Once Were Radicals

by Irfan Yusuf

  Another strict rule of TJ was that we were to avoid theological and sectarian controversies. These included differences between Shia and Sunni or between Barelwi and Deobandi. Although the TJ was a Deobandi movement, I never saw TJ elders use the word Deobandi in public gatherings.

  I enjoyed spending time with Shaf and other camp kids who hung around the TJ. The TJ amir Brother Muhammad always had a smile on his face, and apart from his broad Aussie accent he could also speak fluent Arabic, Indonesian and Urdu (and probably a host of other languages).

  Brother Muhammad always had interesting stories to tell of his TJ khurooj trips across Australia and all over the world. He once went to northern India in the middle of winter. There, he travelled between isolated hill stations on the foothills of the Himalayas. Brother Muhammad would describe how local villagers would teach him how to perform pre-prayer ablutions in mountain streams without having his hands covered in ice (if not frozen off) when he removed them from the water. His jamaat would move at nights from one Muslim house to the next with minimum visibility when it snowed.

  On one occasion, Shaf and Brother Muhammad went on khurooj to an island off Cape York on the northern edge of Queensland. After they returned, Shaf told me about the island’s small Muslim community, some of them indigenous and some Malays. Many had converted to various forms of Christianity, but the few that wanted to hold on to their faith would rarely be visited by other Muslims. Yet they could always rely on TJ brothers to visit them.

  I grew to respect the TJ. They travelled to outback locations searching out Muslims who were otherwise forgotten by the rest of us. They quietly did work that no Muslim religious organisation was prepared to do. They had no office, no secretariat and all their funds were generated from whoever was in each individual jamaat at the time. The TJ never asked for money. All they asked of Muslims was that they give some time. And they never turned anyone away.

  It’s almost impossible to visit a mosque in any part of the world without finding TJ people there. Sometimes they would be in a jamaat visiting locals and inviting them to the mosque. Sometimes one of them would be reading from their textbook, usually stories of the Prophet Muhammad or his companions or Sufi stories. They kept long-abandoned or discarded mosques buzzing with activity.

  The only thing TJ people could never do was organise or manage a mosque. When they did this, you could expect administrative disasters. My ‘ancestral’ mosque (if I could call it that) was the King Faisal Mosque at Surry Hills. During the late 1980s my friends Rambo and Damien were on the mosque committee. Rambo set up a mosque library, and a large number of people donated books to the library. Some were religious books while others were encyclopaedias or textbooks. Rambo may have had a mouth full of four-letter words, but he had a heart of gold and donated much of his time to managing the library.

  Then there was a change of guard. A group of TJ leaders joined forces with a small fringe Lebanese sect called the al-Ahbash known for their close links to the Syrian government and were staunch enemies of Sheikh Hilaly. The TJ had been infiltrated by a number of al-Ahbash members who took advantage of the TJ’s loose (if not nonexistent) structures and open-doors policy. Anyone could join in TJ activities, and apart from a few regular leaders like Brother Muhammad, virtually any fringe group with a political or sectarian agenda could become influential.

  The new mosque management committee was dominated by the al-Ahbash, as the TJ executive members were forever out of town on khurooj trips. In their absence, the al-Ahbash burned all but a few books in the library. It was unbelievable that in the late twentieth century, allegedly orthodox Muslims could do something as medieval as burn books. One of the al-Ahbash executive members told me that the books were burned because they did not teach true Islam.

  Later, the joint TJ/al-Ahbash executive decided to do what most mosques did and ‘import’ an imam from overseas on a three-month trial basis. The imam they invited was a young chap who had served as a mufti in Pakistan. Mufti Feisal was a very young man (I later found out he was a few months younger than me!) who had reached the rank of a mufti after many years of study. A mufti was a kind of Muslim scholar whose job it was to give non-binding but authoritative opinions on Islamic sacred law (or sharia) for novel situations. Effectively a mufti is like a Queen’s Counsel or Senior Counsel, a more senior barrister you would go to for advice on a unique area of the law.

  Apart from holding this senior rank among Islamic scholars, Mufti Feisal was also a hafiz (someone who had memorised the entire Arabic text of the Koran). The al-Ahbash were very happy to have Mufti Feisal around because they could claim their mosque also had a mufti and that he was younger and more accomplished than Sheikh Hilaly.

  However, Mufti Feisal was fluent in Arabic and could tell a fringe sect when he saw one. The al-Ahbash soon tired of Mufti Feisal objecting to some of their more extreme sectarian rhetoric. Eventually he orchestrated the quiet expulsion of the al-Ahbash from the mosque committee. Sadly, by then the books in the mosque library had already been converted into ashes.

  In 1994, I made my last trip to Pakistan. This trip would become the final nail in my political Islam coffin. Karachi at that time was in the middle of a nasty factional spat between competing sectarian and political factions, none of which made any real sense to me.

  Those Muslims who, like my dad’s family and some of Mum’s relatives, had moved to Pakistan at Partition had largely settled in Karachi. They became known by the label of muhajir and some of them formed a political party called the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM). The leader of the MQM was Altaf Hussain (no relation to Saddam of Iraq or even Barack of Washington DC for that matter). I saw posters of Altaf Hussain on walls and telegraph poles everywhere in Karachi. Altaf Hussain had to go into exile and live in the United Kingdom after falling out with the then prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.

  The MQM had split into two factions, with each faction battling it out on the streets of Karachi. At the same time, a sectarian war had started between rival Sunni and Shia factions, both of which had rather long bombastic Urdu names. The Sunni faction called itself the Anjuman Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (‘Movement for Preserving the Reputation of the Prophet’s Companions’, also known as SSP). Their name derived from the commonly held view of many Sunni scholars that Shia Muslims said nasty things about certain companions of the Prophet Muhammad. SSP was a breakaway Deobandi group believed to be Saudi funded. They were so extreme that they made Sydney’s supersonic Sunni faction look like nuns from Mother Theresa’s order.

  The Shia faction called itself the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-Fiqh-i-Jafiriyya (TNFJ), which means ‘Movement for the Preservation of the Jafri School of Islamic Sacred Law’. Many orthodox Sunni Muslims believe there are only four schools of sacred law that have reached us in complete form. Shia Muslims claim to have their own school of sacred law which they called the jafri school.

  All these theological and legal differences may sound highly esoteric and complicated. They certainly are, and probably went right over the heads of paramilitary fighters from these movements. For the vast majority of Muslims, the reality is that if your family are Sunni then you are Sunni. You don’t think much about it or even try to understand it, any more than people in Northern Ireland tried to understand the centuries-old theological disputations of the Catholic Church, Martin Luther and John Calvin.

  The sectarianism of Islamic movement types in Sydney almost turned me off political Islam. But to find myself in the middle of a city living under sectarian siege put me completely off. It all seemed so senseless. SSP would attack the TNFJ, killing some of its leaders. Within days, SSP leaders would be gunned down. And so on. Neither side seemed interested in breaking the cycle of stupid sectarian violence.

  I sought refuge in the familiar surrounds of the TJ headquarters, whose weekly gatherings in the Madni Mosque of Karachi were held on Thursday nights. Outside the mosque, vendors sold all kinds of religious paraphernalia including rosary beads, prayer caps and tape recordings of re
ligious scholars. One vendor was selling cassette tapes of speeches by the SSP founder Molvi Haq Nawaz Jhangvi. I was curious as to what Jhangvi’s basic message was. I purchased the tape and was horrified to hear Jhangvi calling for Shia Muslims to be declared a non-Muslim minority in Pakistan. In a nation where around one-fifth of the population were Shia, Jhangvi’s call would mean a virtual sectarian civil war if implemented in full. Meanwhile, his fighters and their opponents were killing each other and innocent people from both sects were caught in the crossfire.

  And so in my place of birth, two civil wars were taking place simultaneously. One day, competing factions of MQM would fight each other. Mohammed and Ali from one faction would be hiding behind the same car, shooting in the general direction of Hassan and Hussein from the other MQM faction. The next day, Ali and Hussein from TNFJ would be hiding behind the walls of a Shia mosque, shooting in the general direction of Mohammad and Hassan from the SSP.

  I had been on khurooj trips in Australia a few times. However, all my Aussie TJ friends suggested I should experience it in Pakistan. Mum was opposed to the idea, and sought help from Naani Amma who wasn’t terribly enamoured by the TJ.

  Naani Amma asked me why I wanted to go. I explained to her that in Sydney we have all kinds of ethnic groups, and that mosques were divided along ethnic and linguistic lines. I told her that mosque imams could not speak English and had no understanding of our experiences and problems. Hence we were forced to learn from English translations (often of poor quality) of Islamic texts, including books Naani Amma had sent us.

  Naani Amma shook her head. She then turned to my mother.

  ‘You should let him go. My problems with the TJ are political. I cannot object to their religious teachings. After hearing how difficult it is for Muslim youth in your country, I think you should be grateful your son is still a Muslim at all! Look at our so-called Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Our young people are killing each other in the streets without even knowing or understanding what their differences are. Look at my own Jamaat. Our student’s wing holds huge jihad rallies where thousands turn up to shout slogans like ‘Crush India’ and ‘Free Kashmir’. And when they hear the azaan, only a few hundred stay to perform nemaaz.’

  It was the first time I heard Naani Amma criticise the shallowness of people of her own party. It was the end of any residual attraction I may have had for political Islam.

  I did go with the TJ on a khurooj trip for nine days. The amir (leader) of our jamaat (delegation) first came to visit Mum to confirm she consented. This was contrary to the usual practice in Australia, where it was assumed parents consented to their sons going. We spent nine days in a small mosque in a Karachi suburb called Korangi, down the road from a large Darul Uloom (college of higher Islamic education). Korangi was a working-class suburb with a large muhajir community and had been a battleground for sectarian and political violence. Our delegation was multicultural and included two Indonesians, a Malaysian, a Thai, a Pakistani lawyer, our South Indian amir and myself. Half the time we had no idea what we were saying to each other. However, we enjoyed visiting and speaking with ordinary Muslims in this neighbourhood.

  After our trip, we returned to the TJ centre where one TJ scholar was giving a talk. He was a softly spoken man who looked well into his eighties, and was delivering his talk in Urdu, English and Arabic. His message was quite simple—that no amount of military might or political power can force a man to believe in God with all his heart. Human beings must willingly adopt faith. Prophets were never sent by God to convert people by force.

  He also told us that no amount of technology can make a person into a genuinely humane individual or give that human being good manners. ‘If you take a dog and place it in a rocket and fly that rocket around the earth and then return it to earth and open the door, you will not find the dog transformed into something else.’

  Finally, the learned man taught us that it is only through sacrifice that we learn.

  ‘If you sit in your room and read religious books, you will learn facts about religion. But if you undergo inconvenience and travel and sacrifice time and money, you will gain not just knowledge but also wisdom. This is why the Prophet Muhammad’s early community sought refuge in Ethiopia from a pious Christian king. They had to suffer through journey and exile to learn that God can help Muslims through the kind actions of non-Muslims. This is why God makes us go on the Hajj pilgrimage at least once in our lifetime. This is why the elders of our movement ask us to sacrifice our time going on khurooj trips. And this is why sensible men always grow wiser as they get older.’

  Epilogue

  And so ended my extended flirtation with what some people call Islamo-fascism. More on that mouthfulof-a-term later. But the story doesn’t end here.

  In Karachi, my birth place and the largest city in one of the world’s largest Muslim countries, I saw more than one Islam on display. On Fridays, I’d join the men in my extended family in Karachi for the Friday prayers. Women weren’t allowed at any of the three mosques we’d walk past just to get to the ‘right’ mosque!

  My cousin Athar Bhai, a deeply spiritual man, showed me Pakistani folk Islam. We travelled to Clifton, a posh Karachi suburb home to huge mansions, waterfront apartments and an amusement park. One of the Gulf emirs had a stately mansion behind high prison-like walls there, as did Pakistan’s own royals, the Bhutto family. Ordinary people visited Clifton to visit the tomb of a local saint named Abdullah Shah Ghazi, said to have been a great grandson of the Prophet. Tens of thousands visit the waterfront shrine, many showing their devotion by showering his grave with flower petals and green shawls embroidered with Koranic verses. Others circle his tomb in the same manner as Muslims at Hajj circle the large cubic temple circled the Kaaba in Mecca. Some kiss the grill wall surrounding his grave, or even bow or prostrate towards the grave.

  Athar Bhai also took me to the colourful tomb of Alam Shah Bukhari, located in the heart of Karachi’s CBD. This richly decorated tomb, preserved by local merchants, also had devotees coming from far and wide, many bringing their sick children hoping to obtain some cure. All who visited were said to have received a special spiritual radiation (called faiz) from the saint.

  I found this deeply troubling. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of Islam would transform into an idol the grave of a man who fought the worship of idols. Surely this wasn’t Islam but rather a weird and wacky Hinduised form of Islam. Athar Bhai called this folk Islam tasawwuf.

  ‘Irfan, ordinary people show their devotion to God through devotion to God’s friends. Who are we to judge how people show their love? Remember that your own name is the word our Shia Muslim brothers use to describe this love.’

  Athar Bhai’s love theory sounded like pious mumbo jumbo. But folk Islam was present everywhere I visited in Pakistan. In Lahore I joined scores of tourists visiting the king’s mosque with an entrance large enough for my sixteenth-century Mughal ancestor King Jalaluddin Akbar to have entered riding an elephant. I then took a taxi ride for a few kilometres to join thousands of locals at the tomb of religious scholar and saint Syed Ali bin Uthman al-Hujwiri, known popularly as Data Ganj Baksh (‘Bestower of Blessings’) who preached five centuries before Akbar ascended the throne. I even saw women wearing bindhi on their forehead (perhaps signalling their Hindu faith) and men sporting Sikh turbans, all engaged in the same forms of bidah (evil innovation) and shirk (idolatry) I saw in Karachi. At the time I wondered whether Hindus and Sikhs were misguiding (or should that be misguided?) ordinary Muslims. In fact, I was the misguided one.

  After a week in Lahore, I returned to Karachi’s warzone. Athar Bhai took me to the tomb of an Englishman called Faridi who converted to Islam after reading Hujwiri’s book while riding a London bus. Faridi was moved to adopt the faith thanks to a book written by a man who generated such love in the people of his land that even those outside his faith visited his tomb. King Akbar could, at best, generate a few tourists to his monuments. Islam’s real power to effect lasting
change lay in what Sunni Muslims call tasawwuf, what Shia Muslims call irfan and what in the West is known (and too often misrepresented) as Sufism.

  Political Islamic writers like Maududi mentioned tasawwuf but treated it as an aberration, a diversion from the allegedly more important tasks of setting up and implementing Islamic systems. Maududi didn’t reject Sufism altogether, and towards the end of his life he expressed regret that he had not explored Sufism further. But Maududi did say and write many disparaging remarks about certain highly revered Sufi saints and personalities. His failure to appreciate the central role that Sufism played in mainstream Islam was just another indicator of how his failure to learn Islam from mainstream scholars meant his ideas too often represented the theological fringe. Just as ordinary Pakistanis were turning saints’ graves into idols, Islamic movements spent more time worshipping Islam and the Islamic state than worshipping God.

  I returned to Australia with boxes full of books on subjects I had thus far ignored—Sufism, Indian Muslim history and Muslim cultures. Islam was now more than just about changing the world. It was also about changing myself on the inside. My journey inside Islam moved beyond what Muslim states should become. I was now concerned about what I should become. To use Gandhi’s words, I wanted to be the change I wanted to see. I had come full circle, returning to that basic question: Who am I?

  I now understood Islam to be a journey to God. The goal was getting closer to God, and Islam was a means to that end but not the end in itself. Though intellectually convinced that Islam was the only sure road to God, I also knew that it had taken me many years and much exploration across the world of ideas (not to mention a fair few overseas trips) to reach that conclusion. But what of millions whose journey towards God didn’t lead them to Islam? How did I relate to them? Do I isolate myself from them or do I embrace them?