For God Sake Don’t Blaspheme Islam By Calling Pakistan A Citadel Of Islam

By Mohammad Shehzad

Since my college days, I am reading one sentence that one can find easily in our
mainstream as well as vernacular papers - Pakistan is a citadel of Islam and facing
conspiracies hatched by the enemies of Islam like India, US, and Israel. Of late, the
hapless citadel of Islam has been threatened by a minor Christian girl whose name
is Rimsha. She is accused of desecrating Quran. Pakistani clerics are writing
articles after articles, making speeches after speeches, issuing statements after
statements demanding severe punishment for her. The maximum punishment for
desecrating Quran is life imprisonment. Clerics’ demand is, blasphemy laws
should be amended and death should be the punishment for desecrating Quran.
On the other hand, the civil society and the West are demanding the lawmakers
to rid the blasphemy laws.

The only cleric to have spoken with a modicum of sense is Maulana Tahir Ashrafi –
chairman, Pakistan Ulema Council. He is ready to accept the argument that
Rimsha is not only a minor but has down syndrome. He also urged President
Zardari to shelter her in the President House just like Husain Haqqani. He said that
Rimsha seems to be innocent assuring her protection in Jamia Binoria, a
stronghold of Deobandi clerics. Despite this, he warns that if blasphemy laws
were amended, clerics will wear coffins on their heads and take to streets to
defend them. He loves blasphemy laws ignoring the fact that more and more
cases of blasphemy are being reported after these laws were made draconian.
There were hardly any cases of blasphemy when death was not the maximum
punishment for blasphemy. Moreover, the blasphemy laws are being misused
more against the Muslims than the non-Muslims.

Ashrafi admitted that he spoke in favor of Rimsha because his son is a victim of
down syndrome. He too would have demanded death for Rimsha had his son
been a normal boy. I wish he would have defended Rimsha after analyzing the
devastating impacts of blasphemy laws on Pakistan’s reputation and Islam’s
image. Can he prove that in what respects the blasphemy laws have made
Pakistan a better country; in what ways they have served Islam; why the
blasphemy incidents are on rise after their enactment; how many non-Muslims
have embraced Islam due to these laws? Why the clerics incite people to kill the
accused of blasphemy when they are declared innocent by the court and set free?
The list of questions can go on and on.

A true citadel of Islam never needs blasphemy laws. What kind of citadel of Islam
Pakistan is where nobody’s life and property is safe? Where suicide attacks are
carried out during funeral prayers? Where hoarders increase prices of food
exorbitantly during the holy month of Ramadan? Where Muslims label each other
as infidels and go on a killing spree in the name of jihad? What kind of citadel it is
that has lost more than half of it in 1971! A citadel of Islam where Eid is
celebrated on three different days! A citadel of Islam that is fragile, full of
injustice, chaos and lawlessness from inside!

For God sake, don’t blaspheme Islam by calling Pakistan a citadel of Islam. Voices
against blasphemy laws are declared as conspiracy against Islam. In fact,
blasphemy laws are a conspiracy against Islam. Prophet Mohammad (peace be on
him) was so tolerant that he forgave his worst enemies after defeating them. An
old lady would throw garbage on him everyday and he would nurse her when he
would find that she was no more seen throwing garbage on him. She would be so
impressed with his gesture of kindness that she would instantly embrace Islam.
Will blasphemy laws motivate a non-Muslim to embrace Islam or the act of the
prophet’s forgiveness?

It is not the US, India, Israel, the Jews, the Hindus and the Christians who are the
eternal enemies of Islam but the ill-educated, lustful and greedy molvis and clerics
who have done nothing in their lives except maligning Islam and misleading the
gullible masses. The evidence of a prayer caller in Rimsha case has proved that
the prayer leader Khalid Jadoon had tempered with evidence. He had put some
pages of Quran in the polythene bag that was allegedly found in Rimsha’s hand.
Ironically, the clerics are now supporting Jadoon and maligning the prayer caller.

The drama of desecration of Quran was staged to grab 500 kenal of land of the
slum where Christians were residing. A certain sect of Islam wanted to construct
its seminaries on this land. All this has been stated by Ashrafi. Obviously this task
of grabbing 500 kenal of land is not easy. However, it can be easily done through
blasphemy laws. Bribe a cleric, accuse any Christian of desecrating Quran or
blaspheming the prophet, provoke the masses to wipe out all the Christians’
house, justify everything in the name of the prophet’s honor and take the land.
These hypocrite clerics don’t love the prophet. If they truly loved him, they would
have not blasphemed him by not following his precepts. What could be the worst
blasphemy than not doing what Quran and the prophet order us to do and doing
things that they forbid us to do!

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