“I attended the Ahmadiyya Peace Conference in Alton in my personal capacity and my entire speech centred around the Kalima “Lal e La Ha Illal Lah Muhammudur Rasool Allah—Love for all, hatred for none”.
Source/Credit: Daily Times
By Press Release | August 29, 2015
LONDON: Pakistan’s former high commissioner to UK Wajid Shamsul Hasan has clarified the out of context reference to his speech at the Ahmadiyya Peace Conference in UK. However, he offered his profound regrets if what ever he had said undermined the feelings of any sect of Muslims any where in the world—more so in Pakistan.
In a statement issued to the media following the Punjab Assembly resolution flaying him for an alleged interview published by a local Urdu newspaper of Lahore in which he was quoted as saying that to declare Ahmedis a minority was a wrong decision.
The former high commissioner clarified that he had never given any interview to any newspaper on the referred issue, especially one that is reputed to be the mouthpiece of a religious-political organisation whose founder had called Quaid-e-Azam as Kafir-e-Azam and his idea of Pakistan as a vision for “Na-Pakistan”.
“I am surprised that the Punjab Assembly members took pains to discuss, condemn and pillory me for an out of context reference to my speech (and not interview as stated by a member) given at the Ahmadiyya Peace Conference.
“It is painful for a person who devoted nearly six years in fire fighting for Pakistan—whether it is the perception of Pakistan as the epicentre of international terrorism or an Islamic country where minorities have become most vulnerable and sexual abuse of children has become a minor issue and the floor of the Punjab Assembly reacting faster than the incident was first reported, to defend himself for out of context attributions when despite being non-official and in ill-health, continue to spend his quality time in correcting wrong perceptions about Pakistan.”
“In August 2010, a massacre of Ahmadis took place in Lahore and I had gone to the Ahmadiyya Centre to condole the death of over 90 Ahmadis with the head of the community. Next day, the media reported ‘fatwas’ against me by the clerics, declaring me to be a heretic. This seems to be a permanent trend especially among those clerics who are followers of leaders responsible for Punjab sectarian riots in early fifties who disappeared from the public scene after causing a blood bath. As their influence grew, these elements impacted the course of Pakistan’s politics through their bigoted regression to what we are today.”
He said, “I attended the Ahmadiyya Peace Conference in Alton in my personal capacity and my entire speech centred around the Kalima “Lal e La Ha Illal Lah Muhammudur Rasool Allah—Love for all, hatred for none”. I made a few minutes long speech in which I reiterated that Islam is religion of peace, its Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him), Khatumul Nabeen, was blessings for the entire humankind. I made it a point that Pakistan did not come about because Islam was in danger in British India—where all religious communities could practice their faiths in full freedom.
This has a historical context that after the unsuccessful War of Independence in 1857, Muslims, from the position of ruling class had receded to be “hewers of wood and drawers of water”. They had been outnumbered by better educated Hindu majority that had changed itself with the onset of industrial revolution, monopolised employment and in business.
It was Sir Syed Ahmed Khan who dragged the Muslims out of their mire of decadence and equipped them with modern sinews for progress. Like Quaid and Allama Iqbal, he too was abused and condemned by the Muslim clerics of his time. It was he to declare first that Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations especially for economic reasons in 1893 in Viceroy’s Legislative Council.
Though an Indian nationalist and a secularist to the core, Quaid-e-Azam opted for an independent Muslim homeland only after Jawaharlal Nehru showed his true communal colour following June 3 Plan of 1946.
I have indulged in this digression to state that my speech was essentially in historical context, especially when the Quaid is being distorted in various moulds such as that though he was secular he became Islamist just before Independence and that he did not believe in secularism and that Quran and Sunnah were to be the constitution of Pakistan.
While emphasising in my speech in the Ahmadiyya Peace Conference, I reiterated that Pakistan could only survive by reverting back to Quaid’s vision of a liberal, secular and progressive democracy. I explained that there was no contradiction in Quaid’s vision nor was there any conflict in Islam. He believed in democracy as an Islamic concept when he claimed that democracy is in the blood of Muslims since the advent of Islam. In his elaboration— debate, discussion and consensus—for decisions of the state strictly under Huququl Ibad—rights of human beings on each other—were based on Islamic system of social justice, guarantying egalitarian principle of the greatest good of the largest number.
Quaid’s political philosophy—his Magna Charta for Pakistan—was finally delivered to us as a nation in his speech of August 11, 1947 in which he laid bare that all citizens in Pakistan would be equal citizens, enjoying equal rights irrespective of caste, creed, colour or gender where Hindus would be free to go to their temples, Muslims to their mosques and Christians to their churches. Islamic socialism and secularism, according to the Quaid, were not contradiction of Islam but its real manifestation.
He believed Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) was given the title of Rehmatul Lil Alameen–leader of all human kind–irrespective of caste, creed, colour or gender.
That’s why he separated religion from state management and declared categorically that Pakistan would not be a theocratic state.
I regretted in my speech that, however, after his death his dream of Pakistan as a modern, democratic, liberal and secular state was waylaid by the power troika comprising of military, civil and judicial bureaucracy backed by the feudal and vested interests. And Quaid’s vision of an Islamic social welfare state Pakistan got converted to what we have today—a country where life has become short, brutish and nasty at the hands of those whose fore fathers hated Quaid and Allama Iqbal—where Muslims have been killing Muslims with impunity.
And finally about the declaration of Ahmadis as non-Muslims by the Parliament under Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who I maintain shall remain my great leader until my end, I said what I said was in the above historical context. Personally I believe that any conglomerate of people (assembly or parliament) and its members following different sects or fiqas, cannot over-ride the divine right of the Creator to decide about the real intent and purpose of His created beings. And I leave it at that—with no ill will or disrespect to the “Muslims in Pakistan and everywhere in the world”. If I hurt any one’s feelings, I again offer my thousand apologies in the real spirit of Islam seeking forgiveness from all and as per the command of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him)—the last of the Prophets.”
Read original post here: UK: Wajid Shamsul Hasan clarifies speech at Ahmadi peace conference
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