SPY EYES

There was a group of people who were called Dogs of Hell by Muhammad s.a.w.w and they were not non muslims but they were the muslims. They were called khawarij because of their abandoning islam and innovating new things in islam. They believed on their opinion to be true and right. These people were nice reciters, (also called reciters, because of their excellent and beautiful recitation of Quran) but yet they used to twist and misinterpret the meaning of Quran.

 

These are the people who revolted against the caliphate of Hazrat Uthman r.a. and they never accepted Him as their Amir. They accepted Ali r.a. as their amir and they fought alongside him in wars but when hazrat Ali r.a. made peace contract regarding the imam-ship of hazrat Amir MU’aviya, they revolted against Ali r.a and called him a disbeliever like they used to call hazrat Uthman r.a. actually these people were so staunch in believing their own point of view to be correct that they never listened to what others have to say, a kind of pride and self-centered nature these people had.

There are several ahadith of Muhammad s.a.w.w about khawarij. Few of them are given below.
Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.w. called them dogs of hell: from al-hakim, Ahmed, ibn hanbal
“The Khawārij are the dogs of Hell.”

Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.w said that there will be a group of people who will be worst of all, and HE s.a.w.w called them worst of all creatures. Recorded by Muslim (no. 1067) and it is in “Ṣaḥīḥ al-Jāmi’” by al-Albānī (no. 2035).

Abū Dharr narrated that Allah’s messenger s.a.w.w said: Aḥmad, Muslim, and Ibn Mājah

“There will definitely be a people after me from my nation who recite the Quran yet it will not even reach beyond their throats. They will pass through the religion as an arrow passes through a target, then they will not return back to it. They are the worst of people, the worst of all creatures.”

The worst does not stop here, Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.w said that anti-christ or dajjal will emerge from these people.

Ibn Mājah no. 174 and it is in “Ṣaḥīḥ al-Jāmi’” by al-Albānī (no. 8027).

Ibn ‘Umarr.a that the messenger of Allah s.a.w.w said:

“There will arise a group of people who will recite the Quran but it will not reach beyond their throats. Every time a new generation of them rises, they will then disappear.”

Ibn ‘Umar said, “I heard Allah’s messenger s.a.w.w. say, ‘Every time a new generation of them rises, they will then disappear,’ more than twenty times and then said: “Until the Anti-Christ finally appears among them.”

Another hadith, describes that these people when are killed are among the worst people and the people who they kill and the best i.e. these worst creatures kill only the best people.

(Ibn Majah no. 176 and it is in “Ṣaḥīḥ Sunan Ibn Mājah” by al-Albānī (no. 146).) Abū Umāmah said:

“(They are) the worst people killed under the sky, and the best people killed are those whom they kill. They are the dogs of Hell. These people used to be Muslims but they became disbelievers.”

I (Abū Ghālib, one of the narrators) asked, “Abū Umāmah, is this something only you yourself are saying?” He replied, “No, rather I heard it from the messenger of Allah s.a.w.w .

From the above hadith, it is quite clear that the khawarij were muslims, and still their generations belonged to muslims. But out of pride and self centered nature, these people not only introduced new things in islam but Also reject the truth and kill those who are truthful and pious.
>> [al-Bukhārī (no. 3610) and Muslim (no. 1063)] Who was the pioneer of this race, a tradition has been recorded by bukhair and muslim from Abū Sa’īd al-Khudrī r.a. who said:

“We were with Allah’s messenger s.a.w.w while he was distributing some wealth. Dhu al-Khuwaṣirah, a man from the Tamīm tribe, came to him and said, Messenger of Allah, be fair!’ The prophet replied: “Beware. And who would be fair if I was not? You would be ruined if I were not just.”

‘Umar said, “Messenger of Allah, allow me to strike his neck.” He replied: “Leave him. He will certainly have companions (from his progeny) whom one of you would belittle his own prayer when compared to their prayer and his fasting compared to their fasting. They will recite the Quran but it will not go beyond their throats. They will pass through the religion as an arrow passes through a game animal. One could then look at the arrowhead and not see a thing remaining on it. He could look at the binding which attaches the arrowhead to the rod and not see a thing. He could look at the rod and not see a thing. He could look at the feathers and not see a thing. It would go straight through the bowels and blood.

Their sign is that of a black man. One of his limbs will appear like a woman’s breast or a disfigured lump of flesh. They will emerge when the people are disunited.”

Abū Sa’īd said, “I testify that I indeed heard this Ḥadīth from Allah’s messenger s.a.w.w, and I testify that ‘Alī Ibn Abī Ṭālib fought them while I was with him. He instructed that we search for that man. He was found and ‘Alee was brought to him. I saw that man exactly as the prophet s.a.w.w described him.”

And there are many other ahadith about this fasiq and fajir group who are the dogs of hell. Because their pioneer tried to be over smart by “advising” Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.w to be fair and they show themselves as good and pious people but innovate in islam what they like by distorting the meaning of the verses. Prophet s.a.w.w said that they will appear when ummah will be disunited. Today, muslim ummah is most disunited than ever before. There is no tolerance left for other sects, instead of inviting muslims to a common platform, there are scholars of different sects who openly abuse other sects and claim that they are the only ahle-sunnah wal-jammah, i.e. the jamat of muslims on the right path and to be entered in jannah when the Day of Judgment come.

By Ayesha Siddiqa

Lately, social media is abuzz with chatter about either the former president Pervez Musharraf or Zaid Hamid, both unsavoury characters. However, what is even more depressing is to see some television channels also engage in discussion with or about Zaid Hamid, a person who, at best, can be described as an anarchist. He may not claim links with an organisation like Hizbut Tahrir (HuT) but his ideology seems to be in line with it, since both support some amount of violence and chaos to bring about a change in Pakistan and implement a system of caliphate. Just about a couple of months ago, the Oxford University Pakistani Students Union had organised a conference on Pakistan which reportedly was managed by the HuT, in which the organisation, not yet banned in the UK, had discussed its vision of seeing Pakistan as the next caliphate.

But referring to Zaid Hamid’s publicity, a television programme got highly controversial and then taken off air because it involved the use of abusive language about the sitting army chief by Zaid Hamid’s former assistant Emaad Khalid. He was talking about the way Hamid tries to instigate young officers against the top army leadership even suggesting use of violence to remove those at the top. Given that the HuT had successfully managed to provoke an officer into assassinating Anwar Sadaat, this almost looks like their signature move. The same evening there was yet another programme that interviewed him.

Not that either of the anchors or producers of those programmes were interested in propagating his agenda; they were probably anxious to know more facts about the report circulated by Hamid’s former assistant about him getting money from various quarters, it got him more publicity than what he could have imagined. Watching and hearing about the man, one also wondered about the capacity of both the army and the ISI to make expensive mistakes. As if it was not enough that their own creation, Masood Azhar of Jaishe Muhammad was involved in an assassination attempt on a former army chief Pervez Musharraf in 2002, another character seems to have been built to either scare or attempt the killing of another army chief. The critical question is why are such vulnerabilities created?

Zaid Hamid, the man who now has an amount of traction amongst the youth and more, is a product of the establishment itself. Having done his engineering from NED, Karachi, he was attracted to jihad in Afghanistan where he went during the 1980s. He claims to have fought alongside Ahmed Shah Masood, which he presents as an argument that the jihad is above sectarian considerations. He seems to have dropped off the screen for a few years but then brought into ‘strategic circles’ under Musharraf’s government. Apparently, he was hired by the then Interior Minister General (retd) Moeenuddin Haider as an advisor in his ministry. He claims to have provided the ministry, as well as business groups, with intelligence. When I went to visit him a couple of years ago, his office was located at a stone’s throw from the main gate of Chaklala Cantonment. There were some cupboards in the office full of files that he claimed were security intelligence reports to assist commercial enterprises. It sounded like the US group Stratfor or Eurasia that claims to do the same.

The 1980s and 1990s context is self-explanatory as this was a period when people were recruited to fight the war in Afghanistan. Zaid Hamid’s case was of a young man motivated by religious zeal and anxious to contribute to jihad. But then, what do you do with such characters afterwards? Do you or do you not try to re-integrate them in society? But then, Hamid was one of the many characters who were treated as assets and kept hanging around for another critical job. His resurfacing towards the end of Musharraf’s years in power coincide with the urge of the military leadership to create another political alternative and narrative of an exciting middle class changing the face of the country. Here was a man extremely verbose and eloquent, addressing the youth and inciting them against the political society and political institutions.

The drive to promote Hamid didn’t end with Musharraf but it continued. There were many who would refer foreign visitors to Zaid Hamid as a security expert. This expertise and its propagation were used to detract people about Pakistan. Not that the political system does not require revamping but this was a case of the army staying a few steps ahead of the people and society and trying to bring change artificially. Having tested and tried partnership with traditional power centres, the military now probably wants to create a fresh breed of stakeholders, which it would then like to market as a ‘new Pakistan’. Those buying into this project completely forget that Pakistan has been through four distinct cycles of elite injection. The good or bad leadership that we see today is primarily a product of the 1980s and a lot of these people were middle class then. However, the middle class narrative, which is being used now, was missing during the 1980s.

The problem with this approach is twofold. First, until the structures remain the same or the manipulation of power from behind the scenes continues, the middle class narrative itself may not change Pakistan. There will certainly be new stakeholders or faces but not very different conditions. Second, the method is highly risky as it destabilises the country and its institutions and creates anarchy. Furthermore, it gives the impression that the army is no longer a professional whole but divided from inside. The army chief may be the most powerful man but there are other forces that can endanger his life or seriously challenge him through such non-state actors.

The main issue here is that if the army is so divided and manipulative then this is not a country that nuclear weapons could save.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2013.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN: 

A majority of these nomads, mostly belonging to the Dottani and Sulaiman Khel tribes, have Pakistani domiciles and CNICs and move towards warmer climates in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab during the winter.

But several families have given up the nomadic lifestyle, says Ali Muhammad, author of Ghur Se Dehli Tak, a book which explains the history and cultural practices of the Waziristan nomads. “Out of the total of 11,043 nomadic families, 3,000 have permanently settled down in Toi Khulla, Wana. The number of families giving up the nomadic lifestyle is increasing with the passage of time.”

This trend is emerging for a variety of reasons, including financial constraints, travelling problems, feud with the Gandapur tribe in Kulachi, DI Khan, and the volatile security situation along the Durand Line.

Additionally, Kulachi and Gomal Pass, the two important routes these nomads have been following for centuries, are becoming increasingly difficult to traverse.

Mounting difficulties

With the Gandapur tribe increasing in population, the previously unobstructed land along the Kulachi route has disappeared under constructs including houses and cultivation fields. This makes it difficult for the nomads to cross this area with cattle.

The nomads and the Gandapur tribe are also at war with each other. Around 20 years ago, a Gandapur tribesman killed a nomad after a goat entered his (tribesmen’s) field and sparked a conflict that has claimed the lives of over 50 people to date.

Despite the feud, nomads of the Dottani and Sulaiman Khel tribes have no option but to take the Kulachi route. Not wishing to stay long for fear of violence, they cross over to Gomal Pass in South Waziristan where they set up tents and rest briefly before setting off again.

The Waziristan nomads face no problems in the Gomal Pass area, but are still confronted with several problems. Mainly, the war on terror makes security a concern. The reconstruction of the Gomal Zam Road and the corresponding traffic this has invited has made passing this area with cattle extremely difficult.

“It is difficult for us to go through Gomal Pass because our livestock is afraid of the traffic,” said Masthan Khan of the Sulaiman Khel tribe. “We are also limited in terms of the routes we can take due to the traffic.”

Masthan added the government had set up various security check posts on Gomal Zam road, which cause severe delays. “For this reason, many of us take the Ghur Larai route, which is long, winding and difficult to cross.”

Infrastructural developments, although welcomed by other tribes of Waziristan, makes the nomads uneasy as it obstructs their lifestyle. Many have been forced to alter their travel methods by adopting the use of tractors. But in addition to changing their modes of transportation, the nomads are also gradually changing their customs with some selling their livestock entirely.

“I sold 39 goats and two camels at a low price in Bakkar, Punjab,” said Ashraf Khan, 51, of the Dottani tribe. “Now I have only three camels and 13 goats. I was mentally prepared to sell my entire stock but my wife forbade me from doing so.”

Ashraf maintained he would sell his remaining camels and keep only three goats for milk. He aims to start a small business in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province. Other nomads like Gulab Khan, 41, also from the Dottani tribe, have permanently settled in Toi Khulla, Wana. Gulab said he owned land in Kot Kai, Toi Khulla, and would try and cultivate it for his livelihood. “I also have to care for my children. My daughter needs the polio vaccine and my son has to go to school. We do not have these facilities otherwise.”

Fighting for survival

The Waziristan nomads are warrior people, often carrying weapons. Their reaction to the Taliban and other militants entering their area after 9/11 was strong and clear.

According to 65-year-old Lal Daad Khan, a nomadic tribesman, the nomads convened a Grand Jirga to discuss the issue of militants in their areas. “They decided not to allow their areas to come under the influence of the Taliban,” explained Lal. “There were no restrictions on individuals wishing to ally themselves with the militants, but these people were warned not to carry weapons and display their loyalties to the Taliban in Toi Khulla. Unfortunately, the situation changed as Mullah Nazir’s group extended its influence,” added Lal.

Despite the changing environment, however, author Ali Muhammad claims the Dottani and Sulaiman tribes are still following ancient Pukhtun culture. “They speak pure Pashto and only bury their dead on Pukhtun soil. Their women even give birth while travelling in the absence of doctors or midwives. New trends are permeating their day-to-day lives with many nomads carrying cell phones and receiving mainstream education, but they still retain their unique way of life.”

Muhammad added it was unfortunate that neither the Pakistani nor Afghan governments were making efforts to preserve their traditions.

A jirga convened by the nomads in January 2013 warned the Pakistani government the tribes would permanently migrate to Afghanistan if their problems were not resolved by the government. They demanded a share in the Nikat System along with the Ahmadzai Wazir and Mehsud tribes in order to secure better education, health and other basic facilities.

The Dottani and Sulaimen Khel tribes have also initiated a movement named Tehreek-e-Pehchan (the movement for the recognition of identity), which aims to convince the Government of Pakistan to recognise tribe members as equal citizens.

“We are arrested and humiliated on the pretext that we are Afghans, even though we hold CNICs,” said Malik Nawab Dottani, a member of the Tehreek-e-Pehchan. “We are faithful citizens of Pakistan even though our culture resembles that of Afghanistan. People who do not believe this should study our history.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 13^th, 2013.