Extremism: How Pakistan lost its way

But can you get a job with that education?

In the years since September 11, 2001 Pakistan has found itself in the international spotlight time and time again. It should come as no surprise then that Pakistan is once again the focus of media attention. This is the country where al-Qaida leaders Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh were found. It is also the country where Daniel Pearl was murdered. Usama bin Laden is widely believed to be hiding here. And most recently it was the country that denied a woman the right to travel and had her put under house arrest after she had been raped in order to prevent her from sullying the good reputation of Pakistan.

In the weeks following the attacks in London Pakistan is in the news yet again. Three of the four London bombers were of Pakistani origin and had visited Pakistan last November, one of them having studied at a madrasa. While there is certainly nothing sinister in merely traveling to Pakistan or studying at a madrasa (in Pakistan), what is troubling is the claim made by an al-Qaida operative in American custody, Mohammad Junad Babar, that he took London bomber Siddique Khan to an al-Qaida training camp.

How and why Pakistan became the nexus for terrorists is the work of various agencies and governments that actively sought out Muslim men and inculcated a doctrine of religiously permissible and mandated violence. As long these men were fighting the USSR nary a person complained, but after its fall the attention of these men, then known as the mujahidin, turned towards America and Britain. Pakistan has not been neglected from this “blowback” either: multiple assassination attempts on President Musharraf, and on Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, are evidence that Pakistan also is a target.

It was only after the attacks of September 11, 2001 that renewed attention found itself on Islam after having ignored it since the Iranian revolution of 1979. The enemy then was Imami Shi’i-ism and it is now Sunni Islam. The fact is that there is indeed a double standard when it comes to viewing Islam in Western eyes; after all, the IRA attacks were never dubbed as “Catholic terror.” But Islam is fair game. This should not, however, diminish from another fact – that our religious community contains fanatics who should be identified as a fringe element. Unfortunately, there are those amongst us those who feel that such terrorist attacks, as in London, Beslan, Madrid, and elsewhere are sanctioned by Islam. This is the result of the perversion of our faith towards political aims in dispelling the USSR from Afghanistan, the creation of what is now called “radical Islam.”

The recent raiding of madaris is then perhaps a step in the right direction, since many of them were founded with the explicit purpose of indoctrination such that its students would then fight the USSR. Another class of madaris graduates went on to create the Taliban and implemented their particular religious interpretations on an entire nation by force. Much has been made of the Hisbah bill and deservedly so as it seeks similar intrusions into the public sphere as the Taliban sought. The supporters of the Hisbah bill must understand that Pakistan will neither be changed overnight nor by law into some Islamic utopia.

The perpetrators of the attacks in London also seek some utopian solution for the woes of the Muslim ummah, they would have us believe that they speak out in “our name,” in the name of Muslims the world over. The “solution” of these criminals has certainly provided an easy exit for themselves, they cannot be held responsible for their action. But for those of us who are the supposed beneficiaries of such criminal acts they have led to a state of dystopia as we are now made to bear the collective guilt of the actions of zealots.

In these days of increasing global violence we feel powerless as to the actions of our co-religionists and a growing disdain for religion. There are those who claim to speak out with violence in the name of our religion for the supposed benefit of you and me. We all know someone who fits the caricatured image of the now pejorative “mullah.” But this has been of our own making – we simply have not done enough, we have left those men that are simply bearded, or turbaned to speak on our behalf as supposed religious authorities. For generations Pakistanis, as a collective society, have chosen those individuals that we recognize to be the least intelligent amongst us to entrust with our religion. What more can we expect now that there are religious authorities – and I use the word loosely – that support the actions of the fringe? Those that use violence in this century are ignorant that this is the century of ideas and unless we can articulate ourselves in the global vernacular we are surely lost. In our current day and age, were al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, Rumi, or even Muhammad Iqbal born in Pakistan they invariably would have either been doctors or engineers; we would have felt that if they studied the religious sciences they were less than competent. We would have asked them what the “scope” is in doing so and debated the merits of their chosen path.

Let the attacks of London then make clear the dire need and urgency for the Iqbals and al-Ghazalis of this century. Let us renew the tradition that allowed Islam to flourish for centuries and seek out those that are the brightest amongst us with the thing that is most valuable to us, our faith, and let them articulate on our behalf what we already know – that is a faith of compassion and mercy and abhors violence.

Faisal Ghori graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley where he studied history and Islamic studies.