Twirp : Terrorist Wahabi Islamic Republic Pakistan 2

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->... two suicide attackers blew themselves up Thursday outside the entry gates of Pakistan’s largest military munitions plant, the police and hospital officials said<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Obviously this wasnt very well planned. The plant is intact with only 70 injured. Why is it that terrorists attacks on paki infrastructure don't really cause any damage?

[G.Subramaniam]

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/petition...-hadith-reform/

Petition for Hadith Reform
Introduction

There are millions of Muslims who wish only to live in peace with their non-Muslim neighbors. Unfortunately, they are condemned and marginalized by Islamic jihadists who take their justifications for violence straight from core Islamic texts such as the hadith, or sayings of the Prophet, which were compiled 200 years after his death. In particular, they cite the following hadith, attributed to Mohammed, to justify their genocidal attitudes toward Jews:

“The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla [slave of Allah], there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.’

(related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).[1]

This hadith is approvingly quoted in the Charter of the terrorist group Hamas, which declares that it “aspires to the realization of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take.” What promise is Hamas referring to? The promise that the Day of Judgment will come when Muslims exterminate the Jews.

Hamas is not alone in citing hadith as a justification for religious slaughter. Across the Internet and the world, Muslim leaders and activists cite genocidal precedents from the life of Muhammad himself – as depicted in canonical hadith — to justify their actions today.

This must stop. We respectfully appeal to Islamic reformers and to those who claim that Islam is a religion of peace — chief among them the Muslim Students Association — to disavow such calls to genocide. The Turkish government has shown that it is possible to reform the hadith. It has appointed a commission to “reconsider” such murderous texts so as to “bring out the positive side of Islam that promotes personal honor, human rights, justice, morality, women’s rights, respect for the other.”
Petition for Hadith Reform

Whereas every human being has a right to life;

Whereas every human being has a right to just and equitable treatment before the law;

Whereas the equality of dignity and rights of women with men is a universal human right;

Whereas the freedom of conscience is likewise a universal human right;

Whereas these human rights and others are contravened daily by Islamic jihadists acting, by their own account, in accord with the words and example of Muhammad as recorded in the canonical hadith;

Whereas the genocide of the Jews is called for in a hadith understood by many Muslims as authoritative and echoes through sermons in some mosques today, and is proclaimed by certain leaders of the Islamic religion;

Whereas Catholicism and other Christian denominations have condemned the Holocaust and repudiated anti-Jewish pronouncements that have stained their religious past;
We call on the Muslim Students Association to:

* Condemn and repudiate the hadith which reads: “The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time [of judgment] will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!” (Sahih Muslim book 41, no. 6985);
* Condemn and repudiate all other a hadith that teach Islamic supremacism, the subjugation of non-Muslims under the rule of Islamic law, and the subjugation of women.
* Affirm:
1. The right of all people to live in freedom and dignity
2. The freedom of the individual conscience: to change religions or have no religion at all
3. The equal dignity of women and men
4. The right of all people to live free from violence, intimidation, and coercion

[ramana]

GS, I had a question for you in the Real IQ thread. Can you please look it up? ramana

[Naresh]

<b>Security fears: South Africa not to participate in Champions Trophy</b>

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->JOHANNESBURG: South Africa cricket board has withdrawn its name from the participants of the ICC Champions Trophy due to continued security situation in Pakistan.

It announced Friday that it would not send a team to the Champions Trophy tournament in Pakistan next month.

<b>They are the first country officially to boycott the tournament, which has been mired in controversy over security concerns.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Bhutto's party nominates Zardari for Pakistan presidency</b> ISLAMABAD, Aug 22 (AFP) - Lawmakers from the party of slain former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto on Friday unanimously nominated her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, to run for president, information minister Sherry Rehman told reporters in Islamabad. “Zardari thanked Pakistan People's Party of which he is the co-chairman and said he will announce his decision within the next 24 hours,” Sherry Rehman said. She said party members unanimously nominated Zardari as their presidential candidate during a meeting of the grouping's central executive committee. “Zardari thanked party members for their gesture and promised to look into their request,” she added. “Presidency is the right of our party and that is why party lawmakers asked Zardari to run for this post,” Rehman said. (First Posted @ 21:05 PST Updated @ 21:46 PST)
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Damn, Italian Queen missed this coup in India.

[G.Subramaniam]

<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+Aug 22 2008, 10:22 PM-->QUOTE(ramana @ Aug 22 2008, 10:22 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->GS, I had a question for you in the Real IQ thread. Can you please look it up? ramana
[right][snapback]86887[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


Yes, and look at the IQ thread, I posted an answer

G.S

[Naresh]

[center]<b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>Pakistan looking forward to $10b bailout by Saudia, China</span></b>[/center]

<b><i>Ongoing negotiations with IMF being dragged</i>

Negotiations with IMF which commenced last week for a US$10 billion bailout package for Islamabad are expected to remain inconclusive as Pakistan is set to seek direct help from Saudi Arabia and China.

The negotiations are being held by a couple of IMF officials who met Pakistani economic managers in a process of charting out an expression of interest for the bailout package.</b>

“We are making all out efforts to prevent a drift toward an IMF-assisted bailout that would obviously cause more difficulties as it would be governed by strings that are hard to fulfil,” said a senior Pakistani official involved in the talks.

The crisis deepened last month as the foreign exchange reserves dwindled while rising import bill has become the most daunting for the public finance heads in Islamabad.

<b>In 2008 Pakistan happens to be the only country facing the threat of being downgraded by the international rating companies from the present B-1 status in its import-export balancing effort and making on-time payments due in foreign exchange to the international exporting companies.</b>

A committee of experts currently working out a bailout package and keeping a tight lid on the actual situation is busy framing a strategy on war footing. It is reportedly framing up a ‘suggestion’ to the federal policymakers to approach Saudi Arabia and China for a $10 billion package split by 6-4 respectively.

Pleading anonymity, The News sources revealed that next Monday would be the critical date fixed for meetings at the Federal Cabinet’s Committee overseeing the strategy formation in this respect. “That is going to be the day when this country would have to decide as to how the two countries would be submitted with an agenda for the loan, and on what terms,” said a senior official.

“There is a consensus evolved in these meetings on averting a drift back to the IMF mechanizations. A week ago, some of the IMF officials did visit Islamabad to offer a package, and it was a soft-mark up deal. Its tranche-payment mechanism was attractive too, as the Fund seemed ready to release $500 million every month, which is close to what the actual requirement over the current financial year’s 12-month period would be. But the strings attached would be too harsh to meet,” said the official.

When asked to provide details on these strings and the bailout package split between Saudi Arabia and China, he said: “I am not supposed to handout half-cooked measures. But the main idea is that Saudi Arabia should be offering a deferred-payment scheme for the current fiscal year on provision of petroleum products imported from that country. It should be a 12-month scheme covered by assurances that the products would be used to keep the prices stable and no further loans would be acquired from other internal or external sources against the facility thus extended, which is not a harsh string.”

<b>From China, he said, a $4 billion offer is expected, and negotiations in this respect would be brisk, as <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>“the crunch has begun telling too adversely to sustain any further.”</span> This money would be available in tranches of $500 million each, once agreed upon.</b>

Explaining the IMF strings, he said the Fund would like Islamabad to immediately stop subsidizing the oil, electricity, gas and food items. “That would mean an immediate jump in the inflationary trend, which would directly be impacting the export-production lines, which is not acceptable to Pakistan.”

Apart from this, IMF would also like to bind the tranche release to reappraisal of the reforms conducted in the economic-management structure of Pakistan over the past few years.

On their part, the committee’s members have been suffering from acute lack of orientation as far as identifying the actual nature and handling of the crisis is concerned. At one point the committee was about to churn out the formula for stopping imports of non-critical items, which are other wise a good source of revenues, prevent smuggling and, if banned, would help save only about $48 million in payments a month. This formula is expected to be rejected as wiser heads meet next Monday, the source added.

Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[acharya]

Ousting Pervez Musharraf may not save Pakistan
Neither keeping Mushy will save Pakistan
The country's new rulers face a terrorist threat that could destroy their troubled nation after President Musharraf resigned before he was impeached.


By Nick Meo and Massoud Ansari in Islamabad
Last Updated: 11:51PM BST 23 Aug 2008

Maqbool Illahi, a scowling young fundamentalist, was celebrating the departure of President Pervez Musharraf and looking forward to the day when the Taliban takes over Pakistan and hangs the former military dictator.

"<b><span style='color:red'>Musharraf was a curse on our country. He was a friend of America and an enemy of Islam</b></span>," Mr Illahi said, jabbing his finger in the air as a crowd of bearded young men on the fringe of a rally in Islamabad nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

"He will be accountable for his crimes in the next world, and in this one too, I hope. He has done the work of the unbeliever and killed so many innocent Muslims."

Many Pakistanis, and not only Taliban supporters, agree with Mr Illahi about the general, who resigned last week before he could be impeached.

Even among the moderate middle class that grew in number and prosperity during Gen Musharraf's nine years in office there are those who believe that the man they nicknamed "Busharraf" should face the death penalty – particularly for ordering the military operation at the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad last year.

The official death toll from the operation against militants holed up in the mosque in the heart of the capital was 100, but the true figure is widely believed to have been far higher and to have included many women and children.

As the politicians squabbled over what to do with the disgraced military dictator over the past few days, bloody new fighting broke out on the Afghan border and the Pakistani Taliban sent a suicide bomber to kill 80 workers at a munitions factory just outside Islamabad. These developments raised a disturbing question as the celebrations over Mr Musharraf's departure faded: can Pakistan's new rulers cope with the terrorism that threatens to destroy their troubled nation?

Western diplomats in Islamabad privately fear that they cannot and so do many Pakistanis.

Retired Lt Gen Talat Masood said: "The army is determined to continue with the war against militants but it can only be won with political backing, to convince the people that it is their war and not America's. But the politicians are deeply engrossed in their own problems, and if they continue to fight each other on these issues, then I'm afraid they won't be able to apply themselves fully to deal with the war on terror.

"The militants could take advantage of political
instability."

The problems that Pakistan's new rulers face are daunting: an inflation rate of 25 per cent, frequent suicide bombs, appalling government services including dire schools, and no control over a huge swathe of territory along the mountainous Afghan border that has become a sanctuary for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Questions about the future bring a despairing shrug, and many fear that the malaise may be just too deep to save Pakistan.

Baz Muhammed Kakar, a lawyer who was jailed by Mr Musharraf, was not impressed by the new civilian rulers. He said: "The system is the same. You see new faces in power but nothing more.

"The state has failed in Pakistan – if people want to do anything here, they have to do it for themselves."

For the West there is a suspicion that Pakistani military and intelligence figures are helping terrorists in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, including those attacking British troops. The CIA confronted Pakistan last month about links between its intelligence agency and the Taliban after a suicide bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul – an unprecedented step that indicated America's growing concern. Minds are concentrated by the arsenal of about 60 nuclear weapons, said to be under the firm control of new army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani, for now at least.
<b>
In private, Western diplomats express deep fears. One said: "Washington is asking what the hell is going to happen to the war on terror? Insurgency is like a disease now in Pakistan. It is spreading outside the tribal areas and the signs are that it is going to be messy for some time to come. The concerns are where do we go from here, and how do we deal with those guys who are hiding out in Pakistan and hitting our soldiers in Afghanistan?"</b>

The man who is almost certain to step into Mr Musharraf's shoes after a vote for president on September 6 by Pakistan's MPs and regional assembly members, Asif Ali Zardari, has told The Sunday Telegraph that he is determined to continue the fight against terrorism.

His wife, Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister at the head of the Pakistan People's Party which he now leads, was assassinated by terrorists last year. Mr Zardari is said to be a changed man from the so-called Mr Ten Per Cent who was accused of corruption, which he has always denied, and spent years in jail during the 1990s.

Mr Zardari has insisted that he will continue to fight extremists, including the Tehrik-e-Taliban (Pakistani Taliban) which has taken over a huge area of the nation's territory during the past decade. He has also promised a new approach to bolster the army's sagging morale and growing civilian disillusionment.

Mr Zardari told The Sunday Telegraph: "The war is on our soil and our boys are dying. We will defend our land, we are tough on extremism, but we need to have democratic wisdom rather than a martial mindset. It is in our interest that this war on Pakistan is won by us."

But in the four months since the most recent parliamentary elections, Islamabad's civilian leaders have spent much of their time fighting each other and arguing over whether to put Mr Musharraf on trial. The general's most likely fate is exile in the empty palace in Saudi Arabia which was home to Nawaz Sharif, the civilian prime minister whom he pushed out of power. It would be a delicious political irony that most Pakistanis would savour. Now Mr Sharif, once a tainted figure but also apparently reborn as a politician, is back in Islamabad leading the second biggest party in the shaky ruling coalition.

Divisions and bitter personal feuds mean nobody expects it to last much longer than a few months or even weeks, although that may not matter to Mr Zardari once he has been elected president.

But in the thriving shopping bazaars of Islamabad, which are much better stocked than when the general seized power for a middle-class clientele which is bigger and richer and more assertive, hope can still be found.

Taimor Javed, the 20-year-old manager of the Sha Posh ladies' shalwar khameez shop, said: "So many things have gone wrong, but it was
demonstrations by the people that got rid of Musharraf.
And that gives our country a new chance."

Additional reporting: Victoria Schofield in Islamabad

[acharya]

Pak. govt. 'most incompetent': Imran

London (PTI): Terming the PPP-led coalition government as "most incompetent" in Pakistan's history, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has said the country's situation will deteriorate further if Asif Ali Zardari becomes its President.

"The economy is heading towards a meltdown. There is no way Pakistan can win this prolonged war against militants, and this government is the most incompetent in our history," Khan, chief of Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) Party, told the Sunday Telegraph.

"In these circumstances, this government is not going to last long. For the next six months I would predict you should hang on to your seatbelt. There is going to be a lot of turbulence ahead," he said.

He claimed that the country is facing the prospects of a civil war and Zardari, poised to be country's President, is incapable of dealing with the troubled nation's economic and security problems.

Khan derided Zardari as 'Musharraf Mark II - another American puppet".
<span style='color:red'><b>
"If the government persists with a very unpopular American policy of fighting terrorism there could be anarchy and destabilisation. Under Musharraf it was heading towards civil war, and with Zardari I think the deterioration could happen more quickly," he said</b>.</span>

Khan warned that grave trouble could lie further in the future because of growing anger among the young in the tribal areas over Pakistani military action against Islamists - a battle that many Pakistanis regard as being carried out on America's orders.

"The war on terror has radicalised moderate people who in the past would have had no truck with the Talibans," he added.

[Guest]

Today Nawaz will decide whether to stick with Zardari. I think coup will happen very soon.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Cricket: Champions Trophy postponed until 2009</b> LONDON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Next month's Champions Trophy in Pakistan has been postponed, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said on Sunday. “The ICC Board today agreed unanimously to postpone the ICC Champions Trophy...until October 2009,” the world governing body said in a statement. <b>“Pakistan will retain the right to host the tournament but it was agreed that if other members continued to express reservations over issues of safety and security then the ICC Board would have the right to decide about the tournament's location,”</b> the statement added. The decision followed a teleconference of the ICC's executive board. ICC president David Morgan said in the statement: “There was complete support and sympathy for the Pakistan Cricket Board and the situation it finds itself in, which is not of its making. “However, there was also a realisation that, under the current circumstances, some of the teams due to compete in the ICC Champions Trophy had reservations about touring there which could not be removed. “In those circumstances it was considered prudent to postpone the event to October 2009, a time when we all hope conditions may be more acceptable for all the competing teams.” <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pak. govt. 'most incompetent': Imran<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
same is with twin brother INDIA.

[Naresh]

[center]<b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>Taleban winning war, says Zardari</span></b>[/center]

<b>The Pakistani Taleban have "the upper hand" and should be put on the list of banned organisations in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto's widower has said.

Asif Ali Zardari said, in a BBC interview, that the world and Pakistan were losing the war on terror.</b>

"It is an insurgency", he said, "and an ideological war. It is our country and we will defend it.

<b>Asif Ali Zardari says the Taleban has the upper hand : Click for Video</b>

"The world is losing the war. I think at the moment they (the Taleban) definitely have the upper hand.

"The issue, which is not just a bad case scenario as far as Pakistan is concerned or as Afghanistan is concerned but it is going to be spreading further. The whole world is going to be affected by it."

Mr Zardari's strong remarks came shortly after the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) put his name forward as its presidential nominee.

[center]<img src='http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44956000/jpg/_44956027_zardari226bafp.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<b>Asif Ali Zardari took over the party leadership after his wife's assassination</b>[/center]

The president is elected by the members of parliament and the four provincial assemblies, and Mr Zardari says he is confident he has the numbers he needs to win on 6 September.

Asif Zardari spent more than a decade in prison on murder and corruption charges but he insisted that the cases had failed because they were politically motivated.

He also dismissed reports that the Swiss authorities were still considering whether they should pursue a money-laundering case against him there.

Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Aug 24 2008, 11:16 PM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Aug 24 2008, 11:16 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Today Nawaz will decide whether to stick with Zardari. I think coup will happen very soon.
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Pakistan ruling alliance collapses as Sharif pulls out

[Guest]

<b>Pakistan ruling alliance collapses as Sharif pulls out</b>

Countdown for coup started. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Naresh]

<b>Mudy Ji & Viren Ji :</b>

As Kiyanahin is from Pakjab it is most likely that he will support Nawaz Sherif rather than the “make believe” Sindhi i.e. the Balochistani Mr. Thirty Per Cent!

<b>Most Important :</b> The Pakistanis have asked Saudi Arabia for USD Six Billion Credit Facility for payment of Oil from Saudi Arabia during the present year.

As such with Saudi Support of Nawaz Sherif Mr. Thirty Per Cent might become Mr. Zero Per Cent.

Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Guest]

Army will try to join 30% to BB.
Unkle is supporting Zardari till they find another, Nawaz is not in that list. Kiyani will support Nawaz and Choudries of Punjab. But who knows Kiyani may be inline to recieve first crop of Apple crate. Mushy is still in Pakistan.
Things are little bit complicated, I think we may see some new guy, real unkle puppet. Saudis are time pass. But they love Nawaz because he gave them H&D after N-test.

[Naresh]

<b>Mudy Ji :</b>

I think the Pakjabis are getting together and will get help from the JUI :

<b>1. JUI finds it hard to keep coalition with PPP : Fazal</b>

PESHAWAR: Jamiaat-E-Ulemai Islam chief Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman has said on Monday that Asif Ali Zardari’s remarks regarding PPP-PML-N agreements have developed new situation of non-trust, adding JUI now find it difficult to keep the coalition with the PPP.

He was talking to media persons during visit to relief camps set up in Peshawar.

Rehman expressed his concerns over remarks of Asif Ali Zardari about political agreements signed with the PML-N. It was his message to all political powers of the country, he commented.

Meeting of JUI’s Central Working Committee has been called to review the present situation, he said, adding Asif Ali Zardari will be asked to explain his position with the JUI.

JUI chief further said JUI would neither vote nor oppose resolution to be tabled in NWFP Assembly on Zardari’s election as president.

About PML-N, he said his party has nothing against Nawaz league. “Our party was made part of ruling coalition on the condition that operation in tribal areas would be stopped,” Rehman said.

He demanded that government should hold talks to resolve issues in this regard.

<b>2. PML (Q) to support PML (N)’s Ghous Ali Shah : Mushahid</b>

Monday 25th August, 2008

ISLAMABAD: PML (Q) has announced to support PML (N) conditionally, if they nominated Ghous Ali Shah as the proposed presidential candidate.

Sources informed here on Monday that during a telephonic conversation with Secretary General PML (Q) senator Mushahid Hussain, senior vice president PML (N) Javed Hashmi exchanged views on ongoing political situation and the presidential polls.

During the telephonic conversation Mushahid Hussain assured Javed Hashmi that PML (Q) would support PML (N), if they bring forth Syed Qaim Ali Shah as their presidential candidate.

<b>Mudy Ji :</b> If Kiyanahin joins them then I thnk Zardari may well be on his way out!

Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Mudy Ji : If Kiyanahin joins them then I thnk Zardari may well be on his way out!<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Unkle will block this effort. JUI won't go well with Unkle. That is why I think Kiyani may receive first crop of Apple crate.
Either Kiyani take over or Unkle will find new puppet.
Whole region is going thru major influx.

[ramana]

Something to think about.
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X-post
<!--QuoteBegin-"Paul"+-->QUOTE("Paul")<!--QuoteEBegin-->
BRFite

Joined: 25 Jun 1999 06:01 am
Posts: 584  Another nugget that has come out in recent days: in the clash between the Sikhs led by Budh Singh and Syed Ahmed Barlevi in the NWFP areas in 1830s, Barelvi was betrayed by the Durrani Pushtuns who were uncomfortable at the prospect of this hot headed fanatic disrupting their cosy arrangements with the Sikh rulers........so much for the propaganda that Pukhtuns have never been defeated by anyone.

The Brits picked up on this idea and subverted it for their convenience.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
<b>Jihad and retribalisation in Pakistan - Ayesha Jalal’s new book</b>
Jump to Comments
This is an important book. We are posting another review by Khaled Ahmed here. This review also cites some revealing passages..

BOOK REVIEW: Jihad and retribalisation in Pakistan

Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia
By Ayesha Jalal
Sang-e-Meel Publications, Lahore 2008
Pp373: Price Rs 695
Available at bookstores in Pakistan

Not far from Balakot, the votaries of the Sayyid are fighting on the side of Al Qaeda against ‘imperialist’ America and its client state, Pakistan, and killing more Muslims in the process than Americans, just as the Sayyid killed more Muslims than he killed Sikhs

Ayesha Jalal studies <b>the jihad of Sayyid Ahmad Shaheed (1786-1831) in India as the most immaculate articulation of the theory of jihad in Islam.</b> <b>Sayyid Ahmad </b>may have conceived his holy war against East India Company while living in Rai Bareilly in the central region of northern India, but he <b>moved his warriors to where Pakistan’s North Western Frontier (NWFP) province is today because he thought that the Pashtun living in the tribal areas under non-Muslim Sikh occupation were better Muslims than the settled Muslims of the plains.</b>

Here was <b>the first indication that Islamic utopia could be constructed more easily in a tribal society. He probably wanted to take on the British after creating a mini-state on the pattern of Madina in the NWFP and probably hoped to reform the contaminated Muslims of the plains as a means of enhancing his challenge to the British.</b> Al Qaeda too discovered the Pashtun straddling the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan as the tribal matrix where an Islamic utopia would grow into a centre of the global caliphate devoted to reforming and uniting Muslims living unhappily as subjects of today’s nation-states.

Sayyid Ahmad was feared by Muslims in the urban centres of India and was wrongly called a Wahhabi — a negative term pointing to the intimidation and violence associated with Saudi Islam — <b>because they thought he would use ‘retribalisation’ as a method of returning them to the true faith.</b> Pakistan fears Al Qaeda and its Pashtun foot soldiers as it sees the same kind of process in evidence under what is called Talibanisation.

Historian Ayesha Jalal has a fair claim to knowing the various communal narratives of Muslim India, as proved in her 2000 monumental work Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850. One can say that her latest book on Jihad has grown out of this earlier work and that her identification of one of the most ideologically ‘explained’ holy wars in the 19th century India is intended to understand the location of Al Qaeda inside Pakistan’s Tribal Areas in the 21st century. She writes on page 16:

<b>‘The geographic focal point of the jihad of 1826 to 1831 on the northwest frontier of the subcontinent corresponds to the nerve centre of the current confrontation between Islamic radicals and the West.</b> The jihad movement directed primarily against the Sikhs was transmuted in the course of the war into a conflict pitting Muslim against Muslim. This feature of intrafaith conflict in a jihad as armed struggle has not diminished its appeal for contemporary militants, who evidence many of the same failings that undermined Sayyid Ahmad’s high ideals. The martyrdom of those who fell at Balakot continues to weave its spell, making it imperative to investigate the myth in its making’.

The story goes like this. <b>Sayyid Ahmad, convinced of his own semi-divinity and admired by a large number of followers for his exact adherence to Islam, marched from Rai Bareilly in Central India in 1826 in the direction of the north-western city of Peshawar with a an ‘army’ of 600 local Muslims optimistically posing as warriors. The aim was to establish an Islamic state on the land of the Pashtun.</b> As he meandered through the various regions of India and Afghanistan, he was greeted by Muslim rulers not very keen to support him in his jihad. <b>But in Kandahar, 200 Pashtun warriors joined him, clearly in expectation of the loot which jihad in their view brought in its wake. Some Yusufzai tribesmen, irritated by Sikh rule, also joined his lashkar.</b>

If he thought he was walking into a ‘people’ of uniform views, he was mistaken. <b>The Durrani Pashtun of Peshawar were not particularly enthusiastic about his movement. Scared of the internecine Pashtun warfare, they had become allies of the Sikhs and paid tribute to them.

In the first engagement with the Sikh army near Peshawar Sayyid Ahmad suffered a defeat because his soldiers took to looting after the first attack and thereby allowed the Sikhs to regroup and attack again. The next battle at Hazro met with the same fate: the Pashtun warriors took to looting before the battle was won and failed to gain decisive edge later on. The warriors fought over the spoils of war and the various groups carried off what they thought was their share, no one listening to the Sayyid.

The lure of loot attracted 80,000 more local warriors to his lashkar which now became an army. At the battle of Shaidu, the warriors of Islam outnumbered the army of Budh Singh, the general who represented the suzerain Maharaja of Lahore, Ranjit Singh. This time a part of the Islamic army refused to fight, and the Durranis actually poisoned the Sayyid fearing his growing spiritual power, and let him be defeated as their imam. Weakened by poisoning, he nevertheless sought solace in marrying an Ismaili girl as his third wife.</b> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->: <i>A RAPE trait/Paki gens used to have a good time in their bunkers with women in 1971 while their trrops were suffering direct hots from Indian arty</i>

As author Jalal points out, the parallels are shockingly close. Sayyid Ahmad’s main objective was the expulsion of the British from India (p.70). Osama bin Laden’s foray into Pakistan is also a phase in his jihad against America. Sayyid Ahmad was under pressure from the puritans of the faith from India to first wage war against the ‘Muslim infidels’ and for this he had to enforce sharia on the Pashtun population of Hazara which was under his military control:

‘The scope of the laws was broadly defined to include the compulsory enforcement of Islamic injunctions relating to prayers and fasting, as well as a ban on usury, polygamy, consumption of wine, distribution of a deceased man’s wife and children among his brothers, and involvement in family feuds. Anyone transgressing the sharia after swearing allegiance to Sayyid Ahmad was to be treated as a sinner and a rebel. Any breach was punishable by death, and Muslims were prohibited from saying prayers at the funerals of such people. Two weeks later, after another meeting of tribesmen, Sayyid Ahmad began appointing judges in different parts of the frontier…the moves infringed on the temporal powers of the tribal chiefs and seriously undermined the prerogatives of local religious leaders (p.94)’.

The three conditions that Sayyid Ahmad and the Taliban fill are: fighting enemy number one (the British, the Americans) through a secondary enemy (the Sikhs, Pakistan); mixing local Islam with hardline Arab Islam; and using the tribal order as matrix of Islam. The Taliban derive their radical Islam from the Wahhabi severity of the money-distributing Arabs; <b>the mujahideen of Sayyid Ahmad derived their puritanism from Shah Waliullah’s ‘contact’ with the Arabs in Hijaz in 1730.</b>

In the battle of Balakot, Sikh commander Sher Singh finally overwhelmed Sayyid Ahmad after he was informed about his hideout by his Pashtun allies. Ahmad fought bravely but was soon cut down. To prevent a tomb from being erected on his corpse, the Sikhs cut him to pieces but ‘an old woman found the Sayyid’s severed head which was later buried in the place considered to be his tomb’ (p.105).

Author Jalal notes that in the battlefield of Balakot, where Sayyid Ahmad of Rai Bareilly was martyred in 1831, another kind of ‘cross-border’ deniable jihad is being carried out by other mujahideen. She writes: ‘To this day Balakot where the Sayyid lies buried is a spot that has been greatly revered, not only by militants in contemporary Pakistan, some of whom have set up training camps near Balakot, but also by anti-colonial nationalists who interpreted the movement as a prelude to a jihad against the British in India’ (p.61).

Not far from Balakot, the votaries of the Sayyid are fighting on the side of Al Qaeda against ‘imperialist’ America and its client state, Pakistan, and killing more Muslims in the process than Americans, just as the Sayyid killed more Muslims than he killed Sikhs. According to Sana Haroon (Frontier of Faith: Islam in the Indo-Afghan Borderland; Hurst & Company London 2007), <b>Ahmed Shah Abdali had induced descendants of Mujaddid Alf Sani to move to Kabul after his raid of Delhi in 1748. In 1849, Akhund Ghafur set up the throne of Swat and put Syed Akbar Shah on it as Amir of Swat, the Syed being a former secretary of Sayyid Ahmad of Rai Bareilly.</b>

It was a Wahhabi war in the eyes of mild Indian Muslims. It was therefore a virulently Sunni war which pointedly did not attract the Shia. It is difficult to believe that Urdu’s greatest poet Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) could have supported the jihad (p.61). Writers have claimed that he wrote in cipher and used complicated metaphor in his poetry to attach himself surreptitiously to jihad; but that is not true if you read his Persian letters recently made accessible in the very competent Urdu translation of Mukhtar Ali Khan ‘Partau Rohila’ in a single volume Kuliyat Maktubat Farsi Ghalib (National Book Foundation Islamabad 2008).

Far from being attracted to the movement of jihad inspired by <b>anti-Shia saints like Shah Waliullah and Shah Abdul Aziz,</b> Ghalib praises an opponent of the Sayyid, Fazle Haq, and is more forthright about his own conversion to Shiism from the Sunni faith. Like Al Qaeda’s war against America, Sayyid Ahmad’s jihad was a Sunni jihad, an aspect that must be made note of. Al Qaeda today kills Shias as its side business.
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So the Pakiban have origins in the Sayyid Ahmed's Barelevi Movement.

Also please note Hamid Guls' rants about creating a new Madina. Is Hamid Gul a descedent of these dregs? Atleast in mindset?