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Thursday March 28, 2024

Valentine day, good Muslims and Pakistanis

By Umar Cheema
February 14, 2016

ISLAMABAD: A businessman went to see a tax officer after returning from Umra. He carried along some gifts wrapped in a basket. At the surface was a cap and dates from the holy land, to the pleasure of the officer. Buried beneath them was a pile of cash.

The officer felt insulted and enraged at the sight of cash stacks. He had earned nothing in life but integrity. This attempt to bribe him was an attack on his character, he thought. The bribing businessman was told to leave immediately along with gifts. The officer is now retired and doing another job to make ends meets.

This decade-old incident got refreshed in the officer’s memory only after a recent announcement by that businessman’s family urging masses to refrain from celebrating Valentine’s Day declaring it a western tradition and quoted Quranic verses for invoking fear of in the minds of Muslims.

Interior ministry has also announced strict actions against this day’s celebrations in Islamabad. Punjab government has issued province-wise warning as if there is a serious terrorism threat. Local governments of Peshawar and Kohat have not missed this opportunity either. 

Also, President of Pakistan couldn’t have missed an opportunity of returning to headlines. “Valentine’s Day has no connection with our culture and it should be avoided,” he said while addressing a function at the death anniversary of Sardar Abdul Rab Nishtar. Incidentally, he himself was wearing western dress when urged refrain, declaring this day a part of western tradition. 

At the heart of this debate emerge some awkward questions: What is our culture? Who is patronizing it and how it is being practiced? Should good Muslim means offering five-time prayer and bribes simultaneously? Is cheating on the state through tax evasion is permitted in Islam?

There are many advocates of ‘our culture’ but hardly any of them has bothered to define it to the satisfaction of others. End result: confusion that breeds a hypocrite society full of contradictions. 

This anomaly is reminiscent of a critical question confronted by Justice Munir-led Punjab Disturbance Court of Inquiry Judicial Commission after riots on the issue of Qadianis in 1953. Several religious scholars were invited in order to evolve a consensus definition of a Muslim. 

As efforts failed, Justice Malik Rustam Kayani, member of the bench, questioned the inability of clerics to arrive at an agreed definition. One scholar sought some time to do the needful. Justice Kayani refused saying that you had not been able to define this in hundreds of years. No amount of extension in time will resolve this, he remarked.

The inquiry report finally noted: "If there is one thing which has been conclusively demonstrated in this inquiry, it is that provided you can persuade the masses to believe that something they are asked to do is religiously right or enjoined by religion, you can set them to any course of action, regardless of all considerations of discipline, loyalty, decency, morality or civic sense."

 Although Qadianis were declared non-Muslims in 1974, the religious credentials are now questioned at sectarian level. The ideology of Pakistan is still contested and who is a patriot citizen remains our favorite pastime with an objective to discredit each other instead of engaging in an intellectual debate. 

As for as our cultural identity is concerned, it is one of the best-kept secret only known to unknown. Film industry is almost non-existent that could have promoted it, theater is on decline, singers prefer settling in India for earning and to evade threats. Eventually, people tend to watch Hollywood and Bollywood movies. 

No effort has been made to preserve even national language either. The Supreme Court ruling on Urdu has been swept into the dustbin and a review petition has been filed for getting extension in time-frame set for promulgating the national language at official level. Neither the deadline was honored in the past, nor will it be done in future. 

There is no channel for kids that they could watch for understanding of their culture. The ones watched by Pakistani kids are either US-made Dora or Japan-produced Doremon. India has dubbed these cartoon networks in Hindi language watched across the border by Pakistani kids who are only getting more familiar with Hindi than Urdu. We weep whining against the influence of Western and Indian cultures instead of competing with them.

Majority of Pakistanis want to be good Muslims but their definition in this respect lacks essential elements like integrity, work ethics, and responsibilities as a dutiful citizen towards state that include honest tax payments. ‘Good’ Muslims tend to think that offering five-time prayer and performing haj/umra are anti-dotes of all the ills they are into and will be forgiven unaccounted.

The above-stated businessman is a typical example of the pious rich of Pakistan who can invent any justification for their own business and invoke fear against un-Islamic practices. If celebrating Valentine’s Day is a religious offence, there is also severe punishment for the givers and takers of bribe. Needless to mention, this bribe was being offered to ‘sort out’ taxes, again a crime against the state.

Tax practices of this ‘pious’ businessman are in contrast with another Pakistani who may not fall into a good Muslim definition prevalent in society but a dutiful citizen from Lahore. In April 2012, his wife expired. She owed some tax payment by the time of her passing. The husband not only filed her tax return, all the arrears were deposited to the state exchequer. Asked why he did so? “She could be held to account before Allah for owing something to the state if I had not paid her tax arrears,” he said.

For me, he is a good Muslim and a good Pakistani.