants to fight for their rights. More regrettably,
Pakistan's emerging middle classes have been too busy aping
the brown Sahibs, stepping over each other to join the ranks
of the corrupt elites. As a result, Pakistan's elites have
grown more predatory, refusing to establish the rule of law
in any sphere of society.
Ironically, the enormous success of Edward Said's
Orientalism, his devastating critiquing of the West's
hegemonic discourse on the 'Orient,' has deflected attention
from the recrudescence of a native Orientalism in much of
the Periphery in the last few decades. Its victory in
Pakistan is nearly complete, where it has been led by the
likes of Ahmad Rashid, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Najam Sethi, Khaled
Ahmad, Irfan Hussain, Husain Haqqani, and P. J. Mir. Not a
very illustrious lot, but they are the minions of Western
embassies and Western-financed NGOs in Pakistan.
In the euphoria of Edward Said's success, left intellectuals
have nearly forgotten that the West's servant classes in the
Periphery produce an indigenous Orientalism. I refer here to
the coarser but more pernicious Orientalism of the brown
Sahibs, who are free, behind their rhetoric of progress, to
denigrate their own history and culture. A few of these
native Orientalists are deracinated souls, who put down
their own people for failing, as they see it, to keep up
with the forward march of history. Most, however, are
opportunists, lackeys, or wannabee lackeys, eager to join
the native racketeers who manage the Periphery for the
benefit of outside powers.
In the closing years of the colonial era, the nationalists
had kept a watchful eye on native informers. In recent
decades, as their power has grown several fold, this
treasonous class has received little attention from left
circles. Post-colonial critics continue to produce learned
books and essays on the language, structures, tools,
intricacies and even the arcana of Orientalism, but they pay
scant attention to native Orientalism. These critics prefer
to concentrate their firepower on the 'far enemy,' the
Western protagonists of Orientalism. Perhaps, they imagine
that the native Orientalists, the 'near enemy,' will vanish
once the 'far enemy' has been discredited. In truth, the
'near enemy' has grown enormously even as the 'far enemy'
treads more cautiously.
Quite early, writing in the 1950s, Franz Fanon, in The
Wretched of the Earth, had sounded the alarm about the
treachery latent in the 'national bourgeoisie' poised to
step into the shoes of the white colonials and settlers in
Africa. About this underdeveloped bourgeoisie, he writes,
"its mission has nothing to do with transforming the nation;
it consists, prosaically, of being the transmission line
between the nation and a capitalism, rampant though
camouflaged, which today puts on the mask of
neocolonialism."
"Because it is bereft of ideas," Fanon writes, "because it
lives to itself and cuts itself off from the people,
undermined by its hereditary incapacity to think in terms of
all the problems of the nation as seen from point of view of
the whole of that nation, the national middle class will
have nothing better to do than to take on the role of
manager for Western enterprise, and it will in practice set
up its country as the brothel of Europe." [1] Although Fanon
was not writing about Pakistan, no truer words - nothing
more prescient - could have been written about the brown
Sahibs who have managed US-Zionist interests in
Pakistan.
To return to the DT, surely some Pakistani - moved by the
instinct of self-preservation - could have produced at least
one damning monograph documenting the methods that this new
flagship of native Orientalism has employed to advance the
strategic interests of the US-Zionist confederates in
Pakistan and the Islamicate. Oddly, you are unlikely to find
even a few articles that shine the spotlight on the DT's
unabashed advocacy of the US-Zionist agenda in Pakistan.
The DT was launched in April 2002, simultaneously from
Lahore and Karachi, just a few months after the United
States had invaded and occupied Afghanistan, with
indispensable logistic support from Pakistan. Was this
timing a mere coincidence? Or was the launching of an
aggressively pro-American and pro-Zionist newspaper, led by
a team of mostly US-trained editors and columnists, an
imperative of the new geopolitics created by the Pakistan's
mercenary embrace of the US-Zionist global war against
terrorism?
Coincidence or not, the DT has served its masters with
verve. Its pages have carried countless editorials
justifying Pakistan's induction into the US led war against
Afghanistan, under the cover of the attacks of September 11.
The editors and columnists at DT have routinely excoriated
the patriots who have opposed Pakistan's surrender to
US-Zionist demands, as naïve sentimentalists unaware of the
tough demands of realpolitik. Endlessly, they have argued
that Pakistan - with the world's sixth largest population, a
million-strong military, and an arsenal of nuclear weapons -
can save itself only through eager prostration before the
demands of foreign powers.
In advocating national surrender, these native Orientalists
boldly and unashamedly declared that Pakistan's elites draw
their power from Washington, London and Tel Aviv, not from
the will of the people of Pakistan. It is an insult that has
since been sinking, slowly but surely, into the national
psyche of Pakistanis.
Taking advantage of what appeared to be - after the invasion
of Iraq in March 2003 - the irreversible US assault against
the sovereignty of Islamicate nations, Pakistan's ruling
elites openly began broaching the need to recognize Israel.
Once again, the native Orientalists at DT were leading the
charge, arguing that Pakistan could advance its national
interests by recognizing Israel. Their rationale was
pathetic in its naïveté. Grateful to Pakistan, the brown
Sahibs argued, the powerful Zionist lobby would neutralize
the Indian lobby's machinations against Pakistan in the
United States. Only determined opposition from nationalists
in Pakistan defeated this treacherous move.
When resistance against US occupation of Afghanistan gained
momentum, once again the DT was reading its master's lips.
Shut down the madrasas, they demanded; and, without delay,
attack the Pakistanis in the Federally Administered Tribal
Areas (FATA) who were supporting the Afghan resistance.
Repeated US and Pakistani bombings of the resistance groups
in Fata, which has killed thousands of civilians, called
forth new Taliban factions that have been attacking military
and civilian targets in Pakistan. With barely concealed
glee, the DT cheers when the Pakistan military carries its
war deeper into the country's towns and villages.
In 2007, when the lawyers in Pakistan took to the streets to
demand the restoration of the Chief Justice sacked by the
military dictator, the DT did not support them. Instead, it
defended the sacking, and repeatedly made the case for a
'gradual transition' to civilian rule in Pakistan. A
civilian government, they were afraid, might not be as
compliant to US pressures as Pakistan's military rulers.
When elections became unavoidable, the United States and
Pakistan's generals worked on a plan to bring to power the
pro-American Benazir Bhutto, the exiled corrupt leader of
the Pakistan People's Party. At US prodding, President
Musharraf passed an ordinance withdrawing all criminal cases
against the leadership of the PPP. With luck, the US plan
succeeded. The openly pro-American PPP followed General
Musharraf into power.
Space allows us to list only a few egregious examples of the
Orientalist mindset on display in the pages of the DT. As
the paper's chief native Orientalist, Khaled Ahmad, for
several years surveyed the foibles and follies of Pakistan's
Urdu media. He berated the benighted Urdu writers for their
naïveté, emotionalism, and foolish advocacy of national
interests that collided with realpolitik (read US-Zionist
interests). Ejaz Haider, the paper's op-ed editor,
distinguished himself by writing his endlessly clever
political commentaries in the racy street lingo of the
United States. Did this make him a darling of the American
staff at the US embassy in Islamabad?
Consider one more 'exhibit' that captures DT's servile
mentality. In a regular column, oddly titled, 'Purple
Patch,' the newspaper ladles out wisdom to its readers. This
wisdom is dispensed in the form of article-length passages
lifted from various 'great' writers, who are always of
Western provenance. Presumably, the editors at DT still
believe, with their long-dead spiritual mentor, Lord
Macaulay, that "a single shelf of a good European library
was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia."
[2]
Will the departure of Mr. Sethi and his distinguished
colleagues make a difference? I doubt if the owners of DT
will have difficulty finding their replacements, voices
equally shrill in their advocacy of foreign powers. More
than at any other time, growing numbers of Pakistanis have
been grooming themselves for service to the Empire, as their
predecessors once eagerly sought to serve the British Raj.
This groveling by Pakistan's elites will only change when
the people act to change the incentives on offer to the
servants of Empire. It will only change when the people of
Pakistan can put the servants of Empire in the dock, charge
them for their crimes against the people and the state, and
force them to disgorge their loot.
This will take hard work, and, some would insist, that this
work is underway. It daily gains momentum, and, at some
point, the will of the people will catch up with the
servants of Empire. When the 'near enemy' has been
decapitated - metaphorically speaking - the 'far enemy' too
will recede into the mists of history.
Footnotes:
[1] Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, translated by
Constance Farrington (New York: Grove Press, Inc.): 152,
154.
[2] Lord Macaulay (1800-1859) was a British historian and
Whig politician, who, while serving on the
Governor-General's Supreme Council in India, was
instrumental in persuading the British to adopt English as
the official language of India. The quote is from the
Macaulay's 'Minute of 2 February 1835 on Indian Education.'
See Thomas Babington Macaulay, Macaulay, Prose and Poetry,
selected by G. M. Young (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1957): 721-24, 29.
- M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern
University, Boston. He is author of Israeli Exceptionalism:
The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism (Palgrave Macmillan,
2009).
Occupied Palestine: [With thanks to Sis. Anisa 'Abdel Fatah.
Re: Bangla Vision]
IOF soldiers arrest fifth son of Um Bakir on Eid Day
[ 28/11/2009 - 10:13 AM ]
NABLUS, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) spoilt
the Eid joy for the Palestinian old widow Um Bakir in Nablus
on Friday and took away her fifth son to join his four
brothers in detention.
Local sources reported that large numbers of IOF soldiers
broke into the home of late Sheikh Said Bilal and savagely
searched it before taking away the only remaining son of the
family into custody.
Um Bakir told the Ahrar human rights center that Israel
wants to pressure the families of prisoners after it failed
to pressure the resistance into concluding the prisoners'
exchange deal according to its own terms.
Fuad Al-Khafsh, the center's director, denounced the
detention of Omar Bilal, who is the only son for that family
out of prison.
He explained that the eldest son Bakir has been held under
administrative custody for two years while the other son
Muaz, who has been in prison for 11 years, is serving 26
life sentences, Othman, who has served 15 years in jail, is
sentenced to life, while Obada was sentenced to ten years
and his wife was taken into custody in mid November this
year.
Now they have taken the fifth and remaining son of the
family Omar, Khafsh pointed out.
He called on the local and international media outlets to
shed light on the suffering of this Palestinian family and
to expose the criminal image of the Israeli occupation
authority.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2cOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s73T77AN66PlIBTVfjQmO8rG%2fWEN8LO8eDx0Pfj%2buu37sUfU0tT4iCOPFwN%2bx6BtWkUBBZ9T7hESHjl0dH%2foA1ezpwDtu8A%2b%2fM3zCjOIQZs%3d
2009-12-02 Wed 05:05:18 cst
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