A photograph of Islamabad's controversial Lal Masjid taken circa 1979, not very long before it became an important center of recruitment and training of mujahedin during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
The first imam of the mosque, Maulana Muhammad Abdullah, was particularly close to military dictator Ziaul Haq. After his assassination 1998, he was replaced by his son Abdul Aziz, who became notorious for translating the mosque's hardline ideology into a different kind of action – taking over adjacent land, creating groups of stick wielding vigilantes for moral policing in the neighborhood, and issuing a fatwa that Pakistani soldiers fighting the Taliban did not deserve an Islamic burial. His actions led to a siege of the mosque in 2007. Opposition parties opposed the military operation, and the mosque continued to receive patronage from influential politicians and businessmen until recently.
Former president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf was arrested in 2013 for ordering the raid, while Aziz continued to be the de facto imam of the mosque. He became controversial again when he declined to condemn the December 16 attack on schoolchildren in Peshawar, and women students of the mosque's seminary released a video pledging support for ISIS.
Built in 1965, it is among the oldest mosques in Islamabad. The origin of this photograph could not be ascertained.
The first imam of the mosque, Maulana Muhammad Abdullah, was particularly close to military dictator Ziaul Haq. After his assassination 1998, he was replaced by his son Abdul Aziz, who became notorious for translating the mosque's hardline ideology into a different kind of action – taking over adjacent land, creating groups of stick wielding vigilantes for moral policing in the neighborhood, and issuing a fatwa that Pakistani soldiers fighting the Taliban did not deserve an Islamic burial. His actions led to a siege of the mosque in 2007. Opposition parties opposed the military operation, and the mosque continued to receive patronage from influential politicians and businessmen until recently.
Former president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf was arrested in 2013 for ordering the raid, while Aziz continued to be the de facto imam of the mosque. He became controversial again when he declined to condemn the December 16 attack on schoolchildren in Peshawar, and women students of the mosque's seminary released a video pledging support for ISIS.
Built in 1965, it is among the oldest mosques in Islamabad. The origin of this photograph could not be ascertained.