 | Pakistani paramilitary soldier stands guard as Muslim students sit near the Red Mosque in Islamabad. (Reuters photo) | The Red Mosque crisis that claimed tens of lives of Pakistanis the other day cannot unequivocally be detached from the overall portrait of political conditions worsening day by day in Pakistan. The crisis in question is just the tip of the iceberg of a deep-rooted popular rage against Musharraf's policies that revealed since he came to power, especially when it comes to his alliance to the US, which is seen as a sign of religious and national disloyalty. Musharraf's decision to storm the Red Mosque came amid reports that he was in dire need to tell the US and his western allies that he is still powerful enough to firmly control the so called Islamic radicalism on the rise in Pakistan. Musharraf's message may be clear to some, but some others may perceive his excessive force policy as unjustified and totalitarian. But the question still lingering domestically and internationally is: What does the future hold for Musharraf and for the Pakistanis under his military rule? | This fatwa outraged General Musharraf, and the government started to seek ways to eliminate this school... | The Beginning of the Crisis The first and most serious problem started when the fatwa council affiliated with the Red Mosque, headed by Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ghazi, issued a fatwa in 2005 at the onset of clashes between the Pakistani forces and the tribes in the Waziristan region.
The fatwa said that soldiers in the army of an Islamic state are prohibited to fight the Muslim subjects of this state and that if any government trooper is killed in the battle between the Pakistani army and the tribesmen, this trooper is considered infidel, whereas if any tribesman is killed in this battle, he will be considered a martyr.
This fatwa outraged General Musharraf, and the government started to seek ways to eliminate this school and take it out of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. This showed clearly in statements made by Abdul Rashid Ghazi in which he said the government establishment, including the Pakistani military intelligence, "exercises pressures on us to back down from this fatwa, but we told them that the fatwa is not a government decision that can be replaced with another one."
He also added that the fatwa is a Shari`ah-related judgment and that backing down from it means rejecting the Qur'an and Sunnah on which the fatwa is based.
He also accused the government of campaigning against him: "Since then, the government has launched a heated campaign, not only against me and Sheikh AbdulAziz Ghazi, but against the Red Mosque and its affiliated establishments, with the government always declaring that the Red Mosque is a safe haven for terrorists."
The government cashed in on the fatwa and expanded charges against Abdul Rashid Ghazi accusing him of planning to bomb the parliament and other state establishments. For fear of arrest, Ghazi disappeared and the police failed to arrest him. So the government seized his car and fabricated a tale by allowing the media to see his car as a booby-trapped one full of ammunition.
But the government retreated from this charge, and Minister of Religious Affairs and Islamic Endowments Mohammed Ijazulhaq, the eldest son of General Zia-ul-Haq, announced then that Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ghazi had nothing to do in planning such attacks, while the actual perpetrators were brought to justice. Musharraf didn't waste any chance to convict the Red Mosque and its leaders, including alleged death threats that Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ghazi and his brother Sheikh Abdul Rashid Ghazi received. | Two mosques were demolished on January 20, Jamia Hafsa and the Red Mosque's madrasah were among the schools to be demolish. | When the London bombings took place on July, 7, 2005, and some British youth of Pakistani origin were charged, and the media outlets reported that some of them visited some madrasahs (school dedicated to teaching Islamic sciences) in Pakistan, the government sought to involve the Red Mosque in this charge and decided to inspect the school under the pretext of looking for a suspect in the London bombings, but the female students of Jamia Hafsa (a female only madrasah and part of the Red Mosque compound) stood up against this attempt and barred the police from entering the school.
These students came under tear gas bombs and some of them were injured, but the police couldn't enter the school. However, the Ministry of Interior registered a criminal case against the two brothers in one of Islamabad police centers.
The problem that escalated the conflict was the decision of the Islamabad municipality to demolish seven mosques in the city under the pretext that some of them were built on usurped government land and that some of them pose a security threat to some nearby senior government officials. The decision was a strange and serious one in the eyes of the Pakistani society, which is known to be a conservative one.
Actually, the municipality had demolished two mosques on January 20, 2007. Jamia Hafsa and the Red Mosque's madrasah for males were among the schools that the municipality decided to demolish. But students of the madrasahs staged large demonstrations, spearheaded by Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ghazi and a galaxy of `ulamaa' (religious scholars), and they were able to stop the demolition process.
Minister of Religious Affairs and Islamic Endowments Mohammed Ijazulhaq stepped in and asked the Interior Affairs Minister to stop the procedures of demolishing the mosque.
| Analysts see that the government quarters didn't seek a peaceful solution to the problem. | Takeover of Children's Libraries The female students of Jamia Hafsa took hold of the children's library neighboring their school on January 20, 2007, and they closed the library door and barred the government employees and the library goers from entering, saying that they would not leave the library except after the government sent a written guarantee pledging not to demolish schools and mosques. Although many prominent religious and political figures participated in a dialogue between the government and the Red Mosque administration, the problem wasn't solved.
Analysts see that the government quarters didn't seek a peaceful solution to the problem. This showed clearly in statements by ruling party chairman Choudry Shugaat Hussein in which he announced on July 2, 2007, that his efforts to settle the problem of the Red Mosque were quashed by some official quarters. Likewise, efforts of Minister Ijazulhaq went down the drain. Even he came under heated criticism on the part of his fellow ministers with General Musharraf reprimanding him several times, according to a well-informed reporter Erfan Seddiqi in one of his daily column in a local paper, on July 5, 2007.
Implementing Shari`ah in a Taliban-Like Way
Media outlets quoted Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ghazi as saying that Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) "brought me good news and told me 300 times in my dreams to move to implement the Shari`ah of Allah."
This prompted some to say that the dreams had a role in the establishing of student movements in the same way as that of Taliban, which also started with dreams as the Taliban spearheads used to say.
They actually embarked on implementing the Shari`ah in the Red Mosque vicinity, and the government didn't dare to use force against them. "We today announce the implementation of the Shari`ah in the area under our control, where all cases, from now on, will be adjudicated according to the Shari`ah of Allah, glory be to Him," said Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ghazi in his speech announcing the implementation of Shari`ah.
In the same speech, he accused the government of collaborating with non-governmental organizations and other secular agencies in the country and of assuming a hostile stance to his movement, by spreading lies and framed charges against the followers of the movement. He also said that implementing Shari`ah is an obligation on every Muslim, and he asked even women and girls to participate in his movement.
He added that his movement seeks goodness for all Muslims, men and women, and that one of its aims is to protect the chastity and honor of Muslim women and girls. He identified demands to the government, calling on it to listen to and implement them well.
"First, the government has to stop the media campaign that includes false claims against the movement's male and female students. Second, it should remove all street posters and placards that contain immoral pictures, because these pictures play an influential, but wrong, role in the society. Third, it must close marijuana addicting centers. Fourth, the government must ban wine in Islamabad. Fifth, our movement seeks security and stability, and so the police should cooperate with us." "We don't seek clashes but we will not stay silent over any obstacles in the way of implementing Shari`ah," he added.
Negative Acts Some male and female students of the Red Mosque committed some negative acts in the Pakistani capital, and the government didn't use force in response. Some of these acts included closing a house, holding a woman under charges of joining a prostitution ring, kidnapping three policemen under the pretext that the police detained a group of Al-Faridia university students, demanding some merchants to stop selling records that spread what they regard as moral corruption, and issuing a fatwa against the female Minister of Tourism for hugging a French man.
The recent showdowns started on April 10, 2007, when the government announced the closure of the Red Mosque website and banned the radio programs that were transmitted via the short wave. On June 29, 2007, General Musharraf announced that a group of suicidal bombers affiliated with Al-Qaeda are hiding in the Red Mosque.
On July 3, 2007, the paratroopers approached and sealed off the Red Mosque compound until finally the military troops stormed the mosque, on July 10, and killed the deputy leader, Sheikh Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a step that might have ended this particular crisis, but probably it will not end the dilemmas Musharraf has to face one after another. | It was in 1965 that Sheikh Abdullah, the Red Mosque's first preacher, started to engage in politics. | Historical Background In the fifties of the 20th century, the first preacher of the Red Mosque was Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, the father of both Sheikhs Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid Ghazi. He was born to a Baloch family in a village south of Pakistani Punjab region. He finished his primary Islamic education in the Punjab province then enrolled in a secondary school where the headmaster was Sheikh Mufti Mahmud, father of Malawi Fadhlurrahman who was the opposition leader in the Pakistani parliament. Then he joined the Islamic Bennouria University in Karachi to make more studies on Hadith and graduated in 1957. Then he worked as a preacher, teacher, and imam in various Karachi schools and mosques for nine years. When the Pakistani capital was moved from Karachi to Islamabad at the era of the then president of Pakistan Mohammed Ayoub Khan, Sheikh Abdullah moved from Karachi to Islamabad and was nominated in the first mosque built in Islamabad upon the request and recommendation of Sheikh Mohammed Yousuf Al-Bannouri, one of the Pakistani renowned scholars who was a professor and director of the Hadith Department at the Bennouria university from which Sheikh Abdullah graduated. It was in 1965 that Sheikh Abdullah, the Red Mosque's first preacher, started to engage in politics, at a time when the Khatm-ul-Nobowwa movement was active in 1973 and 1974. Most prominent of his mentors is Sheikh Al-Mufti Mahmoud, the secretary general of one of the Olema-ul-Islam society who was one of the active leaders in the movement and he is the sheikh who issued a fatwa endorsed by the parliament ruling that the Qadiani sect is an infidel one. Owing to this relation between the mosque preacher and one of the active leaderships in the Khatm-ul-Nobowwa movement, the Red Mosque became one of the movement's most active centers in Islamabad. When the opposition launched its uprising to topple the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, president of Pakistan between 1971-1973 and prime minister in 1977, Sheikh Abdullah actively participated in the protests.
Era of General Zia-ul-Haq
When General Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq reached power in Pakistan in 1977, Sheikh Abdullah sought to cement relations with him given that the circumstances allowed such relations. These relations continued until the death of General Zia-ul-Haq in 1988.
Sheikh Abdullah took advantage of his close relations, and throughout the rule of Zia-ul-Haq, he was nominated head of the Central Committee for Verifying the Start of the Hegira Month.
He also set up two big schools in Islamabad, including one for educating girls. In the Red Mosque also, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ghazi set up another school for boys, besides a number of mosques built with the efforts of Sheikh Abdullah in Islamabad.
Sheikh Abdullah was killed in 1998 at the era of Nawaz Sherif, and the Shiites were accused of being behind the murder given that the sheikh was active against them in the last days of his life. Owing to his far-reaching relations with influential characters, whether senior government officials or prominent scholars, Sheikh Abdullah was invited to participate in most sessions that were held for discussing Pakistani issues, escorted by his eldest son Sheikh Abdul Aziz, whose father groomed to succeed him. http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1183484216983&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout
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