Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Time for the media to step up by Ayesha Ijaz Khan
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December 13th by Ayesha Ijaz Khan.
If ever there was a time to shun The New York Times, BBC or other mainstream sources of news, this was it. How were the attacks in Mumbai being covered in other parts of the world? If you live in London and have Sky TV, there are several options for finding out. So I began searching.
The Chinese television station simply didn’t cover it. It was almost as if nothing happened in Mumbai. The Russians did not dwell on it much. France 24, which is a very interesting channel in English, had a coverage of the event similar to British networks but for a shorter duration.
Press TV, which is a new Iranian channel, was a true disappointment. Their one-hour chat show, called “Hearts and Minds,” hosted by an American man in New York, was dedicated exclusively to the attacks in Mumbai and three “experts” sat on the panel. The Indian view was represented by an Indian gentleman.
But there was no Pakistani representation. The other two panellists had little knowledge of what was going on and the host was consistently confused between Zardari and Karzai. At one point, he just referred to both as “Kamdari.”
This was quite a letdown, as I was expecting a channel along the lines of Al-Jazeera, which has excellent world coverage and has also covered the Mumbai incident very well and without bias. Al-Jazeera anchors like Ghada Al-Fakhri are good enough to compete with the best of the CNN and BBC journalists. And I would have thought that Press TV too would have tapped into the very large Iranian diaspora if it is to compete internationally. I would have expected experts like Sayyed Hossein Nasr, who are truly aware of issues in Kashmir and the Middle East, to have been commenting on the Iranian channel. But when I watched their world news it was quite evident that the restrictions imposed on this channel are enormous, not just in terms of content but also the dress code. “It’s like watching PTV in the eighties, only in English,” my husband said.
I flipped to the Indian NDTV channel, which is a good source for domestic Indian issues. But in the case of the Mumbai attacks, the less said the better. But what India is able to do through NDTV is give the world its point of view. Pakistan’s viewpoint, on the other hand, is only available on the “Specialist Channels” in Urdu. We desperately need a channel in English which beams along with the other international news channels. And unlike the Iranian channel, it must have reporters and anchors that are both aware of the issues and confident in English. If the few hours of Geo English and Dawn News that I have seen are anything to go by, I would say that we could very easily blow most of the other international news channels away. Our media is cutting-edge, often incisive and used to asking important questions.
But there is one thing that we will have to change. And that is our preoccupation with domestic issues. Of course, they are very important. But our media focuses almost entirely on them. There is very little international news available in Pakistan. And when it is made available, it often lacks perspective and is not presented in an exciting way. We talk about the US, UK, Saudi Arabia, or nowadays India, only because they have a direct impact on what is going on with us. Beyond that international coverage in our media is severely lacking.
As far as I know, we didn’t even try to send any reporters to Orissa in India when the Christians were being massacred. The only channel that had an in-depth documentary on this was France 24. We need to have an English channel presenting Pakistan and covering international issues on the world stage. This needs to be done on a war-footing.
Just as international news in Pakistani media is virtually non-existent, there is also a tireless obsession with western sources of information. Anchors on Pakistani television are addicted to Time, Newsweek, and the gamut of British and American papers. It would be nice if, for a change, they also focused on what papers in other countries are saying about Pakistan.
I did a rough search on this myself in the last few days and focused primarily on Muslim countries, which I thought may be more inclined to give the India-Pakistan news some perspective. From what I found, most Muslim countries suffer from a similar lethargy when it comes to covering international issues, often cutting and pasting stories from The International Herald Tribune and the like, instead of doing their own research.
Nevertheless, the editorial in The Jakarta Post was acceptable. It explained the Mumbai incident without bias, and then focused inwards, comparing the situation to the Bali bombing and how Indonesia can avoid such occurrences in future.
The newspapers of the UAE were a disappointment, with clear Indian bias.
Yet, the Bangladeshi newspapers gave me newfound hope. An opinion piece by Rahnuma Ahmed, in New Age was like balm on my wounded heart. I believe that Bangladesh is Pakistan’s most natural ally. My generation, which did not see but only heard and read about what happened in 1971, should be willing to extend the hand of friendship to our Bangladeshi brothers and sisters, to acknowledge them as equals in a partnership that can be beneficial to both countries.
There has been much criticism of the “war of words” that has taken place between Pakistani and Indian media in the past days. But sometimes I think that, had it not been for the war of words, we may have been confronted with the real thing. It’s important to get our story out there. Not just in Urdu, but also in English, for the world to hear. It’s also important for Pakistan to figure out how to pick friends. For too long we have been choosing allies on the basis of riches. America can give us aid; Saudi Arabia can give us oil. Choosing rich friends has made us a weak nation. It is about time we changed our policy and picked our friends, not on the basis of “common interests,” as Musharraf used to say, but of “common ideology,” an ideology that emphasises the equality and fraternity that Islam preaches, as opposed to the extremism and discrimination against women that is too often ascribed to Islam. In my view, Bangladesh would top our list of friends if this approach were adopted.
Pakistan ka matlab kya? by Ayesha Ijaz Khan
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August 14th by Ayesha Ijaz Khan.
Growing up in the eighties, one could not escape the slogan, “Pakistan ka matlab kya–La ilaha ilallah.” If not cried out at public rallies, it was written as graffiti. Though it rhymes and jingles, the motto never made sense to me, not even when I was fourteen. La ilaha ilallah is a Muslim’s creed. The idea that there is no god but Allah is an affirmation of monotheism, the Islamic concept of tawheed. How on earth could this be the definition of Pakistan? In fact, wouldn’t it be shirk to say that Pakistan, like other countries run by flawed humans, represented the oneness of Allah?
On the other hand, if the idea is to present Pakistan as a state exclusively for Muslims, denying its eclectic plurality, that too runs contrary to the founding vision. Jinnah’s Presidential Address on August 14, 1947, could not have been clearer, when he said: “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed–that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”
While it is true that Pakistan was created to safeguard Muslim interests, it is equally vital to understand that as a minority community in pre-Partition India, Muslims were keenly aware of discrimination and tyranny of the majority. Pakistan, thus, was to be a country where minorities would be free of persecution and prejudice. Since Muslims would be in the majority, naturally, Islamic art and architecture, language and literature, would flourish, but not by excluding non-Muslims, who had an equal right to its soil.
Although Jinnah’s inaugural speech is clearest in its intent, other manifestations of the founding vision are no less significant. The Pakistani flag, for instance, is symbolic. Green, for Pakistan’s Muslims; white, for its non-Muslims, side by side, as equal citizens. The generosity of spirit is reflected in reserving a quarter of the flag for non-Muslims although they numbered much less. This was to be the guiding light, the inclusiveness and respect for diversity on which Pakistan was built. Recent incidents at Gojra, Kasur, Sheikhupura and the like are thus completely at odds with Pakistan’s foundation.
According to Suroosh Irfani’s essay, “Pakistan: Reclaiming the Founding Movement,” written for the Middle East Institute, Pakistan’s original national anthem was composed by a Hindu scholar of Indo-Persian culture. Years later, a new national anthem was adopted, the tune for which was composed by a Zoroastrian, and the lyrics later written by Hafeez Jallandhari. Such was the commitment to diversity and equality that not only was the anthem the product of contributions by a Hindu, Parsi and Muslim, respectively, but the chorus was sung to ensure an even number of men and women.
While tawheed is an important aspect of Islam, it has no relevance to running the affairs of a nation-state. Instead, the equally important Islamic concept of meezan, or balance, must set the standard for social and national mores. Meezan shuns extremes and searches the middle path. Equally, it forges a strong commitment to integrity and impartiality, the balance or scales of justice, tawazun, shares the same root. Justice must, by definition, be blind to colour, creed, ethnicity or gender, and take all equally under its fold. Laws that discriminate against women or non-Muslims therefore serve no purpose, but can do much harm and must be repealed.
Instead of focusing on Islamic form, we must concentrate on Islamic substance. We must ensure that decent healthcare and education, chances for upward mobility and freedom from poverty reach our remotest villages. But in order to do this we will need to shift our focus from superfluous matters like appropriate dress codes or whether music is haram or halal to more substantive issues like whether everyone who needs to pay taxes is paying them appropriately and whether funds collected by the state are honestly used for the benefit of its people.
Upon his death, Jinnah bequeathed much of his fortune to educational institutions: one-third to Aligarh; one-third to Islamia College, Peshawar; and one-third to Sind Madrassah, Karachi. His will was drafted in 1939, before Pakistan’s boundaries were clear, but Jinnah’s allocation across ethnic divides appears deliberate.
Pakistan is undoubtedly a federation and each province has its distinct heritage, language and culture, of which it is proud, but, equally, it is one country and if an individual wishes to relocate from the village to the city, or from one province to another, temporarily or permanently, there should be no impediments. Recent obstacles placed in the way of our friends from Swat were deeply regrettable and we must, in future, encourage and facilitate freedom of movement within Pakistan, enhancing inter-ethnic and inter-religious bonds.
It is our greatest challenge to build a country tolerant and reflective of Islamic principles resulting in societal benefit, and avoiding misuse of religion to advance the political motives of vigilante groups. For this, we do not need to look to the West, and nor do we need to look to the Arabs. We are the children of a rich heritage. Poets and mystic saints like Bulle Shah taught us to soul search, and later, the Pakistan Movement and our great Quaid-e-Azam laid the foundation for an inclusive democracy. Pakistan needs to look no further than its own history to find its much-needed meezan and reclaim not just its founding purpose, but also its true potential.
Ramifications of the Iranian election by Ayesha Ijaz Khan
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June 29th by Ayesha Ijaz Khan.
Years ago, an Iranian riddle was narrated to me by my college roommate. It seems to still be relevant, and goes something like this: An American man, an Iranian woman and a British man are riding in a train together. The train is packed and the American sits next to the Iranian woman. The British man sits across from them. The woman is attractive and both men are interested in her. The American is thinking about how to approach the woman when the train enters a long dark tunnel. Whilst in the tunnel, there is a kissing sound followed by a slapping sound. Who kissed whom and who slapped whom, asked my Iranian friend?
I know that Iranians mistrust the British profoundly so I answer that the British man kissed the woman, and she, in turn, slapped the American. “Ah, but you don’t know the British well enough,” she tells me, “it is in fact the British man who kissed the woman, but as soon as he did it, he also slapped the American.”
Whenever I had reason to remember this joke, I thought my Iranian roommate gave the British too much credit. But with the recent turmoil in Iran, the BBC’s biased and provocative coverage, the ensuing expulsion of respective diplomats and President Obama’s comparatively measured and mild criticism, I cannot help but think that the deep-seated mistrust the Iranians harbour against the British is once again coming to a head.
There is, however, far more to the post-election mayhem in Iran than western-Iranian relations. Sharp criticism has come from France and Germany while Obama has thus far resisted voices within the United States calling for stronger condemnation. Interestingly, those advocating harsher words belong to both the left and the right in America. While the right, much like Sarkozy and Merkel, is motivated by self-interest and perceives Moussavi as potentially friendlier, the left is more concerned about human-rights violations within Iran and “preventing another Tiananmen Square,” in the words of one respected analyst.
Obama, it appears nevertheless, realises that confrontation and choosing sides will be counterproductive and give the ruling regime reason to taint its opponents as western-backed. As a veteran journalist of the Urdu press recently remarked, “even if America touches gold in Pakistan, it turns to dust.” Perception is not much different in the rest of the Muslim world. But Obama does not control the media and large sections of the western press, including American networks, have done more harm than good.
But the culpability and bias of western media cannot detract from the much larger picture. It has been thirty years since the Iranian revolution. Iran’s anti-west credentials are a fait accompli. Moussavi has been prime minister of Iran for eight years in the past. He is no western-backed Shah. His support is rooted in Iranian establishment figures like Rafsanjani. Ahmedinijad has, in all likelihood, won the election, but not by as large a margin as claimed. Opposition to his regime is home-grown and not imported. Until free press, tolerance for dissent, civil liberties and women’s rights are guaranteed, Iran will find it difficult to progress.
What the Iranians accomplished thirty years ago is no small achievement, but in 2009, university students born well after the revolution are looking to move beyond chants of “Marg bar Amreeka” (Death to America) and are more inclined to conduct an honest analysis of whether mixing religion and politics is beneficial to either. For as Maryam, a 24-year-old student from Tehran writes, “While I am religious and I believe firmly in Islam, I have lost faith in Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the revolution. I have no trust in Ayatollah Khamenei or his offspring Ahmadinejad… This country needs a proper political leader, not an old cleric or a political child.” Maryam does not describe herself as the typical Moussavi supporter. She not only accepts the hijab, but prefers the full-fledged chador, but Maryam does not believe in imposing her choice on others. “People who judge me from my appearance presume that I am a fundamentalist conservative…an Ahmedinijad voter,” she says. “But I gave my vote to Moussavi….so our youth could have more freedom….express their ideas, wear what they want.”
While in Pakistan Ahmedinijad is often glorified by many for his confrontational attitude with the west, I suspect that within Iran there is a growing group that looks upon this constant resistance as a diversionary tactic taking attention away from more pressing domestic concerns of reform to fulfil dreams from the revolution.
In a recent conversation with Hamid, an Iranian from Shiraz who drives a cab in London and regularly takes me to and from the airport, I was not surprised to learn that he voted for Moussavi, but of his mistrust of the government. Two days before the election, as he drove me to Gatwick, he said, “I will take my own pen when I vote because I don’t trust them. My friends in Iran say that if I use their pen, they will erase my vote and write in the name of Ahmedinijad.”
Hamid’s father was a schoolteacher in Shiraz. His family supported the revolution. “My mother is a very religious person,” he tells me. “She used to wear the chador even before the revolution. She was very fond of Ayatollah Khomeini, even though my grandfather was always skeptical. But after the revolution, she felt cheated when they banned all other political parties. She felt so cheated that she never voted again.”
Hamid goes on to point out other flaws. “Soon after the revolution Iraq attacked us. They were supported by the whole world and we fought alone. Yet, in two years, we had taken back all our land but our leaders continued the war for six more years. They could have ended it sooner. Less Iranians would have died. But they wanted to march to Karbala and then liberate Palestine. I feel sorry for the Palestinian people, but before we help them we need to help ourselves. Ahmedinijad is making investments in Somalia. Building roads there—-what about us? In every village in Iran, they have built only a big mosque. In every tiny village, a mosque is the first thing you see, but there is no hammam (public bath) to wash up before you go to the mosque.”
Hamid has a point. I wonder why the MMA government never built any hammams either. Cleanliness is as much a part of Islam as prayer, yet so many Pakistanis don’t get running water at home. In these conditions, public hammams, in keeping with Islamic tradition and with separate timings for men and women, would have been a good contribution from the MMA. But we can only expect such constructive thinking if we get out of our self-defeating “let’s blame everything on the west” mode.
Barring few notable exceptions, western analysts delude themselves on Iran. Taking cues from the large Iranian diaspora that left Iran with the Shah and confining themselves to North Tehran where the revolution never gained currency, they can wait around for their Iranian counterrevolution. But that is not the source of Ahmedinijad’s worry, and he knows it. The source is far more indigenous. It is the very fact that tolerance for suppression of dissent is waning. There are serious schisms within the regime and within Iran’s power centre. This is bound to happen thirty years on from the revolution. If dissent is not allowed proper political expression and civil liberties are denied to the Iranian people, the moral authority which has historically legitimised the post-revolution Iranian power centre is bound to further erode.
The Iranian example is no doubt instructive for other countries of the Islamic world, including Pakistan. If Islam is to find political expression and compete successfully with secular alternatives, it will have to incorporate modern-day, universally accepted democratic norms, or suffer by comparison.
The Quran and the west: a rejoinder by Ayesha Ijaz Khan
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April 6th by Ayesha Ijaz Khan.
As an ardent supporter of the lawyers’ movement since its inception, I was elated to be in Pakistan when chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was restored and was keen to write about the positives that presage this auspicious and historic victory. Yet, a recent piece by Dr Muzaffar Iqbal entitled, “The Quran and the west” (March 27) has prompted me to present an alternative view.
Dr Iqbal is perturbed by the increasing interest in the Quran by western academics and scholars and sees this as a new form of Orientalism. Although there may be that side to it, Dr Iqbal chooses to completely ignore the research that is being undertaken in the west by Islamic scholars, sometimes in collaboration with Christian academics, leading to greater knowledge and clarity on some verses of the Quran. If, in the west, Islamic scholars, both male and female, are granted the space to openly debate the dictates of Islam and there is sufficient interest in the subject—such that most western universities are bolstering their Islamic studies programmes so that non-Muslims are also encouraged to study the subject—we, as Muslims, should welcome this development, and not be apprehensive of it.
As an example, Verse 34 of surah 4 of the Quran has recently been retranslated by Laleh Bakhtiar, an American woman of part-Iranian origin, to provide greater clarity and conform more closely to the moral and legal principles of the Quran and Sunnah. Previously, most translators, including Muhammad Asad and Yusuf Ali, had translated the verse as granting men the authority to beat their disobedient wives after first warning them and then sending them to sleep in separate beds. According to Ms Bakhtiar’s translation, however, the Arabic word daraba (translated previously by men to mean “beat them”) can also be translated as “go away from them.” Though Ms Bakhtiar’s translation has been criticised by some as a “modern-day revisionist report,” critics have been unable to refute the fact that the most common meaning for daraba in Arabic is to separate. Proponents of Ms Bakhtiar’s translation also point to the famous hadith recounted by Hazrat Ayesha in which the Prophet is reported to have said, “The best of you is he who is best towards his wife.” Ms Bakhtiar’s translation has also been accepted by the Islamic Society of North America.
Contrast this interpretation of the Quran with Sheikh Syed Mahmud Allusi’s commentary in Ruhul Ma’ani, where he provides the following reasons for when a man may beat his wife, including her “refusal to beautify herself for him,” refusing sex when he asks for it, refusing to pray or perform ritual ablutions, and “if she goes out of the house without a valid excuse.” Sheikh Allusi follows up his reasoning with a set of hadiths of his own.
Wife-beating is a serious problem around the world, and far more prevalent in economically disadvantaged households. Pakistan is no exception, where according to reports from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, a very high percentage of married women report some form of violence. As a society, we must work towards ensuring that such violence directed against women does not have the sanction of the law, and as importantly, does not have the sanction of religion. Therefore, which interpretation of Islam we choose to follow as a society becomes directly relevant and affects societal norms greatly.
It is perhaps only in the west where, as a result of economic migration from far-flung and diverse lands, it is possible for disparate Muslim minds to be able to converge and freely discuss religion. In the Gulf countries, where Muslims from various different countries also converge, it is impossible to research Islam meaningfully due to the restrictions on free speech, and also due to the fact that the non-Arab is always looked upon as less knowledgeable than the Arab. It is only in the west, then, that the Ajami and the Arabi are truly on an equal footing and able to engage in thought-provoking debates about how Islam is practised in different parts of the globe, and how it is able to encompass so many different cultures in its fold.
While the Quran was revealed in poetic Arabic, in years to come, the most well-researched and easy to follow translations of the Quran will most likely be in English, which has for most purposes become the lingua franca of a global world. Simultaneously, more and more Muslims are looking into alternative interpretations that are better suited to the Internet age that we live in. As Mahathir Mohammed told fellow Muslim leaders at the Islamic summit, “Islam is not just for the seventh century AD. Islam is for all times. And times have changed.”
It is therefore hardly a surprise that a recent translation of the Quran, which has emerged from the west, is the work of three translators, two men and a woman, coming from three diverse cultures, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United States. I often wondered why there wasn’t collaboration among scholars in translating the Quran. Given the enormity of the exercise, surely it would make sense to have the luxury of consensus when interpreting such a sensitive subject.
Although I have not yet gotten my hands on a copy, the website describes the new translation as using “logic and the language of the Quran itself in determining likely meanings, rather than ancient scholarly interpretations rooted in patriarchal hierarchies.” The new translation has been described by Aisha Musa, Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Florida International University, as “offering religious rather than secularist challenges to traditional understandings of Islam, whether Sunni, Shia, or academic, on a number of critical issues.”
When Muslim civilisation was at its zenith and Andalucia (in present-day Spain) was ruled by the Moors, it was the Christians who aspired for admission at universities in Muslim lands (as opposed to the reverse we see today). Muslims of that time were not insecure about the religion and nor were they hesitant to learn and adopt other cultures into the Islamic realm. There was free flow of information between the Islamic and non-Islamic worlds and a realisation that no race or gender has a monopoly on interpreting Islam.
In fact, according to one hadith, Judama bint Wahb al-Asadiyya related that she heard the Prophet say, “I intended to prohibit cohabitation with nursing women until I considered that the Romans and the Persians do it without any injury being caused to their children thereby.” Thus, even the Prophet did not hesitate to learn and adopt from non-Muslims.
If Islam is a religion that is to span all continents and transcend the ages, it would make far more sense for it to be tolerant and accepting of varying cultures. If we believe as Muslims that Islam began with Abraham and was perfected along the years through various prophets and messengers of God until the word of God was crystallised in the Quran, then why the knee-jerk reaction of rejecting research simply because it may be emanating from the west?
For, as UCLA law professor Khaled Abou El Fadl states in Progressive Muslims, “the emergence of ‘supremist puritanism,’ together with the arguments of Muslim apologists, have ‘fossilised’ Islam, turning it into an untouchable, but also entirely ineffective, beauty queen, simply to be admired and showcased as a symbol, but not to be critically engaged in in its full nuance and complexity.”
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