Daily Times

The real problem in Pakistan is not the looming dangers of pandemics but the pervasive mindset infected largely with the paranoid Schizophrenia. A chronic mental disorder, far removed to ever have lived with reality with no signs of willingness to embrace the peculiarities of the real-world, has developed as a consequence of multiple contradictions that largely have its roots in the partition. The flawed structure to raise a society was pursued soon after partition played a significant role to dent the national character.

The net outcome of raising a society on such an erroneous model, however, resulted in a stagnated, stigmatised, stereotyped, opinionated and divided class, which can be seen in modern Pakistan that we have been ignoring at our peril. As a consequence, a superstitious and superficial society has emerged and affected the social transformation. Analogical reasoning and rationality soon became alien concepts. The subject of theological debates centred on the doctrine of predestination of fate rather than the institute of free will and independent thinking.

Answers to scientific questions are sought through traditions instead of reason. At the time of the natural disaster, the masses accept it as a predestined destiny instead of originating a popular consensus to demand a better deal of social security system.

In such a stunted society, in which most sought after and loved are the holy men and the most loathed are those of scientists. Multibillion religious enterprises have become the most lucrative business and have been flourishing by leaps and bounds.

The country’s educated youth, one of the largest in the world, riddled virtually in conspiracy theories and even culture to adhere to such practices has been emboldened by teachers and professors at the highest educational institutes and universities by attesting to such bizarre theories rather than reprimanding such backward trends. If these are the intellectual standards at the country’s top-notch thinking places, just imagine the intellectual plight of the public in Pakistan. The debates on mass media, one of the important media to have played a key role to influence the public consciousness, has been heated and passionate with no substance.

Moreover, the divide further appears to be on class structure, sectarianism, ethnicity, provincialism and increasingly worrisome squabbling are between modernist and medieval mindset (clergy) in Pakistan.

A relatively small minority but all-powerful clergy in Pakistan has not just been working as a strong bulwark against any forward-looking progressive change be it social, scientific, economic and political in Pakistan, however, ipso facto opposed the idea of Pakistan, spearheaded by secular Jinnah at the first place. Paradoxically, they didn’t later just settle in Pakistan, but also managed to gain many pockets of influence; manipulating religious sentiments. These religious figures have wielded authority enough to halt the socio-economic and political progress of Pakistan in the years to come.

Arguably, for this very reason, Jinnah remained extremely contemptuous to a theocracy; fearing that a combination of the clerical establishment, with the tacit help of a conniving deep state, would quell Jinnah’s all dreams of diverse and open society subject to progressive change. Jinnah, a man of great wisdom, presciently realised the perils of piety posed to the body politic of Pakistan. He, therefore, closed all gates then and thereby; explicitly dismissing any idea of Pakistan “to be a theocratic State to be ruled by theocracy with a divine mission” had left nothing to the imaginations about Jinnah’s vision for Pakistan.

The fears of Jinnah had been validated just after five years of his death by the recommendation of Justice Munir Commission’s report on Lahore disturbances. Its 387-page report, as a part of the enquiry, asked leading Islamic scholars (ulema) of the time the fundamental question: How would you define a Muslim?

The outcome of the definition of Muslim given by each Islamic scholar was nothing but astonishing. The commission, however, stated, “Keeping in view the several definitions given by ulama that no learned divines are agreed on this fundamental and if considerable confusion exists in the minds of our ulama on such a simple matter, one can easily imagine what the differences on the more complicated matter will be.”

And that remains quite relevant even after 65 years of the commission’s report that Pakistan failed to develop the consensus on the biggest festival of Muslim Calendar. It gets to celebrate two Eids at the end of the fasting month every year, but clergy vociferously denies consulting the science of astronomy to unite the country.

In retrospect, the clerical establishment proved to be fundamentally antiscientific however remained hostile to science as well as the technological changes, modern ideas and education system. They view science as oppose to faith even any scientific evolution was taken to imply the great challenge to the sovereignty of God so does the Islamic culture, therefore, hark back to the pristine form of Islam dating back to the seventh century as the only guarantee of the survival of Islamic values and teachings.

The genesis of such a mindset dates back to an era when it first opposed the moveable type, printing press, which revolutionised the European intellectual and religious life and yielded the new beginning called the age of discovery which has enormously transformed the European landscape. The most significant development occurred as a result at the expense of Christian clerical establishment relinquishing all political roles and powers and the once-powerful Roman church has now been confined to the relatively smaller Vatican City with no political significance.

Soon after limiting the role of the Roman church however all conflicts, wars and sufferings among the European societies miraculously cease to exist and thereafter modern Europe has reached the zenith of human civilisation.

Answers to scientific questions are sought through traditions instead of reason

The very medieval mindset in the Islamic world, hostile to the printing machine, however, may fear the similar fortune if the monopoly of religion and tradition which is being preserved extravagantly and remained untouched hitherto would question through intellectual debates if originated in Muslim communities.

In the 19th century, an attempt to reform the Indian Muslim society was made by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, one of the equally celebrated figures on both sides of the Muslims and one of the first secular Islamic philosophers in united India. His influence remained on many founding fathers of Pakistan, including Quaid e Azam and Allama Iqbal, who realised the endangered future of Indian Muslims. They advocated Islam’s rationalist (Mu’tazila) traditions and reinterpretation of the Quran to make them compatible with science and modernity by challenging the ultra-conservative theocracy unwilling to recognise such a progressive change. His pragmatism was intended to produce elite of educated Muslims able to compete with Hindus for jobs in the Indian administration.

The lesson learnt from the enlightened thinker, Syed Ahmad Khan, is that our country can no longer stay in a state of denial and has remained captive of a magical, superstitious, unreal, irrational and imaginary world.

The survival, however, is one of the central propositions of political realism in international relations, and Pakistan’s survival goes through modernising Islamic thought and institutions following the roots of jurisprudence given within the ambits of Islam such as Ijma (consensus), Qiyas (analogical reasoning), Ijtihad (independent judgment) and Mu’tizla (rationalist traditions) to keep up with the intricacies and complexities to adopt the realities of the modern age.

The world has been experiencing the explosion of information technology, particularly the revolution of artificial intelligence, which would greatly impact our socio-economic and political life. The world of the 21st century is full of new challenges, yet the medieval mindset in Pakistan still harks back to the seventh century and is not even willing to recognise the change on such a minor matter of moon-sighting, let alone to agree on lexicon, logic, philosophy, astronomy and other critical sciences.

The religious divide over congregation prayers on the grave issue of COVID-19, which led to the great national confusion and division yet again exposes cracks and national vulnerabilities in Pakistan. It is time for Pakistan to decide whether to remain captive and keep appeasing the religious establishment or to make some hard choices to bring about a radical paradigm shift as a course correction to better prepare for the 21st-century challenges more vicious than this very pandemic.

Now the question remains: does even such a progressive paradigm shift seem to be a possibility in the foreseeable future?

The writes can be reached at ranasarfraz3417@gmail.com