The U.S. Muslim Honor Brigade Strikes Again

Asra Q. Nomani

The Daily Beast

21 Apr, 2015

On the homepage of its website, a photo of teachers and staff shows five of 21 scarved women peering out from behind full-face black veils, only their eyes visible, over the shroud of a dark gown. Latif covers her face with a veil. The most puritanical interpretations of Islam require veils. The Deobandi school of thought, the driving ideology of the Taliban, militant groups and strict orthodoxy in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, requires full-face veils for women, as does the Wahhabi and Salafi schools of thought exported to the world from Saudi Arabia. My mother’s family required she wear the face veil as a woman.

I definitely have a difference of beliefs from Baqir, but would defend his right to express them. He had started a mosque, Masjid Isa ibn-e-Maryam (“Jesus, son of Mary”), known in the community as ascribing to the strict Salafi and Deobandi schools of thought. Baqir says it doesn’t. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he says.

Source:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/21/the-u-s-muslim-honor-brigade-strikes-again.html

Raising the black flag?

The Economist

21 Apr, 2015

In any case IS will face an uphill battle in Afghanistan, ideologically speaking. For one, the Taliban adhere to a Deobandi school of Sunni Islam, while IS espouse a stricter, Salafi interpretation of the faith. Whereas IS have ambitions of a transcontinental caliphate, Taliban have a Pushtun-nationalist outlook. And while the Taliban occasionally target ethnic Hazaras, they do not seek the type of genocidal purge of Shias that IS has undertaken. Indeed, the police chief of Helmand province said this week that he has evidence of IS activity in his districts—where they have taken up arms against the Taliban.

Source:

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21649054-raising-black-flag

Pakistan-backed LeT Needs Action In Yemen

S Subrahmanyam

18 Apr, 2015

The spate of public support meetings in Pakistan now is being organized by Ahl-e-Sunnat-W’al-Jama’at (ASWJ), the erstwhile Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), the mother of all Sunni Wahhabi and Deobandi terrorist tanzeems (elements) in Pakistan. Its emir, Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, is a close friend of the Sharif brothers and the PML(N) has an electoral understanding with him and ASWJ. The Punjab government is very generous with him. He does to the Shias what Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, who had established the Umayyad dynasty, did to the Byzantines of Syria: slaughter them.

Source:

http://swarajyamag.com/world/pakistan-backed-let-needs-action-in-yemen/

The myth of the Muslim monolith

Maryam S. Khan

17.04.2015

In Pakistan, prominent Sunni sub-groups include:
– the Sufis: a largely non-political, mystical and ritualistic tradition organised around fraternal orders of saints that developed in the Indian sub-continent centuries ago;
– the Deobandis: an anti-imperialist, socially conservative and religiously dogmatic movement that emerged in colonial India in the nineteenth century to “purify” Islam;
– the Barelvis: a movement that arose in defence of Sufism in reaction to the Deobandi agitation;
– the Salafis/Wahabis: a puritanical movement that originated in eighteenth-century Saudi Arabia, and found a jihadist foothold in Pakistan during the Afghan war and formed close alliances with extremist Deobandi groups.

Pakistan’s internal diversity within Islam led to sectarian contests over who was and was not a Muslim. As early as the 1950s, there were anti-Ahmadi riots spearheaded by Deobandi groups, in particular the Jamaat-i-Islami and Majlis-e-Ahrar.

In 1974, however, the Deobandi ideology prevailed in parliament. Only a year after the constitution of 1973 came into force, the legislature passed an amendment to the constitution, declaring that people who believe in prophets after Prophet Muhammad are not Muslim. One sectarian version of Islam had thus managed to impose its world view on the constitutional order. Because Pakistan’s president and prime minister must be Muslims, Ahmadis have since been excluded from these offices.

Deobandi and Salafi madrassas (religious seminaries) proliferated and became more radical. They were sponsored by the state and benefited from Saudi money in particular. These madrassas were integrated into mainstream education to train, recruit and mobilise Islamic fighters called the “mujahideen”, who joined the insurgents in Afghanistan. The military regime’s policies facilitated an arms and drugs trade across the border, and silenced the opposition at home through despotic laws and harsh repression.

To more firmly establish his power, moreover, Zia “islamised” various laws in a way that reflected an extreme and rigid version of Deobandi doctrine. All Muslims who did not subscribe to rigid religious fundamentalism – the majority – were thus legally reduced to a minority status. Moderate Sunnis as well as non-Sunnis had no choice but to be regulated by these harsh laws. The only exceptions were “personal laws” concerning private matters like inheritance, marriage and divorce etc. All religious groups, whether Muslim or not, were allowed to apply their traditional rules to these matters.

Deobandi ideology increasingly marked various kinds of legislation. Examples include:
– the “Hudood” laws that criminalised and severely punished drinking and extra-marital sexual relations for example,
– constitutional amendments that introduced religious “Sharia Courts” to police compliance with Islamic principles,
– changes in Pakistan’s criminal laws that introduced corporal punishment for various offences and “blood money” for murder for instance.

New militant groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, for instance, have emerged from the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. Typically, they are marked by fundamentalist Sunni ideology of the Deobandi, Salafi/Wahabi and related traditions. Not only do they attack government institutions, they are also at the forefront of sectarian violence, targeting Shia communities for instance. Thousands of Shias have been killed in the last decade alone, leading to claims of “Shia genocide”. The Ahmadis are being brutalised in a similar way.

Source:

http://en.qantara.de/content/islam-in-pakistan-the-myth-of-the-muslim-monolith

The corruption of militant leaders

Iftikhar Hussain Jazib

Daily Times

April 17, 2015

To further clarify this point and strengthen the argument on the non-religious nature of terrorist movements, some facts are presented about the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is an al Qaeda affiliate in Pakistan. The term talib, plural Taliban, meaning student, was coined to indicate the incomplete education of these terrorists. Therefore, the TTP hardly had such persons in its ranks that had even completed the Dars-e-Nizami, the basic religious course taught at Deoband madrassas (seminaries). Its intellectual hollowness can be simply gauged from the fact that the TTP founder, Baitullah Mehsud, and his successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, did not use a religious title at all. TTP Chief Mullah Fazlullah is a matriculate and he was working as a lift operator in Swat before becoming a militant. He is using the title of mullah wrongly as he never finished his madrassa education. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JA) chief Omer Khorasani is also a matriculate and previously worked as a blacksmith. He has not used a religious title so far, which speaks about his lack of Islamic education itself. Mangal Bagh, the commander of the Lashkar-e-Islam, received no Islamic education and he worked as a bus conductor formerly.

Source:

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/17-Apr-2015/the-corruption-of-militant-leaders

Are Islamic Extremists Poised To Swallow Bangladesh? – Analysis

Bhaskar Roy

April 17, 2015

Blocking terrorist funding is possible to some extent only and that is generally limited to bank transfers. Some banks like the Islami Bank are suspected of being complicit in these transfers. Substantial money comes in from workers returning from countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. There are approximately 10 million Bangladeshis working in the Gulf and West Asia. They return indoctrinated in Deobandi Islam and with the belief that they must contribute part of their earning to the cause of jihad against infidels, the surest path to heaven. This kind of funding is very difficult to track and stop.

Source:

http://www.eurasiareview.com/17042015-are-islamic-extremists-poised-to-swallow-bangladesh-analysis/

The illusion of normalcy in Pakistan

April 15, 2015

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