Welcome to our weekly series on Islam Today: Book Reviews, where we reflect on a chapter from a book on Islam I am reading or share a book I have written myself. We are now in Chapter 10 of The Wrong Kind of Muslim, first published in 2013. If you missed the past weeks, I encourage you to catch up on previous chapters and subscribe to Islam Today.
Thank you to all of those who have been reading along. I am honored to re-read and reflect on a window into my own past with you. The events in this book are real, the people are real, and the struggle I share is real. Sadly, the realities it documents remain just as urgent today as when it was first written.
Chapter 10: The Moral Dictator
“Those who want the government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide.”
— President Harry Truman
Over the coming weeks I continued to reflect on everything I’d learned so far. It was during this time that I finally began to understand just how drastically oppression of conscience can transform, or rather, deform, a nation.
During these weeks I also took the opportunity to travel throughout Pakistan. I visited Lahore, particularly the Darul Zikr Mosque, which would soon become the site of one of Pakistan’s worst terrorist attacks. I visited Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. And I visited Rawalpindi, my city of birth.
But while my understanding of Pakistan and its increasing religious persecution grew, I knew it was yet incomplete. I turned to Danyal to help complete the picture. He and I connected well from the get-go, and I made it a point to crash at his place as often as possible.
One morning, I awoke just in time to catch Danyal as he left for his office. For security reasons I cannot provide much detail about his particular responsibilities. He’s fluent in English, Urdu, Punjabi, and likewise scholarly in Arabic and Persian. He loves books as gifts. My annoyance with him stems from the fact that with every book I’ve ever gifted him, he’s responded, “Oh, I remember reading this.”
Though he is fluent in English, I conversed with him largely in Urdu.
That morning, I caught him just as he rushed past me out the door.
“Danyal bhai, mind if I join you at the office today?”
“Sure, but I’m already late, so if you want to come, you have to come now.”
“No problem, let’s go, I’m ready.”
Danyal never took the rickshaw, at least not that I saw. He’d either walk or take his bicycle. Today was a bicycle day. Every bicycle in Pakistan has a small seat above the back wheel, installed for a second person to sit upon. It is difficult to find a bike without it. Still, I wasn’t used to it because unlike sitting on a motorcycle, you sit on these bicycles with both legs on one side. This makes you think you’re constantly off balance. And, as I was about to learn, you jump onto a moving bike.
“Come on, jump on, let’s go.” Danyal called back as he began pedaling without me.
“Hey, hold up. Slow down!” He didn’t slow down but instead motioned with his arm for me to hurry up. I ran after him, timed my strides, and jumped, aiming my butt for the seat—and missed horribly, tumbling hilariously to the ground instead. I’m quite certain all of Rabwah stopped what they were doing just to point and laugh.
“Well, score one for Pakistan,” I thought to myself. I stood up and dusted myself off. Danyal stopped and waited for me to catch up.
“I didn’t realize you Americans were so uncoordinated.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t realize you Pakistanis were so... Dang, I got nothing. Just let me sit on and then you move, okay?”
Danyal just shook his head while I sat in the back seat. And we were off; down his street and onto a main road, where we turned left. Eventually we hit the main street of Rabwah and turned right to head towards the town square. Five roads intersect into the town square, in the middle of which is a giant fountain. One whole side is the outer wall for Rabwah’s largest mosque, known as Aqsa Mosque (where the Pakistan Jalsa used to be held). The other sides are comprised of either roads or retail shops.
We soon arrived at Danyal’s office, at a beautiful facility on a large, well-kept campus. We parked his bike alongside probably two hundred others and made our way inside. Once inside, we walked through the main hall, up the stairs, and down another hall to his office. His office was large with a window to the outside world. Books lined the walls. His table sat at the far end, opposite the door and near the window. A computer sat on the desk, connected to the Internet at the blazing speed of 56.6 kbps. Chai is always on tap in Pakistan so I helped myself to a cup from a freshly brewed pot. Danyal, an enigma of Pakistani culture, doesn’t drink chai. This time was no different.
Instead, he ran out to a meeting while I happily enjoyed my hot beverage. I had hardly finished my first cup before he was back.
“Come on, let me show you around the place.”
“Actually, wait, can we sit here and chat a minute?”
“Sure, everything okay?”
“I don’t know if this stuff is taboo to discuss in public so let me ask you now.” I thought back to the hospital visit with Yusef. “What did Yusef mean back at the hospital when he said the police were probably ‘in on the Mong massacre’?”
Danyal slowly walked over to his chair and sat down. “Well, it isn’t necessarily taboo to discuss this stuff in public but it’s probably safer here in private.”
He paused for another moment while he gathered his thoughts, and then looked up at me.
“Yusef meant what he said. It wouldn’t be the first time the police turned a blind eye to such attacks. Who knows if the police were actually involved here, but in this day and age in Pakistan, nothing surprises me anymore.”
I shifted gears. “Were you old enough to remember when Mian Jee died?”
“Yes, of course. I was eight or nine. I remember quite well.
“What about 1974—when Bhutto declared us kafirs?”
“Barely—I was only four or five. Nothing I could say for sure.”
Among Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan, Danyal is a dying breed (no pun intended). He was born at a time when religious freedom was still protected. He was born a Muslim. But by the age of five, the government decided for him that he was a kafir, an apostate, outside the fold of Islam. While Danyal was born Muslim and later declared an apostate, according to Pakistan, I am a born apostate.
“Uncle Bashir mentioned that Bhutto opened Pandora’s box when he declared us kafirs. I’m trying to understand what he meant.”
“It’s very simple, Qasim. You can’t have a country where the government discriminates against a minority and expect that to encourage tolerance. Tolerance dies when that happens.”
“So what happened after we were declared kafirs?”
“The same extremists who demanded we be declared kafirs then wanted more restrictions and more punishments.”
“Why wasn’t it enough that we were now ‘officially’ kafirs?”
“Because bigots don’t just discriminate once. They try it, and when they see they can get away with it, they try to push the issue to see how far they can go.”
“I see.”
“Besides, these mullahs saw that declaring us kafirs did nothing to stifle our growth. In fact, it did the opposite, as now more people became interested in Islam Ahmadiyya.”
“The ‘forbidden fruit syndrome’?”
“Yes, precisely.” Danyal leaned back in his chair. “When you censor something, suddenly everyone wants it. The mullahs saw this and lost their minds. So, they pressured Bhutto to apply harsher punishments for Ahmadis because we insisted—dared—to still call ourselves Muslim.”
“Hmm, how audacious of us. So why didn’t Bhutto comply? He already demonized us once to help his career. Why not again?”
“Because I don’t think that deep down inside Bhutto was an evil person. Stupid, yes, but evil? I’m not so sure. I think he was just in over his head. You have to remember he wasn’t the religious type anyway. I really doubt he cared much whether we were Muslim or not. He made a political move to get a few votes. And then when he realized how serious things had become, he didn’t know what to do.”
“Well, why not turn back and repeal the law that declared us kafirs? Why not take a stand against intolerance then?”
Danyal leaned forward. “Isn’t it obvious, Qasim? You can’t close Pandora’s box so easily. And Bhutto certainly wasn’t going to be the one to close it—that requires courage.”
“Fair enough, it was his lack of courage that made him bend for the mullahs.”
Danyal nodded. “And now those mullahs he tried to appease would break him.”
“Break him?”
“So in the late 1970s, Pakistan had a general, General Zia-ul-Haqq.”
“Yeah, Uncle Bashir mentioned him briefly.”
“Right, Zia was ruthless and a hardcore Islamic fundamentalist. While Bhutto was stupid but not necessarily evil, Zia was pure evil and not necessarily stupid.”
“Sounds charming.”
“The mullahs loved him. And he loved their obedience to him. They supported him, and in exchange, he gave them pretty much free reign. When Bhutto wouldn’t listen, he would.”
“I can see where this is going.”
“So General Zia soon decides he wants to become Dictator General Zia.”
“What happened to the rule of law?”
“Zia was an aspiring dictator. Since when do dictators care about the rule of law?”
“Fair enough.”
“Zia first accuses Bhutto of a bogus murder charge. Bhutto denies it. But it did not matter. Zia already had the military power and mullah backing.”
“Then?”
“Well, that’s all Zia needed. With that backing, Zia took over Pakistan in a military coup d’état and hung Bhutto.”
“You mean he literally hung Bhutto?”
“Yes, and it was vicious. That, I was definitely old enough to remember. It wasn’t good.”
“I’m surprised there wasn’t a huge public outcry.”
“Would it have mattered if there was? Zia was in control now as the undisputed dictator. You Americans supported him because he agreed to fight the Russians on America’s behalf. Who was going to stop him?”
“Good point. It wouldn’t be the first time we supported a dictator—we were pretty good friends with Saddam Hussein back then too.”
“Zia rode his popularity with mullahs to win the public opinion, promising to bring ‘morality and decency’ back to Pakistan. One of his first orders of business was to further ostracize Ahmadis.”
“How, and why?”
“He needed a scapegoat to rally everyone against. Since Bhutto had already demonized us in 1974, and Zia knew we wouldn’t resort to violence, Ahmadis were an easy target. Plus, he had an authoritarian reputation to uphold.”
“Naturally. Well, why not go after Christians or Hindus, or even Shias or atheists? I mean, I’m not saying it would make it ‘okay’ to do. But weren’t they just-as-easy targets?”
“Well, they were—rather, are still—easy targets and he’d get to them eventually. He didn’t right away because they were never as organized as the Ahmadiyya Community. So they weren’t a threat to mullahs in that sense. But more importantly, as I said, he did go after them. That was the whole point of Zia’s blasphemy laws.”
“Yes, these blasphemy laws. What is the deal with these things? Amir wouldn’t let me talk to a Hindu in Qadian; Mubasher was on my case for the same thing. And yesterday I tried to talk to this Christian woman and she—”
“You did what?”
“Well, I tried to talk to this Christian woman and before I could get a word out—”
“Why in the world would you try to talk to a Christian woman in Pakistan?!” Danyal was enjoying this.
“I don’t know, I mean, I talk to Christian women all the time in the States. I mean not like all the time all the time. It’s not like I go out of my way seek out Christian women or anything, that’d actually be kinda creepy if I did that, but, you know, the usual. Like I’ll talk to ’em, and usually they’re pretty cool about it, well, I mean, they’re cool about it as in they don’t run away, so, you know, that’s kind of a victory.”
Danyal gave me a blank stare. I continued.
“Look, the point is that she ran away and Aunt Zakia said it’s because she might think I’m a rapist and frankly, that’s just not nice.”
Danyal kept staring, waiting for me to finish.
Unfortunately, I continued. “Then I tried to talk to a Christian guy and he wouldn’t tell me anything either. Perfectly nice guy, couple of missing teeth, crusty hands, very hospitable, but wouldn’t say a word about Christian persecution.”
Danyal nodded, “Sounds about right.”
“So Uncle Bashir and Aunt Zakia both mentioned these blasphemy laws yesterday, and I’m trying to understand what exactly they mean here. Okay, there, done, go, educate, do your thing.” I shut up, sat back, and crossed my arms.
Danyal shook his head while he continued chuckling to himself. “Qasim, this is what blasphemy laws have done to Pakistanis. Ahmadis were just the beginning. Once we were demoted to second-class citizenship, mullah extremism made sure other minority groups followed suit.”
“I think I need to understand what exactly these blasphemy laws entail. Why does everyone seem so damn scared of these damn things?”
“Because there’s much to be feared. These laws give mullahs and the government the undisputed power to silence anyone they want to silence, arrest anyone they want to arrest—and that’s if the victim is lucky. If not, mob violence or terrorism takes over and God only knows what happens then.”
“You mean like what happened in Mong.”
“Exactly. So there are basically two types of blasphemy laws. One type is a specific blasphemy law against Ahmadis only.”
“Well, aren’t we special.”
“The other is a general blasphemy law against anyone and everyone.”
“Do both apply to Ahmadis?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head in frustration. “Alright, let’s start with the anti-Ahmadi one. What’s the lowdown on this one?”
“It’s simple. Declaring us kafirs wasn’t enough because we still ‘acted’ like Muslims. We still prayed like Muslims, fasted like Muslims, dressed like Muslims, said Asalaamo Alaikum like Muslims, called the Adhaan like Muslims, read the Qur’an like Muslims, attended mosques like Muslims—”
“I get the point... So?”
“So, all this hurt the precious sentiments of mullahs who suddenly had an exclusive patent on Islam.”
“Well, they didn’t seriously expect us to magically transform into some new faith just because they passed a pointless constitutional amendment?”
“That was the mullah complaint! That these Ahmadis behave just like Muslims behave, so people can’t tell them apart from the ‘real’ Muslims. Mullahs complained that Ahmadis do everything Muslims do in Pakistan, but do so with more vigor and faith. So when people join the Ahmadiyya Community, they do so because they see a ‘better’ Islam.”
“So how does the anti-Ahmadi blasphemy stop all this nefarious Muslim-acting going on?”
“Made it illegal.”
“Made what illegal?”
“Everything I just described. It was now illegal.”
“Illegal like jaywalking which no one cares about or the bad kind of illegal?”
“The bad kind. Any Ahmadi ‘caught’ doing any of those things received a three-year prison sentence and a fine.”
“For acting Muslim?”
“Yes.”
“So we’re not talking doing anything violent or hate speech or anything. We’re talking fine and arrest for walking around, minding your own business, and behaving like a run-of-the-mill Muslim—whatever that even means.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I understand this. So let’s try a hypo. Let’s say a cop stops me here, hypothetically of course, and I walk up to him and say, “I’m an Ahmadi Muslim, Asalaamo Alaikum.” If I said that I’d be arrested and fined for saying Salaam?”
“No, actually, you’d be arrested and fined for saying ‘Ahmadi Muslim’ because that’s blasphemy. Remember, Ahmadis aren’t Muslim in this country. They’re kafirs, apostates. So it’s blasphemy to associate Ahmadis with Muslims. Saying ‘Asalaamo Alaikum’ would only be making it worse for yourself.”
Despite the serious conversation, I let out a chuckle when Danyal said, “making it worse for yourself.” My mind flashed to the famous “stoning” scene in the Monty Python movie Life of Brian. In this scene, villagers are about to stone to death a poor old sap under charge of blasphemy. His crime? He simply stated the Lord’s name—Jehovah. As the villagers are about to stone him, the man pleads with them that he’s done nothing wrong. “I had a wonderful meal and I said to my wife, this was a meal fit for Jehovah!” The villagers scream in objection to his plea and the judge warns him, “You’re only making it worse for yourself!” The old man, in shackles and moments from death, angrily replies, “Making it worse?! How could I possibly make it worse?!” He then breaks into dance and screams “Jehovah!” at the top of his lungs—further infuriating the villagers.27 The humor and satire throughout the scene stems from the absurdity of killing someone for blasphemy. Yet, horrifyingly enough, that Monty Python movie is Pakistan’s reality.
And the reality began to sink in as to why I was so emphatically told not to speak with anyone about my faith in Pakistan.
“Is this why we can’t call the adhaan from any of our mosques?”
“Yes.”
“And is this why we can’t write ‘mosque’ on the signs for any of our mosques?”
“Yes.”
“And is this why ‘Muslim’ is scratched off Dr. Abdus Salam’s tombstone?”
“Yes.”
“And why all Ahmadi literature is banned in Pakistan?”
“Yes.”
“And why we can’t hold Jalsa Salana any longer?”
“Yes.”
Suddenly what Amir and Mubasher felt in Qadian wasn’t paranoia anymore. It wasn’t a phobia at all. A phobia is an irrational fear. This fear was entirely rational. Had I lived an entire lifetime under such an oppressive regime, would I have reacted the same way Amir did?
“Tell me about the general blasphemy law. What was its need if Ahmadis were now effectively silenced?”
“So the 1984 law enforces a fine and three years in prison for an Ahmadi who poses as a Muslim, right?”
“Right.”
“Now with this 1986 law, Zia upped the ante. For anyone caught blaspheming Prophet Muhammad, Zia said ‘off with their head.’”
“No, really, what does it say.”
“It says to kill them.”
“Come on, seriously, I’m trying to be serious.”
“Qasim, it says death to blasphemers.”
“The 1986 anti-blasphemy law?”
“Yep.”
“It says death?”
“Yep, death.”
“I don’t believe you. There’s no way it actually says that.”
“But it does.”
“No way, man.”
“Yes way.”
“Look, I know mullahs preach that garbage but there’s simply no way the government of Pakistan, a sovereign nation, a democracy, for God’s sake, would pass a law that gives capital punishment for blasphemy.”
“Don’t believe me, look it up.”
“You’re damn right I will.”
I got up in a fury and went to Danyal’s computer to log on to the Internet. I was confused and angry at the same time. The awkward silence while the computer took its sweet time logging on didn’t help much either. (Anyone reading this who has never experienced dial-up Internet has no idea how annoying that wait is.) What seemed like twenty minutes passed before I finally pulled up Pakistan’s blasphemy law. And my God, there it was:
Whoever...defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine. – Section 295C28
“What is this, some sort of sick joke? Danyal bhai, this has got to be a joke.”
“I wish it were, Qasim. But this is reality.”
“And then after killing you, they fine you on top of that? What kind of jackass thought that was a good idea?”
Before Danyal could answer, an odd thought crossed my mind.
“But wait, not that it makes this law okay, but this blasphemy law would only apply to Christians, Hindus, atheists, etc., who blaspheme Prophet Muhammad, right? I mean, it sounds dumb to even have to say but obviously Ahmadis revere Prophet Muhammad. So this law doesn’t really apply to us then right?”
“No, it applies to us just the same. Because we believe Ahmad is the Messiah.”
“So?”
“Well, that’s apparently an insult to Prophet Muhammad. Hence we’re the premier blasphemers against Prophet Muhammad. But even that aside, the fact that we even ‘dare’ call ourselves Muslim means we’re blaspheming.”
I threw my hands up in disgust and stood up. Pulling my hair back, I paced about the room not really believing what I was hearing. It just didn’t make sense how such a barbaric and repulsive law could be enforced in the twenty-first century—in a country that claimed to be a democracy at that. “Wait! That’s it!” I thought to myself. “Pakistan’s a democracy; people vote! Of course!” Speaking too soon, I proposed my bright idea to Danyal, which I was sure absolutely no one had ever thought of before, ever.
“Danyal bhai, there are millions of Ahmadis in Pakistan. And millions of Christians and Hindus and atheists and Shias, right?”
“Right, so?”
“So! Why not just vote to repeal these laws? Elect people who champion human rights, religious freedom, all that good stuff, and in a couple of years, poof, blasphemy laws are history.” I sat back down with a smug smile, proud that I had solved all Pakistan’s problems in mere seconds.
“It’s not quite that simple, Qas—”
“I mean, after all, it was our voting bloc that helped Bhutto get elected, right? So, obviously, Ahmadis vote. Why stop there? Let’s use the power of our voices to vote out the bigots and vote in people who understand the value of free speech. Jeez, why haven’t we done this already?”
“Qasim, it’s not that simple. The government already anticipated that and came up with a solution.”
“What do you mean?” I got back up and walked over to grab another cup of chai.
“They found a way to ensure Ahmadis don’t vote.”
“What?” I burned myself a little while pouring the chai—all my attention was directed at Danyal. “How?”
“To vote, you have to register.”
“Okay, so?”
“You have to register by your religion.”
“Okay, that’s pretty dumb but so what?”
“So, to vote as an Ahmadi, you have to register as a non-Muslim.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous. Of course we wouldn’t declare ourselves non-Muslim. Why not just register as a Muslim and vote however we want? How would they know we’re Ahmadi?”
Danyal sighed.
“What?” I walked back with my cup of chai and sat back down.
“To register to vote as a Muslim, you have to sign a form that declares Ahmad, the Messiah, to be an infidel, false prophet, and apostate from Islam.”
I gave Danyal a blank stare that was part confusion, part disbelief.
“They know Ahmadis won’t sign that form, and they also know that Ahmadis won’t register themselves as non-Muslim. Those are the two options they give us. Well, the third is available too—don’t vote.”
I shook my head and muttered obscenities to myself. Danyal continued.
“And the same rules apply for Hajj. Pakistan actually puts your religion on your passport so we all have ‘Ahmadi’ on our passport. Once they see that, we can’t go to Hajj. And if someone is born a ‘real’ Muslim and joins the community, Pakistan actually refuses to let them change their passport.”
“Wait, so what if someone becomes Christian or atheist?”
“Nope, the official government document says ‘Change of religion from ISLAM to any other religion will not be entertained.’29 Some people who join the Ahmadiyya Community still push it through, but the official policy is to ban leaving what they think is Islam.”
“My God, how is this country even in one piece anymore? How long has this been law?”
“This voting restriction was made law back in 1985 I believe.”
“So no Ahmadi has been able to vote in about twenty years.”
“Actually, I did once. In 2002 for a span of about six months; then President Musharraf repealed the requirement to reveal your faith when voting. But the mullahs got after him and he folded. He actually didn’t even bother going through Parliament. He just issued an executive order forbidding Ahmadis from voting, unless of course, we admit we’re kafirs or declare the Messiah Ahmad a kafir. So since then, only Ahmadis have to reveal their faith to vote—no one else.”
I was forced to reflect on the fact that as a young adult in America, I initially balked at the voting process because I considered it useless and “feeding the machine.” Americans in general don’t really care to vote. We’re lucky to break 55 percent in presidential elections and 40 percent in midterm elections.30 And this is despite the massive push to get as many people to vote as possible. Despite all the pomp and flare during the 2012 presidential election, about ninety million eligible Americans didn’t vote.31 In America, I was ignoring a right protected for me, while my own cousin would’ve done anything to regain the right unjustly stripped from him. I felt nothing less than sheer embarrassment, and then more anger at these horrible injustices.
“So really, once the anti-Ahmadi laws were passed, it took only two years for widespread anti-blasphemy laws to pass.”
“Right, and now no one was safe. You understand now why those Christians weren’t willing to talk to you openly?”
I nodded silently, wondering what they must have thought of me when I asked the questions I did. The Christian woman probably did think I was going to harm her. Why wouldn’t she? She’d lived her entire life in a country that treated her worse than an animal. My heart felt heavy. Danyal continued.
“My advice—don’t do that again. You don’t know the lay of the land here. You have no idea who it might be you’re speaking with. The risk isn’t worth it. All it takes is a mullah to file a police report with fake evidence and you can consider yourself as having one foot in the grave.”
“Danyal this is less a democracy and more like Hitler’s Germany.”
“Yeah, well, Hitler did think he was doing the work of God. These mullahs think the same. They’ve burned Christians alive, killed Shias execution-style, raped Hindu women like it’s a noble deed—and you know well what they’re doing to Ahmadis.”
It suddenly occurred to me on a whole new level what the American “war on terror” was really up against. This wasn’t just a fight against terrorists that we had trained twenty-five years prior. And that is a fact. The CIA and Reagan administration funded and trained Al-Qaeda in the early 1980s. But that was pre-blasphemy-law era. The blasphemy laws took those mujahideen warriors, and gave them legitimacy in the government. This realization was frightening as it was depressing. Despite all I had learned, there was much Danyal still kept from me. In hindsight, I realized this was a calculated decision. Some matters—like his police torture or my cousin’s lynching—were not easy to digest. We’d get to those soon enough though.
“How long did Zia reign as dictator?”
Danyal’s expression changed to one of amazement. He stared somewhat off in the distance as he spoke. “Zia...is an interesting story. He died in office. But he didn’t just die. He was literally blown to bits.”
“Really? Blown to bits, huh? I’d say karma’s a...well, I’d say that’s karma. But considering his shady behavior in dealing with mullahs, I guess it makes sense they might’ve turned on him.”
“It wasn’t the mullahs who got to him.”
“Oh? Not a Bhutto repeat? Then whose blacklist did he get on?”
Danyal looked up at me and replied with a stoic face. “God’s.”
Stay tuned next Sunday for Chapter 11: Hiding in Plain Sight.
This has provided an outstanding education about Islam. Thank you
Thank you for another great chapter. I can't wait for next week's to continue this conversation. I am learning so much about your religion, Qasim, but I'm also learning an awful lot about the part that America has played in that part of the world... and it is awful. With a new Middle Eastern war on our hands, we sure don't get any smarter do we??