Read the first part of 'Qazi Faez Isa And Islam' here.
When Qazi Faez Isa became the Chief Justice of Pakistan, I wrote a piece here in which I stated the following:
“Justice Isa is a sincerely religious man, and that shows in his judicial pronouncements and obiter dicta, which are often peppered with religious wisdom. He is not a reactionary by any means. His is a progressive and modernist interpretation of the faith, which no doubt can be a legitimate basis for a just, egalitarian and inclusive society. Nevertheless, for the more secular-minded – self included- his frequent references to Islam and the scripture from the bench are jarring but not because one questions his intent or his interpretation of Islam but because religion has so often been subject to misinterpretation and misuse in our country. The road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions.”
After reading his “corrections” in the Mubarak Sani review, one is forced to update this view. It is not just that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but Qazi Faez Isa’s intent itself is questionable. Whatever credit one was willing to give him for having a progressive and modernist interpretation of Islam was utterly misplaced. If anything, one is forced to concede that Isa has proved to be a reactionary of the worst kind.
Consider: There is no such thing as a second review in our Supreme Court procedure. It is called capitulation and that is what the Supreme Court did. The original judgment and judgment in review authored by Qazi Faez Isa were praiseworthy because they went a long way in establishing the principle of religious freedom, but all of that good work was undone by the “second review” judgment which is nothing but a farrago of myth and religious bigotry. Qazi Faez Isa capitulated in the face of religious bigotry and fanaticism and, in doing so, showed the kind of base sentiment he can stoop down to.
In the second review judgment (which the judgment calls the correction of the first review), Isa, who just cannot refrain from using religious arguments to bolster his judgments, makes several spurious arguments which are historically inaccurate. His claims about Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s allegedly blasphemous writings against prophets especially Jesus (AS) cannot be taken seriously by any serious theologian or historian of the Ahmadi movement, and therefore, it is enough to state that Isa plainly lied in the judgment or we can assume, to give him the benefit of the doubt, that he was ill-advised by bigots around him.
Given Isa’s antics over the last year, many of his critics have started comparing him with Justice Munir. This is an unfair comparison. Justice Munir – for all his faults- did not misuse religion but always stood against misuse of religion
Paragraph 12 of the judgment quotes Imam Ghazali’s statement about the Ijmah-e-Ummat with respect to the finality of prophethood. That Imam Ghazali held there to be a consensus on the question of finality is correct, but that is not all that Qazi Faez Isa claims. He says that Ghazali held that anyone who was a “munkar” of this “ijmah” was a Non-Muslim. The fact is that Imam Ghazali did not say any such thing but, in fact, argued the exact opposite. Ghazali stated that while there was an ijmah on the issue, a person who did not conform to this ijmah could not be declared Non-Muslim. He says that there is bound to be disagreement on the issue but so long as a person does not outright negate a verse of the Holy Quran but merely disagrees with Ijma-ul-ummah, he or she cannot be declared Non-Muslim. The denial of Ijmah does not turn a person who says the Kalima out of the fold of Islam.
Al Ghazali is the most celebrated Sunni figure in history. Indeed, he is championed by the orthodoxy for what is viewed as his contribution to preserving orthodox Islam from rationalists and philosophers. So, Al Ghazali is by no means a liberal figure in Islamic history, but this was his position. It was a position based on the simple Quranic principle: La Ikrah Fid deen.
Having butchered theology and history in one go, Isa goes on to quote the views of the “ulema” at length, trying to prove that Ahmadis are Non-Muslims and that they can never be allowed to pose as Muslims. One would have hoped that there was a difference between tuppeny hapenny Mullah and the Chief Justice, but Isa proved to be a semi-literate Mullah at the end of the day. Isa often underscores his personal association with the Pakistan Movement, given that his father, Qazi Isa, was a close personal friend and confidant of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Perhaps then the mighty Chief Justice of Pakistan would know that when pressed on the issue, Jinnah refused to allow debate on a resolution to expel Ahmadis from the Muslim League because he would just not countenance such religious bigotry and sectarian division. He laid down a simple principle: He was no one to declare someone a Non-Muslim when he professes to be a Muslim. For this, he was called Kafir-e-Azam by ignorant clerics and religious bigots. Today, Isa stands shoulder to shoulder with those ignorant clerics and religious bigots.
The problem is with the mixing of religion with judicial pronouncements. A judge should leave his religion at home. Given Isa’s antics over the last year, many of his critics have started comparing him with Justice Munir. This is an unfair comparison. Justice Munir – for all his faults- did not misuse religion but always stood against misuse of religion like a bulwark. One can disagree with his judgments especially the one in Tameezuddin case but all of his judgments were based on sound reasoning and logic. They were not peppered with quotes from the scripture and Justice Munir certainly did not butcher history in the way Isa has done. Consider this a requiem for the earlier piece on the subject, whose optimism now seems quite misplaced. Mea culpa.