UstaadKhan Blogs

Assalamoalikum,

I am writing this email with great sorrow and anguish in my heart.
There seems to be no end to the floods, bringing misery, death and
destruction to millions in Pakistan. It has become extremely difficult
to see  women, children, men struggling to keep alive, and the worse
thing is that there seems to be no end in sight.

For some time now, I had my suspicions that Pakistan was/is under a
great calamity from Allah SWT. There has been one calamity after
another, and the earth has been shaking nearly every week (if not
every day ) in Pakistan.

My suspicions were confirmed when I came to know that Mufti Taqi
Usmaani also told a congregation to recite Surah Shams (Surah 91)
excessively to avoid azaab from Allah (SWT). Maulana sahib in his
bayan (24th May 2009), said that one of his respected elders saw
Prophet(SAW) in his dream. Prophet(SAW) told him that Pakistan may
soon be  under azaab from Allah(SWT), and in order to avoid the azaab,
the people of Pakistan should recite Surah Shams 70,000 times.

I have found the bayan. It can be found here
http://www.deeneislam.com/ur/horiz/sotiyat/mufti_taqi_usmani/288_M_M_TAQI_ZIKR_E_KASEER_HAR_JA_AUR_HAR_WAQT_HO_24_05_2009.wma.
He talks about the dream at around 34 mins into the bayan. In his next
speech, he presents the tafseer of Surah Shams. It can be found here
http://www.deeneislam.com/ur/horiz/sotiyat/mufti_taqi_usmani/Tafseer-Surah-Shams-(27-05-2009).wma

Tomorrow is the start of Ramadam, indeed a  blessed month specially to
seek Allah Karim’s mercy. I request that we recite Surah Shams
excessively and include it in our daily supplications.
The condition is Pakistan is very dire.

For those who are not familier with Mufti Taqi Usmaani, he is a
leading fiqh scholar, son of Mufti Shafi Usmaani, and is the current
head of Dar-ul-Uloom Karachi. Among other things, he is also
considered a world authority on Islamic finance. I have personally
benefited from his lectures immensely and recommend him highly.

Assalamoalikum, and as always remember me in your duaas.
Abdul Hannan Ahsan.

We are incorrigible optimists. Because India’s name was not mentioned in Brussels meeting and the London conference on future of Afghanistan, we believed that the US and the West had come on the right track. But it appears that they are still off track, as they continue to create doubts about security of Pakistan’s nukes.

Director of the US Defence Intelligence Agency Lt General Ronald Burgess told the US senate Intelligence Committee that the Pakistani government and the military establishment both came under repeated pressure from the Taliban extremists last year, including an attack on the army headquarters, which raised questions over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arms. “We have confidence in Pakistan’s ability to safeguard its nuclear weapons though vulnerabilities exist,” he said. This statement can be described as a double speak; it is in fact self-contradictory Pakistan’s nukes can’t be safe and vulnerable at the same time. General Burgess went on to say that the tribal areas in Pakistan continued to provide ‘valuable sanctuary’ to Al Qaeda and others and while attacks on these groups had disrupted some of their activities, however they remained resilient.

One could put them a question: could more than 100000 American and NATO troops and Afghan forces in similar number break the will of Afghans? Certainly not; and they have much more resilience than Pakistan’s Talibant. Director of US National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the same committee: “India-Pakistan conflict was helping the militants because Islamabad still believed that some militant groups were strategically useful to counter India”. But this is not true because Pakistan has banned all organizations and they act against extremists and terrorists of any hue and shade, whether pro or anti Pakistan. He persisted in discerning in pro Pakistani Taliban and those dangerous for Pakistan. He acknowledged: “Islamabad had demonstrated determination and persistence in combating militants it perceived dangerous to Pakistan’s interests, particularly those involved in attacks in the settled areas, including FATA-based Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan”. It is indeed Pakistan’s war; however, they are to blame in equal measure for creating monster of militancy during Afghan war. By destroying Tehrik-i-Taliban’s infrastructure in Swat, Malakand Division and South Waziristan, the toing and froing of the militants across Pak-Afghan border has considerably reduced. (more…)

If there is any hint of whitewash in the Iraq inquiry, it will only exacerbate an already inflamed situation

Article By:  Karen Armstrong

Obama's shaky first term is perhaps not surprising, given the turbulent tectonics of his country's politics

First Haiti quaked, then Massachusetts. Konrad Yakabuski said it here last Wednesday: One year into his first term, Barack Obama risks becoming a lame-duck President. Fresh out of his supporters’ enthusiasm, he must struggle to reinvent his presidency in tonight’s State of the Union address.

There are many reasons for Mr. Obama’s near-death experience. The biggest, however, is that he misread the national mood. Having gained the presidency by defeating the lacklustre candidate of a discredited party, Mr. Obama mistook this for a mandate. American voters no longer confer mandates. They merely express their disgruntlement. They were fed up with Republicans, yes, but so were they with Democrats, especially congressional ones. They were fed up with politics as usual. Mr. Obama swept to victory by posing as the candidate of change.

Which he was, unfortunately for him. Mr. Obama had set his sights on the transformation of American society. For most Americans, however, change was a matter of how, not what. Social revolution was the last thing on their minds. They ascribed the failed policies of the Bush years to the glaring defects of a political process dominated by special interests and partisan bickering.

So what did Mr. Obama do? He poured kerosene on both. He rashly decided to pursue health-care reform as the entering wedge of an ambitious agenda. There’s no more complex issue in American politics, none that engages so many contending vested interests, and none so certain to fuel partisan animosity. It’s one hornet’s nest after another. Since most Americans are quite satisfied with the quality of their health care and for that matter their health insurance, they feared to lose more from big changes than they hoped to gain from them. They never warmed to a 2,000-page bill that no one understood but few believed addressed the real problem – medical costs that are out of control. (more…)

'My mission is to cure my country of endemic corruption'

I drive to meet Imran Khan through the white silence of Richmond Park in the snow. Deer loom out of the dusk, antlers like reindeer. “I love nature,” says Khan when we meet. “I am an outdoors man. I love coming here because I can play outside with my children.”

On the day we meet, Khan has just stepped off the plane from Islamabad, and his sons, Sulemain, 13, and Kasim, 10, have been playing in the park. When they come in they hurl themselves at him, pink-cheeked from the cold. Khan has not been in England since having surgery for his near-fatal twisted appendix in November and his boys have come from their mother Jemima’s house in Fulham, south-west London, to have tea with him. All three are excited at the reunion.

His stop-over point when he is in London is Ormley Lodge, the home of his former mother-in-law, Lady Annabel Goldsmith, and in the bitter January landscape, the warmth of her house is inviting. While tea is prepared in “the big house” he paces up and down the small chintzy sitting room above what used to be stables, his home here since he married – and divorced – Jemima. There is a running machine in the next room.

“I am lucky,” he says, his Bollywood looks belying the fact that he is nearly 60. “This is still my family.”

Khan’s life has changed radically. Few could have predicted that the former playboy cricketer, who bowed out from the international party scene when he married the heiress Jemima Goldsmith in 1995, would have become a political animal of the most zealous kind. Politics may have cost him his marriage. It has certainly taken over his life. “My mission,” he says, “is to cure my country of endemic corruption.”

Since 1997 Khan has been the leader of Pakistan’s Movement for Justice Party. His parents, from different tribes, married and settled in Lahore, where he first took his new bride Jemima. Since their separation in 2004 he has lived alone in a small farm they designed together outside Islamabad, and now he acknowledges that sometimes he feels glad his wife and children are no longer exposed to the chaos and danger of Pakistan.

“It’s not as bad as it looks out there, it’s worse,” he tells me. “The boys used to go to school in Islamabad, now every day there is a bomb, an explosion, suicide bombers, someone is killed or a bomb murders dozens of innocent people. Bombs don’t have eyes. The Pakistani Army is being told to murder its own people. Although I miss my children very much, I know I would worry about them all the time if they were still out there.

“But if you are in Pakistan, watching this political mafia sucking the blood of the country, how can you stand by?” (more…)

When General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was elevated to the most powerful job in Pakistan, many hoped that he would efface the shame of eight years of military rule under his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf.

 Keen to rebuild the army’s much-damaged domestic image, Gen Kayani pulled all serving officers out of civilian institutions within weeks. The 2008 general elections also slipped by with no obvious military interference, a veritable rarity.

The army chief has also won plaudits for the military’s impressive displays of resolve against Taliban militants, first in Swat and now in South Waziristan. Under Gen Musharraf, earlier offensives lacked public support and ended in ruinous peace deals.

 But since the return to civilian rule, in the unlikely shape of President Asif Ali Zardari, observers note that the military has jealously guarded what it sees as its own traditional prerogatives.

  On paper, Mr Zardari is the “supreme commander of the armed forces” and his prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani oversees the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. But these are, as one senior western diplomat puts it, “constitutional fictions”.

  In 2008, an attempt to bring the ISI under civilian control backfired within 24 hours. After the Mumbai massacre, Mr Gilani’s decision to dispatch its chief spy to Delhi was thwarted. More recently, Mr Zardari was forced to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry after discrete pressure from the army.

 On the foreign policy front, the army has regarded Mr Zardari’s proximity to Washington with scarcely disguised concern. Last autumn, the army publicly protested against what it saw as humiliating conditions attached to a US bill that tripled civilian assistance.

 Fresh accusations that the army continues to resist attempts at reconcialition with the disgruntled Baluch will now add to the sense among its critics that it remains unprepared to yield elected civilians the power they would take for granted in established democracies.

 Under a media blackout, the vast and resource rich province of Baluchistan has drifted away as nationalist fighters battle Pakistani troops in the mountains, activists mysteriously “disappear”, and long-simmering discontent has boiled over into a clamour for separatism.

 After tough negotiations, the political class has now united behind a move to divide the national budget equitably, cease military operations, and lure the province’s most recalcitrant elements to the negotiating table. 

  If that process is in jeopardy, it augurs poorly not just for Gen Kayani’s burnished reputation, but the very stability of Pakistan.

The United States will supply drone aircraft to Pakistan which will significantly enhance the country’s surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, visiting U. S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.

Talking to reporters in Islamabad, Gates said that 12 RQ-7 Shadow unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will be part of one billion dollar allocation for Pakistan from its Coalition Support Fund.

He said weapons and equipment will also be provided to Pakistan for the war against terrorism.

The Shadow UAVs will help build the Pakistan Army’s capacity for intelligence-gathering, said the U.S. defense secretary.

Gates did not reply to a question whether the U.S. would impose any condition as that the Shadow drones could not be used along Pakistan’s eastern border with India. (more…)

Half a million workers will benefit from a Pakistan move for transfer of government shares in a chain of enterprises to their employees.

This was officially stated at a ceremony in Lahore where President Asif Ali Zardari handed share certificates to a group of workers under ‘Benazir Employees Stock Option Scheme’, named after the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Under the scheme 12 per cent of government shares worth around Rs100 billion (Dh4.36 billion) are being transferred to workers in entities including 16 listed and 33 unlisted public companies, 23 private companies and 14 other units.

In an address on the occasion at the Governor House in the Punjab capital, Zardari said the Pakistan People’s Party, which he heads as co-chairman, would strengthen democracy and protect the country.

“PPP government knows how to defeat conspiracies against Pakistan,” he said.

The president said that the PPP as the only truly federal party had the potential to “protect, run and strengthen the country”.

Governor Salman Taseer said Punjab — where the PPP is in second position in terms of vote bank after the Pakistan Muslim League-N of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif — would be turned into a “PPP fortress”.

PPP is part of PML-N led coalition ruling the country’s political most important and population-wise largest province.

Bumpy relations

Relations between PPP and PML-N, which is the main opposition party in the federal parliament, have however been bumpy.

But the PML-N leadership has asserted repeatedly the party would never back any attempt to dislodge the democratic system.

The criticism of Yusuf al Qaradawi is part of a long-running argument over the role of clerics in modern Muslim societies.

A prominent Saudi columnist has taken the well-known Muslim cleric Yusuf al Qaradawi to task for issuing political opinions in the guise of religious rulings – a practice that the columnist laments has become widespread and harmful to the reputation of religion.

Mshari al Zaidi’s criticism of the Doha-based Egyptian cleric is the latest skirmish in a long-running argument over the proper role of clerics in modern Muslim societies, what their religious rulings should address, and who exactly has the authority to issue a fatwa.

The argument, which spans the Muslim world, has become even more pointed and crucial since the appearance of extremist groups such as al Qa’eda, which seek to justify their violence with religious rulings from sympathetic clerics.

The dilemma has been heightened in recent decades with rising levels of literacy and education in Muslim countries. As a result, more Muslims are rejecting traditional religious authorities – usually allied to the state – and preferring to interpret the Quran and hadith themselves, or to find a cleric who issues rulings that they find acceptable.

It is not uncommon nowadays to find Muslims who have no traditional training issuing fatwas in order to gain a popular following. And they easily spread their messages by radio, television and the internet.

The upshot in the view of many Muslims has been fatwa chaos.

In remarks to an international conference of Muslim scholars held in Mecca a year ago, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz lamented that “internally the Islamic world has been plagued by an extremely negative phenomenon, which is the tendency to deliver fatwas by unqualified persons, especially on satellite television channels, the internet and other modern channels of communication.

“Issuing ill-considered fatwas without following any criterion offers biased, ignorant, extremist or careless individuals the opportunity to pose as religious experts qualified to issue fatwas,” added the king, whose speech was read for him at the conference.

No one disputes Mr al Qaradawi’s mainstream Islamic credentials, nor his authority to issue fatwas. He is widely regarded as a renowned and popular scholar with a deep background in Islamic scripture.

The issue raised by Mr al Zaidi in his January 16 column in Asharq al Awsat, rather, deals with what he and some other Muslims regard as the misuse of sermons and fatwas to deal directly with divisive political issues. (more…)