Daily Times

Despite an enduring sense of goodwill and buttress by the country’s majority, always backed up the religious groups, the past few months have been ignominious for the rightists in Pakistan and all the public succour seems to be dwindling down. Recent incidents have been immensely pitiful, whether related to the uncouth protest against Mumtaz Qadri being hanged for murdering ex-Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer and the unwelcomed demands of the protestors from the government, the rejection of KP government women protection bill by the IIC, Senator Hafiz Hamdullah falling out with Marvi Sirmed on a television talk show or a police constable beating up a Hindu octogenarian in Ghotki just for watching him eat a banana before Iftaar.

The public discontent against the religious groups is not a sudden event, rather trails back to about two years when the heart throbbing attack on APS Peshawar took place which, unlike other terrorist activities, triggered an emotional surge that was strong enough to sway the standard of discriminating an apparently religious person with a terrorist. Since then, for the first time, a public sense of hatred against any person with a beard and a turban rose which earlier was liberals’ mannerism. Moreover, this was an outcome instigated by the noticeable loss of composure of religious groups in public which is evident from events as those mentioned above.

Pakistan is an interesting case when it comes to religion. Officially being an Islamic republic and practically being far from maturity in terms of religious determination, Pakistan has been a confused state since its genesis. The struggle of the religious scholars being too subtle for the propagation of true Islamic teachings solely based on Quran and Sunnah has always been sidelined and overpowered by the extremist perspective, depriving the true image of Pakistan and Islam to be depicted to the world. The manifestation of the high ideals on which the state of Pakistan was established has never been possible as a result of this.

Like all the other commodities and the sense of entitlement associated within the stake holders for them, Islam is also a territory in Pakistan dreamt of being ruled by all and served by none, each assuming their selves to be the best contender. Not far ago, the extremists have started believing Islam to be their fiefdom in Pakistan, like other groups having similar or entirely different belief system. This exhort of all the different versions has led to the creation of groups smaller than sects with slight nuances in beliefs and their campaign to become a power group.

Religion as described by numerous sociologists is centred at creating a contact between the followers of the religion more than the contact of people with God. Islam like all the religions of the world has led people to develop a sense of community. Being a weak student of religion, and having a weaker eye couldn’t keep me from noticing the teachings Islam whereby compassion, brotherhood, tolerance, charity and unity are among the basic tenets making it the religion of the peaceful. This keeps me wondering where fanaticism, extremism and the violence came from.

Currently the label assigned to any person who is religious is violent, narrow minded, trivial and against progress. The misfortune is that certain incidents and certain examples are inductively declared to be an Islamic cult ignoring the fact that there exists a black and white difference between a follower of Islam and an extremist. Terrorist activity that occurs anywhere in the world is instantly associated with Islam even without carrying out any preliminary investigation. The misery faced by Muslims is a fault of their own as each Muslim tries to evade the responsibility of him being the representative of Islam and leaves it to a certain group of people who then steer it to where they desire. The present semblance of Islam and Muslims in the world is entirely fallacious which definitely is not so Islamic rather a disfigured form of dogmatic beliefs taken on by certain people to exploit a public mass.