Ugly Mullahs of Pakistan

(We received the following contribution from an angry reader of PTH and we are publishing it without malice or much editing. The views expressed by the writer are completely his own and do not reflect the policy of PTH.

By: Farooq Ahmad Khan

Mullahs of Pakistan are the worst of creatures. They are responsible for religious hatred, intolerance and spreading of extremism in our society. These mullahs freely issue kufar fatwas on their opponent sects and threaten those with a different belief. They say that religion should be part of politics in Pakistan nut in reality, mixing religion and politics has played a negative role against the prosperity and development of the country.

Until 1968, the mullah’s role in state affairs was scarce. Government and mullahs were more or less restricted to their respective sects’ mosques but when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto came into power in 1970, the mullahs started exerting pressure. Soon they started dictating their terms against beliefs of other sects. The Bhutto regime was forced to accept their demands.

Later on in 1979 when General Zia ul haq came into power mullahs also gathered around him. The ultimate aim of Zia was to become Ameer ul Momineen. To fulfill this purpose, he gave them a free hand and allowed them to promote their own influences. During his rule, Pakistani society became accepting of weapons and drugs. While Quaid-e-Azam envisioned Pakistan as a secular state with his 11th August speech as a testament to that, Zia disregarded this vision. The unity of society slowly corroded and Quaid’s motto of ‘unity, faith, discipline’ became a long forgotten memory.   

The sponsorship of mullahs by Zia has grown into a crisis today. Mullahs, who are mass produced in madrassas are now a menace to society. The murders of Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti show that the mullah’s role is mostly to harm people and disrupt peace in the country.  

It is a tragedy that our society treats mullahs as saints even though the mullahs have no real love of religion. They use their position to brainwash the young generation. If the country is to prosper and develop, the government has to curtail the role of mullahs in politics and take constructive measures to restrict mullah’s role to mosques. Laws should be made to protect the rights of both the Muslim minorities and other minorities, school syllabus should be revised according to the teachings of Islam as laid by Allah in the Holy Quran. Thus, laws should be made by keeping in mind the beliefs of other sects by strictly banning conferences and meetings which create extreme dislike and by prohibiting the publication of material which encourage the spread of hatred and acrimony towards other groups of society.

To conclude, the whole society needs to be cleared from this cancer of mullahism and the country should be renamed as a secular country. Our government should follow the example of Kamal Atta Turk of Turkey and save this country from its downfall. Pakistan is a country blessed with many natural resources. If there are honest and dedicated leaders then there is no reason why Pakistan cannot flourish in all aspects. We should remember that ‘’qaumoon ki islah naujawanoon ki islah ke baghair nahi ho sakti’ (you cannot reform nations without reforming the youth). For that, we need to first save our youth from the influence of mullahs.