Khaled Ahmed - The Unpious Pir The jousting and collusion of prayer and power in Pakistan
Pakistan says it is an
ideological state but when heavily bearded, rotten-toothed, medieval-looking
Pir Hameeduddin Sialvi comes out of his lair in Sial Sharif, Sargodha, Punjab,
it looks like a mental asylum broken loose. That is what this 90-something-old
man unleashed when he came out in January 2018 and said he and his disciples
will bring down the government of Pakistan Muslim League (PMLN) unless it
immolates a couple of its leaders who offended the Holy Prophet PBUH by their statements.
Then, on February 7, in a shameful anti-climax, it was revealed that the great
Pir had been offered bribe to stage his pious campaign.
All hell broke loose
when a legislation proposed by the ruling PMLN omitted the world “solemnly” in
the draft of an oath declaring the Holy Prophet to be the final prophet.
Monotheisms have clashed among themselves when the older faith denies the
prophethood of the new faith. When Christ appeared, the Jews cursed the
Christians; when Muhammad PBUH appeared, the Jews and the Christians both cried
fake and settled for vendetta that continues. Pakistan has apostatised the
Ahmadi community after it thought a prophet had come in their midst. Pir Sialvi
wanted to punish the PMLN government for getting soft on the apostates.
Sialvi has clout with
the PMLN because many of the sitting MNA (Member of National Assembly) and MPAs
(Members of Provincial Assembly) are his disciples. And Sial Sharif of Sargodha
is very much a Muslim League political base. In the last week of January, after
a number of street protests in the cities of his divine diocese, he became
exhausted and had to be helped out of his protest.
Pakistan has fallen
afoul of the Lovers of the Prophet who look funny but who can gather large
rural crowds marching into cities hating the luxury of sinful living. Last
year, the Barelvi Beast came out as Tehreek Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (“Here I am
O Holy Prophet!”) and paraded an abusive scoundrel, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, as
the millennial defender of the Prophet PBUH who would bring the government
down, which he didn’t, but got to cause a rift between the all-powerful army
and the elected government crippled by the Supreme Court for not being sadiq
(truthful) and ameen (honest) like the Prophet PBUH under Article 62 of the
Constitution.
There are far too many
rich religious leaders with nothing to do who hate democracy as an alien system
forced on the people to take them away from Islam. They fatten on the shrines
that stud Pakistan’s countryside and were once the benign repository of singing-and-dancing
fakirs embedded in South Asia’s culture of peaceful coexistence. Imagine if the
custodian of the shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya were to gather his disciples and
march on New Delhi threatening universal annihilation.
The peaceful saints in
Pakistan have been radicalised to street protests after seeing how the
cross-border mujahideen of the Deobandi brand have been lionised. While the
unseated Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wilted under Barelvi attacks, his
semi-literate son-in-law, an ex-army officer, joined his tormentors to
highlight the insult the Sharif government had offered to the Holy Prophet
PBUH.
Pir Hameeduddin Sialvi
alias Shaikh-ul-Islam, looking tired after several weeks of street challenge,
finally called off his campaign of forcibly enforcing the sharia — which is
already supposed to be embedded in the Constitution — and punishing the
insulters of the Prophet PBUH. He caved to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif
in Sargodha in the last week of January after Sharif “agreed to form a committee
to look into his demands (sic)”.
The proximity to power
was seductive. The chief minister will make many concessions to Sialvi to perk
up his authority in Sargodha. When his “chits” (requests for concession) become
effective, the power of his prayer likewise becomes more effective. They will
net more devotees with cases stuck with the Punjab bureaucracy in Lahore. More
and more Muslim Leaguers will go to the shrine and bend the knee to get
promoted in the attention of Shahbaz Sharif, who will allow some of his power
to devolve to Sial Sharif. Everyone wins except Pakistan.
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/religion-pir-pakistan-power-politics-pmln-sharia-5075947/More articles by Khaled Ahmed
