JEDDAH, 14 October 2004 — Dr. Shahid Masood is an excellent television presenter. His analysis of current events — done with clinical precision and documented by empirical data — on ARY, a Pakistani channel beaming out of Dubai, has endeared him to a large section of the Urdu-speaking community. He is direct, balanced and to the point and tries to keep emotions out of his political commentaries — a rarity among Muslim analysts.
But the carnage in a mosque in Pakistan during Friday prayers early this month turned him into an emotional wreck. Dr. Masood fumbled for words and was almost choking with pain at having to comment on such a terrible tragedy. One could see tears welling up in his eyes as footage of the blood-soaked prayer mats and twisted ceiling fans filled the television screen. And then came this denouement: “People who do this and are doing this cannot be Muslims. How can any Muslim blow himself up in a mosque during Friday prayers? How?” In the absence of any rational explanation of what is tearing the Muslim world apart, Dr. Masood, like so many of us, went into denial.
There were more words of despair and more footage of carnage. But there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Faced with atrocities committed by one of our own, the standard defense in the Muslim world has for too long been simply to deny the existence of black sheep in our midst.
Yet the men who detonate bombs in mosques are but a product of the culture of hate that permeates and pervades Muslim societies. The people who kill children and worshippers have been using the cover of religion for their acts with impunity — not least because too many of the religion’s spokesmen themselves vow death to “the other” from the pulpits of thousands of mosques. When the bombs blow up, their silence, by contrast, is deafening. As a result we simply wait for another tragedy to happen, and then we go into a denial again.
Extraordinary situations demand extraordinary decisions. It is high time we accepted that for too long some Muslims have preached hate against “the other,” whatever that “other” may be. Sometimes “the other” is those Muslims they consider heretics. Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, we have been in denial about it, and while our heads were buried deep in the sand Muslims lost two states. Afghanistan is in a state of chaos, Iraq has been reduced to rubble, and both have been rendered ungovernable perhaps for decades to come.
Yes, it was a vengeful American leadership that brought the chaos about. But what was done from the Muslim side to stem the rot? Where were the leading proponents of the “religion of peace” when the time came to stop the merchants of terror from blowing themselves up in the middle of innocent bystanders, worshippers and schoolchildren?
There is a vast reservoir of good will for Muslims among the people of the West. With every bombing we drain a little more of that reservoir and turn another stretch of arable land into a desert of hate. It is time to step back and take stock of things and chart a fresh strategy to deal with what is happening around us. Now is the time for the silent majority among the Muslims to end its silence.
Every Muslim knows Islam flourished when the Prophet (peace be upon him) signed the peace treaty of Hudaibiya with his enemies. It was not a treaty between equals, but it worked wonders. If “the other” is ever to understand the values of Islam, there must first be peace.
There is a huge relief, almost a sense of jubilation, in the Muslim world at the discomfiture of the United States and Britain, as they get deeper into the mire in Iraq and Afghanistan. But a whole generation of Iraqis and Afghans has lost their youth and innocence.
There is not a single Iraqi and Afghan family that has not lost a member. It is their bodies that litter the dusty highways, their limbs that lie strewn among the twisted metal of blown-up cars. These years have been hellish for them.
The United States may have lost prestige in the Middle East and perhaps a couple of thousand professional soldiers. But the Muslim world has lost immeasurably — economically, in international standing, and above all in human lives, which more and more seem the only asset of which it can be said to have a surfeit.
By our silence, we have allowed ourselves to be taken hostage too. We must wrest the knives from the hands of the hatemongers and we must do it now if we are to have any hope of a prosperous future. As the saying goes in Urdu, “Lamhon Ne Khata Ki Thi, Sadiyon Ne Sazaa Paayee,” which roughly translated means, “Mistakes were committed in minutes, and centuries had to pay for them.”
