Kafir Production: The skill we mastered through seven decades of independence
The most frequently heard word in the streets of Pakistan, saloons, pan shops and mostly in any kind of mosque is “kaafir” (heretic). Pakistanis are obsessed with the word so much that it has become part of our legislative constitution in 1974 saga in our history.it is the word that have been hurled to me the day I started to become conscious of the very illogical things happening around in our culture, the day when I was declared an outcast, an infidel ironically for not labeling someone an heretic. As someone who is born in a Sunni Muslim Family It was whole like the paradoxical experience of hall of mirrors to the new level.
The death of Quaid-e-Azam parallel to every other political death in our country is an enigmatic mystery still unraveled, i feel if the ambulance of Quaid-e-Azam was to head from quetta today,it would be stopped and Mohammad ali Jinnah would be asked about his national identity card (NIC) and if the identity of what sect he belong to gets revealed, maybe he would not get alive at the first place.it has always been the rightist Vs leftist on “Quaid-e-Azam wanted theological or modernist model for Pakistan”, I do not know what type of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam wanted or envisioned but certainly we all can agree on that it would not be something which the country has become now.
When you fill form of your identity card to certify the love for your country, you are asked a question that no Muslim in any of the Muslim majority country is asked, you are not asked that your mental health is stable or not? , are you physically alright or not? are you a thief or smuggler ? do you pay taxes or not? do you consider Jinnah as quaid e azam or kaafir e azam? do you send your children to school or to signals to beg? do you want shariah law or socialism ? you are not even asked to prove that you are not hindu,christain or Buddhist but in the form which we are filling for 35 years you are only asked to clarify that “I am not Ahamdi (qadyani) and I do not belong to their Lahore sect as well since they are Kaafirs “.
Ordinance xx of the constitution of Pakistan says
“ Any person of the Qadiani group or the Lahori group who call themselves ‘Ahmadis’ or by any other name who by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation-refers to, or names, or calls, his place of worship a “Masjid”; shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine.
Any person of the Qadiani group or the Lahori group (who call themselves ‘Ahmadis’ or by any other name), who directly or indirectly, poses himself as a Muslim, or calls, or refers to, his faith as Islam, or preaches or propagates his faith, or invites others to accept his faith, by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representations, or in any manner whatsoever outrages the religious feelings of Muslims shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine.”
We are so frightened that we not only call the sect “kaafirs” but “more worse than worse kaafirs”.The thing to ponder over is that There is no country in the world which have declared any sect as “kaafirs” and if they all start to continue this despicable and horrible practice I am not sure any sect would remain within the tenets of Muslimanity. I remember an attack on Ahmadi mosque in Lahore years back and the attackers were young brainwashed kids and I belive as young they were they wouldn’t be aware of the fact that the same people were Muslims 35 years back.
Quaid-e-Azam as a politican has said many different things but as a student of Science one thing that struck me before the partition was “ we want our country to be the laboratory where we can experiment Islamic values”. When an experiment gets successful then the production spreads on macro level. When we nailed it on our first experiment of creating new kaafirs it all did not stop there, in the decades of 80s and 90s every mosque was echoed by “Kaafir kaafir shia kaafir” and the shia doctors, teachers, intellectuals were picked and killed so viciously that even Ahmadis would have said “ Thank God at-least we are not shias”. After these years now the business of creating kaafirs has been so widespread that for everyone who calls themselves a Muslim there are at least two or more Muslims who considers them kaafirs.
When we sign or thumb the form of identity card and label someone kaafir, simultaneously we open the door for a fatwa to be hurled to us as well,because the people who died in all the attacks on their mosques were “worst kaafirs “ in our eyes the prayers of resting their soul in peace is also an act of kufr but one can pray that “God saves the rest”.
orignally published on Nayaduar
