Author: Barry Bearak
Publication: The New York Times
Date: May 12, 2001
Islamabad, Pakistan - Blasphemy
is a capital crime in this volatile Islamic nation, so Dr. Younus Shaikh,
while teaching at a medical college, might have wisely avoided any discussion
of the personal hygiene of the holy Prophet Muhammad.
But the topic came up during a morning
physiology class. And the doctor talked briefly about seventh-century Arabia
and its practices regarding circumcision and the removal of underarm hair.
Some students found his remarks
deeply offensive. "Only out of respect, because he was our teacher, did
we not beat him to death on the spot," said Syed Bilal, 17.
Instead, they informed a group of
powerful mullahs, who in turn filed a criminal complaint. Lest the matter
be treated with insufficient urgency, these clerics dispatched a mob to
the medical school and the police station, threatening to burn them down.
Precisely what Dr. Shaikh said in
class last October is now a matter of mortal dispute, but he has been jailed
ever since, awaiting trial and pondering the noose. Defending himself presents
a conundrum. What can he safely say?
Pakistan, a nearly bankrupt nation
with 150 million people, a military government and an expanding nuclear
arsenal, is drifting toward religious extremism. Blasphemy cases are its
version of the Salem witch trials, with clerics sniffing out infidels,
and enemies using the law to settle personal scores.
Accurate crime statistics are a
low priority here, but the number of those imprisoned on blasphemy charges
is estimated in the hundreds. Only the most sensational cases get much
notice: when vigilantes murder the accused, or the bold judge who set him
free. When a man is condemned to die if a few pages in the Koran are torn.
When a newspaper is shut down after publishing a sacrilegious letter.
Dr. Shaikh is charged under Provision
295-C of the law: the use of derogatory remarks about the holy Prophet
Muhammad. Whether such an offense is intentional or not, the mandatory
punishment is death.
"Please understand, I am a deeply
religious man," Dr. Shaikh said recently, professing his Islamic faith
through the tight wire mesh of a jail cell. A short, rumpled man, he had
the weary look of someone trying to rub a disturbing dream from bleary
eyes. "I cannot even imagine blaspheming our holy Prophet, peace be upon
him."
Few Pakistanis have heard of Dr.
Shaikh, but news of his woes has leapt the borders, flitting across the
Internet. He is associated with the International Humanist and Ethical
Union, which describes itself as an "umbrella organization for humanist,
rationalist, agnostic, skeptic, atheist and ethical culture groups around
the world." In 1999, he gave a presentation at the World Humanist Congress.
In an attempt to save the doctor,
a global letter-writing campaign was quickly begun, with pleas aimed at
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler. Publicity, on the other
hand, has been discouraged.
The hope was that persistent statesmanship
would outlast righteous anger, with the charges then quietly disappearing.
This hushed approach has proved a frustration, however, and after declining
earlier requests for an interview, Dr. Shaikh agreed to speak of his case.
"My statements about the holy Prophet,
peace be upon him, were made in his praise only, and these have now been
twisted out of context," he said in measured phrases.
Moments later, pressed for specifics,
he said: "My students asked me about the shaving of pubic and armpit hair,
and I, in describing the glory of Allah's revelations, said that before
the arrival of Islam, the Arabs did not have these practices. And they
did not."
Before his troubles, Dr. Shaikh
lived alone in a small room in Islamabad. He had studied medicine in both
Pakistan and Ireland but his practice had long periods of interruption.
He preferred academic research and his passion has been "the history of
nations." After the Koran, he said, the important books in his life have
been the Encyclopedia Britannica and "The Story of Civilization," by Will
and Ariel Durant.
Pakistan may have an ample supply
of free thinkers, but free speakers have long been on the wane. Governments
-- civilian or military -- tend to imprison opponents. Federal laws enforce
a mix of mosque and state, and questions of religion are often presumed
to have a single right answer, like arithmetic.
"Before saying anything in this
country, you must always be aware of the forum, the place and the time,"
said Afrasiab Khattak, head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
"If accused of blasphemy, you are in great difficulty. The mullahs are
not known for their generosity. Even if exonerated, you will always be
in danger."
Dr. Shaikh was a member of peace
and environmental groups. But while he might have asked an occasional dissenting
question at a public seminar, he was not a well-known activist. His few
writings have appeared mostly in cyberspace, and at least some of them
accuse organized religion of mass murder, bigotry and the degradation of
women. (Supporters have now removed most of this material from the Internet.)
Last fall, as Dr. Shaikh worked
part time at a small clinic, he accepted a teaching job at the Capital
Homeopathic Medical College, on the second floor of a shopping plaza. He
had no expertise in homeopathic cures, but his subject was physiology and
he knew that well enough. He was paid $89 a month.
However badly it ended, Dr. Shaikh's
brief tenure was not a contentious one. Students liked him. If he had a
fault, they said, it was for lectures that meandered into irrelevancies
like poetry or free sex in Western countries.
Occasionally, Dr. Shaikh's digressions
embarrassed his students; occasionally, they seemed impious. One irksome
topic was how Muslims had come to practice circumcision and, for purposes
of cleanliness, the removal of pubic and underarm hair. A question arose:
Had Muhammad been circumcised before receiving God's revelations at age
40?
The ensuing discussion brought on
no great ado, and Dr. Shaikh said he only remembers saying, "The Prophet's
tribe did not practice circumcision."
But the offended students repeat
a different version.
"He told us the Prophet hadn't been
circumcised before," insisted Majid Lodhi, 22. "We asked, `In what book
is this knowledge?' And he said, `I'm telling you the way it was, and if
you have evidence to the contrary, bring in your proof.' "
Outside of school, the students
had begun talking about Dr. Shaikh. Was he uttering blasphemies? they asked
each other. And if so, what should a good Muslim do?
"I had heard from the sermons in
the mosques that those who blaspheme deserve to be killed immediately,"
said Asghar Ali Afridi, who at 28 was older than most students and whose
views were persuasive. "It was a weakness of faith that we did not do it."
But 11 students, the entire class,
did sign a letter that listed Dr. Shaikh's possible crimes. They claimed
he had said that the Prophet was not a Muslim until age 40; that before
then, he did not remove his underarm hair or undergo circumcision; that
he first wed, at 25, without an Islamic marriage contract; that his parents
were not Muslims.
Mr. Afridi was picked to deliver
the letter to the Movement for the Finality of the Prophet, a group well
known for pursuing blasphemers.
"For Dr. Shaikh's own protection,
we sought his arrest," said Abdul Wahid Qasmi, secretary general of the
organization's Islamabad chapter. "Otherwise, he might have been killed
in the streets."
The Movement's vigilance is most
often directed at Ahmadis, who regard themselves as Muslims but believe
another prophet appeared after Muhammad. By law, they are barred from linking
themselves in any way to Islam. Each year, many are arrested for simply
reciting a Koranic verse or using the greeting "Salaam aleikum."
Non-Muslims make up about 3 percent
of Pakistan's population, and while they have obvious reasons to fear the
blasphemy statutes, there is no shortage of opposition among Muslims as
well. Even a strong advocate, the minister for religious affairs, Mahmood
Ahmad Ghazi, says the law requires revision. He has reviewed numerous cases
and said the majority originate from "ill will and personal prejudice."
Last year, General Musharraf himself
called for a procedural change, suggesting that the merits of blasphemy
cases be reviewed by local officials before an arrest. But when fundamentalists
took to the streets in protest, he backed down.
At the Movement's headquarters,
the law also comes under criticism, though the complaint is of sluggish
justice. Blasphemers may get locked up, but not one has been executed.
"Even if someone is only half-conscious
when speaking against the Prophet, he must die," said Mr. Qasmi, who managed
to sound amiable. "In Dr. Shaikh's case, his relatives have come to see
us, saying the man is sorry and that he repents. But to be sorry now is
not enough. Even if a man is sorry, he must die."
These days, Dr. Shaikh calls himself
an "Islamic humanist," stressing the adjective. This surge in devotion
is a return to his roots; he comes from a religious family in Bahawalnagar,
and his father, a merchant, is a hafiz, a man who has memorized the Koran.
In hiring a lawyer, the family has
steered away from human rights types. Its attorney takes a rather omnibus
approach. First, there is a technicality to exploit. The students should
have filed the charges instead of the mullahs, he asserts. Second, his
client never said the things alleged, and even if he did, the words are
not blasphemous.
A judge will decide. And customarily,
the accusing party packs the courtroom with zealots in a show of righteous
concern. The Shaikh family, however, has no intention of being steamrolled
by hostile fundamentalists. At a recent hearing, they brought their own
mullahs -- equally bearded, equally turbaned, equally able to quote from
holy books.
"No blasphemy has been committed
in this case," proclaimed Maulana Abdul Hafiz. An elderly, stern- faced
man, he, too, heads a chapter of the Movement for the Finality of the Prophet,
his being in Bahawalnagar. "Blasphemy can be committed only if issues are
raised about the period after the holy Prophet declared his prophethood.
These issues are pre-prophethood."
The mullahs from Bahawalnagar say
they have tried to reason with the mullahs from Islamabad, but these efforts
have failed. "They know we are right but they do not want to backtrack
and lose face," said Maulana Hafiz, enraged by his adversaries.
How dare they? he declared: "They
tell us that we ourselves should be cautious, that protecting a blasphemer
is as bad as blaspheming itself."
