The other day, as I was busy in my pursuit of channel surfing, I came across a program on a private TV channel that explored film-making in Islam.

At the end of the discussion, the only conclusion I could draw was that our ‘mullahs’ or ‘religious elite’ have hijacked Islam for their own petty and materialistic gains. In the discussion, a respected religious scholar who belonged to MMA declared that filmmaking and screening of films, even films such as ‘The Message’ is haram [forbidden] according to the teachings or the tenets of Islam or rather, more in accordance with his ‘version’ of Islam as there are dozens of them available. Choose your pick. He further said that Islam did not require any western methods and tools to be promoted.

Pardon me for going against the ramblings of these guardians of faith is tantamount to earning oneself a free ticket to hell, but this point makes no sense to me whatsoever. If this is how it stands, all the mullahs should immediately abandon the use of the loud-speakers in their rallies and for their lofty ‘khutbas’ in the mosques as they are also western inventions.

On one hand, inflation skyrockets to add to the numerous miseries of the poor and on the other, the religious zealots speed up their protests against the mixed marathons and against all progressive reforms such as the ‘Hudood bill’. Amongst this mess, Pakistan resembles a scene out of a comic play at the best.

This is the same theocracy that issued fatwa against Jinnah for his secularism and Iqbal for his poetic liberalism and also against the radio and the television regarding them as the ‘vehicles of Satan’.

The glorified past of the Muslims has come to an end and that should be accepted by our masses and the so-called ‘religious intellectuals’ who continue to blow noisy trumpets in praise of the golden eras of the pious caliphs and the sultanates that followed. Far from trying to bring a renaissance of sorts for Islam, they are bent on compounding the downfall of the Islamic culture through their rigid attitude of not accepting changes and closing all doors of ‘Ijtihad’.

By putting an outright ban on music, dance, filmmaking, painting and all other aspects of visual and performing arts, our mullahs and the guardians of faith dismiss the rich cultural heritage of our Sufis, the true religious stalwarts who helped to spread the Islam in the sub-continent through their tolerant and humble message of Islam.

The mullahs who claim to put women on the highest pedestal and tout Islamic culture as the ultimate and correct recipe for their emancipation and liberation [which it sure is given it is interpreted through un-biased glasses], raise no voice against the gang-rapes of hapless women at the hands of the all-powerful feudal. However, they do campaign for the cause of the Hudood ordinance and raise a great hue and cry over the issue of amendments to it. That is where there double standards come into play.

At one time, they are out and about on the streets shouting slogans against the uniformed generals and at other times they themselves are part of a mullah-military nexus.

The blame does not fall squarely on the shoulders of the theocracy as some practitioners of the liberalism and the enlightened moderation believe in paying lip-service to the cause of change and modernism.

Our president Pervez Musharraf, the champion of democracy and the liberal values, reiterates it frequently in his speeches and in front of the ‘right’ people in the conferences. He should realize that a token humbug would not foster a culture of moderation and tolerance in the country. Nor the cosmetic changes incorporated in the Hudood Ordinance would do any good. He needs to go beyond this and take practical steps like repealing the cursed ordinance altogether.

The average Pakistani should also not lag behind in this regard. They should go against the mainstream and refrain from giving a free license to the mullahs to go ahead with anything and everything under the garb of Islam.