The tragedy that started in 1947 in the shape of Pakistan and in the name of Islam has continued uninterrupted since then. In this country, Islam was transformed into a cult of ignorance and darkness and then into a cult of death and violence.
Muslim leaders and politicians initiated their political agendas by using the Islam card when the British Raj in India was on its hind legs. They galvanised the conservative Muslim clergy to support their call for a separate homeland for Muslims that was to be modelled on the Islamic principles of laws and polity.
But none of these shrewd leaders explained what those principles of religious laws were or how a political system based on those seventh-century Arabian laws and mindset would operate in modern times. They gave the poor and ignorant masses cheap slogans to repeat, which they did. But the masses had no clue what these laws and system of government would be like.
What the misguided and morbid extremists are doing in Pakistan in the name of Islam and their brigands kill innocent people when they choose to do so is a natural unfolding of the dark force that was unleashed by manipulating religion. The tree of ignorance and darkness is bearing its bitter fruit.
Amjad Sabri was shot several times Wednesday while driving his car.
Pakistani investigators and journalists gather around the car of famous Sufi singer Amjad Sabri after an attack in Karachi on Wednesday. (Shakil Adil / The Associated Press)
By The Associated Press, Wed., June 22, 2016
KARACHI, PAKISTAN—Pakistani police say gunmen have killed a famous Sufi singer in the southern port city of Karachi.
Police officer Arif Mahar says Amjad Sabri was shot several times Wednesday while driving in his car. Sabri’s brother, who was also in the car, was wounded.
Sabri and his late father, Ghulam Farid Sabri, were well-known qawwali singers, a style of music rooted in Sufism, or Islamic mysticism. Islamic extremists reject Sufi traditions and have targeted Sufis in past attacks.
Karachi has long been gripped by violence, with attacks carried out by Islamic militants as well as ethnic separatists, criminal gangs and rival political parties. On Tuesday, gunmen killed a member of the Ahmadi religious minority, and the son of a provincial judge was abducted. No one has claimed the attacks.
Nasir Khan is a historian and a political analyst, holding a doctorate of philosophy degree from the University of Oslo. He is the author of Development of the Concept and Theory of Alienation in Marx's Writings (1995) and Perceptions of Islam in the Christendoms: A Historical Survey (2006). He has published numerous articles on international affairs and human rights. He is a peace activist who opposes war and violence. He believes in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
The Wind Cries Freedom, the new book from Z co-founder Michael Albert, is a sweeping oral history of a future American revolution.
Through thirty interconnected chapters, it draws out the strategies, failures, turning points, and hard-won wisdom of a movement that called itself the Revolutionary Participatory Society. These are not the polished memoirs of politicians: they are the unfiltered accounts of people who organized in neighborhoods, hospitals, universities, stadiums, courthouses, and places of worship, and kept a shared vision alive through cynicism and exhaustion.
The result is speculative political fiction that reads like history: messy, human, and quietly hopeful in the way that only real experience and long thought can produce.
Get your copy and peruse more features on the book’s website below.
“Read it, argue with it, but don’t look away. The future it recalls is one we must still fight to deserve.”
Yanis Varoufakis
“The most unusual and intriguing combination of prophecy, manifesto, and movement building manual that I have ever encountered.”
Bill Fletcher Junior
“This work fills a huge gap in our social movement literature.”
Cynthia Peters
You've just read your article on Z this month.
DOES Z'S SURVIVAL MATTER?
You keep coming back for a reason: serious political analysis, movement reporting, and debate beyond the priorities of corporate media. Today, Z is in a precarious financial position. If Z is part of how you understand the world, help keep it going. The readers who give monthly are the reason this work survives between fundraisers.
Z is in a precarious financial position. If it’s part of how you understand the world, help keep it going.
Your reading count is stored only in your browser and is never sent to us.
Sound is muted by default. Tap 🔊 for the full experience
CRITICAL ACTION
Critical Action is a longtime friend of Z and a music and storytelling project grounded in liberation, solidarity, and resistance to authoritarian power. Through music, narrative, and multimedia, the project engages the same political realities and movement traditions that guide and motivate Z’s work.
If this project resonates with you, you can learn more about it and find ways to support the work using the link below.
Z is in the most precarious financial position in its history.
Z is a place to think beyond the limits of the present.
For decades, Z has brought together political analysis, movement reporting, debate, and visions of a different future from writers and activists around the world. That work is more than journalism. It is movement infrastructure: movements need places to develop ideas, test arguments, learn from experience, and imagine what comes next.
In the first two days of this fundraiser, 19 donors and 8 new monthly sustainers stepped up. Help us reach 1,000 donors who keep Z independent, for everyone.
For decades, Z has published the analysis, debate, and visions movements need, free of paywalls, ads, and billionaire owners. If that work should continue, Z needs your support now.
