On the 13th of December, Maulana Akbar Chitrali was screeching in the parliament, lamenting the ‘disgrace’ that a woman, Hina Rabbani Khar, as State Minister for Foreign Affairs, had brought on Islam and Pakistan by visiting Kabul.
The portentous Maulana, like his elders, was reminding us that the safest haven for a woman is the ‘roof/walls’ of her father/husband’s house. For him, violation of such divine injunction invites God’s wrath – presumably one that manifested itself as shelling by Afghanistan on the Chaman border that martyred eight Pakistani citizens. A male delegation – Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto, clerics and tribal elders – should have visited Kabul. (Thanks God, clerics treated Bilawal as male!)
When the female parliamentarians protested, the pompous Maulana shouted twice: “I am the son of my father!” Was he trying to assure us that he was never somebody else’s father’s son? Or he was sharing a miracle that he was born without the involvement of a mother?
Why don’t the clerics don’t preach the doctrine that we all will be called by our mothers’ names on the Day of Judgment? Why don’t they enlighten the masses about the entrepreneurial role of the Prophet’s (PBUH) wife Khadija (RA). She was thus engaging in ‘outsourcing’ or ‘principal-agent’ that we today read in English law. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan had a female prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, twice. Our nine-year-old Arfa Karim was the youngest Microsoft Professional. She died all too soon, at the age of 16. Another young woman, Malala, is the youngest Nobel Prize winner.
How can a husband’s house be the best protector of a woman’s honour in a society where bearded men rape the dead bodies of women by digging up their graves? Why are the seminaries notorious for sexual and other abuse of children?
Clerics in the Friday prayers and schoolbooks have been telling us since time immemorial that on a single call of an oppressed woman of Sindh, Mohammad Bin Qasim invaded Debal and graced our land with Islam’s light. Nobody tells us how the lady had contacted him. Did she send a Whatsapp message on his number? Wrote an email or tweeted, or uploaded her tragic tale on the Youtube? Perhaps she dialled Bin Qasim Rescue 1122! Why did the sons of bin Qasim not come to rescue Mukhtaran Mai or Dr Shazia Khalid, modern victims of gang rape? They did not even have the moral courage of condemning this sin.
Did Chitrali or his ilk denounce the recent rape and murder of a five-year-old Afghan girl in Karachi?
Yesterday, at Chaklala Scheme III, Rawalpindi, the cantonment’s moral police stripped a transgender in public. A woman covered him with her shawl and drove him away. The poor fellow was assuring them that he was not a beggar but a transgender. The bearded moralist watchmen asked him to take off all his clothes to prove that he was a transgender!
Perhaps the real people of low character are not Pakistani women being policed all the time, but people like Maulana Chitrali. Their faith is in danger when they hear or read the world ‘breast’ in cancer; when they see mannequins; when girls ride bicycles or sit on motorbikes like men. Women in this country are now flying fighter jets and chauvinistic actors like Behroz Sabzwari are lecturing us about the dress code for female pillion riders.
Clerics in our society hate women for sure, but they also have no sympathy for innocent school kids. Did Chitrali or his gurus ever condemn the 2014 Peshawar school massacre? For years, they have been telling us that TTP are Indian agents. If yes, then why does Chitrali not proclaim it in the parliament? Why don’t the clerics condemn the TTP as traitors and enemies of Islam in their sermons? They still want clerics to hold talks with Taliban and TTP!
In July, Mufti Taqi Usmani visited Kabul with an army of clerics for talks. Chitrali should tell us about the accomplishments of this 100-percent-Islamic delegation. It was a fiasco. The Afghan Taliban refused to recognise the Durand Line. And the TTP refused to admit ex-FATA as as part of KP.
Vandals can never understand the logic behind sending a woman to Kabul. It was a diplomatic way of telling the Taliban that there are women in Afghanistan too. And they are as productive and useful as any male. The proof is: a woman was our prime minister twice, and a woman is our foreign affairs minister.
Islam is not under a cleric’s cap or his beard or his shalwar above the ankles. But the problem is: you can’t whiten a crow by scrubbing it with soap repeatedly.
The portentous Maulana, like his elders, was reminding us that the safest haven for a woman is the ‘roof/walls’ of her father/husband’s house. For him, violation of such divine injunction invites God’s wrath – presumably one that manifested itself as shelling by Afghanistan on the Chaman border that martyred eight Pakistani citizens. A male delegation – Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto, clerics and tribal elders – should have visited Kabul. (Thanks God, clerics treated Bilawal as male!)
When the female parliamentarians protested, the pompous Maulana shouted twice: “I am the son of my father!” Was he trying to assure us that he was never somebody else’s father’s son? Or he was sharing a miracle that he was born without the involvement of a mother?
Why don’t the clerics don’t preach the doctrine that we all will be called by our mothers’ names on the Day of Judgment? Why don’t they enlighten the masses about the entrepreneurial role of the Prophet’s (PBUH) wife Khadija (RA). She was thus engaging in ‘outsourcing’ or ‘principal-agent’ that we today read in English law. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan had a female prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, twice. Our nine-year-old Arfa Karim was the youngest Microsoft Professional. She died all too soon, at the age of 16. Another young woman, Malala, is the youngest Nobel Prize winner.
How can a husband’s house be the best protector of a woman’s honour in a society where bearded men rape the dead bodies of women by digging up their graves? Why are the seminaries notorious for sexual and other abuse of children?
Clerics in the Friday prayers and schoolbooks have been telling us since time immemorial that on a single call of an oppressed woman of Sindh, Mohammad Bin Qasim invaded Debal and graced our land with Islam’s light. Nobody tells us how the lady had contacted him. Did she send a Whatsapp message on his number? Wrote an email or tweeted, or uploaded her tragic tale on the Youtube? Perhaps she dialled Bin Qasim Rescue 1122! Why did the sons of bin Qasim not come to rescue Mukhtaran Mai or Dr Shazia Khalid, modern victims of gang rape? They did not even have the moral courage of condemning this sin.
Did Chitrali or his ilk denounce the recent rape and murder of a five-year-old Afghan girl in Karachi?
Yesterday, at Chaklala Scheme III, Rawalpindi, the cantonment’s moral police stripped a transgender in public. A woman covered him with her shawl and drove him away. The poor fellow was assuring them that he was not a beggar but a transgender. The bearded moralist watchmen asked him to take off all his clothes to prove that he was a transgender!
Perhaps the real people of low character are not Pakistani women being policed all the time, but people like Maulana Chitrali. Their faith is in danger when they hear or read the world ‘breast’ in cancer; when they see mannequins; when girls ride bicycles or sit on motorbikes like men. Women in this country are now flying fighter jets and chauvinistic actors like Behroz Sabzwari are lecturing us about the dress code for female pillion riders.
Clerics in our society hate women for sure, but they also have no sympathy for innocent school kids. Did Chitrali or his gurus ever condemn the 2014 Peshawar school massacre? For years, they have been telling us that TTP are Indian agents. If yes, then why does Chitrali not proclaim it in the parliament? Why don’t the clerics condemn the TTP as traitors and enemies of Islam in their sermons? They still want clerics to hold talks with Taliban and TTP!
In July, Mufti Taqi Usmani visited Kabul with an army of clerics for talks. Chitrali should tell us about the accomplishments of this 100-percent-Islamic delegation. It was a fiasco. The Afghan Taliban refused to recognise the Durand Line. And the TTP refused to admit ex-FATA as as part of KP.
Vandals can never understand the logic behind sending a woman to Kabul. It was a diplomatic way of telling the Taliban that there are women in Afghanistan too. And they are as productive and useful as any male. The proof is: a woman was our prime minister twice, and a woman is our foreign affairs minister.
Islam is not under a cleric’s cap or his beard or his shalwar above the ankles. But the problem is: you can’t whiten a crow by scrubbing it with soap repeatedly.