Once Were Radicals (36 page)

I had been on
khurooj
trips in Australia a few times. However, all my Aussie TJ friends suggested I should experience it in Pakistan. Mum was opposed to the idea, and sought help from Naani Amma who wasn't terribly enamoured by the TJ.

Naani Amma asked me why I wanted to go. I explained to her that in Sydney we have all kinds of ethnic groups, and that mosques were divided along ethnic and linguistic lines. I told her that mosque imams could not speak English and had no understanding of our experiences and problems. Hence we were forced to learn from English translations (often of poor quality) of Islamic texts, including books Naani Amma had sent us.

Naani Amma shook her head. She then turned to my mother.

‘You should let him go. My problems with the TJ are political. I cannot object to their religious teachings. After hearing how difficult it is for Muslim youth in your country, I think you should be grateful your son is still a Muslim at all! Look at our so-called Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Our young people are killing each other in the streets without even knowing or understanding what their differences are. Look at my own Jamaat. Our student's wing holds huge jihad rallies where thousands turn up to shout slogans like ‘Crush India' and ‘Free Kashmir'. And when they hear the
azaan
, only a few hundred stay to perform
nemaaz
.'

It was the first time I heard Naani Amma criticise the shallowness of people of her own party. It was the end of any residual attraction I may have had for political Islam.

I did go with the TJ on a
khurooj
trip for nine days. The
amir
(leader) of our
jamaat
(delegation) first came to visit Mum to confirm she consented. This was contrary to the usual practice in Australia, where it was assumed parents consented to their sons going. We spent nine days in a small mosque in a Karachi suburb called Korangi, down the road from a large
Darul Uloom
(college of higher Islamic education). Korangi was a working-class suburb with a large
muhajir
community and had been a battleground for sectarian and political violence. Our delegation was multicultural and included two Indonesians, a Malaysian, a Thai, a Pakistani lawyer, our South Indian
amir
and myself. Half the time we had no idea what we were saying to each other. However, we enjoyed visiting and speaking with ordinary Muslims in this neighbourhood.

After our trip, we returned to the TJ centre where one TJ scholar was giving a talk. He was a softly spoken man who looked well into his eighties, and was delivering his talk in Urdu, English and Arabic. His message was quite simple—that no amount of military might or political power can force a man to believe in God with all his heart. Human beings must willingly adopt faith. Prophets were never sent by God to convert people by force.

He also told us that no amount of technology can make a person into a genuinely humane individual or give that human being good manners. ‘If you take a dog and place it in a rocket and fly that rocket around the earth and then return it to earth and open the door, you will not find the dog transformed into something else.'

Finally, the learned man taught us that it is only through sacrifice that we learn.

‘If you sit in your room and read religious books, you will learn facts about religion. But if you undergo inconvenience and travel and sacrifice time and money, you will gain not just knowledge but also wisdom. This is why the Prophet Muhammad's early community sought refuge in Ethiopia from a pious Christian king. They had to suffer through journey and exile to learn that God can help Muslims through the kind actions of non-Muslims. This is why God makes us go on the Hajj pilgrimage at least once in our lifetime. This is why the elders of our movement ask us to sacrifice our time going on
khurooj
trips. And this is why sensible men always grow wiser as they get older.'

And so ended my extended flirtation with what some people call Islamo-fascism. More on that mouthfulof-a-term later. But the story doesn't end here.

In Karachi, my birth place and the largest city in one of the world's largest Muslim countries, I saw more than one Islam on display. On Fridays, I'd join the men in my extended family in Karachi for the Friday prayers. Women weren't allowed at any of the three mosques we'd walk past just to get to the ‘right' mosque!

My cousin Athar Bhai, a deeply spiritual man, showed me Pakistani folk Islam. We travelled to Clifton, a posh Karachi suburb home to huge mansions, waterfront apartments and an amusement park. One of the Gulf emirs had a stately mansion behind high prison-like walls there, as did Pakistan's own royals, the Bhutto family. Ordinary people visited Clifton to visit the tomb of a local saint named Abdullah Shah Ghazi, said to have been a great grandson
of the Prophet. Tens of thousands visit the waterfront shrine, many showing their devotion by showering his grave with flower petals and green shawls embroidered with Koranic verses. Others circle his tomb in the same manner as Muslims at Hajj circle the large cubic temple circled the
Kaaba
in Mecca. Some kiss the grill wall surrounding his grave, or even bow or prostrate towards the grave.

Athar Bhai also took me to the colourful tomb of Alam Shah Bukhari, located in the heart of Karachi's CBD. This richly decorated tomb, preserved by local merchants, also had devotees coming from far and wide, many bringing their sick children hoping to obtain some cure. All who visited were said to have received a special spiritual radiation (called
faiz
) from the saint.

I found this deeply troubling. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of Islam would transform into an idol the grave of a man who fought the worship of idols. Surely this wasn't Islam but rather a weird and wacky Hinduised form of Islam. Athar Bhai called this folk Islam
tasawwuf
.

‘Irfan, ordinary people show their devotion to God through devotion to God's friends. Who are we to judge how people show their love? Remember that your own name is the word our Shia Muslim brothers use to describe this love.'

Athar Bhai's love theory sounded like pious mumbo jumbo. But folk Islam was present everywhere I visited in Pakistan. In Lahore I joined scores of tourists visiting the king's mosque with an entrance large enough for my sixteenth-century Mughal ancestor King Jalaluddin Akbar to have entered riding an elephant. I then took a taxi ride for a few kilometres to join thousands of locals at the
tomb of religious scholar and saint Syed Ali bin Uthman al-Hujwiri, known popularly as
Data Ganj Baksh
(‘Bestower of Blessings') who preached five centuries before Akbar ascended the throne. I even saw women wearing
bindhi
on their forehead (perhaps signalling their Hindu faith) and men sporting Sikh turbans, all engaged in the same forms of
bidah
(evil innovation) and
shirk
(idolatry) I saw in Karachi. At the time I wondered whether Hindus and Sikhs were misguiding (or should that be misguided?) ordinary Muslims. In fact, I was the misguided one.

After a week in Lahore, I returned to Karachi's warzone. Athar Bhai took me to the tomb of an Englishman called Faridi who converted to Islam after reading Hujwiri's book while riding a London bus. Faridi was moved to adopt the faith thanks to a book written by a man who generated such love in the people of his land that even those outside his faith visited his tomb. King Akbar could, at best, generate a few tourists to his monuments. Islam's real power to effect lasting change lay in what Sunni Muslims call
tasawwuf
, what Shia Muslims call
irfan
and what in the West is known (and too often misrepresented) as Sufism.

Political Islamic writers like Maududi mentioned
tasawwuf
but treated it as an aberration, a diversion from the allegedly more important tasks of setting up and implementing Islamic systems. Maududi didn't reject Sufism altogether, and towards the end of his life he expressed regret that he had not explored Sufism further. But Maududi did say and write many disparaging remarks about certain highly revered Sufi saints and personalities. His failure to appreciate the central role that Sufism played in mainstream Islam was just another indicator of how his
failure to learn Islam from mainstream scholars meant his ideas too often represented the theological fringe. Just as ordinary Pakistanis were turning saints' graves into idols, Islamic movements spent more time worshipping Islam and the Islamic state than worshipping God.

I returned to Australia with boxes full of books on subjects I had thus far ignored—Sufism, Indian Muslim history and Muslim cultures. Islam was now more than just about changing the world. It was also about changing myself on the inside. My journey inside Islam moved beyond what Muslim states should become. I was now concerned about what I should become. To use Gandhi's words, I wanted to be the change I wanted to see. I had come full circle, returning to that basic question: Who am I?

I now understood Islam to be a journey to God. The goal was getting closer to God, and Islam was a means to that end but not the end in itself. Though intellectually convinced that Islam was the only sure road to God, I also knew that it had taken me many years and much exploration across the world of ideas (not to mention a fair few overseas trips) to reach that conclusion. But what of millions whose journey towards God didn't lead them to Islam? How did I relate to them? Do I isolate myself from them or do I embrace them?

A famous sixteenth-century Indian Sufi scholar named Sheikh Ahmed Sirhindhi wrote that the believer goes through various stages until they reach a stage of
wahdat ash-shuhood
. This is a stage where all you perceive is God. It's a bit like taking a torch and placing it in front of the midday sun. All you'll see is the sun, whose bright light will make the torch invisible. You're so lost in God that
you forget yourself. Surely this must be the highest stage a Muslim can reach.

In fact it wasn't. Sheikh Sirhindhi taught the highest stage was when you returned to planet Earth and directed yourself to serving God's creatures. The essence of Islam was public service and public engagement. This was the work of God's prophets—Ibrahim (Abraham), Nuh (Noah), Moussa (Moses), Younis (Jonah), Yahiya (John the Baptist), Issa (Jesus) and Muhammad. The weird thing is that you don't have to immerse yourself in God to reach the highest level of proximity to Him. And you can work with people of all faiths and no faith in particular.

This message was reinforced some years later one Friday at the King Faisal Mosque by a Bangladeshi man wearing a
dhoti
(the same dress Gandhi used to wear) and a long white shirt. He looked like a beggar, but was in fact a physics professor from Dhaka University in Bangladesh visiting Australia with a TJ delegation.

‘My dear brothers, you are so fortunate to have migrated to this country. The people here have behaved in a most Islamic manner toward you. The Prophet Muhammad taught us that we should endeavour to give and share from the things we value. Australians understand the Prophet's message even if they don't believe in him. They share with you things they value: wealth, prosperity, just laws, education, tidy streets, good homes. They even share with you political power, making you equal citizens and giving you a say in their country's affairs. What have you shared with them in return? What do Muslims value the most? Surely we should share our shared religious values with
our fellow citizens. We must show by our actions that we want to contribute to this society.'

He then reminded us of the
Hilf al-Fudul
(Alliance for Virtue), an organisation founded fourteen centuries ago in Mecca years before Muhammad received his first revelation. This was the time of
jahiliyyah
, of profound ignorance and lawlessness when men worshipped idols of wood and stone, when you could only feel safe if you were part of a tribe or sponsored by a tribal leader. A merchant from outside had sold his goods to a Meccan tribal chief who refused to pay. The merchant had no one to turn to. A group of merchants and tribal leaders, including Muhammad, formed the Alliance of Virtue, perhaps the world's first trade union, in direct response to this merchant's plea.

After becoming a Prophet and moving to Medina to escape persecution, Muhammad would reminisce with his companions about the Alliance. ‘Before Prophet-hood in Mecca, I raised my hand when requested to pledge allegiance to the Alliance. If asked to do so now, I would gladly raise my hand.'

Muhammad was prepared to join a just cause even with people from a city that persecuted him and that was threatening the very survival of his city-state. My theological journey had to incorporate some kind of public service. Which raises the obvious question—why on earth did I join the Liberal Party? Perhaps that's a discussion for another time.

In the weeks leading up to 9/11, I was involved in an election campaign in Auburn, a Sydney suburb with the largest Muslim concentration of any suburb in Australia. I was engaging with all major political parties, their candidates
and their members of parliament. The Auburn by-election was on the Saturday before September 11.

After September 11, that engagement with the mainstream continued when I was endorsed as a candidate in the Federal Election. Like many Muslims, I suffered from a case of 9/11-itus, trying to make up for lost time.

The Arabs say that a boy only becomes a man when he reaches the age of forty. By the time this book is first published, I'll be a few months short of my 40th birthday. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that no group has a monopoly over extremism. The best antidote to extremism is engaging with people. It's the
Hilf al-Fudul
philosophy: work with people you otherwise disagree with on just causes you do agree with. Build coalitions with all kinds of people across the cultural, philosophical, religious and political spectrum.