Lal Masjid: Lessons Learnt

#128 Posted by zeemax

"it's just inside them) but one must not forget that the entire leadership of Lal Masjid was Punjabi.

Both brothers Rashid and Aziz are Baloch. Punjabi Baloch to be more precise. Most the male followers in the mosque were Pathan. Aziz's father was at one time a pesh imam in a mosque in Marri area in Balochistan.

Afhgani's are looked down in Pakistan even the pashtoons in the settled areas of NWFP would not accept their leadership.
The Afghan leadership of taliban has no chance to lead the pashtoons of NWFP and this will come in to play in the expected elections in NWFP. Even the pashtoons in the tribal areas of Pakistan would not accept Afghan leadership despite many common bonds.

There are vital social barriers that exist between the pashtoons of NWFP and the Pashtoons of Afghanistan. I hope political parties play on those theme during the election campaign.

bubba
#119, #127
I read your both posts and I see that you seem to have a good grasp of the current Pakistani political scene. I do share some points with you but I also differ with you to the extent that I think you clearly are an optimist.


There are a couple of things that stand out in my reading of the current situation in Pakistan.

It is true that it is next to impossible for the fanatics to gain anything in elections in Sindh(including Karachi for different reasons) and Balochistan, but Both NWFP and Punjab and particularly the urban Punjab may swing more than your expectation. I have been watching the trend in Punjab and it seems to me that the fanatics are grabbing some vital real estate there. It is possible that Nawaz Sharif might capture votes there but he will do that with help from the MMA. The rural and urban divide in Punjab is now almost 50/50 which means that Benazir may NOT get a clear majority from Punjab.

Recently, I was watching a show with Imran Khan. He seems to have matured politically and he made a point that people think this war on terror is actually a war against Islam and Muslims. This is what I have been gathering from Punjab lately and that may weigh heavily on peoples minds when they think about it during the election campaign. It appears to me that both the urban Punjab and the NWFP would vote anti-American. In the final tally, the elections in Pakistan would force the winners to take an anti American stand.

That to me would be a dangerous situation as the rogue elements in Pakistan would force the moderates and the US in the same corner.

I was reading a debate on a BBC site about the Lal masjid. While 90% Pakistani posters from outside of Pakistan opposed the Lal mosque crowd, most of the posters from Faisalabal, Sialkot, Pindi and perhaps Lahore too, were posting for the Lal Masjid crowd. This is not the first time I noticed that but it appears to be the trend in the Punjab cities. This may be a very small sample but clearly the educated youth and others in Punjab are more sympathetic to the fanatics and their antics in Lal Mosque.

Btw, I think Altaf would remain relevant in Sindh. Benazir cannot afford to have him in opposition in Sindh.

#126 Posted by echoboom

[So? what is wrong with that?
Don't you realize that they had a better incentive to convert when their taxes were high?]

What if I starve you to force you to do something you DO NOT want to do? YOu may not appreciate it. The non-democratic and evil nature of this coercion, not surprisingly, escapes people with Islamic values.

[What the lower taxes did was to retain them within the realm and prevent the skilled force to go elsewhere.]

I'm not sure where you learn these illogical and absurd arguments. I am guessing these things are taught at Islamic institutions to try and justify the evils they have wrought. If these peasants had not left their homeland for the previous thousands of years BEFORE the Muslim invaders came, why was the tax suddenly needed to KEEP thenm inside their country AFTER the Muslim invaders came?

That one VERY foolish argument, I'm afraid.


[But those in Slavelands do not even need any incentives, they love to trash hinduism at every offered opportunity simply for the privilege of eating meat & drinking liquor, and offering their orifices with pleasure (consentingly of course..wink wink)..the values denounced by that great religion hinduism...but you are Maadren, advanced, english-speaking...you are not a bloody hindu. Hindus were your backward parents ."who cares about those old fools anyway...backward bastards..these parents of mine'..Ayeja!"]

No. You are wrong as far as I am concerned.

BUT YOU WOULD BE VERY RIGHT as far as it applies to MOST of the youngsters in India today. These low-class, low-self-respecting idiots are now too ashamed to call their Mother "Mataji" or father "Pitaji" or simply "Ma" and "Baba". These pieces of garbage HAVE to call their parents "Papa" and "Mama". No "Chachaji" - only "Uncle". They have "Happy Mother's day" and "Happy Father's day" - because they have realized that we in the east do not know how to love, respect and take care of our parents - we HAVE to have "Happy Mother's Day" and "Happy Father's Day" and when our parents are old, send them to the Old People's Home JUST LIKE the people in the West. THAT'S what it means to be civilized nowadays. Every time I see an Indian do a "Happy Valentine's Day", I feel like slapping the drooling idiot across the face - these low-class stupid morons don't even KNOW how Valentine's Day came about, or who St. Valentine was. The white-man-wannabees celebrate Valentine's day, while 90% of Christians mostly would spit on Hinduism. What can I say?

I had been watching the Star Voice of India singing competition on TV. Through the preliminary rounds, the judges, by their choice, made it clear to the participants that what counted in todays world most was imitating the lewdness of the West. Without that, no amount of singing talent or training in Classical music is good enough. In the beginning rounds, the participants were trying to sing well. Towards the end, they had undergone a "makeover" - the new form was western-style dresses and hairstyle, and lewd and suggestive body language. The judges went orgasmic. One judge even went up and kissed one participant, he liked her "body language" THAT MUCH.

Nowadays, I am mostly ashamed to be Indian. I cannot change the mindsets of these low-self-respecting cretins - these pieces of garbage. I can only stand by and watch my beloved civilization and heritage go down the drain, a little at a time. New generations are learning from the current one - they are SO FAR gone, that I have given up hope.

I cannot change the world. I cannot change my country. I only wish that I can bring up MY children the way I see fit, and make sure that there are at least a few Indians left with some self-respect, and with any respect for our culture, traditions and values.

#120 by KaalChakra/#127 Posted by bubba

It is wrong of some interactors here to equate the present rebellion with Pashtuns. Certainly, the Wazirs in Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan are the vanguard, being Muslims not by mere religion but their entire 'being' (they don't even think much about it ... it's just inside them) but one must not forget that the entire leadership of Lal Masjid was Punjabi.

What I meant by Afghanistan taking over Pakistan was through Islamic influence, spear headed by armed conflict, from the inside as Kaal has written.

Re: # 120 Posted by KaalChakra on July 28, 2007 3:09:47 pm

[Bubba, in your own assessment, is the perceived threat of "Afganistanis" being able to subvert Pakistan "from within" overblown?}

Yes, in so far as Pakistan, as of yet, does not have the democratic forces in play. Actually, when there are completely free and fair elections Pakistan will see a complete turn around. With outside investments just waiting to pour into Pakistan, we will be seeing a different political sitar being played.

It has been concluded that Benazir will return as the prime minister and Nawaz Shariff as the leader of the opposition. And I hope that Alt-F will be left marginalized in the cold showers of England.

With a strong and assertive judiciary, and a strong parliament, Pakistan would be able to handle the miscreants amongst the Pashtoons rather effectively.

So? what is wrong with that?
Don't you realize that they had a better incentive to convert when their taxes were high?

What the lower taxes did was to retain them within the realm
and prevent the skilled force to go elsewhere.

But those in Slavelands do not even need any incentives, they love to trash hinduism at every offered opportunity simply for the privilege of eating meat & drinking liquor, and offering their orifices with pleasure (consentingly of course..wink wink)..the values denounced by that great religion hinduism...but you are Maadren, advanced, english-speaking...you are not a bloody hindu. Hindus were your backward parents ."who cares about those old fools anyway...backward bastards..these parents of mine'..Ayeja!"

#121 Posted by echoboom

[Islam spread over the next 400 years of Ottoman rule, mostly thanks to tax cuts and other benefits given to those who converted. ]

Exactly the point I have made so many times. It is not spiritual enlightenment, but financial compulsions (amongst other anti-non-muslim measures) that forced most non-muslims to convert in non-Muslim countries ruled by muslim invaders.

Iraquisation.

At last it is good to see that pakistanis like zeemax are accepting the reality that pakistan will be iraquised. That is the only hope for pakistan, when the pak army is defeated.

Already, the amry has told its soldiers not to wear uniform while out in the markets, it has become a clothing of shame.

A few more bombings and the army will be in the barackes and the streets left to the jihadis and killers of various hues. It is good to see the monstrosity imploding

bubba

That's rather an optimistic assessment, but if comes true would be a good thing for the region...

So what say you Zeelman, I mean, Zeemax?... :)

SHARIAH RULINGS BY U.S COURT..in 1960's/70s


SHARIAH RULINGS BY U.S COURT..in 1960's/70s: MASHA-ALLAH!
__________________________________________________________

EXCE RPT:


The more interesting part of the ruling, in terms of its description of Islamic doctrine, came from the concurring opinion of Justice William Douglas, who used the opportunity to dip into the Holy Koran.

“In the present case there is no line between ‘carnal’ was and ‘spiritual’ or symbolic wars,“ Douglas wrote. “Those who know the history of the Mediterranean littoral know that the jihad of the Moslem was a bloody war.”

Douglas noted that Ali had testified that he was:

sincere in every bit of what the Holy Qur'an and the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad tell us and it is that we are not to participate in wars on the side of nobody who-on the side of non believers, and this is a Christian country and this is not a Muslim country, and the Government and the history and the facts shows that every more toward the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is made to distort and is made to ridicule him and is made to condemn him and the Government has admitted that the police of Los Angeles were wrong about attacking and killing our brothers and sisters and they were wrong in Newark, New Jersey, and they were wrong in Louisiana, and the outright, every day oppressors and enemies are the people as a whole, the whites of this nation. So, we are not, according to the Holy Qur'an, to even as much as aid in passing a cup of water to the-even a wounded. I mean, this is in the Holy Qur'an, and as I said earlier, this is not me talking to get the draft board-or to dodge nothing. This is there before I was borned [sic] and it will be there when I'm dead but we believe in not only that part of it, but all of it.

Justice Douglas then got into the concept of jihad:

O ye who believe! Shall I guide you to a gainful trade which will save you from painful punishment? Believe in Allah and His Apostle and carry on warfare (jihad) in the path of Allah with your possessions and your persons. That is better for you. If ye have knowledge, He will forgive your sins, and will place you in the Gardens beneath which the streams flow, and in fine houses in the Gardens of Eden: that is the great gain.

Thus God propoundeth unto men their examples. When ye encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads, until ye have made a great slaughter among them; and bind them in bonds; and either give them a free dismission afterwards, or exact a ransom; until the war shall have laid down its arms. This shall ye do. Verily if God pleased he could take vengeance on them, without your assistance; but he commandeth you to fight his battles, that he may prove the one of you by the other. And as to those who fight in defence of God's true religion, God will not suffer their works to perish: he will guide them, and will dispose their heart aright; and he will lead them into paradise, of which he hath told them. O true believers, if ye assist God, by fighting for his religion, he will assist you against your enemies; and will set your feet fast.


Justice Douglas noted that war is not the exclusive type of jihad, and that there is action by the believer's heart, by his tongue, by his hands, as well as by the sword. Regarding the military type, Douglas quoted again from the Islamic scriptures:

The jihad, in other words, is a sanction against polytheism and must be suffered by all non-Muslims who reject Islam, or, in the case of the dhimmis (Scripturaries), refuse to pay the poll tax. The jihad, therefore, may be defined as the litigation between Islam and polytheism; it is also a form of punishment to be inflicted upon Islam's enemies and the renegades from the faith. Thus in Islam, as in Western Christendom, the jihad is the bellum justum.



Far from harming Ali’s claim, this helped him, for Justice Douglas noted that “The jihad in the Moslem's counterpart of the ‘just’ war as it has been known in the West. Neither Clay nor Negre should be subject to punishment because he will not renounce the ‘truth’ of the teaching of his respective church that wars indeed may exist which are just wars in which a Moslem or Catholic has a respective duty to participate…. What Clay's testimony adds up to is that he believes only in war as sanctioned by the Koran, that is to say, a religious war against nonbelievers. All other wars are unjust.”

This wonderful concept meant, to Justice Douglas, that Muhammad Ali was entitled to avoid Vietnam by availing himself of conscientious objector status.

So we have the Supreme Court, in 1971 - a full 30 years before 9/11 - coming to terms with the Islamic concept of jihad, and worrying about the FBI's use of wiretaps (which Justice Douglas, in another opinion of the same era, described as “a dirty business” and a “disease.” Heutsche v. United States, 414 U.S. 898, 899 (1973)).

These cases are more reasons, if there were any doubts, that people concerned with the violent underpinnings of Islam the efficacy of American counterterrorism efforts should renew their library cards.

Bosnian Muslims mark 600 years of Islam in Bosnia

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - Bosnian Muslims celebrate 600 years of Islam in their nation Saturday with a concert of spiritual music, a prayer for peace, and a gentle reminder to Europe: not all of the continent's Muslims are of immigrant origin.

"Recently we have noticed that Europe is obsessed by the immigrant Muslims from the East,'' said Mustafa Ceric, head of the Bosnia Islamic Community, the official institution of Bosnia's Muslims. "This is an opportunity to remind that there are indigenous Muslims in Europe.'' 

"By celebrating 600 years of Islam here we want to naturalize Islam in Europe,'' he said, adding that Bosnia's Muslims have illustrated how Islam can be harmonized with a European way of life.
Sarajevo is a good place to send a message of peace, since the last century started and ended with a with a war in Sarajevo, Ceric said.

The 1914 assassination in Sarajevo of the crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian empire triggered World War I. And genocide was carried out on Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.

Islam arrived in Bosnia with the Ottoman occupation in 1463 and found the local population split between Roman Catholicism, a dying indigenous Bosnian Church, and Christian Orthodoxy.

Islam spread over the next 400 years of Ottoman rule, mostly thanks to tax cuts and other benefits given to those who converted. It remains the faith of almost half of Bosnia's population.


The Bosnia Islamic Community is now seeking to impose itself as a model for several million European Muslims who have no organized authority to guide them.

It believes that a lack of organized structure for Europe's Muslims leaves them at the mercy of sometimes dubious imams who often preach radicalization.

"We live in a global world so we Muslims should be aware that global security is our interest,'' Ceric said.

Ceric said that while he understood complaints by Muslims about being rejected in Europe, Muslims also need to make efforts to fit in.


"Europe is not yet ready to accept Muslims the way they deserve but unfortunately, the Muslims are also not living up to their responsibilities in Europe,'' he said. "I think the Muslims are highlighting their presence in Europe in the wrong way.''
That's why the Bosnia Islamic Community has been campaigning for the establishment of a Europe-wide organization for Muslims that would control what is being taught in Islamic schools and mosques.
"I think we Muslims have no choice but to work for our presence in Europe and to show that we are ready to accept the values of human rights, democracy, transparency, accountability, the rule of law and all those values that are also Islamic values,'' he said.-AP

Bubba, in your own assessment, is the perceived threat of "Afganistanis" being able to subvert Pakistan "from within" overblown?

Re: # 118 Posted by mohar11 on July 28, 2007 12:29:04 pm

[Sure - Babar was ruling over the punjab for a while - wasn't he afgan?]

No, he was not an Afghan. He was from Tashkent. He was a descendent of Mongols. Different from opium dealing Pashtoons of today. Their warrior thing is overblown. These Talibans are basically niswar-chewing fanatics who can easily be taken care of by those who belonged to the Northern Alliance under Ahmed Shah Masood, and they have been. That is why they have moved into Pakistan. However, since Pakistan created this monster, they will be taken of, within short order.

[Present day afgans are a pathetic lot but the fight here is between islamists and non-islamists - between zeemax type muslim and hamidm type muslims...]

There is no Pakistani Islamist. There might be some arab-wanna-bees, which could easily be marginalized by those who supported Ahmed Shah Masood.

[rather taliban taking over "moderate" pakiland... or atleast put up a big fight - blow up a lot of stuff...]

Far from it. People in Pakistan have already woken up. These arab intruders in NWFP will be removed like the flies in a cup of chenuk. Pathans, that I have known are usually very moderate people and want their society to develop.

Once they are shown, millions of dollars worth of investment is waiting to be spent in their territory, these people will get in line, and into the 21st. century. Only the mainstream politicians could do such a job.

117

Sure - Babar was ruling over the punjab for a while - wasn't he afgan?

Present day afgans are a pathetic lot but the fight here is between islamists and non-islamists - between zeemax type muslim and hamidm type muslims...

so it's a little different I suppose... it's not afgans taking over punjab - rather taliban taking over "moderate" pakiland... or atleast put up a big fight - blow up a lot of stuff...

Re: # 108 Posted by zeemax on July 28, 2007 7:21:46 am

[Look, it is like Afghanistan, which is nothing compared to Pakistan. But now Afghanistan is taking over Pakistan. That's all I was saying.]

Are you suggesting that Pathans will be successful over the Punjabis? Has it ever happened in history?

Zee, don't know whether followers of Islam are as ready in Pakistan as you believe they are, but if they are, then Echo dada may be falling behind times. He will have to identify terrorists not in the USA but first and foremost at home. Only then can foreign battles be fought and won... :(