Daily Times

The recent interview to The New York Times by the 32-year-old Muhammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia in which he laid down his vision for Saudi Arabia in the coming years is heartening and troubling at the same time.

Heartening indeed for progressive and liberal Muslims who believe in pluralistic societies and want that states to be run on secular principles that provide protection and equal opportunities to its denizens irrespective of their religion, creed, race, colour, sex or sexual orientation. But disturbing for those who advocate the appositive of the above and are the proponents of a censorious and literal interpretation of Islam. Their puritanical standpoint leaves little space for dissent and people who maybe believers but do not follow their brand of Islam are neither welcomed nor considered as Muslims.

Before I move on, let me quote what MBS said to The New York Times “Indeed, MBS instructed me: Do not write that we are ‘reinterpreting’ Islam — we are ‘restoring’ Islam to its origins — and our biggest tools are the Prophet (PBUH)’s practices and [daily life in] Saudi Arabia before 1979.” At the time of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), he argued, there were musical theatres, there was mixing between men and women, there was respect for Christians and Jews in Arabia. “The first commercial judge in Medina was a woman!” So if the Prophet embraced all of this, MBS asked, “Do you mean the Prophet was not a Muslim?”

The New York Times adds “Then one of his ministers got out his cell phone and shared with me pictures and YouTube videos of Saudi Arabia in the 1950s — women without heads covered, wearing skirts and walking with men in public, as well as concerts and cinemas”.

This is not the first time MBS made public his views about the future of Saudi Arabia. Recently, at a global investment conference he said that his mission is to bring Saudi Islam back to its more open and modern orientation — whence it diverted in 1979. “A moderate, balanced Islam that is open to the world and to all religions and all traditions and peoples.” Just to remind readers that in 1979, the Grand Mosque in Mecca was taken over by Saudi puritanical extremists.

In his commentary, the New York Times columnist and the interviewer Thomas Friedman wrote that “If this virus of an anti-pluralistic, misogynistic Islam that came out of Saudi Arabia in 1979 can be reversed by Saudi Arabia, it would drive moderation across the Muslim world.”

Pakistani Muslims like the rest draw their spiritual guidance from Saudi Arabia so naturally the question arises that how will Pakistan orient itself if the vision of MBS transforming Saudi Arabia into a true pluralistic country gets materialised? If the recent development in Pakistan is anything to go by, it seems that we have set off in the opposite direction. We apparently have chosen an identity that sanctions capitulation to religious mobs and nothing manifests it better than the recent abject surrender to the demands of an extremist group belonging to the Barelvi school of thought (we had been told that the Barelvi ideology does not believe in violence).

If the current appeasement of the religious leaders by the state continues, soon every citizen will have to report daily to mullah of the nearest mosque and recite the first kalma to prove
themselves as true Muslims

The centuries-old wisdom dictates that when space is being conceded to religion or religious outfits, gaining it back becomes next to impossible. Religious ideologies are toxic and its effects are very hard to turn around. Take the example of hundreds of mosques on encroached land in Islamabad. Can this government or the governments that will follow dare to knock down a single one? Resignation of one minister is not resolving the dispute. As feared, they want more heads now. Sensing sensitivities of the voters and their own culpability, several parliamentarians have handed over their resignations to a religious figure, Pir Hameedud Din Sialvi, while others are forced to post their pictures at different holy sites to demonstrate how pious Muslims they are.

The first video of Punjab’s minister for religious affairs Zaeem Qadri during a meeting cozying up to the said Pir Sahib and the one displaying a major general in uniform distributing cash awards among the Faizabad protesters for completing their task is emblematic of who holds the real power in Pakistan. This naked display of power shown in the two videos should liberate people of an illusion that their status is that of a citizen, in fact it’s that of a subject. But there is something for Pakistanis to celebrate which is that with the grace of God and the sustained efforts of a certain institution, the vision of the founding fathers making Pakistan a lab to experiment Islamic principles have finally come to fruition.

If the current appeasement of the religious leaders by the state continues, soon every citizen will have to report daily to mullah of the nearest mosque and recite the first Kalma to prove ourselves Muslims in addition to presenting a report card with regard to the 5-time prayers. This is exactly what used to happen in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.

Is this the kind of future Pakistan want for its people, majority of whom are below 30 years age? Is this the message Pakistan wants to send across to the world that the future of its 220 million is set off in the direction of dark ages? Do the powers-that-be want us to live in isolation from the rest of the world? If Saudi Arabia can change its course of action by realising its miscalculations in the past, Pakistan should also adapt itself to this reality. If not, then a dark future is ahead of us.

The writer is a journalist and media consultant. He tweets @KZalmay and can be reached at zalmayk@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, December 4^th 2017.