SECOND OPINION: Myth of ‘Qadiani in the works’ -Khaled Ahmed’s Review of the Urdu press

Daily Times, Pakistan
Aug 19 2005

The Qadianis did it. The Jews did it. Why not add a few more categories
we don’t like? Why leave the Hindus out? The Urdu newspapers that
publish such statements contribute to the negative image Pakistan
has abroad. Don’t expect direct foreign investment to peak after this
piece of wisdom!

There are moments when a Pakistani Muslim plumbs the depths of his
negative side. One and all, we go cross-eyed when on the subject
of the Qadiani sect. All kinds of lies are in order. The Germans
had this kind of thing for the Jews, Iranians for Bahais, Turks for
Armenians… and one can enlist many other nations with a death-wish.

Quoted in daily Pakistan (22 July 2005) Jamiat Ulema Pakistan (JUP)
leader Qari Zawwar Bahadur said in Lahore that the London bombings
were done by the Qadianis and the Jews as a conspiracy against Islam.

He said the Qadianis and the Jews had finally come together as enemies
of Islam and their plan is to victimise the Muslims of the world. He
said the breakaway factions of his JUP would soon reunite to face
the government on local elections.

It was reported that after the death of the JUP founder Maulana
Shah Ahmad Noorani, the Lahore faction of the Noorani faction led
by Shah Faridul Haq and General (Retd) KM Azhar rebelled against the
family of Maulana Noorani now headed by son Anas Noorani and formed
a new faction.

This is killing two birds with one stone. Get the Muslims to believe
that two of their permanent enemies had done the London thing in
tandem. Sotto voce, fall on them and kill them! The Jews, alas, are
absent, but no matter. Why should the press publish such provocative
and patently mendacious material? If nothing else, think of the
trouble it can get Pakistan into.

As reported in Jang (15 July 2005) chief election commissioner Justice
Abdul Hameed announced that all candidates standing for local elections
would have to submit affidavits of Khatm-e-Nabuwwat so that no Qadiani
could avail the right of standing for elections under otherwise joint
electorates. Non-Muslims are allowed but not Qadianis. The affidavit
denounces the apostatised sect.

Let the MMA come to power, then we will have a few others on the banned
list. In actuality, the Shias and the Ismailis are next. No election
commission can be really proud of making announcements like the above.

Columnist Irfan Siddiqi wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt (21 July 2005) that
Saad Saud Jan who died in Lahore was born in Lahore and became
additional sessions judge in the city in 1961 as a CSP officer. He
was a judge who refused to be drawn out into the social circuit. He
helped significantly in the drafting of the 1973 Constitution. He
became judge of the Lahore High Court in due course of time and was
the senior-most judge in the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 1994 when
chief justice of the Court Justice, Nasim Hassan Shah, retired.

Justice Jan was not a favourite of the PPP after he had refused to
‘cooperate’ a number of times at the request of the PPP’s senior
politicians including President Leghari. Law minister after 1993,
Iqbal Haider, already had chosen to elevate Justice Qadeer, a junior
judge. Prime minister Benazir Bhutto asked law secretary Justice
Sheikh Riaz Hussain to give her a list of the senior-most judges of
the Supreme Court, but when the list was given, the senior most judge
Saad Saud Jan was excluded. The list comprised Abdul Qadeer Chaudhry,
Ajmal Mian and Sajjad Ali Shah. The last named was made chief justice.

Justice Saad Saud Jan who was retired as acting chief justice received
the pension of a chief justice till his demise; Chief Justice Sajjad
Ali Shah, who was unseated in 1997, receives the pension of a mere
Supreme Court judge. Why was Justice Jan denied his rights? This
needs to be investigated.

The crux of the injustice meted out to Justice Jan was the rumour on
which the PPP relied: that he was a Qadiani. One unspoken rule of
this nazism is that if someone denies being one, then he really is
one! Justice Jan’s greatness stands whether he was one or not. Some
of our worst-reputed judges were not Qadianis. All the great judges
were either Christian or Parsi! On a lighter note, an honest ban on
Sunni judges would be in order.

Speaking to Nawa-e-Waqt, (20 July 2005) a group of great Islamic
scholars of Lahore, including Sarfraz Naeemi of Jamia Naimiyya,
Maulana Abdur Rehman Makki of Jamaat Dawa, Pir Saifullah, Maulana
Nusrat Ali Shahani, Maulana Abdul Malik and others, said that Tony
Blair’s popularity was failing therefore he arranged the 7/7 London
bombings to unite his voters. They said that 9/11 too was a plan to
grab the Muslim states; and Musharraf was committing a blunder by
supporting Bush.

If one is looking for the process that creates suicide-bombers in
Pakistan, here it is in full view. Many of us take it to be the froth
that sticks to the beards of our holy men, but unfortunately some
youths take them quite seriously.

According to Khabrain, (20 July 2005) head of the journalism department
in Punjab University, Dr Mughisuddin said that new terrorism was
being spread in the name of ending terrorism. He said it was never
found out as to who was responsible for the 9/11 act of terrorism in
the United States.

Much has been published about the boys who did 9/11. Their families
have been interviewed, their friends interrogated and their social
backgrounds minutely screened. Muhammad Atta’s father in Egypt accepts
that his son led the attack. He says what happened on 9/11 will happen
again. Before 9/11 Atta’s father was quite secular in life. After 9/11,
he changed into an America-hater.

Quoted in daily Pakistan (21 July 2005) MMA leaders said in a
meeting in Lahore that 7/7 bombings in London were organised by
the Jews just like the bombings of 9/11 in America. JUP leader Mufti
Hidayatullah said that Pakistan was being run by the slaves of America
and Britain. Jamaat’s Lahore leader Hafiz Salman Butt said that the
West had put the label of Islam on terrorism.

The Jews did it. Why not add a few more categories we don’t like? Why
leave the Hindus out? The Urdu newspapers that publish such statements
contribute to the negative image Pakistan has abroad.

Don’t expect direct foreign investment to peak after this piece of
wisdom! *