“Death is acceptable to uphold the dignity of the Prophet (PBUH)”. This was the slogan of the people gathered when Mumtaz Qadri, the man who gunned down the governor of Punjab mercilessly on 4th January 2011 in Kohsar Market, Islamabad, was brought to the courts.
What he had done was not heroic at all. It sparked an explosive battle between the extremists who misinterpret Islam and the liberals who want nothing to do with religion. What troubles me is that there is no one who can say that perhaps both parties are at fault.
Between those who want secularism and those who want the Taliban, where are those who want neither? Where are those who want to live in a just society where the true spirit of Islam is practiced? Where are those who know that not once during the time of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) was the idea of an individual taking the life of another deemed an option?
Where are those who know that belief in one God and the last Prophet (PBUH) is all that it takes to be a Muslim, that everything else is secondary? Are they part of the silent majority? Or the silent minority? Are they even out there?
USMAN JAVED
Lahore