To the chants of ‘Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah,’ those claiming to champion the cause of the religion set about wreaking havoc. They inflicted massive destruction on over 20 properties, setting alight and plundering churches, torching over a dozen Christian homes, desecrating copies of the holy Bible and vandalizing a Christian graveyard, all on the pretext of an alleged act of blasphemy committed by two Christian brothers in Jaranwala.
Ironically, the rancorous devotees vying to uphold the honour of the faith that God’s last messenger, the ‘Rehmat-ul-lil-Aalameen’ (Mercy for the worlds), brought upon them go about ransacking and rampaging most mercilessly. With every atrocious strike, they brazenly continue to chorus their loyalty to the prophet (PBUH) who the Quran exalts in these words: “And We have not sent you, [O Muhammad], except as a mercy to the worlds.”
Paradox personified, these misled men enacted horrifying scenes in the Jaranwala district of Faisalabad on the fateful day of August 16. Sights that are now hardly unfamiliar to us, and yet, the sanctimoniousness of the charged mobs and their undertakings never fails to alarm, shaming and shocking every Muslim beyond measure. The optics of the barbaric anarchy mortify us further since we marked the country’s independence anniversary only a few days ago, an occasion that reminds us that Jinnah’s Pakistan was built in the name of religious plurality, freedom, respect and tolerance, not to enact tragedies like the Jaranwala attacks.
Factors that trigger mindless anti-blasphemy violence, the mob lynching and incidents of vigilante justice executed under the pretense of alleged blasphemy every now and then, are multiple and complex. Blame penal codes, the blasphemy laws, but honestly speaking, do we really believe that if there were no blasphemy laws, these mobsters wouldn’t react to allegations of blasphemy the way they do, also considering that many among the mob wouldn’t probably even be aware that a law like the blasphemy law exists?
The optics of the barbaric anarchy mortify us further since we marked the country’s independence anniversary only a few days ago, an occasion that reminds us that Jinnah’s Pakistan was built in the name of religious plurality, freedom, respect and tolerance, not to enact tragedies like the Jaranwala attacks.
Whether belonging to TLP or not, most among the rioters cause affray because they have been programmed to believe that this is the accepted way to guard the sanctity of Islam and react whenever it is known to be threatened. They believe so because of the vigorous indoctrination carried out by child-molesting, bigoted, ultra-right mullahs that produce takbir trumpeting suicide bombers and jihadists, who under the guise of purported holy wars, commit murders and kill innocent people. For such rabble-rousers, Allah says in the Quran, Surah Baqarah 2: 11-12: “And when it is said to them, create not disorder on the earth; they say, 'we are but reformists.' Beware! It is they who are the mischief-makers, but they perceive not.”
The chauvinistic clerics who indoctrinate their disciples with jihadist jingoism and religious hatred would never tell them that under the Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) with the monks of Mount Sinai in 628 CE, the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) granted a Charter of Privileges to the monks of St. Catherine Monastery in Mt. Sinai. It had several clauses covering all aspects of human rights including the protection of Christians, freedom of worship and movement, freedom to appoint their own judges and to own and maintain property, and the right to protection in war.
But, where are our ulemas and religious scholars when such adversities strike, the ones who go hoarse proclaiming in their sermons that Islam is a religion of peace and forgiveness; that Islam encourages due investigation, seeking testimony and evidence before reaching conclusions and that Islam prohibits acting hastily on suspicion, misgivings and mistrust? Why don’t our religious sovereigns denounce these violent vigilante sprees as being totally against Islam’s basic tenets?
There has been some condemnation by the Central Ruet-i-Hilal Committee Chairman Maulana Abdul Khabeer Azad and prominent religious scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani, who called the Jaranwala incident shameful, but that was two days after the grisly incident and only after the Punjab Caretaker CM Mohsin Naqvi said in a post on X on Friday that the Jumma sermons in mosques across Punjab should focus on the rights of minorities. There’s a dire need for more across the board condemnation by religious scholars and ulema for people to understand that scholars of all schools of thought strongly condemn such mindless barbarity.
It is also reassuring that the Pakistan Ulema Council Chairman Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi apologized for the Jaranwala violence and reaffirmed his commitment to protect “our Christian brothers” at a presser in Lahore the other day. “I want to ask today, who are these people? Where do they come from? What religion do they follow? I swear these are not the teachings of Islam or the prophet that you cause damage to anyone,” he asserted. Violence in the name of religion is indefensible in any context because no religion in the world encourages violence as the means to any end.
What a sorry generation of misdirected youth is being churned out by a misguided, politicized, fanatical mass of extremists and their cronies, one may shudder to think.
The heightened significance of blasphemy in Pakistan, as opposed to other Muslim countries, even theocracies, is also so because religious identity is central here as one of the core bases for national belonging. When religious identity and authenticity is tied to the authority of the state, anti-blasphemy violence, in fact, becomes a pretext for political contestation. Often, these blasphemy battles have deeper political signification than religious value. Hence, such vandalism results from the politicization of the religion and its exploitation for vested interests.
Videos of men whipping up public sentiment through announcements made on mosque PA systems, asking people to leave their breakfast tables and come out to protest are doing rounds on social media. The footages show how the mobs were instigated on August 16 and called out repeatedly to be incited. Why the police or local authorities did not act promptly to stop those calls to action from being made or stood by as silent spectators when the unrest started are questions with known, yet no answers. But the sights of yobbish young men and boys on rampage, stoked by rumours of alleged desecration of the holy book, relayed through mosque announcements, are extremely disturbing. What a sorry generation of misdirected youth is being churned out by a misguided, politicized, fanatical mass of extremists and their cronies, one may shudder to think.
If authorities could efficiently round up the instigators of the May 9 violence, there is no reason why these sanctimonious fanatics can’t be apprehended. Two of the main accused are claimed to have been already arrested by the Counter Terrorism Department, while another 140 have been rounded up. The arrests would, however, be of no value if eventually the perpetrators go scot-free, as has mostly been the case in the past.
A 2022 study by the Centre for Research & Security Studies, says that between 1947 and 2021, 89 people were attacked and killed for the alleged crime of blasphemy, while there were, at least, 1,500 accusations and cases during that time.
Episodes like the Jaranwala would repeat themselves with distressing consistency, if our power elite, civil and military, continues to ignore the fact that the blasphemy law has been often misused to settle personal scores, property disputes or to terrorise or evacuate minorities from certain localities. We have repeatedly witnessed people being falsely convicted, lynched, shot to death, and mob attacks carried out on entire communities merely on the suspicion of blasphemy. The culprits might be apprehended but usually get away unpunished. The abuse of this law against the innocent, as pointed out by the Supreme Court, is impossible to stop in the absence of adequate safeguards against its misapplication or misuse.
A 2022 study by the Centre for Research & Security Studies, says that between 1947 and 2021, 89 people were attacked and killed for the alleged crime of blasphemy, while there were, at least, 1,500 accusations and cases during that time. More than 70 percent of these cases were reported in Punjab. From 1948 till 1985, just 11 cases of blasphemy were recorded in the country with three killings. Not surprisingly, this was the period when the blasphemy laws did not feature the death sentence. As soon as the death sentence was added in 1986, the number of cases of blasphemy went up by a whopping 1300 percent.
If we cannot undo the 1986 clause in the blasphemy laws, the least we can do is to introduce equally harsh punishments for those misusing the law by fabricating false accusations of blasphemy. The murder of the Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer by his security guard in 2011 for supporting changes in the blasphemy law to stop its misuse was a watershed moment in our history.
The rising trend within the West, especially Europe, to attack the sacred symbols of Islam has also led to a vicious cycle that encourages religious prejudice, Islamophobia and anti-blasphemy violence. While we lament such outbursts of religious extremism at home, similar incidents abroad are misused by extremists at home to identify the hatred that the Christian West harbours towards Islam. This in turn helps them justify their own contempt against indigenous religious minorities.
Words fail us, actions fall short, justice never delivers, while faith-based violence continues unabashed. The impunity for crimes committed in the name of religion has emboldened vigilante vandalism. Rampaging militant mobs are made to believe what they are doing is ordained by Divine decree and is, hence, justified.