Chapter 11
The Purveyors of Faith
WHEN the war in Europe was going against the Allies and Hitler’s
forces seemed to be advancing on all sides, Britain got worried that
Russia might take advantage of the situation to make gains in Asia.
To safeguard against that, of all organisations, Jamiat-ul-Ulema
passed a resolution in its annual conference declaring that if
Russia invaded Afghanistan it would become incumbent on all Muslims
to join in a jihad against it.
Later, when the British realised that there was no such danger, the
next fatwa came from the governor, Cunningham. He records: “I
advised Kuli Khan to moderate his anti-Bolshevik propaganda and to
concentrate more on propaganda against Germany and Italy.”
On the other side, as relations between the British and the Congress
deteriorated the former started using the mullahs against the
Congress.
But before we go any further the question is how could an Islamic
scholar could or a true Muslim could be inspired with religious
fervour in support of the British? The Englishman had been the
historical enemy of the Muslims. From the times of Salahuddin Ayyubi
right up to the sacking of the Ottoman Empire, the English had been
chiefly responsible for the Muslim world’s woes. Leave alone the
rest of the Arabian Peninsula, even the holy Ka’aba came under
gunfire from the Indian soldiers in the employ of these very
British. And they were responsible for wresting the rule over India
from the hands of the Muslim Mughals. The treatment they meted out
to the last of the Delhi emperors, Bahadur Shah Zaffar, and his
children is known to the whole world. Then look the way they dealt
with the Pushtoon Muslim of Afghanistan before the eyes of the
Pushtoons themselves. From Amir Dost Mohammad Khan and Amir Sheer
Ali Khan down to Amir Amanullah Khan – all these Muslims were
destroyed not at the hands of Russia or Germany or Italy but by the
British themselves.
Leave that apart: what cruelty and torture did the British spare
against the Khudai Khidmatgar from 1930 on? Where the mullahs
unaware of that too? The bombing and killing they perpetrated in
tribal areas – were those unknown too? Wazir, Mashud, Afridi,
Mahmand and other Muslims were subjected to conscription not by the
Russians or Germans or Italians. The same British carried on war
against such true mujahids and followers of the Holy Prophet (PBUH)
as Haji Sahib Tarangzai and the Faqir of Ipi.
The fact is these mullahs were not really concerned with Islam or
Quran, or the inheritors of the pious traditions. They had sold
themselves to the British for ten or fifteen rupees a month. Their
fatwa’s were handed down by the British and the British were both
their muftis and qazis. Their hands held the sword of Islam, but
their eyes were fixed on the Englishman’s nod. If the Englishman
said Russia was kafir the mullah said so it was. If he said, no
Russia wan'’ so bad, it was the Germans that were the heretics, the
mullah dutifully echoed the judgement, even though the German
believed in the same Gospel as the English and was as much the
‘People of the Book’ as the other. As for Italy, that was in fact
the centre of Christianity. The Vatican occupied the same position
for Catholics as Ka’aba did for the Muslims. The Pope, the
Catholics’ highest religious authority, himself lived there. But all
that did not concern our mullah. His concern was the pleasure of the
British.
When the British needed Islam for their internal purposes the
mullahs were ready for that too-and at the same price!
However, here in the Frontier, the problem was that the opposers of
the British were the Khudai Khidmatgars who were almost all Muslims
and their leader was Bacha Khan, who was a Haji, who punctually
offered all his prayers, who had set up Islami madrassahs, and who
was devoted to the service of Muslims. But the Khudai Khidmatgars’
crime was they wanted to free their land from the British
stranglehold, and so these mercenary mullahs leapt into the arena
against them.
There is nothing wrong with a religious leader adopting a political
stance. That is everybody’s basic right. But here these mullahs were
springing to the support of the kafir British against the freedom
fighters in the sacred name of Islam.
Cunningham records their doings in detail. For instance:
Jamiat-ul-Ulema toured in Kohat district in Jun’42 and in Peshawar
and Mardan in July doing intensive propaganda-
a. Anti-Axis, on the Islamic theme generally, and
b. Anti-Congress, particularly on the Pakistan theme.
Mullah in Peshawar and Mardan intensified the anti-Congress
propagand during July – August’42.
In other words the British had stimulated these mullahs in support
of political work on behalf of the Muslim League. They were thus
using this religious band exactly in accordance with the changing
needs in the ebbs and tides of the War. They had so yoked the mullah
to their subservience that whatever their requirement, the mullah
was ready to deliver promptly finding a justification for it in
Islam.
Thus when Britain felt reassured about the Russians, it diverted the
mullahs to taking on the Khudai Khidmatgars. By August 1942 in
Mardan alone the Swat Prime Minister had, according to Cunningham,
employed 18 mullahs. Two were in the attendance of Pir Baba and were
paid a monthly allowance of Rs. 30.
Cunningham also recalls:
Maulana Mohammad Shuaib and Maulana Madarullah came to see me at
Nathigali on 26th August and produced a long draft in Urdu of their
pamphlet which they propose to issue both in the district and in
T.T. (Tribal territory) – all good anti-Congress, anti-Japanese and
anti-Axis stuff. They are extremely friendly.
The English were careful about their own service to Islam by
recording the names, addresses etc., of all these mullahs: 24
mullahs were from Peshawar tehsil, six of them from Peshawar city;
13 from Charsadda tehsil; three from Nowshera; 18 from Mardan and
Swabi.
This process continued. Right until 1946, the names of every one of
the mullahs that Cunningham hired is duly recorded in his diaries.
It causes deep shame and embarrassment reading this list and seeing
how our mullahs and Khawanin sold their faith and honour and
self-respect for a few pieces of silver and copper in order to
fulfil the heretical purposes of the English overlords. And how, to
that end, they denounced the mujahideen, ghazis and the fighters for
national freedom with fatwa’s of Kufr. The British cunning too has
to be given high marks for discovering such people among Muslims and
organising them so that they not only did not ask for any releases
from their colonial and imperialist yoke, but in fact defiantly came
out in full battle array against those who did.
One British tactic was to create support for themselves within the
families that were fighting against them. Among the freedom
fighters, Faqir of Ipi was backed by Dost Namwar, a Mashud mullah
Powinda. Another was Mamandos Haji Sahib Taurangzai. The British
were keen to undermine their resistance, and perhaps had their most
crucial success in winning over the sons of these two great
mujahideen – Falza Din, the son of Mullah Powinda and Bacha Gul, the
son of Haji Saheb Taurangzai.
Besides them, there was hardly anyone in the district or tribal
elite of that time, hardly a mullah, pir, faqir akhunzada, and the
chief of an educational institution, of any influence at all whom
the colonial rulers had not in one way or another enticed to their
side. After the demise of Haji Saheb Taurangzai and Mullah Powinds,
the lone un-purchaseable mujahid left in the field was Faqir Ipi.
There is an interesting story of earlier days. At the start of
German trouble – making in Europe, the British pressed the Afghan
government to expel all Germans from their territory. To add to the
pressure they let loose a Shami Pir in the tribal areas. His brief
was to spread disaffection against the Afghan ruling family. After
achieving their objective in Afghanistan the Shami Pir was brought
over to Wana cantonment in Waziristan and paid a fee of £25,000. In
England the Secretary of State for India liked the stratagem
immensely, and wrote to the viceroy to try for a similar arrangement
with Faqir Ipi. The viceroy wrote back to him on July 14, 1938 thus:
There is, I fear, no possible of dealing with him (Faqir Ipi) on the
same lines as the Shami Pir. He is not only implacable but also
completely incorruptible …. Who would ride me of this turbulent
priest! |
