The Hypocrites’ Jamaat Islami and Taliban

Jamaat Islami, a fundamentalist religious political party in Pakistan, as usual, has blamed CIA, RAW, Mossad, and Pakistan’s alliance with the US in the war on terror, for the bloody attack on its rally in Peshawar on Monday killing 25 JI workers. The party did not condemn Taliban for the attack. It has done so in past. For instance, when Dr. Sarfraz Naeemi, a prominent religious scholar, from Lahore, was killed by Taliban for his critical views against militants for suicide attacks, Jamaat had blamed American forces in Afghanistan for Dr. Naeemi’s murder. Such ridiculous and double-standard! Taliban had claimed responsibility for Naeemi’s murder saying any religious scholar opposing them will have Naeemi’s fate. Another example when Jamaat had a very hypocrite double-standard stance was when Taliban claimed responsibility for blast in a mosque in Rawalpindi saying “it was Zarar-Mosque”, reference to the incident in which Prophet Muhammad had ordered demolish of Masjid Zarar considered to be built by Jews against Muslims in Madina city.

Jamaat Islami blames all the violent attacks in Pakistan on CIA, RAW, Mossad and other “anti-Islam” forces. Despite the fact claimed by Taliban each time, Jamaat has never uttered a word of condemnation against militants for bomb blasts in Pakistan. In its manifesto, Jamaat Islami’s basic objective clearly says, “Jamaat believes that war and organized violence flows from man’s lack of complete allegiance to God Almighty as a supreme Creator.” This a complete hypocrisy. Jamaat used to send thousands of militants in Afghanistan during Soviet Union and later under Taliban. Jamaat leaders like Qazi Hussain Ahmed proudly talks about those days in his occasional columns in Daily Jang of Pakistan. In a recent column he talked about the days when he used to go to Afghanistan regularly for supporting militants. Jamaat support Hizb-e-Islami financially for years.  The militant-minded party had ideological affiliation with Muslim Brotherhood (Akhwanul Muslimeen).   The leaders of Jamaat have been favorite of Tehran. Qazi Hussain Ahmed is a regular guest of Tehran.

Maulana Sufi Muhammad, a Taliban leader in Pakistani tribal areas, is a former member of Jamaat Islami. He recruited thousands of youth from tribal areas for Afghan Taliban before 2002. He is now leading militants in Swat and fighting against Pakistan Army.

Despite the double-standards, Pakistani media has less questioned the role of such religious political parties. Dawn Newspaper had an editorial “Soft on militancy” critical of Jamaat Islami suggesting it to condemn militants. The Newspaper also said Jamaat has ideological affinity with the militants. Jamaat held a movement of “Go America Go” for a long period in Pakistan since the arrival of US forces in Afghanistan. Holding protest rallies every Friday in Pakistan cities with banners “Go America Go” nobody understood where is the US that Jamaat wants it to go? Who the hell are Jamaat-people to raise voice for the people of Afghanistan and call the US to leave the war against Islamic terrorists incomplete.  Unless there are such militant-minded religious parties with public influence, Pakistani State would not be able to come out of the wave of violence. Parties like Jamaat Islami are the real founders of Islamic militancy that has plagued world security today. They fuel the idealogical backup to militants.