A Woman Like Her

by Sanam Maher

  Malik won. Qavi looked like a fool—a man who had passed judgement on a woman’s character when he did not know very much about her at all, and who did not hesitate to call her behaviour blasphemous or insulting to Islam in a country where such an accusation can be punished by death.

  Their exchange was widely reported locally and internationally, with many praising Malik for taking on the clergy. Audio of Malik’s retorts during the show was even remixed into a viral song featuring the line, “Mufti sahib, ye kya baat hui? [Mufti sahib, what is this?]”2 The line entered pop culture as a meme. An opinion piece in the English–language daily Dawn maintained that Malik’s “articulate, protofeminist defence on television garnered unexpected support from the liberal intelligentsia,” while Mufti Qavi was derided as a “hapless cleric (who claimed not to have seen what he was happy to comment on).” A blog for the same newspaper argued that the episode had been “brilliant because in an hour it summarized everything that is wrong with this country and our mindset.”

  For many Malik was the star of that show. What they didn’t realise, however, was that producers at television channels across the country realised that in Mufti Qavi they had a potential ingredient for a hit show—one that might not be critically praised but would be watched and talked about. The Malik–Qavi spat had been a ratings success. “When did Mufti Qavi the cleric who just ran a madrassa become Mufti Qavi the media darling?” asked a local journalist in Multan. “It was on that show. Before that, people didn’t know his name. He was just one of dozens of clerics here and he would only be invited on talk shows sometimes to talk about the sighting of the moon or some other religious matter.”

  The words that Veena Malik taunted him with—when he spoke of her beauty and grace—drew many, especially journalists in Multan, to Mufti Qavi. They believed that he was only being honest in praising a beautiful woman; he was not pretending to be a religious scholar immune to the pleasures of the material world. And even though those journalists do not want to be associated with him today, then they praised him as a “liberal maulvi [cleric].” Initially, he was embraced by the media fraternity in Multan as someone who was approachable. He was available at a moment’s notice for a press conference, a live call or a show. “Everyone in the media knew which maulvi was always ready to be on TV,” explained one reporter. “And he could talk about everything from politics to transgender rights, and he didn’t just drone on with a lecture like some of the others.”

  Mufti Qavi gave good TV: he got into arguments, he could be charming, he was witty and cracked jokes with his fellow guests. He was entertaining. In 2015 he made an appearance on a talk show with a glamorous, mouthy transgender rights activist named Almas Bobby.3 He flirted with Bobby, who was wearing a bright red and gold sari, and joked that they would get married. “I have a very open mind and an open heart,” he said as she playfully swatted his arm. He only wanted 35 rupees dowry, but he needed to go home and ask his wife for permission to get married to her, he said. The audience, mainly women, giggled and clapped, and Bobby swooned and clutched Mufti Qavi’s shoulder.

  Some said his behaviour was not appropriate; others liked seeing a cleric let loose. “Why should we expect our maulvis to always be sitting in the mosque, stroking their big beards and holding prayer beads in their hands?” asked one of Mufti Qavi’s friends. “Why can’t a cleric have fun?”

  Many journalists and producers who booked him for prime-time shows said that Mufti Qavi was knowledgeable—he knew how to make an argument and he was well read. “Whatever you wanted him to give a fatwa or an opinion on, he could do it,” said a reporter. “Other religious scholars didn’t want to sit with women on live TV or talk about women’s issues. But we knew that if you made Mufti Qavi do it, you’d have a hell of a show.”

  Mufti Qavi would stay in touch with reporters and send them his itinerary any time he travelled. That way, they knew exactly where he was if they needed him at a studio or to be available for a call. Soon he was the first name that came to mind when a cleric was needed to chip in on any topic. Journalists in Multan like to tell how every second or third day you could see a television van parked outside Mufti Qavi’s home. His knowledge of Islam and his frequent appearances on TV as the representative of the majority of Pakistanis served as a short cut to influence. There is a rumour that that he was a member of a secret WhatsApp group of senators, who would turn to him for advice or suggestions on political matters. He was invited to officiate at marriages between some of Multan’s richest families, including those of high-ranking officers in the army.

  Many journalists and reporters in Multan say that their professional relationship with Mufti Qavi gradually turned into a friendship—or at least a relationship where they felt comfortable confiding in him and asking him for counsel. One reporter explained that many men would go to Mufti Qavi to talk about things that they felt too ashamed to approach anyone else with. He encourages “frankness”—it’s a word he uses often—and when he has an intimate discussion with someone, he likes to brag about their “frankness ka level.” When those journalists who had befriended Mufti Qavi heard what Qandeel said about their meeting, when she accused him of being too “frank” or inappropriate, they believed her. “Maybe the things he was saying were new for Qandeel,” one of his friends said, “but for us, it was not surprising at all. We knew he was like this.” However, Mufti Qavi has since learned to take certain precautions—at one point in our meeting he asks me to turn off the tape recorder so that he may ask me something “while being frank.”

  “Mufti sahib is able to make you feel comfortable and draw you out,” the reporter explains. “He is the kind of cleric who is also human. He doesn’t hide under a cloak of morality. He tries to see where he can create paths for you—and your desires—within the ambit of religion. We could talk to him about boyfriends, girlfriends, or relationships outside of marriage.” And besides, this reporter said, Mufti Qavi seemed to be that rare thing: a cleric “who loves to talk about sex.” He didn’t make religion feel removed from modern life.

  “We would spend evenings with him and ask him all sorts of vulgar questions,” one reporter said, giggling. “No, I don’t want to say what the questions were. I’m feeling shy. But when we asked him these things, he didn’t judge us. Any other cleric would have cursed us.” This reporter once played a prank on Mufti Qavi. He visited him to record a short interview for a piece on relationships between students and teachers after there had been a highly publicized case of harassment at a local school. When Mufti Qavi’s opinion had been recorded, the reporter pretended to turn off the camera but actually kept recording and asked him a question about the religious angle when it came to girls dating their teachers. He wanted to catch the cleric saying something scandalous. “He gave me an excellent answer,” the reporter said. “He opened up his books and showed me examples and used logic to talk about the issue. If you want a modern version of Islam, he’s the guy to go to. He is the true preacher of liberal Islam, and in Pakistan there are very few clerics you can say that about.”

  Mufti Qavi’s interviews appealed to religiously moderate Pakistanis, and he discussed women’s rights when few clerics were doing so publicly. “Religious scholars need to be in line with the needs of the world and the time they’re living in,” he tells me. “We need to learn to speak in English. We cannot just rely on Arabic. We should speak well in Urdu. Perhaps we should even know how to speak Chinese. Because we don’t just need the education we get in madrassas. We need maths, science, geography and so on. There must be religious education and regular education. Our children—and especially our girls—need this.”

  He is irritated by those who try to make Islam seem unyielding. During our meeting he receives a call. A man has just lost his wife and wants to know whether it is permissible for him to touch his wife’s shrouded body at her last rites. “This is just against intellect,” Mufti Qavi clucks when he ends the call. “If my wife, who ha
s been with me for fifty years, leaves this world, can I not hug her? Can I not kiss her? She’s a piece of my heart. Some maulvi has told this man that to even look at your wife’s body is haram.”

  This, he exclaims, is the difference between Mufti Abdul Qavi and everyone else. This is why, he insists, other clerics criticize him. It has nothing to do with his TV appearances or his behaviour. “They are angry that Mufti Qavi has made them redundant,” he says. “I have wiped out the work they did for a hundred or two hundred years. I have eroded the influence they enjoyed here when they gave people opinions like this.” He tells me that if he hadn’t been a religious scholar, he would have carried over this tendency to question popular opinion and rules in another profession. “I am revolutionary,” he explains. “If I was a professor, a politician or a businessman, I would still be revolutionary. Because what you have to understand is that ‘Mufti Qavi’ is the name of a revolution.”

  By 2016, Mufti Qavi had perfected the persona of the affable, fun-loving cleric. It’s easy to see why the producers of Ajeeb Sa liked having him on. A month before the episode with Qandeel, Mufti Qavi had been on the show with an actress named Sheen.4 When Sheen told him she was a fan of Imran Khan, he said he could introduce her to the politician. In 2013 he had been made president of the religious-affairs wing of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and often arranged meetings between religious scholars and the party’s leaders. It was the same offer he would make to Qandeel.

  It’s hard to conceive of another cleric answering the kind of questions put to him that night. “Do you like to go on long drives?” Sheen asked him. “Are you able to?” Later, “When is the first time you lost your heart to someone?” It was easy to make light of Islamic injunctions with Mufti Qavi and make jokes that other clerics might find offensive. During the same episode the host asked Mufti Qavi if it was permissible to contract a nikkah [marriage] with a woman over the phone. What about through a group chat on WhatsApp so that you could have the requisite two witnesses?

  Mufti Qavi had earned himself a reputation as a misogynist from the Veena Malik interview but then began to portray himself as a champion of women’s rights. Five years later, as he sat with Sheen, Mufti Qavi had learned to temper his responses when asked a question about women or women’s issues. “What if your parents want you to marry someone and you want to marry another person? Is it disobedience to refuse?” he was asked on that episode of Ajeeb Sa.

  “Not at all!” Mufti Qavi replied. “According to Islam, women are utterly independent when it comes to their choice of who to marry.” He was no longer afraid to be ridiculed for his love of beautiful women. He described himself as “zinda dil”—one whose heart is passionate. “Whenever I travel, I look around to see who is the most beautiful woman on the aeroplane or in the airport,” he said on Ajeeb Sa. “You see, the Holy Prophet (PBUH) said that when you see someone who is beautiful, you ask them to pray for you. Because if Allah has blessed them with beauty, then he will also listen to their prayers. Allah is beautiful, and he loves beauty. So, if I see a beautiful woman in an airport, I make it a point to go stand in the same line as her. And in the aeroplane I look for the most beautiful air hostesses. I like to ask them to pray for me.”

  “Have you ever been involved in a scandal?” the host asked.

  “I have done things in the past that could have resulted in me getting stuck in a scandal, but Allah is Sattar, and that means ‘one who veils sin,’ ” Mufti Qavi replied with a grin.

  The Multan bureau chief of a television station who has known Mufti Qavi for around two decades explains, “If you had met him earlier, before all of this, you would have wanted to meet him again and again. You just have to remember that he’s an ordinary man who knows more about religion than you or me. He’s no angel. But one thing’s for sure: just like any ordinary man, Mufti Qavi has the devil inside of him too.”

  * * *

  —

  I told Mufti Qavi I wanted to know what had happened in that hotel room when Qandeel Baloch met him in Karachi in June 2016. In interviews since then his version of events has changed with each retelling.

  He knew the photos didn’t look good. He should have never let her wear his cap. That’s what ruined it all, he confided in a friend. The cap. As for his waistcoat—he had merely taken it off because he needed to do his ablutions for prayer. When he came out of the bathroom in his hotel room, Qandeel was already wearing his cap and wanted to take a photo.

  The story changed. She was not wearing a dupatta to cover her head and she felt bad about it, so he offered her his cap. No, she asked him if she could borrow his cap. Well, actually there had been a few people in the hotel room with them—his followers in Karachi—and when he saw these guests to the door and returned to where Qandeel was sitting, she was wearing his cap. Either way, it didn’t look good.

  She had perched on the arm of the sofa he was sitting on. He counselled her to remain respectful, and she chided him, “Mufti sahib, your heart must be veiled.” It was important that their hearts were filled with modesty, she felt. The rest did not matter. She needed to take some pictures with him. Just as he had fans and followers, so did she—and hers were online and they would want to see proof that she had met Mufti Qavi.

  “This was all part of the plan,” Mufti Qavi now says with a sigh. “I should have stopped her but I didn’t want to seem rude.” The plan, he says, was for Qandeel to sell the photographs to the highest bidder among Mufti Qavi’s “enemies.”

  The day after the photos went viral, Qandeel and Mufti Qavi were invited on to Mubasher Lucman’s talk show, Khara Such. “Mufti Qavi and Qandeel’s photographs are all over social media,” Lucman said at the start of the interview on 21 June 2016. “And both of them, for various reasons, have been in the news many times. It seems Mufti Qavi likes to be in the news, and since Qandeel is in showbiz, she enjoys it as well.”5

  Mufti Qavi seemed to be wearing the same waistcoat and cap from the day he had met Qandeel at the hotel, while she wore a black shirt that left her shoulders bare, and held a wrap around herself, fidgeting with it often as she tried to cover her shoulders or her chest.

  For the previous twenty-four hours Mufti Qavi had been ridiculed in the media. He had been referred to as “the Qandeel Baloch of maulvis.” “When Qandeel Baloch met Mufti Qavi: a guideline on how NOT to learn Islam,” mocked a story in the English-language daily Express Tribune. “Qandeel Baloch claims Mufti Qavi ‘hopelessly in love’ with her!” announced Pakistan Today. Almost every channel ran a story on the meeting between “scandal queen Qandeel Baloch” and the cleric.6 The video Qandeel had shot in which Mufti Qavi promised to introduce her to Imran Khan was played over and over again.

  Even after everything that has happened, Mufti Qavi wants people to know that the thing that saddens him the most is that he was only trying to help Qandeel. “I’ve never told anyone this, but I spoke with Imran Khan’s secretary,” he says. “I spoke with a close friend of his. This friend picked up my call immediately, you know. We talked in great detail. This person who is so close to Imran Khan said that he would meet Qandeel a few days after Eid.”

  Mufti Qavi also has friends in India and tells me he promised Qandeel that he would speak to them about getting her on to Bigg Boss. And that he had called the owner of one of Pakistan’s most-watched television channels and pleaded with him to give Qandeel a chance to perform a naat on any show. After she was killed, the police questioned him about phone records that showed he had called her three times right after they met. He was only calling her to let her know about Imran Khan, Bigg Boss and the naat, you see. “Now you tell me,” he says with a sigh. “If I call someone my beti [daughter] and help her like this, why would I do whatever she said I did?”

  On Lucman’s show neither Qandeel nor Mufti Qavi mentioned these phone calls. Qandeel insinuated that Mufti Qavi had tried to proposition her—he “made me an offer,” she said demurel
y. Lucman wanted to know why Mufti Qavi met Qandeel alone and what they did in the room together. “Let me explain one thing to you very clearly,” he said to the cleric. “Until I get answers to my questions, this programme will keep running.” The show overshot its time by an hour and a half as Lucman’s guests squabbled about what had happened in that hotel.

  Qavi said that Qandeel had confided in him about her family life and told him about her father, who was unwell or injured. This was a detail about Qandeel’s personal life that had until then never been revealed. Lucman did not ask Qandeel if it was true or how Mufti Qavi could have known something like that if Qandeel had not told him.

  Lucman invited the deputy secretary general of Imran Khan’s political party, Imran Ismail, to weigh in via a phone interview. “Mufti Qavi does not hold any office in the PTI; he never has and, God willing, he never will,” Ismail said. “I will ask Imran Khan to never let people like Mufti Qavi in the party. What he has done is a stain on the name of Islam. It’s very clear what his intentions were when he called an unmarried young woman into his hotel room alone.”

  Mufti Qavi grinned widely.

  “Mufti sahib sits on TV shows and satiates his lust with the things he says,” Ismail continued. He mentioned the interviews about beautiful women. “How would Mufti sahib feel if some man spoke to his wife or daughters this way? There is no better way to disrespect a religion than what he has done.” Ismail’s next few words were unprecedented. “Mufti Qavi needs to apologize,” he said. “Whatever Qandeel Baloch is doing, at least she is doing it in front of the whole world. There’s no hypocrisy, whether it’s right or wrong…but Mufti Qavi is a scholar of Islam and he has a nation following him and he did all of this.”