The violent incidents that turned Karachi into a battleground on Friday were indicative of the fact that even if the incidents occurred in a reactive situation, the federal government’s decision to observe Friday as an official day of protest against the anti-Islam film was anything but pragmatic.
The PPP-led coalition government, however, tends to put the onus on protesters who, a government representative claimed, had not only detracted from the message of Islam and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), but had also embarrassed the country among the comity of nations.
In some quarters, however, even a laywomen was wondering why the policymakers had declared Friday the day of national protest given the fact that a majority, even those who are less or not practicing at all, head to mosques to offer Friday congregational prayers.
This also is an open secret that clerics in mosques tend to deliver Friday sermons that in all likelihoods play the most effective part in arousing religious sentiments of their audiences, something which intensified the deadly incidents. “They (government) knows well that people usually go to mosques to offer Friday prayers where their religious feelings peak by motivational clerics and their sermons,” said Muntazir Bibi, a house wife in Keamari, where over a dozen participants of a rally got injured and four of them subsequently succumbed to fatal wounds.
She said Friday was not the best choice for an official protest that was religiously motivated. Friday, the official Youm-e-Ishq-e-Rasool (SAW) day, saw prayer leaders in most of the city’s mosques vehemently condemning the anti-Islam film and lashing out at the West, Jews and Christians, for their covert maneuvering against Islam and its followers. As soon as the Friday prayers concluded, ear-splitting shouts of “Nara-e-Takbeer Allaho Akbar” started echoing on many of the city’s roads with highly charged marchers expressing their outrage by burning homemade American flags and effigies of US President Barack Obama.
Still, there were some clerics who besides condemning the blasphemous video urged Muslims to glorify their Prophet (SAW) by becoming practicing Muslims. “These feelings of you for the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) are praiseworthy and stand undoubtedly as a prerequisite for being a true believer, but at the same time we also should be sensitive to the teachings of our Prophet (PBUH),” Professor Kamal Hassan Usmani, Ameer Hizbullah, told attendants at the Friday prayers at Masjid-e-Tawheed, Keamari.
Usmani, a doctor and former principal of Hamdard University, said Muslims today were claiming to be in love with Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) but not in practical terms. “To defeat your enemy you will have to do away with the western culture that we are following blindly in every aspect of our lives,” he said.
Without going into merits and demerits of what prayer leaders inculcated in the minds of their audiences on Friday, it can surely be said that choosing Friday for an official condemnation of the controversial movie was not a pragmatic decision taken by the rulers. And the circumstantial evidence observed on the streets of Karachi on Friday afternoon put enough weight behind this claim.
Violent protests across the metropolis left over a dozen people killed, scores injured and property of an incalculable worth ransacked.
But government officials are pointing fingers at marchers, insisting that what happened was extremely unfortunate on part of the protesters. Asked if she was supportive of the impression that her government should have announced the official protest on a day other than Friday, MNA Shazia Marri avoided straight talk and blamed the protesters for causing embarrassment to Pakistan world over.
“I think not only the protesters detracted from the message of Islam and our beloved Prophet (SAW), they also embarrassed our beloved country,” Marri said. Asked if she suspected the involvement of some hidden element in Friday’s rioting, most referred to by Interior Minster Abdul Rehman Malik, the MNA confined her answer to expressing her disappointment over the violent events. “It is really sad,” she concluded.
