HVK Archives: Blasphemy - After Taslima Nasareen's Lajja Tehmina Durrani's
Blasphemy - After Taslima Nasareen's Lajja Tehmina Durrani's - Organiser
Muzaffar Hussain
()
November 22, 1998
Title: Blasphemy - After Taslima Nasareen's Lajja Tehmina Durrani's
Author: Muzaffar Hussain
Publication: Organiser
Date: November 22, 1998
It should not surprise anyone if the oft-debated Pakistani
writer Tahmina Durrani matchest the uneviable position of the
Bangladeshi Taslima Nasareen. Taslima has in her novel Lajja
advocated the cause of the minorities in Bangladesh and in the
process has bitterly attacked the Muslim orthodoxy. In her turn
Tahmina Durrani has exposed the Pakistani maulanas and shown to
the whole world how the Muslim clergy exploits the Muslims
masses behind the facade of Islamic religious traditions.
Tehmina Durrani's book, Blasphemy, is published in London. Its
Urdu version too is available and is published under the Urdu
title Ihanat. In common parlance the term means "insult". But as
this "insult" is under the garb of religion, it has started the
Muslim world. Nine years ago, Tehmina Durrani wrote a book, My
Feudal Lord, which also appeared in Urdu translation under the
title, Mere Jagirdar aur Aqa. Actually the book was less of a
polemic narration. Because she had presented an expose of the
atrocities heaped on her by her husband Mustafa Khar who was a
prominent Punjabi with political clout. Khar was a powerful
member of the Bhutto cabinet. Khar was one of the founder-
members of the Pakistan People's Party. Tehmina was his eighth
wife. The book is a tragic heart-rending tale of the hapless
victims of the lust of the feudal landlords cleverly concealed
under the guise of Islam. It reveals how the name of Islam is
misused in their exploitation of women. Tehmina maintained that
the real power of these feudal landlords was the protection they
received from the distorted version of Islam. She argued at
several places in that book that the real Islam was quite
different from the parody of that noble religion paraded by the
Jagirdars. It is the mullahs and moulvis who subserve these
feudal elements by lending a religious sheen to their lustful
escapades.
This time round Tehmina has unmarked the reality of the
Pakistani political scene. After her expose of the atrocities on
women by Pakistani's feudal masters in her last book, Tehmina
has in her latest book Blasphemy virtually defrocked the mullah-
moulvis. Tahmina says this clan of religious ministers is a
bunch of very cunning and treacherous operators. This group is
cent per cent responsible for the dire difficulties in which the
Muslim masses find themselves today. Tehmina has in her new book
revealed to the whole world how this class of religious
operators indulge in all the sensual pleasures behind the
exterior of Islam. After the publication of this book, it is
inescapable that Tahmina Durrani will be a target of all the
wrath and ire of the Muslim clergy. But the fact that a woman
found it incumbent on herself to be boo enough to write all this
and thereby incur the anger of the powerful religious and
fanatic lobby and that too when Pakistan is on the brink of
Islamization by the Shariah Bill, cries loud enough for the
general public to understand to what perilous limits the current
form of Islam, sponsored by the maulanas is feared to take their
society. As Tehmina has touched the Muslim society's "painful
nerve" there is bound to be a cacophony of shrieks and creams
galore throughout the entire country.
In her present novel Tahmina has narrated a woeful tale of a
woman associated with jagirdar Sufi hero. The novel chronicles
the sexual shenanigans of Peer Sain, a sexual lecher, wolf in a
sheep's skin ostensibly performing religious duties. He is a
supporter of the feudal jagirdari system, members of which were
steeped in concupiscence, as he is himself a passionate
practitioner of the very depraved dissipation. He indulges in
such degeneracy that the devil himself would have been
embarrassed. The circle of people gathered around is also fit to
be in a gang of satanic fiends in the garb of saints. They
wantonly outrage women behind the convenient curtain of
religion. They have no compunctions in sexually abusing minor
girls and eve incestually ravishing their own daughters. The
heroine of this Tehmina book is Heer. She is in Peer Sain's
bondage. Peer Sain forces this Heer to submit to the sexual
demands of his clients. He supplies sex serum to the village
youths so that they could enhance their sexual prowess.
Tehmina writes in her novel that when Heer's son attains prime
of youth Peer forces him to marry the same girl who was a victim
of her father's incestual atrocities under the very religious
umbrella of Peer Sain. And Heer's second son is compelled to
marry a girl who happens to be his biological sister.
Tehmina has also successfully exposed the denizens of Punjab's
dargahs and graves, who indulge in black magic and making the so-
called magical talismans and other such items of sorcery. She
had presented extensive tales of the misdeeds of these satanic
practitioners like their wicked influence on innocent young
girls and beautiful women whom they make preys of their lust.
Tehmina assures that there is no exaggeration in these tales and
that however farfetched they may appear to a casual reader, she
assures the readers that the incidents described in her novel
have actually taken place. The volume also has illustrations of
a few instances of the male atrocities on women who are
subjected to every form of adultery. Tehmina says that these men
bear al kinds of blemishes. But when someone tries to point a
finger at them, he is gagged by saying that the accuser is
guilty of blasphemy. Thus the religious fanaticism and
injustices are practised under cover of the alleged blasphemy or
contempt of religion. Anyone who raises his voice against these
injustices is branded as blasphemer and either murdered on
beaten up beyond recognition. These religious operators issue
fatwas and somehow an atmosphere is created so that the ignorant
may believe that the very Almighty is their slave or a genie
under their spell.
Tahmina believes that because the jagirdars have always been in
the lead of the Islamic world, the moment they acquire power
they misuse it and twist and turn the religion of Islam to serve
their own selfish ends.
Tehmina Durrani has presented in her novel the travesty of the
halala provision in the matter of a divorce. The imams and
mullahs make a mokery of the practice of halala by offering
their 'services'. The fact is that under the pretext of offering
the 'services', they actually slake their lust. In certain
Muslims sects the instructions regarding halala are strictly
followed. If a wife in a fit of anger deserts her husband and so
is divorced by her husband, she may repent her impetuous act
when she cools down. In such circumstance if both reconcile,
religious convention forbids them to do so. To overcome this
restriction, the woman has to take a tortuous course. The wife
in this situation has to marry some other man and establish her
having physical relationship with that man. After this when, the
second husband divorces her and she completes the stipulated
period of iddat she will be deemed qualified to marry her former
husband again, i.e., in the conventional parlance she will
become halala (sanctified) for the reunion. When ever such a
contingency arises, the maulana or mullah offers his 'services',
that is, presents himself to marry her for the intervening
period. He then after gratifying his carnal desire divorces her
and thus renders the 'service' of reuniting the estranged
couple. This custom not only makes the husband knowingly help
his own wife to marry the imam or mullah, but envisages the
practice of the imam or mullah charging sizeable fees for their
'services'. Sometimes the mullah or imam after marrying the
miserable women refuses to divorces her. Tahmina durrani has
bitterly berated these captains of Islam. She deprecates a
practice that victimizes the wife for any loss of temper by the
husband resulting in a divorce. Why should the wife undergo the
punishment of repeated iddat? Why should she have to offer
herself for the wolfish demands of a man whom she does not like
merely in order to reunite with a man she loves? And if this
disliked man changes him mind? She has to live with him for the
rest of her life, and satiate his sexual demands. Thus the woman
is always at the receiving end and the man always gratifices his
desires whichever way the dice turns. This heads-I-win-tails-you-
lose situation victimizes the woman in every situation. In
Pakistan there is a large class of agents dealing in halala
'services', in which the 'dealers' in religion like imams and
mullahs have prominent share. Tehmina has presented several
instances of the halala practice resulting in humiliation and
torture of Muslim women.
But this is not the first book to expose the sexual aberrations
of the priestly class. Every religion in the world has its share
of the black sheep of heretic priests. Jayshankar Prasad had
thoroughly exposed in his literature the cesspools of sins
shaming the Buddhist viharas. The sensational Maharaja libel
case in the Mumbai High Court in 1932 speaks volumes for the
sins committed by so-called sadhus in the sanctified precincts
of Hindu temples, and that too in the name of religion. The
unnatural sinful sexual abuse of minors entrusted to their
charge by the very custodians of Christian morals is a matter of
frequent newspaper reporting in Europe and America. There is
hardly any religion the tenants of which are not misused by its
priests to exploit and humiliate the women-folk. But in the
Islamic world Tehmina Durrani happens to be a courageous first
woman to have openly aired the dirty linen of the Muslim clergy.
It is anybody's guess whether the Pakistan Government would let
the book go unpunished. This book certainly is going to present
a test for the Government of India also when a deafening din is
raised with slogans of "din, din!" and "Islam khatre mein!"
against this book by the self-proclaimed champions of Islam
which they have today tortured into misshapened mound that has
lost all its original ideal identity.
Pakistan's mullahs, peers, fakirs and other apologists of every
form of distortion of Islam are indulging in the parody of
religion. To exercise force and compulsion in the name of
religion is in itself ihanat-i-Islam, insult to Islam, its
blasphemy. How long can the sinful gratification of their libido
by the mullahs in the name of halala will be allowed? This is a
sad comment on the moral perspicacity of Muslim society residing
in the entire Indian subcontinent. The courage displayed by the
intrepid Tehmina Durrani in bringing out this book commands all
round respect. Truth is central and pivotal to Islam. To dismiss
this book by branding it anti-Islam is in itself an insult to
true Islam.
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