The frequently used word “Ummah” (worldwide community of believers) has always puzzled me. It is true that most Muslims in the world are connected by their belief in Islam. But could this connection be translated into political union? History tells us that it is but a utopian view that has not been true except on rare occasions.
There have been Muslim poets and thinkers who have championed the idea of uniting Muslims of the world under one umbrella. As Allama Iqbal had said:
ایک ہو مسلم حرم کی پاسبانی کے لۓ
نیل کے ساحل سے لے کر تا بہ خاک کاشغر
(We need a Muslim to safeguard Muslim sacred places
From the banks of Nile River to the deserts of Kashghar)
Iqbal was a great proponent of Muslim unity. Despite being an Indian, he identified more with the Arab history and culture than with India. Though in his poetry he has paid homage to Hindu god Ram, Guru Nanak, and Shakespeare among others, his message was mostly tailored to Muslims in general and Indian Muslims in particular.
The great Urdu language poets from the western wing were almost unknown to the people in the eastern wing. Similarly, the great Bengali poets such as Rabindra Nath Tagore and Nazrul Islam were strangers to the people of West Pakistan
The yearning to bring Muslims under one religious umbrella was felt time to time in other parts of the Muslim World as well. In addition to Iqbal, one could mention Sayyid Qutb of Egypt, and Jamal Uddin Afghani. While they were right in their premise that Muslims need to get hold of their own destiny, the idea did not get traction with the Muslim masses. Afghani’s ideas, Qutab’s writings and Allama Iqbal’s poetry remains a theoretical construct. Iqbal’s poetry has and still can move multitudes, but it has not galvanised people to make his poetry into a political force.
The creation of Pakistan into a predominantly Muslim country was a political and geographical oddity. Two wings of the country-East Pakistan and West Pakistan-were separated by a thousand odd miles of Indian territory. Except for religion of Islam, there was not much that was common between the people of the two wings. The language, food, music, and cultural traditions on East Pakistan were alien to the people in West Pakistan.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan had declared that Urdu shall be the official language of the country. East Pakistanis did not agree to Urdu being imposed on the people who constituted 54% of the total population of Pakistan. The great Urdu language poets from the western wing were almost unknown to the people in the eastern wing. Similarly, the great Bengali poets such as Rabindra Nath Tagore and Nazrul Islam were strangers to the people of West Pakistan.
Various administrative missteps and a patronising attitude towards East Pakistanis led to political turmoil that culminated in cessation of East Pakistan after a bloody struggle by the locals and brutal repression by Pakistan army. A common religion did not prevent division of the country. This had been predicted by many political leaders in India including Maulana Abu Kalam Azad who had set a time frame of 25 years for the split. Maulana Azad, a Muslim scholar and a politician (and union minister of education in the first post-Partition cabinet of India) was against dividing India along religious lines. His prediction was based on his knowledge of political currents in India.
There are 1.39 billion Roman Catholics in the world. In many countries around the world, they are in majority. They all follow dictates of the religion and pay attention to what their spiritual leader in Rome- The Pope- Says. However, they are not beholden to Rome when it comes to pursuing their national interests. They do what is best for the country they live in even if on occasions local laws contradict the teachings of the Church.
Let us take the example of the Canadian province of Quebec. Majority of its population, 65%, is Christian just as the rest of the country. However, Quebec is mostly a French-speaking province, and it guards its language and language-based culture jealously and does not want it to be diluted by English, the majority language in Canada. Despite religious similarity between Quebec and other Canadian provinces, Quebec has shown an interest to separate from Canada and become an independent country. Two plebiscites on the subject were narrowly defeated in the past. But the groundswell of separation remains.
There is a story about Imam Malik bin Anas, the great Islamic jurist and founder of the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence in the 8th century AD. The ruling caliphs at the time wanted to send his interpretation of the Islamic law to various areas of the empire, with the desire that there should be uniform interpretation through out the realm. Imam Malik resisted the idea and reportedly have said,
“People have already heard different positions, heard hadith, and related narrations. Every group has taken whatever came to them and put it into practice, conforming to it while other people differed. To take them away from what they have been professing will cause a disaster. Therefore, leave people with whatever school they follow and whatever the people of each country chose for themselves."
Many years ago, I gave a lecture to students and faculty at Habib University, Karachi on the subject of “Past Glories and Current Realities”. The premise of the lecture was that Muslims are always recalling the great things their Arab ancestors did but do not look at the current situation prevailing in Muslim countries. As an example, I mentioned that there have been only handful of Muslims who have received Nobel Prize in different categories compared to other countries. One student questioned why we keep lumping ourselves with Arabs rather that standing as Pakistanis.
I had no satisfactory answer except that since we tout the greatness of Arab Muslims of the past, it was natural to lump all of them in one group while comparing them to other groups or nationalities. And if we stand alone as Pakistanis, the statistics become more dismal. The only Nobel Laureate in hard sciences was Abdus Salam (1979 Physics). Other than that, there is Malala Yousafzai (2014 Peace).
Umm Kulthum was an Egyptian singer who was admired and adored in the Arabic-speaking world. I listened to her many times, and her melodious songs did not resonate me as it did with Arabs. I am ignorant of the Arabic language and its literary traditions. Therefore, I was unable to enjoy the beauty of lyrics delivered in a beautiful voice. But give me KL Saigal, Jagmohan, Pankaj Mullick, Mehdi Hasan or any other singer who sang in Urdu or Hindi, and I will shed tears of joy.
Whether we accept the fact or not, religions have played a significant role in initiating and or perpetuating violence against those who happen to be outside the circle of believers. During the Partition one million people were put to sword and 10-15 million made homeless. The dream of having an overwhelming Muslim country did not make the country homogenous and we are still dealing with religious disharmony and militancy.
I will end this essay with a poignant poem by my dear friend the late Professor Munib Rahman (of Aligarh and Michigan) that describes vividly the irony of given names as religious labels and in turn the brutality of the followers of one religion against the followers of another religion. The poem begins in the backdrop of the Partition where there is dead man lying by a gutter.
وہ جو مارا گیا بے چارہ مرا بھائ تھا
راہ چلتے ہوۓ دیکھا میں نے
اس کا بے جان بدن
ایک نالی کے قریب
ڈھانپ رکھا تھا اندھیرے نے اسے
اور اس کا کوئ دمساز نہ تھا
رات کے دیدۂ پرنم کے سوا
وہ ایک انسان تھا معمولی سا
زندگی جس کی تھی اوروں کی طرح
اس کے دن سادہ تھے، بے رنگ تھیں اس کی راتیں
صبح ہوتی تو وہ محنت کو نکل جاتا تھا
شام ہوتی تو وہ گھر آتا تھاَ
اس کے غم چھوٹے، امیدیں چھوٹی
جیسے یہ کون و مکاں
ایک انڈے میں سمٹ آۓ ہوں
لوگ کہتے ہیں: بھلا نام میں کیا رکھا ہے
نام اولاد کو ماں باپ دیا کرتے ہیں
میرے بھائ کو اسی طرح ملا تھا اک نام
جس سے مقصود تھی پہچان اس کی
یہی پہچان بنی اس کی تباہی کا سبب
وہ گیا، اس کی یہ پہچان گئ
اب نہ ہندو نہ مسلمان ہے وہ
صرف اک لاشہ بے جان ہے وہ
(The one who got killed was my brother (though I did not know him). I saw him on the side of the road. His lifeless body was laying by a gutter wrapped in the darkness of the night. There was no one to mourn him except the sorrowful dark night.
He was an ordinary man whose life was ordinary like other ordinary people. His days were simple, and his nights were simpler. He would leave in the morning to earn a daily wage and return home at dark. His worries were few and his hopes and dreams fewer still. It was as if the universe had shrunk into the size of an egg.
People say what is so special about a given name. Parents give names to their children. My brother was also given a name. It was meant to recognise him, and the same recognition caused his destruction. He is gone and his recognition is gone with him.
Now he is neither a Hindu, nor a Muslim. He is but a lifeless body lying by the gutter wrapped in darkness.)
On a global level, economic and political alliances do exist and they are, for the most part, durable. However, religious alliances do not exist. To lump all Muslims into a worldwide community of like-minded people (Ummah) is an exercise in futility.