No Doubt Khadim Hussain Rizvi was one of the most dangerous influences on the Pakistani masses. In the Pakistani Constitution, there are Islamic laws that discriminate against women and religious minorities. But the most dangerous is the Blasphemy law, which demands the death penalty for insulting the Prophet Muhammad and the Quran. Pakistani minorities are disproportionately high victims of the blasphemy law. Since their inception in General Zia ul Haq’s regime back in the 80s, thousands of cases have been filed. It is nearly impossible to get bail in a blasphemy case.

People alleged of blasphemy are subject to mob violence and vigilante justice. During the last decade, the situation has become so worse that Governor Salman Taseer of Punjab province was shot dead by his own security guard Mumtaz Qadri in 2011. Islamic right-wingers hailed Qadri as a hero. These groups staged many protests for Qadri and wanted him freed. A speech by Khadim Hussain inspired Mumtaz Qadri to kill Salman Taseer. 

Khadim Hussain and nearly all mainstream Mullahs in Pakistan preach death for blasphemy. Khadim Hussain always praised vigilante justice against people alleged of Blasphemy. Last month, when a Muslim man in France beheaded a teacher named Samuel Patty, Khadim Hussain praised this act of terrorism and demanded that Pakistan stand againstBlasphemy’se French government. Khadim Hussain demanded that the Pakistani Government should openly warn the French ambassador with the threat of a nuclear war. Though hardly anyone in the government took what he said seriously, millions in Pakistan sincerely follow his teachings and believe that Muslims should behead anyone who utters a single word to dishonor the prophet. Soon after Samuel Patty’s death, a Pakistani asylum seeker in France stabbed two people outside Charlie Hebdo’s previous office. This young man did this in response when Charlie Hebodor republished the Cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.

Khadim Hussain Rizvi and his followers praised the stabbing outside Charlie Hebdo’s old office. French government displayed Charlie Hebdo cartoons on state buildings after this incident. This, in turn, triggered Khadim Hussain and his lot of Aashiqaan e Rasool(Lovers of the Prophet). He called for a sit-in Strike in Islamabad and demanded that the Pakistani government should expel all French diplomats from Pakistan. He also demanded that Pakistan end all diplomatic relations with France by closing the Pakistani Embassy in Paris.

Late November in Islamabad is cold, and Pakistan happens to be a country where Covid 19 has not been taken seriously. The government has not shown any interest in containing the pandemic. Khadim Hussain’s sit-in strike gathered thousands of followers in Islamabad who did not follow any health guidelines. No one was wearing masks or socially distancing. This truly was a super spreader event. Maulana Khadim Hussain Rizvi himself was wheelchair laden for the last two decades. He also had diabetes. Just two days after he and his followers ended their fiasco in Islamabad, his followers brought him to Farooq Hospital in Lahore. According to the medical staff, he was dead on arrival. The death certificate does not mention a specific reason for death, which shows that he died of Covid 19. The next day millions of people took part in his funeral at Minar e Pakistan, Lahore.

Khadim Hussain’s death saddened many.  I was not happy either, I sad for the people killed by his words. Salman Taseer was killed because of the narrative that Khadim Hussain was preaching, shot point-blank by his own security Guard. Late Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti was also killed because he spoke out for Asia Bibi like Salman Taseer. Asia Bibi spent many years behind bars because of the hatred preached by Khadim Hussain and others. Mullahs threaten courts and Judges in Blasphemy cases. Rashid Rehman represented Junaid Hafeez, a Baha ud Din Zikria University Lecturer accused of blasphemy. Advocate Rashid Rahman was receiving repeated death threats for representing Junaid in court. He was killed in his chambers on the 7th of May, 2014. Asia Bibi’s lawyer family and relatives were repeatedly threatened. When the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted her, Khadim Hussain pressurized the government to review the decision, and her release was further delayed. Mashal Khan, a university youth, was killed by his own university fellows on allegations of blasphemy. The story goes on and on; Khadim Hussain and Islamic Extremists like him have made Pakistan a living hell for religious minorities. Allegations of blasphemy have increased a hundredfold since the 90s.

Khadim Hussain’s Tahreeq e Labaik Pakistan’s main political agenda is to protect the Prophet’s honor. Which truly means they want to make blasphemy allegations mainstream. Blasphemy allegations truly halt the chance for any dialog among different sects of Islam and other religions. Recently a security guard killed a bank manager over a minor theological difference.

Pakistan has become a perilous place for people with a difference of opinion. Muslims all over the world are taking the issue of Blasphemy to another extreme. They are starting a new time in which any criticism of Islam can get someone killed. But is it the Muslim or is it Islam that is truly barbaric, extreme and uncompromising, people who know Islam know that Islam is the disease and terrorist is the carrier, Khadim Hussain was just one among millions? It will take decades if not centuries to reverse what he has sown in Pakistan and sadly many people will lose their lives because of him. 

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What does a young Muslim extremist think? As Islamic extremism is on the rise? How did so many young Muslims join ISIS during the past few years? Many of these young Muslims who were born and raised in western countries still adopted extremist Islam. Islam is producing extremists much more abundantly than any other religion. We hear terms like Islamophobia, Islamic extremism, and Islamic fundamentalism all the time. No other religion is subject to discussion as much as Islam. Muslims and non-Muslims are both trying to understand what Islam says about politics, economy, and the world altogether.

But, What does a young Islamic extremist think? The answer is a mystery, especially for non-Muslims living in non-Islamic countries.

Every human being has many faces and dimensions. Ideally, everyone wants to become their “ideal self.” But deep down, we know how similar or different we are from our “ideal self.” At the same time, we know who we are, and this is our “actual self.” With mental maturity, even a young Muslim extremist can become aware of his real strengths and weaknesses. Our true self is what we are, but some people think of themselves differently. They believe they are or can become different. This belief in becoming someone better is our “desired self.”

The conflict between desired, ideal, and actual self is crucial. It can create severe problems in someone’s personality. One such issue is an inferiority complex that cultivates anger and vengefulness.

If my desired self is at odds with my actual self, this will create a conflict in my personality. Sometimes people think that what is impossible is achievable. In our case, Islam sets a standard that is too high. But Muslims who adopt fundamental Islam believe in puritanism. Islam sets a rigorous regiment of laws. These laws dictate every aspect of a Muslim’s life.

According to Islam, major rituals like circumcision and minor practices like eating with the right hand is a virtue. But the opposite is a sin.

So what does a Muslim extremist think about these laws and obligations? The answer is much more difficult. Many Muslims follow Islam casually, in a day out of five, they say one or two prayers. They only go to the mosque on a Friday. For them keeping religion and worldly affairs at a distance is easy. But some want to follow Islam down to every minute detail. Or at least they think they can. Such people genuinely believe they can become perfect Muslims.

But things do not end here. They believe that they should not listen to music because it is haram(forbidden). But they do listen to pop music, and they watch so call provocative music videos with all the obscenity and indecency.

Then it comes to sexual frustration, like everyone else they watch porn. After porn and masturbation, they are repentant and ask for Allah’s forgiveness, and promise they will never watch porn again. But it happens again and again. Now they blame the internet and all the indecency and pornography in the world. They believe that music videos arouse them. Because of this arousal, they watch porn and commit a Sin such as masturbation.

Muslim youth who consume porn regularly faces a dilemma because of the belief that every woman in the world must cover from head to toe.

Planet’s top internet porn viewing countries have a Muslim majority, with our dear Pakistan at the top. Islam also puts an obligation that a Muslim should dress in a certain way. He should have a beard, removing facial hair is a sin in Allah’s eye.

As we know, young people want to look beautiful and fashionable. But Muslim youth is wearing a hijab, or they have a long underdeveloped beard, which makes them look horrible. So their desired self and the Ideal self-conflict. Islam prescribes an Ideal self, but the desire to look beautiful dictates the desired self.

Young Muslims deep down also like Justin Bieber and Katy Perry like other youths, but they believe that this desire is a sin. Such internal conflict is dangerous. A person becomes victim to an unending circle of regret and pain.

What their desired self wants is a sin, so they should not choose it, and what their ideal self believes is impossible. The conflict widens, and anger rises. A Muslim fundamentalist teenager thinks that he is living in the wrong time. He blames the world for his sins.

He blames the west for its porn and glamour. Subconsciously he even curses it for technological innovation and information age.

A madrassah educated Mullah is even more miserable. These young men who come for low-income families learn the Quran by heart in Islamic schools. Lacking formal education, they can only teach recital of the Quran, or they can become Mullah in a mosque. They face all kinds of difficulties due to the lack of formal education.

Society ridicules a mullah who is just a madrassah graduate.

During a discussion, madrassah educated mullah has nothing to say about worldly issues, and they are considered beggars. Deep down they know that as compared to a doctor, engineer, or businessman they are nothing. They are subjects of the inferiority complex. Not every madrassah graduate is able to become in charge of a mosque. They provide Nazra(Quran recital) tuitions which is a petty job. It is very important to know that What does a young Muslim extremist think?

Life is difficult for people who want to practice fundamental Islam. They fall short on every step of the way. But Islamic history and hypocrisy present in society makes a young teenager believe that moral perfection is achievable.

He sees the bearded men and Hijab clad women professing their virtue all the time, and these young people genuinely believe in such claims. This belief adds to their guilt, and they think they are the scum of the earth because they cannot follow a clear and straightforward religion as Islam.

A young Muslim extremist thinks that Allah has praised jihad, and will give seventy virgins more beautiful than any woman in this world. Youth can usually be too confident in their beliefs. Such a young man is a perfect scapegoat for exploitation in the name of Islam. If someone tells him to wear a suicide jacket and blow up in the middle of a hospital, he will do it.

Paradise is not just the sexual desire for seventy virgins, but it is also an escape from all the internal conflict that Islam cultivates inside him.

A young Muslim extremist thinks of paradise as an escape from the evil world and body, which makes him indulge in sin as great as masturbation. He wants an easy way out of a life where he is not married as soon as he hit his puberty. Desire and regret culminate in looking towards extreme solutions like jihad and martyrdom.

To a young person dying as a martyr seems much more comfortable than living as a simple human being. The escape seems promising, and the path seems straight. He has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

The above applies equally to all Muslim youth, especially to those who are sensitive and susceptible, who believe that the ultimate truth is found only in religion. These young Muslim extremists believe in idealism. They cannot accept that reality is much simpler, and Idealism is a fake promise, its an unachievable utopia. And any utopia whichever it maybe is nothing more than a political commitment and an evil plan.

“Young Men Die in old man’s wars” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

Nothing is more accurate. Islam capitalizes on a young man’s frustration. It uses thinking of an extremist Muslim for its own political and ideological agenda. It adheres to a fourteen hundred-year-old tribalism. Muslim youth have to dress, act, behave, and eat according to Islam. Islam is causing them unbearable cerebral pain. Islam is a poison branded as medicine for these young people. The more strictly they follow it, the sicker they become. More Islamic they look, the more pain they feel. The more at odds with the real world and the actual self they become, in all their confusion, they wander far away from their desired self.

For a young extremist Muslim who wants to follow Islam strictly, the Ideal Islamic self is unachievable, and the desired self though wanted cannot be had because it is sinful, and the actual self is lost. Muslim youth sways between Islamic puritanism and modern desire like a pendulum. They are genuinely lost.

Ghalib Kamal – Pakistani Frethinkers

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