The Cry of His Tears

by

Hamid Mir

(An Urdu column in the Jang (Lahore), January 8, 2009.)
<< http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/jan2009-daily/08-01-2009/col5.htm>>


It’s not the tragic story of just one man; it’s the tale of an entire nation’s powerlessness.

Mufti Sahib broke into tears as he was telling me his story, but I couldn’t even rise from my chair and offer him some solace. His head bowed, Mufti Sahib kept crying, unable to stop. Finally he looked up, grief darkening his face, and said, “I don’t know whom I should go to. Who is there to hear my cry and give me justice, for the justice I seek is not for myself but for hundreds of thousands of my daughters? They are crying out, but no one is listening.”

Mufti Sahib comes from Swat, where for the past 18 years he had worked at a Muslim religious school at Mengora. Recently a woman had come to him, hoping he would find some solution to the problem she faced. She belonged to the town Kuzah Bandai, situated on the banks of the river Swat. Her husband had died some years back in an accident. Since the lady already had an F.A. certificate, she found work in a private school in nearby Mengora, and thus could support herself and her three children while continuing to live in Kuzah Bandai. Eventually she also got a B.Ed. degree. Due to the uncertain conditions of law and order in the Swat valley during the last twelve months or so, most of the educational institutions in Swat were closed. But the schools in Mengora stayed open, and the lady continued working.

Then, some days back, when she returned home in the evening from Mengora, one of her neighbours came to see him. The woman told her that now Shari’at had been imposed and women were prohibited from going out of homes without reason, and so she won’t be allowed to go to work the next morning. The lady said to the neighbour, “Look, you know very well why I work. Every morning I take my children with me to Mengora, leave them at their school, and then go to my job at another school. At the end of the day’s work I return home with the children. They will starve to death if I stop working.” The neighbour replied, “We will not let your children die of hunger, but you must  
stop going out.” The self-respecting lady did not wish to live like a beggar, and so the same night she took her children and returned to Mengora, to her sister’s house, and continued working. The people hounding her then went to her school’s principal and demanded that he should either close his school or fire the ‘impudent’ lady from her job.

Scared and worried to death, the lady somehow learned that there were in that group of militants some young men who had studied with Mufti Sahib, She hoped that he might be able to dissuade them. Mufti Sahib contacted one of his former students. He was from Khaza Khila, and had joined the local militants when, a year earlier, his younger brother was killed in a Security Forces operation. The former student talked to his fellow militants, but the latter refused. They decided they would lose their awe and authority in the locality if they let the woman work outside her home.

Mufti Sahib then went to talk to the militants in person. During the conversation he remarked that it was not jihad when a Muslim fought another Muslim. The commander of the militants flared up and said, “We commemorate the martyrs of Karbala on the 10th of Muharram. Was not the jihad of those martyrs against a government that called itself Islamic?”

Mufti Sahib then explained to him the full context of the events of Karbala, and said, “History received the great story of the sacrifices of the Karbala martyrs through Hazrat Zainab, daughter of Hazrat Ali. As a child, Zainab was a great favorite of the Prophet Muhammad. She had become even during the life of her father, Hazrat Ali, a learned speaker, and used to expound on the Qur’an before women. At Karbala, she saw all the male members of her family killed before her eyes. And when she was taken as a prisoner before ‘Ubaidallah bin Ziyad, the ruler of Kufah, she boldly confronted him with words of truth. Then, after an arduous journey, she was brought  
before Yazid in Damascus. There too she stood boldly and refused to acknowledge him as the caliph. The thundering voice of Hazrat Ali’s daughter frightened Yazid so much that he had her taken back to Madinah together with the remaining members of the revered family. Had there not been Zainab the world would not have any awareness of the heights of glory reached by the martyrs of Karbala.”

Mufti Sahib further said to the commander, “The history of Islam is filled with stories of other bold and courageous women besides Zainab. Had not these women stepped out of their homes, Islam might not have spread so swiftly.” Mufti Sahib told the commander the story of Hazrat Safiya, who was the Prophet’s aunt and a sister of Hazrat Hamzah. During the battle with the Jewish tribe, Banu Quraiza, she attacked a scout of the enemy, cut off his head and threw it toward the enemy’s ranks. Then there was Hazrat Umm-e ‘Ammarah, who wielded her sword alongside the Prophet in the Battle of Uhad. And when a stone struck the Prophet and shattered two of his teeth, it was Umm-e  
‘Ammarah who then protected the Prophet from an enemy’s attack. As Mufti Sahib was narrating these incidents to the commander, the latter declared that Mufti Sahib was an agent of the Security Forces, and had him arrested. Eventually, at the behest of his former students, Mufti Sahib regained freedom, but the very next day he was relieved of his duties at the madrassah. Not only that, Mufti Sahib was also ordered to leave Swat altogether within two days. His efforts to obtain justice on behalf of an oppressed woman ended in making him homeless.

But his tears before me were not on account of his own loss. The reason was that three days earlier the lady who had struggled so hard to take care of her three father-less children was first declared a prostitute by the militants and then killed. According to Mufti Sahib, Swat was totally peaceful until two years ago. Then the government of Pervez Musharraf, in order to collect dollars from America, destroyed its peace. They spilled the blood of innocent people, and now the same innocent people had become greatest oppressors. What a great irony that the dictator who loudly proclaimed his “enlightened moderation” cast Swat into the clutches of religious extremism! And now he would go around the world lecturing on Peace!

Mufti Sahib told me: “In Swat, the state and non-state elements vie in oppression. They do not differ when it comes to tyranny. Our ‘ulama will have to show the same boldness and courage that Hazrat Husain showed, for Swat has become another Karbala. The ‘ulama will have to stand up on behalf of those countless women who are being made prisoners in their homes in the name of Islam, and on whom all doors of education are being closed. If the ‘ulama did not raise a united voice now on behalf of their sisters and daughters who would then they find to listen to their stories of Hazrat Safiya, Hazrat Umm-e-‘Ammarah, and Hazrat Zainab in the years to come?


(Translated from the Urdu by C. M. Naim.)