Pan-Islamism

Pan-Islamism is a political ideology, a form of religious nationalism that dismisses culture, language, ethnicity, economic interest and geographical proximity etc. as factors for unification. It tends to take its subscribers back into an imagined past where Muslims were strong, united, uncorrupted and followed Shariah law.
Recently, one of our worthy scholars has asked us to imagine an invincible political union of Muslim states, initially comprising Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey. At a later stage perhaps, it will expand to the shores of the Atlantic in the west and islands of the Pacific in the east. It is a political union, not something like an economic bloc or a larger forum to discuss and debate issues, because Dr Muzaffar Iqbal refers to it as a ‘confederation’.
Also at the outset, one must recognise that Dr Iqbal is among the very few Islamic scholars who truly understand and write about the oppressive nature of unbridled global capitalism.
Being an Islamist living in the western world, one shouldn’t expect of him to take a broader ownership of the developing world either, be it Asia, Africa or Latin America, because that has been the nature of things for quite some time for Muslims.
To give you an example, while an organisation called ‘Christian Aid’ would work across the world, an organisation called ‘Islamic Relief’ will focus on Muslim populations. A Hindu or a Parsi philanthropist in South Asia, who is also a staunch believer in her or his faith, will develop a charity institution for people of all denominations.
But a Muslim who has a claim to piety and religiosity will be charitable for Muslims alone. Mind you, I am not talking about those Muslims who either do not bring religion into charity or bear a secular outlook in day-to-day affairs, however observant they may be of Islamic teachings in private lives.
But a part of me does want Dr Muzaffar Iqbal to take a wider view. For someone who has read his exquisite rendition of Hussain Ibn Mansoor Hallaj’s poetry into Urdu, it is justified to expect a more inclusive and humane understanding and siding with all the wretched of the earth rather than looking at the world eternally from the ‘Muslim versus Other’ lens.
But while Dr Iqbal has the luxury to think for the betterment of his native cousins at a more ideational level because of a different vantage point (living in Canada), there is a bunch of retired bureaucrats, military generals and right-wing strategists who daydream about a political unity of the Islamic Ummah while living in Pakistan.
In a country which was created in the name of a religious community living across the Indian subcontinent and failed to keep itself together for merely a quarter of a century, people have the gall to speak about a political union comprising Egypt, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Indonesia as its provinces, as it were.
In Pakistan, why can’t we settle for being South Asians once and for all? The countries that constitute Saarc today have seldom been one political entity. So what’s the big deal? We are proud to have our own country and identity. But there is a historic, cultural and economic link between peoples living across the subcontinent for millennia. Let’s capitalise on that.
Istanbul may look more beautiful to some but Delhi is more like Lahore. Whatever Islamic union you conceive, India with its 200 million Muslims and the tombs of Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia, Hazrat Khwaja Moin-ud-din Chishti, Amir Khusro and Mirza Ghalib will remain outside. I am not game.

The writer is an Islamabad-based poet and author.
Email: harris.khaliquegmail. com