دو سال پرانا ایک خط

Sep 11, 2013 

عثمان بھائی آداب،

email address  دینے کا بہت بہت شکریہ. گو مجھے اندیشہ ہے کہ میرے ساتھ  مذھب اور پیغمبر کے موضوع پر گفتگو لا حاصل ہو گی. ذاتی طور پر میں اس بحث سے کم و بیش بیس سال قبل آزاد ہو چکی ہوں. بیس سال قبل میں نے پہلی مرتبہ قران کا ترجمہ پڑھا. مشکل کام ہے کیونکہ ربط نہیں ہے. آج بھی حیرت زدہ ہوں کہ سورۂ النساء کے بعد بھی کیوں پڑھتی چلی گئی؟  پھر تفسیر و تفہیم پر مغز ماری کی اور اللہ بھلا کرے مولانا مودودی کا کہ سورۂ البقرۂ کی تفہیم پڑھنے کے بعد مزید سمجھنے کی ضرورت نہ رہی، یعنی یہ امر مکمل واضح ہو گیا کہ یہ کتاب اور اس سے پہلے آنے والی کتب، (جنکا تعلق ایک مخصوص شجرہ نسل سے ہے) تمام تر کا اہتمام سیاسی و سماجی قوت کے استحکام کی بنیادوں پر کیا گیا. ترجمہ اور تفسیر و تفہیم سے قلب و ذہن پر جو بوجھ پڑا اسے جھٹکنے کے لیۓ ضروری تھا کہ معروضی حقائق کی کھوج کی جاۓ سو تاریخ پڑھنی شروع کی. اور اب حالت یہ ہے کہ روحانیت کے حوالے سے مذاھب اور پیغمبران مشترکہ طور پر بےمعنی اور لایعنی ہو چکے ہیں.

 علم میں قدرت نے بہت تکلیف رکھی ہے. دل بار بار کڑھتا ہے. لوگوں کی لاعلمی پہ اور اسکی بدولت بےبسی پہ. پہلے غصہ کرتی تھی لیکن اب نہیں کرتی. مذھب کے پیروکاروں میں ننانوے فیصد وہ ہیں جو پیدائشی مسلمان، ہندو، یہودی اور عیسائی ہیں. سوچتی ہوں اگر یہ سب ان مذاھب کے ساتھ جڑی کتابیں پڑھ کر مذھب چنتے تو نہ مسلمان ہوتے، نہ یہودی اور نہ عیسائی. خاص کر عیسایت تو کب کی طاق پہ دھری جا چکی ہوتی. اور ہندومت بھی. اسلام اور یہودیت کا مسئلہ مختلف ہے کیونکہ ان پر آج بھی مذہبی سیاستدانوں کا راج ہے.

سو یہ ہے صورتحال. تاریخ چاہے ایک طرف سے کھولیں یا دوسری طرف سے، مذھب، پیغمبر اور الہامی کتب کا پول بہت سادگی سے اور پورا کا پورا کھلتا ہے.

میں تو کہتی ہوں دفع کریں عثمان بھائی، اس بحث میں کچھ نہیں رکھا. 

پچاس سال عمر ہونے کو آئی ہے. اب تو بس یہ افسوس رہ گیا ہے کہ انسانی ذہن کی انتہائی خوبصورت ایجاد یعنی خدا کے  تصور کو اپنی اپنی دکان چمکانے کے لئے کس کس طرح چیرا پھاڑا جا رہا ہے. وہ ایک خیال جو قبل از تاریخ اور قبل از تھذیب، غاروں میں رہنے والے انسان کی ذہنی نفاست کی پہلی دلیل تھا اور اسکے اشرف المخلوقات ہونے کا ثبوت تھا، اب اسی انسان سے چھن چکا ہے اور اس سے جڑی تمام تر تجریدیت حلال، حرام، گناہ، ثواب، جنت، جہنم وغیرہ کا روپ دھار چکی ہے. اب تو لازم ہے کہ اس خیال سے ہم آہنگی کے لئے پہلے کسی پیغمبر اور اسکے ایجاد کردہ مذھب پر ایمان لایا جاۓ اور اپنی شناخت کے حوالوں میں اسکا حلفیہ بیان ہو.  پتہ نہیں پڑہے لکھے مسلمان یہ سوال کب اٹھائیں گے کہ عثمان نے علی کا قران کیوں قبول نہیں کیا؟ زید ابن ثابت کی یاداشت سے حفصہ، ام سلمیٰ اور عائشہ کے ہونٹوں تک آتے آتے بات کیا سے کیا ہوئی اور پھر  تین سو سال پر محیط اعراب، تشکیل و تکمیل کے عمل کی دوران کتنے الفاظ  "اُمّہ" سے "اِمّہ" ہو کر رہ گئے؟ 

بیگم کی خدمت میں سلام. 

ناچیز

صالحہ.

Happy New Year... & A Hundred and Thirty Four

                       

     I’m in Lahore. It is bitterly cold, dense fog sets in every night, M2 gets shut down almost every day because of zero visibility and planes often turn back or change course because the pilot cannot see the runway; in other words, Lahore is what Lahore always is at this time of the year. Corn kernels roasted in a mixture of hot sand and salt in woks fitted over small carts with wood burning stoves. Sweet potatoes placed in a circle over hot coals peeled and served over newspaper with lavish squeezes of sour orange and sprinkling of chaat masala; Lahore is what Lahore is at this time of the year. Fish, dipped in spicy chickpea batter floats frying in pools of hot oil in huge cast iron woks and fish reflecting the red of cayenne lays flat to slow cook over gigantic skillets; Lahore is what Lahore is at this time of the year. Boiled eggs are sold at street corners with pinches of salt twisted in little strips of newspaper, and Kashmiri chai is preferred over the regular chai at parties; Lahore is what Lahore is at this time of the Year. And last but not least, the small Ali Auditorium, jam packed by 6:00 pm on the 31^st of December for Naveed Riaz to open for the traditional literary recital by Zia Mohyeddin… Lahore is what Lahore is.

     But somethings have been off. For example, after I landed on the 15th of December, the very next day seven men climbed over the walls of a boys school in Peshawar and killed a hundred and thirty four children while raising slogans of 'Allah'o' Akbar' and chanting verses from a book called 'Koran'. Just minutes after this devastatingly pernicious assault, all media went abuzz with expressions of horror, alarm, panic, anguish, grief and mourning... each sentiment heavily underlined with verses from the same Koran, and mention of the same Allah. 

     In the following days vigils were held, eulogies were given, and  Korans were read from cover to cover. Whether it was the attacker or the victim, the mourner or the onlooker, the TV show anchor or the Facebook user, Allah and the Koran were the common denominator. To detect such a strong bond between the aggressor and the aggrieved was, disturbing. 

     Then there were those who started coming back to normal by resuming regular postings on Facebook about luncheons with friends and bad commute to work. And there were those who thought it was too soon to move on. My friend cut down two pre-wedding parties (out of four) she had planned for celebrating her daughter’s nuptials while my brother in law decided to add one for his son’s marriage. My friend punctuated her action with little hushed sentences asking Allah for his/her forgiveness; my brother in law punctuated his with loud declarations of gratefulness to the same Allah… and of course, in each case, there were embellishing verses from the Koran. 
     In this backdrop literature recital by Zia Mohyeddin seemed to be the straightest path to normalcy… and it wasn't! For the first time in the history of this event the doors did not close at 6:00 pm, the lights did not dim at 6:05, Nveed Riaz was not holier than though in auditorium etiquette, and Zia Mohyeddin made two common mistakes within the first minute. He made many more through the entire one hour and twenty minutes length of the show and I wanted to jot down each one of them but then he began reading Parsoon Joshi’s tribute to the fallen kids of Peshawar.

When youth becomes suspicious of your lap 

and when life becomes reluctant to leave the womb

know that something is wrong

When flowers are stabbed with swords

And fear takes over child like glances

Know that something is wrong

When morning dew is caught 

not on the palms of hands 

but on the edge of a weapon  

And tiny feet have to tread over fire

Know that something is wrong

When giggles seem scared

and baby talks cannot be heard

Know that something is wrong

Not just ‘something’ but a lot is wrong

Because Gods should have sobbed

It should have rained tears everywhere

And humanity should have hung its head in shame….. 

     By this point I wanted to throw up! It is a well written poem; a bit contrived but well written nevertheless, and Zia Mohyeddin’s rendition was tuned to the emotion, but I still very much wanted to throw up! Because, for me, when reactions to mass killing of children so cautiously beat about the bush, then not something but everything is wrong.

• When humans act like animals by reacting only when danger feels too near to home threatening the off-springs, then everything is wrong.

• When those who can read follow blind faiths, then everything is wrong.

• When fear of the unknown stops you from standing up against clear and present danger, then everything is wrong.

• When decisions are dictated by religious and ethnic fraternity instead of human bonds then everything is wrong.

• When writings in ‘holy’ books become more important than the writing on the wall, then everything is wrong.

• When price tags take precedent over prices we pay, then everything is wrong. 

• When nobody sees anything wrong with accumulation of wealth, then  everything is wrong.

     With global literacy rate at 84% and e communication covering 1/3 of the world, if one hundred and thirty four slain children get tepid responses like display pic blackouts and a sweet poem, then everything is wrong. 

     You, the 84% of this world, spare me the political correctness of being sensitive towards peoples’ beliefs. Spare me ‘feeling’ of remorse. Spare me the criticism on how to grieve. In fact, spare me the grief; you don’t have the right because you brought it on. You are the culprit. You made a choice when you refused to investigate theology. You made a choice when you refused to read the scripture you follow. You made a choice when you refused to present new ‘thought’ instead of new ‘interpretation’.

     The fact is that you are scared shitless of coming across as ‘wrong’ or ‘odd’ or ‘defiant’. You tremble at being the social outcast and you buckle at the idea of being the rebel... how sweet that you sway with the chants on 'change' when the mere idea of being different baffles you.

     So spare me the 'oh so sensitive' poems, and the vigils, and the candles, and the 'ghaibanah namaaz-e-janazas', because the fact is that none of this qualifies as a 'statement' at this moment. This is the moment which demands the truth, and if you care to explore and investigate then the truth is that God himself is tired of being traded around by religion and probably is very ashamed of creating you. 

What does one say to Karen Armstrong?

In her recent article in The Guardian titled The Myth of Religious Violence , Karen Armstrong uses a ‘careful’ selection from mostly European/Western history to prove her thesis that religious violence is a result of secular pushback. She begins with references to ISIS and its recent atrocities but then quickly moves on to crusades and the Christian Europe.

She speaks for the 4.3 billion people of this world who are actively engaged in practicing one religion or the other. I speak for the rest of the 2.7 billion who, for various reasons, choose to remain ‘irreligious’.

Yes ‘Irreligious’ is a real term. A very broad very secular term fit to define anyone and everyone who has an issue with ‘fundamentals’ of any and every religion. Whether you are an explicit atheist or an implicit atheist; anticlerical, anti-religion or antitheist; agnostic or ignostic; non-theist, religious skeptic or of free thought, ‘Irreligious’ encompasses you. In short it is a continuously evolving term capable of incorporating the rapidly growing thought of ‘Irreligion’.

The Narrow Perspective

It is a fact that world’s ‘Irreligious’ population is on the rise. A 2012 Pew Research demographic study on Religion & Public Life terms 16% (1.1 billion) of the world’s population as ‘religiously unaffiliated’. Add to it the 23% who call themselves ‘not religious’ and the tally comes to 39% of the 7 billion occupants of this planet. That, to me, is a number worth respecting when one decides to comment upon the relationship between religion and society.

In Ms. Armstrong’s case, one also needs to carefully investigate history before determining parameters of discussion. Her references to ‘religion’ include only the most modern, popular, organized religions which suggests a failure to understand the difference between the need of religious thought for a human mind and the creation of organized religion to exploit that need.

Simple or Irresponsible?

To assume that the progression and evolution of human civilization can be summed up by analyzing pro-religious and anti-religious thought without investigating the purpose behind their origin is rather simplistic, to say the least. Even more simplistic is the effort to draw parallels between the modern state (intrinsically subject to change and adjustment with time) and organized religion (innately resistant to modification and revision).

However, what bothers me the most is Ms. Armstrong’s missionary quest to defend organized religion through ‘reasonable interpretation’ thus sending a ‘feel good’ message to those who are religious but religiously ignorant. For example when she writes:

“…the bedrock message of the Quran is that it is wrong to build a private fortune but good to share your wealth in order to create a just, egalitarian and decent society…” she fails to mention that all ‘messages’ in Quran are specific to the creation and strengthening of an ‘Islamic Society’ and within that society Quran dictates gender discrimination in matters of wealth & property and human rights. I am not sure if Ms. Armstrong comprehends the acutely disturbing fact that in today’s world an overwhelming majority of religious individuals is absolutely unaware of the content and message of the faith they follow. It is therefore extremely erroneous and irresponsible to select and present things out of context.

Violence within Religion

Barring Buddhism (religious status controversial) there is none among the popular religions of the world without a sizeable history of propagation through violence. Islam stays ahead by allowing use of both passive and aggressive violence to ensure implementation and practice. From wife and child beating to chopping of limbs to confinement and starvation till death, Quran’s instructions are clear and simple when permitting violence. In addition Islam’s stance on gender discrimination is one of the major reasons for aggressive confrontation.   

Ms. Armstrong’s intentions are not clear to me, but I do want to bring to her attention the brutal power of religion by reminding her that though 4^th December 2013 marked 184^th anniversary of Bengal Sati Regulation (banning the ritual of burning the surviving Hindu brides with their dead husbands) the last reported case of Sati in India was as recent as October 2008. I also wonder how Ms. Armstrong feels about the ‘pedophilia’ law passed by the Iranian parliament in 2013.

I am not a religious scholar so I cannot tell how a religious scholar and author of two dozen books manages to ignore the obvious to the extent of calling it a myth.

The Delicate Matter of Interpretation

Interpreting religion is not a liberal art though often treated as such which results into misinformation and self-contradiction. The desire to find universal messages in scripture or to justify it through desired interpretation is not unique to Karen Armstrong. The greater majority of urban Pakistani Muslims have taken to creating their own definition of Islam, bending it every which way in order to justify their religious adherence while keeping pace with the changing times. One can choose to ignore such examples but one cannot ignore the ever growing number of Christian denominations, Islamic sects and Jewish movements.

The fact is that:

• Interpretation has repeatedly been used as the tool to steer religion in the preferred direction of a given society.
• Religious dogma has always prevented consensus thus causing splits and rifts in thought and community.
  

Unless one is prepared to offer a viable method of endorsing a fragmented global structure where each thread that frays away from its religious fabric can efficiently exist as an independent concept, I’m afraid secularism remains a necessity.

Status-quo in Religion

Growth of a religion does not mean growth of the religious thought. It is only a reference to the growing number of its followers. From the very onset conversion and adherence to organized religion was made possible through preaching and not teaching. Since submission to one blind faith or the other is essential to all such doctrines, an absolute abandoning of inquiry, research, debate and experiment was crucial to produce compliant following.  Inquisitive learning was therefore most unsuited for the survival of the religious ideals which offered predetermined goals and little or no room for change. Once out of their initial stages various religious orders settled for using procreation as a more convenient method of perpetuation making religion a part of the inherited goods.

Today people belong to a faith not because they understand and accept it but because they are born in it. Predictably, where this method added numbers to the ranks of each religion it diminished the need to know the content. 

Need for Secularism

Studies show that over 82% of the 2 billion Christians in the world will not read the bible in their lifetime. This, considering the fact that 50% of them live in highly developed countries with next to perfect literacy rates and easy access to scripture. As for Islam, the fastest growing religion in the world, more than 90% of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims live in extremely poor third world countries with weak economics, nonexistent civil liberties and literacy rate in single digits; for them reading the Quran will not be an option.  In both the cases though, paternity will determine the religion of the newborn. Secularism is the need of that newborn.

‘Religion by birth’ has created a breed which wears its religious affiliation as a name tag only. This is a generation more in tune with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and finds it difficult to identify with Islamic polygamy, Hindu cast system and Christian condemnation of homosexuality. Secularism is the need of this generation.  

Each passing day adds 172,800 lives to this planet, each passing day brings forth new intricate, diverse and complex societies and each passing day further accelerates the pace of sociocultural evolution. Secularism is the need of this evolution.

Religions have grown; and so has the world population, poverty and global warming and none sadly, is the result of intelligent, informed and educated decisions. In fact studies project that Intelligence and religious belief have a negative relationship. Secularism, therefore, is the need of intelligence.