Paved with good intentions

All over the world many young people die. Many are also killed by other young people which, though sad, is a reality which we have become quite desensitized to. A few weeks ago, however, quite a stir was caused by a young person killed in Nankana Sahib in Pakistan. Some people mentioned the humility and kindness of the deceased. Some mentioned how years of dedication had culminated in the beginning of a service to society in the form of a medical career and was violently cut short. Others mentioned how the killer himself was a victim of radicalization and painfully young. The fact that the victim was shot dead at (a relative’s) home, also leaves one moved. From twitter to international organizations to the British (but not the Pakistani) parliament; The venues of discussion were quite varied. In case you do not know, this person’s name was Tahir Mahmood. He was the member of the Ahmadi community (to which I also belong.) While Pakistani society has debated the right and wrong of this incident and the plight and persecution of this community within Pakistan is being scrutinized internationally, an opinion re-expressed at another death and intricately related to this death has me contemplating the agony of Pakistan.

But before I come to that I would like to relate an (Islamic) anecdote I once heard. In it a man being inspired to do a good dead decides to spend something in charity. He sees a person begging and gives him some money to ease his circumstances and is content at his being able to bring his plan to fruition. His joy soon turns sour, though, as he later sees that that same person drinking wine, obviously at his expense. Probably because he is resentful towards God, he goes to a holy man and relates the whole incident to him. As enigmatic holy men go in such stories, this one takes the young man along with him into the city. They soon find a person walking along the street and obviously not begging and under some pretext the holy man insists on gifting him something. He then tells the young man to discretely follow that person and later come tell him what he sees. The young man does as he is told and sees that person go home and a short while later come out with a packet in his hands. The man starts walking towards the outer fringes of the city and into the forest where he then pulls a carcass from the packet and throws it away before heading back. Then he heads back to the market and buys some groceries before heading back home. Intrigued by the whole incident, the young man goes up to the man as he is entering his home and asks him about what has happened. The man says that he has come into extreme financial difficulty, so much so, that he is unable to feed his family. He goes on to say that since he traces his lineage back to the founder of Islam and since his descendants had been forbidden from accepting charity he had earlier gone into the forest to find something to feed his family with and returned with carrion, which was the only thing he could find. When he relates the whole incident to the holy man, he tells him to contemplate on why the young man’s charity ended up financing alcoholism and his own charity saved a Syed (an honorific title for the descendants of the Muhammad peace be upon him) from consuming carrion.

Now skipping over the rest of the genius which Muhammad Hanif’s articles and blogs generally are, I want to mention a particular part of a particular Punjabi vlog which he recently reshared. He reshared this conspicuously close to the news of the death of a hardline cleric in Pakistan. In it he mentioned how the same clerics who would once have perhaps had an orphan around to help them with their chores slowly began to be surrounded with men carrying AK-47’s. Whereas earlier they would be extremely grateful for getting a plate of dessert someone might have gifted, they began to roam around in SUV’s. A comparison of the humble and sweet-sounding cleric of his village childhood with the modern-day version was implicit. Obviously, money was involved in the whole process but one sentence in the whole explanation took me back to the anecdote of the young man with good intentions. Essential in the changing fortunes of the mullahs was charity which good-minded rich people were giving from their (often ill-gotten) gains and the Islamic zeal of certain foreign governments. One may debate the intentions, locations, and roles of foreign governments but one thing is certain: Involved in the whole process was a definite trend of moving away from the values religion taught and towards giving religion importance and consideration. Almost as if the former was trying to compensate the later. Please consider the recent social media uproar raised in Pakistan regarding the google search results for “Kalif of Islam” in the light of all this. Zealous feedback was provided to google that result showing Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad (may Allah be his Helper) the current head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is “misleading or inaccurate”. I think you will find the same “selective religiosity” at work here.

Another thing that came to mind while thinking about this is how long this road has been. About three generations ago, because my grandfather would have been about my age then, when Ahmadis were declared non-Muslims by the Pakistani parliament, there was celebration in the mess of the Pakistan Naval Station Shifa. Until someone shouted “You shameless fellows! Commander Momin has be declared a non-Muslim today.” Then there was silence. Even back then grandfather’s character spoke for itself. Unfortunately, in the 45 years since then Pakistan has progressed much further in its’ love and respect for Islam. If you have seen a single incident of the rigor with which Islam is defended in Pakistan, you will know, that such a sentence being uttered (much less shouted) today is extremely unlikely and the response to it is likely to be painful if not deadly. According to the same (now late Lt.) Commander Momin, about 4 generations ago when he would have been about the age of my elder son and Pakistan was the age of my 1 year old, Pakistan used to be a paradise which he said “has now been turned into hell”. Anyhow, the late Dr. Tahir Mahmood’s father, much like Pakistan, after losing his future has a bullet lodged in his brain and is largely conscious and fighting a battle for his survival. Let’s pray for both.