Radical clerics challenge Pakistan
Posted: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 6:23 AM
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Islamabad, Pakistan
By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
“In New York when Rudy Giuliani was mayor and he closed the brothels and all those things, no one said he was an agent of the Taliban, did they?” Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi shot back to a question about the creeping Talibanization in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. He was referring to Giuliani’s campaign in the ‘90s to clean up Manhattan’s Times Square, ridding the area of strip clubs and X-rated video stores.
Ghazi and his older brother Abdul Aziz run the Lal Masjid (The Red Mosque) in the heart of Islamabad. The sprawling complex consists of a mosque and separate religious school (madrassa) that houses several thousand boys and girls.
VIDEO: Watch an interview with Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi
The mosque, a well-known center for radical Islamic teaching, has become a symbol of the growing threat of Islamic militancy in Pakistan and the government’s inability – or unwillingness – to confront it.
The latest drama surrounding the two brothers who run the mosque began in January, when the city government tried to close seven mosques it says were constructed illegally on encroached government land. Ghazi and his older brother Maulana Abdul Aziz (a maulana is an Islamic religious scholar) responded by calling for jihad against what they refer to as the “un-Islamic” government of the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
At first, hundreds of young girls from their madrassa, clad head to toe in black burkas, picked up sticks and were dispatched to seize and occupy a children’s library next door.
The government surrounded the library and threatened to storm the building in a bid to end the occupation. Later, the two Maulana brothers organized vigilante anti-vice squads and sent the male students to threaten the owners of music and video shops. There was also a symbolic bonfire of DVDs and CDs one night outside the mosque. Eventually, three women were kidnapped and accused of running a brothel. One was even made to confess her so-called sins on national television.
The country’s newspapers screamed “Anarchy” and called the young female students “Pawns” and “The Burka Brigade.”
‘This system has to go’
During all of this time, the Pakistani government backed down, tried to negotiate with the clerics and promised to rebuild the demolished mosques. But that was not enough.
“We think the country was established in the name of Islam and it is high time we should bring the Islamic system to the country,” Ghazi explained.
“This system is not working properly, the system has almost collapsed, this system has to go,” he said.
Ghazi, 42, bearded and wearing a red and white Arab headdress, told me it was my choice as to whether I covered my head during our interview. Initially, I did not cover up but it soon became clear that he just would not or could not look me in the eye if I remained bareheaded.
So I donned a scarf and asked him about his attitude toward women. “Look,” said Ghazi, now much more relaxed with me, “the media is saying my students are throwing acid on women who don’t cover up. I say prove it. Show me these women disfigured by acid. Where are they? The media is saying I am not allowing women to drive. I say, my wife drives, she takes the children to the market herself, so how can it be that I allow my wife to do all these things and I would stop other women? … Not so. It’s all propaganda.”
What comes next?
Ghazi is the public face of the mosque. He holds a Master’s degree in history and speaks fluent English. His older brother, who is also the chief cleric, preaches fiery sermons against Musharraf and his pro-American policies every Friday after prayers.
The majority of Pakistanis are wondering where all of this will lead. How can the government fail to act against a minority of extremist mullahs who do not accept the “writ of state” and are flouting the constitutional laws of Pakistan because they have deemed those laws to be un-Islamic?
The two brothers have threatened kidnappings and suicide attacks if the government does not accede to their demands to the establishment of strict sharia (Islamic) law throughout Pakistan.
On Friday, they upped the ante by abducting four police officials in what they say is retaliation for the government’s detention of several of their students.
The government was compelled to respond. Police and paramilitary troops have once again cordoned off the area around the mosque complex but so far have not received any orders to storm the facility. The two brothers along with thousands of their students and supporters are allegedly armed and have built up defensive positions on the roof of the mosque, the madrassa and the children’s library.
“If we are attacked, we will defend ourselves by whatever means we have,” Ghazi said.
