Letter to Kamran Pasha

Kamran Pasha is a Muslim American screenwriter in Hollywood. I sent him this letter:

Dear Kamran Pasha,

Assalaam Alaikum. I'd like to comment on your recent article titled, "The Beginning of the End of the Taliban." First off, the death threat that you received was abhorrent. But I don't know if that person is necessarily a Taliban supporter. What his message appears to convey is that he is upset that you wrote your book "Mother of the Believers." I don't know if he has read your book. I have not, but I can understand why some Muslims may harbour suspicions about it. I listened to your interview on The Young Turks. And from what I understand, your book is a fictionalized account of the birth of Islam told from the point of view of the Prophet's favourite wife, Aisha. I would imagine that you researched the primary sources such as as the Ahadith, including narrations by the Companions of the Prophet. Many Muslims (including myself) consider such narrations to be almost sacrosanct. So when an author like yourself attempts to fictionalize the history of our religion, we are reminded of the hypocrites in the early days of Islam who would fabricate ahadith either for monetary gain or to show that their heterodox view on a particular issue was in accordance with the Sunnah.

The person who threatened you referred to you as a "kaffir." I disapprove of Muslims who call other Muslims "kaffirs." Perhaps what the person meant to call you was a "munafiq," i.e. a hypocritically pious Muslim. But I have no way of knowing what his/her thought process was. You say you were outraged by the fact the person used Islamic terminology to condemn you. But aren't you guilty of the same thing when you accuse him/her of blasphemy? The way that he (and I'm assuming he is male) expressed his discontent is unacceptable. But his point of view is more or less legitimate. Writing a fictionalized account of the Prophet MuhammadProphet Muhammad's life is like drawing a caricature of him. In the same way that a caricature of the Prophet fails to capture the accuracy of his likeness, a fictionalized account of his life would also contain inaccuracies because you are relying on your imagination to fill in the gaps. Since Muslims respect the Prophet Muhammad, many of us feel indignant that you would attempt to essentially write an imaginary tale about him that is based on fact. Although it is based on the primary sources that I presume you researched, parts of your book are likely to be based on heresy.

We do not consider the Prophet to be Divine; thus, your book cannot be called blasphemous. But the fact that we hold the Prophet in such high regard makes your book quite controversial. And some of us are disappointed that rather than addressing these concerns, you have chosen to create a straw man by labeling the man who threatened you a "Taliban supporter," and portraying yourself as an enlightened victim of medieval fanaticism. The harsh words that you use to describe the Taliban in your article show that you are guilty of the same crime that you accuse the Taliban of, i.e. hatred for your fellow Muslims. If you are a follower of the Prophet Muhammad, then you must be aware that he always advocated using kind words even when arguing with somebody who disagrees with you. Furthermore, the Prophet Muhammad never undertook military action against fellow Muslims. In fact, he warned against fitna. People like yourself may support war against the Taliban; but this cannot be justified in Islam. Military action can only be taken if there is zero chance that the action will harm innocent people. War against the Taliban will almost certainly lead to innocent deaths not to mention the destruction of property belonging to innocents.

But the extremism that I detect in your writing appears to mirror the extremism that I see in the Taliban's violence. Are you not willing to concede that although Taliban-inspired violence is wrong, they do have a legitimate viewpoint on what a genuine Islamic society should look like? Lets look at some issues that are important to the Taliban. The Taliban are known to force men to grow beards, force women to veil themselves, destroy video stores, etc. The Qur'an does not allow us to force our fellow Muslims to observe any particular religious practice. But are you not willing to acknowledge that apparent lack of religiosity in Pakistani society may lead to religious extremism among some people? Pakistan is a supposedly Muslim country. But so few Pakistani Muslim men choose to emulate the Prophet by growing a beard. Growing a beard is not required, but the fact that bearded Muslims in Pakistan are ridiculed as "fundos" and "mullahs" illustrates how far Pakistani Muslims have veered from their religion. So few Pakistani Muslim women choose to emulate the Prophet's wife by wearing a veil. Although a veil is not required, a hijab certainly is mandatory based on the hadith in which the Prophet tells Asma bint Abu Bakr that the only parts of a woman's body that should be visible are the hands and the face. So many Pakistani Muslims indulge themselves by watching decadent Bollywood films that have a harmful impact on traditional Islamic values. Today's Bollywood films have a negative influence on youth. They teach young women to disobey their parents by eloping with the men they fall in love with. They teach young men to waste their lives on romantic and adventurous pursuits instead of increasing their education and building a career.

Taliban-inspired extremism is a direct response to widespread secularism. You correctly identified the Kharijites are the ideological forefathers of the Taliban movement. But it is important to remember why the Khawarij came about in the first place. As the Muslim empire was expanding, the Muslims were conquering more and more territory that was inhabited by non-Muslims. These non-Muslims understood that they could curry favour with their new rulers by converting to Islam. Many of them converted to Islam purely for material reasons; their hearts did not truly embrace Islam. The Kharijites were aware of this. And so they carried out a violent campaign of eliminating the "fake" Muslims. Eventually, the Kharijites were defeated. But similar movements have appeared at different periods in Islamic history, e.g. the Assassins (or Hashsashin) during the period of the Crusades. My point is that such movements do not just appear out of nowhere. They are reactionary movements. They are a response to something. There seems to be more extremism in Pakistan than in most other Muslim countries. Is it possible that in Pakistan there is more corruption, more injustice, more oppression, more deceit than in the other Muslim countries? It certainly seems that way. Will you not acknowledge that the Taliban movement may be a response to the fact that so many Pakistani Muslims seem to have turned away from the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad? You have devoted 1,570 words in your article to denouncing the Taliban. Why don't you devote half as many words to denouncing the corruption, injustice, oppression and deceit in Pakistan that gave birth to the creation of this new Khawarij movement that calls itself the Taliban? You could write a whole article on Zardari.

Once again, I'd like to return to the notion of secularism. It was extreme secularism in Iran during the period of the Shah that led to the pendulum swinging the other way in full force when a militant religious Ayatollah led an Islamic Revolution. The revolution did not appear out of nowhere. It was a reaction. The Shah has tried to separate Islam for the judiciary. This sort of thing tends to anger some Muslims, and it ought to anger all believing Muslims. Ayatollah Khomeini would hang people who were insufficiently devout in their faith. It wasn't just the Shah's secularism that produced this violent reaction; it was also the corruption, injustice, oppression, and deceit that existed in Iran during his reign. I would ask that you look at the bigger picture before you start making judgments on people whom you disagree with. Pakistan is a country of 173 million people, out of which 95 % are Muslim. For a country of about 164 million Muslims, Pakistan seems to lack mosques. Maybe the lack of mosques in Pakistan does not seem significant. But I view this as an indicator of a society's religiosity the same way that I view the number of universities as an indication of a society's literacy.

Also, you yourself point out that the religious parties barely manage to get 2 % of the vote. Is this not a further indication of the irreligiousness of the average Pakistani? You write that Pakistani Muslims "practice their faith confidently and in peace." Well, the evidence seems to show that most of them aren't practicing much, although they are indeed at peace. And it is this rampant secularism in Pakistani society that is producing the Khawarij reaction in much the same way that it did 25 years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. You clearly favour the defeat of the Taliban; but the Taliban is only the symptom of a much larger problem. The disease is irreligiousness. The Taliban will not go away until Pakistani Muslims come back to their religion. There is almost no extremism among Muslims in America. The reason for this is that Muslim Americans have not succumbed to secularism that way that Muslim Pakistanis have. There are around 1,200 mosques in the United States even though there only about 2 million Muslims in America according to Newsweek magazine. This ratio is about 6 mosques per 10,000 Muslims. For Pakistan with its population of 164 million Muslims, there would have to be 98,400 mosques in the country in order to have the same ratio. Pakistan does not have 98,400 mosques. Why are there more mosques relative to the Muslim population in America than in Pakistan? Why is it that there seem to be more Bollywood video stores in Pakistan than there are mosques? Is it not strange that religiosity appears to be higher among Muslims in America than among Muslims in Pakistan?

Turkey is a country that is 99 % Muslim. There is very little extremism in Turkey. Some believe that Turkish Muslims are more secular than other Muslims. But lets take the hijab as an indicator of religiosity in society. According to BBC, 60 % of Turkish women wear the hijab. They do so of their own free will, in spite of the fact that Turkey has laws banning the hijab in certain places such as universities. How many Muslim women in Pakistan wear the hijab? I would guess that the percentage is considerably lower than 60 %. So in a country like Turkey, which has had enforced secularism ever since the militant secularist Mustafa Kemal Ataturk condemned Islamic traditions, we are seeing more religiosity than in a country like Pakistan which was supposedly founded specifically for Muslims.

By the way, are you being serious when you refer to Muawiya as a "hero of Islam?" That is quite offensive! Muawiya was involved in the Battle of Siffin against Ali. Muawiya broke the treaty he had made with Hasan ibn Ali by appointing his own son Yazid as the caliph. Muawiya was responsible for the deaths of various Companions, and his son Yazid murdered Husayn ibn Ali. Muawiya is not regarded as a rightly guided caliph by Sunni scholars, and he is widely reviled by Shi'a scholars. Muawiya was most definitely not a "hero of Islam." I find it hard to believe that you would call him a "hero of Islam" while you refer to the Khawarij as "self-righteous murderers." Is Muawiya not also a "self-righteous murderer?"

Finally, I was struck by your attempt to claim the moral high ground by wishing "peace" upon the man that made the death threat against you. Your peaceful words are in sharp contradiction to an article you co-wrote with musician Salman Ahmed in the Washington Post's On Faith section in which both of you appeared to advocate military action against the Taliban. It seems that both you and the Taliban are extremists on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. Therefore, neither of you can claim the moral high ground. Both the Khawarij and Munafiqeen have existed for centuries and will continue to exist. Both are guilty of picking and choosing what parts of Islam they like and what parts they don't like. The Khawarij find Islam's emphasis on justice and punishment to be appealing and they discard the rest, while the Munafiqeen find Islam's emphasis on love and mercy to be appealing and they discard the rest. Mr. Pasha, the Islam that you seem to believe in is an incomplete Islam. The fact that you value Rumi's poetry is commendable. But even though Jalaluddin Rumi was a scholar of Islam as well as a poet, his poetry should be read solely for enjoyment, not for religious guidance. Rumi is not recognized for his scholarly work on Islam the way that Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Shafi are.

Islam is not just about having a personal relationship with the Creator. It is also about having a complete system of laws that govern all aspects of the human experience including politics, justice, and economics. Even if you oppose Shari'ah on an ideological basis, you cannot deny that there would be less violence and less extremism happening in Pakistan if Shari'ah were to be implemented over the entire country. Different schools of thought may disagree on the details of what Shari'ah would actually entail, but that is why there needs to be more discussion among the various schools of Islamic thought (even the so-called "fundamentalist" ones that you despise) in order to achieve a consensus on what Shari'ah should be in the 21st century. There will always be differences among the Ulema. But the Prophet said that his nation would never agree on something that is not correct; so the majority view among the Ulema should form the basis of the codified body of rules. Although Shari'ah has never been a codified body of rules in the history of Islam, it is imperative that Shari'ah be clearly defined by the Ulema and subsequently implemented in every Muslim society. We are living in a time when this has become necessary in order to prevent the escalation of further death and destruction. Plus, it is the morally correct thing to do since Islamic laws have been perfected by our Creator.

Sincerely,

Saad Zafar