Book Review: Our Moon has Blood Clots, by Rahul Pandita

There are many recorded instances of victims of discrimination, violence or even genocide dishing out similar treatment to others. Kurds, long oppressed by the Arabs and later by the Ottoman Turks, were instrumental in the Armenian genocide during the First World War. Jews, who fled the Nazis and settled in Palestine, haven’t been too kind to Palestinians. In Sri Lanka, the LTTE was rather nasty to the Muslim community in areas under its control, at times forcing Muslims to vacate places like Chavakacheri and Jaffna enmasse. Poles, who were at the receiving end of multiple aggressors ranging from Russians and Germans to Tartars, are rather anti-Semitic even now. To a certain extent, the violence unleashed by the Kashmiri Muslim community against Pandits living in the Valley falls in this category. Kashmiri Muslims may claim with some justification that they have received a raw deal from the Indian government and the earlier Dogra rulers. However, their treatment of the Pandits whom they drove away from the valley in increasing numbers since 1990 will always be remembered as yet another instance of a majority community oppressing a defenceless minority community.

Rahul Pandita, currently an Associate editor at the Open Magazine, and author of Hello Bastar, an account of India’s Maoist movement, tells the story of how his family was forced to flee to Jammu from the Kashmir valley when he was fourteen and live in squalid camps where his mother never tired of telling people that their house in the valley had 22 rooms. Pandita’s favourite cousin Ravi stayed on in the valley and was killed along with two others as they travelled by bus. There is no doubt that countless other Pandits have similar stories to tell.

In Our Moon has Blood Clots, Pandita doesn’t offer any answers, despite the innumerable questions that pop up during the discourse. Pandita makes a half-hearted attempt to be neutral and unbiased, there are references to how Dogras rulers were ‘rough’ with the Muslim community and how Hindus in Jammu tried to exploit the refugees from the Valley, but the book is almost entirely the story of the Pandit exodus and Pandita doesn’t even try to present the other side’s point of view. I don’t blame him. Pandita’s pain is still too raw and fresh to even think of making an attempt to provide the other side of the story, though Pandita makes it clear that he has maintained his humanism throughout. Once at a television studio for a debate on human rights, as Pandita argued in support of a zero tolerance approach in respect of human rights violations in Kashmir, he was reprimanded by a drunk army general who reminded him that the militants whose human rights he advocated had forced him out of his home. ‘General, I’ve lost my home, not my humanity,’ Pandita retorted.

Pandita makes it clear that the atrocities (murder and rape) against Pandits were carried out by fellow Kashmiris, with a different religious persuasion, and not just by foreign militants who came from across the LoC. Pandita tells us that divide between the Pandits and Muslims existed much before 1990. Cricket matches between India and Pakistan always brought the differences to the fore. The Muslims in Kashmir supported Pakistan and the Pandits naturally rooted for India. On April 18, 1986, when Javed Miandad hit Chetan Sharma’s last ball for a six in Sharjah, ‘ít was as if it was Diwali in Kashmir. I think every cracker available in Kashmir was burst in the next one hour. People streamed out of their houses and on to the streets chanting Allah ho Akbar. In the nippy April weather of the Valley, people drank gallons of Limca to celebrate, the way they had seen cricket stars celebrate with champagne.' Earlier, on October 13, 1983, when India had played Pakistan in Srinagar, the first ever international cricket match held in Jammu & Kashmir, the stadium had erupted in support for Pakistan. Vengsarkar was hit with a half-eaten apple. Pandita and his cousin Ravi had watched with disbelief. Was it always like that? Did Kashmiri Muslims always support the Pakistani cricket team since the time of the Partition? Pandita doesn’t provide a clear answer.

Pandita uses Ravi’s father as a narrator to describe the lie of the land at the time of the invasion by tribal levies immediately after the Partition. One gets the feeling that at that time the divide between Pandits and Muslims wasn’t so wide, though it did exist. Pandita doesn’t make it very clear when exactly the Hindu-Muslim divide grew to the extreme proportions one sees now.

In 1990, did Governor Jagmohan encourage Pandits to leave the Valley so that he could take stringent measures against the militants? Pandita rubbishes this theory. According to Pandita, Jagmohan was helpless. The administration had collapsed completely and sections of the state police were sympathetic to militants.

Even before I reached the end of the book I started wondering why the Indian government wasn’t taking more steps to make it possible for Pandits to return to the Valley. Create settlements for them, my brain screamed. When I reach the end of Pandita’s memoir, I find out that the Indian government has done just that and it isn’t working very well. A few thousand needy Pandits have moved back to the Valley and live in protected settlements which lack basic facilities. When they venture out in public, they, especially women, are targeted and harassed. The divide between Muslims and Pandits remains as wide as ever.

An honest account and a very good one at that, Our Moon has Blood Clots is a must read for anyone interested in the Kashmir dispute.

Book Review: Night of the Golden Butterfly by Tariq Ali

Night of the Golden Butterfly is the fifth book in Tariq Ali’s Islam quintet, a collection born in response to the Islamophobia generated by 9/11 and its aftermath. Like the first four books, the idea seems to be to show the civilised face of Islam to the rest of the world. The first four books in this quintet were set in places and epochs ranging from Granada after the Re-Conquest by Ferdinand and Isabella, Saladdin, Ottoman Turkey at the turn of the twentieth century and Sicily in the twelfth century when it was ruled by the Normans. The fifth one, Night of the Golden Butterfly, is set in the present and the locales vary from the Fatherland (as Pakistan is referred to throughout in this novel), London, Paris, Beijing, Kunming, Dali and even Hoi Chi Min City in Vietnam.

Night of the Golden Butterfly could be semi-autobiographical since Dara, a writer from Lahore who is the main narrator of the story, bears a striking similarity to Tariq Ali. The novel begins with Dara’s friend Plato (real name-Mohammed Aflatun) calling in an old favour (which a young Dara had promised to repay with interest) and demanding that Dara write Plato’s story. Dara agrees. The reader is led to believe from the opening chapters that the novel will be all about Plato, but it isn’t. Instead, Night of the Golden Butterfly is the story of Plato and his friends’ circle to which Dara too belongs. Plato’s story takes up maybe a fourth of this 275-page book. Plato, Dara and their friends are the cream of Lahore, all of them moneyed, with Plato, a refugee from Ludhiana, being the only exception, but Plato makes up for his lack of money with his wit, sophistication and intelligence. We are talking early to mid-sixties. The crowd is essentially left-wing, intellectually honest, morally incorruptible and largely atheist. It is also a cosmopolitan crowd, though since the setting is Lahore, most of them are Punjabis. There’s Tipu, a Bengali communist from Chittagong, Hanif Ma, also called Confucius, an ethnic Hui from Yunnan, whose family has settled in Lahore and Jamshed, a Parsi. The honest, atheist, socialist, cosmopolitan values continue to rule the roost till the end of the novel and it is these values which Ali holds up as an example of modern Muslims, for the rest of the world to see.

Soon the friends finish college and leave Pakistan for greener and more diverse pastures. They don’t exactly keep in touch, because one of them, Zahid, is (wrongly) suspected of having betrayed Tipu, to the security forces who were on the lookout for him. However, their paths and the paths of their wives and girlfriends keeping crossing each other for the next forty or fifty odd years. I found Night of the Golden Butterfly to be a very interesting read because it gave me a glimpse into the mind of Ali. How secular and cosmopolitan is Ali? Very. How Punjabi is he? Equally so. Night of the Golden Butterfly has dialogues which are from the horse’s mouth, capturing the rustic and earthy Punjabi atmosphere of Lahore, which Dara, Plato and their other friends carry with them wherever they go.

Ali is a man of very strong likes and dislikes. In Night of the Golden Butterfly, Dick Cheney happens to one of the objects of his disaffection. Zahid turns out to be a successful doctor, married to Jindié, Confucius’s sister and Dara’s one-time heart-throb. Living in the US, Zahid turns Republican and is part of the medical team which operated on Dick Cheney (in one instance, this operation is said to take place in 1999, in another in 2000), saving his life. Jindié is true to her socialist, left-wing ethos and is bugged with Zahid. Zahid’s children don’t speak with him for a month. Then comes 9/11 and we are told that ‘within twenty-four hours of 9/11, Cheney instructed his staff to make sure that Zahid was removed from his medical team. The Muslim name was enough. He came home that night looking like a beaten dog.’ Zahid, Jindié and family moved to London within months after that. Now, I am pretty sure neither Dick Cheney nor any other senior White House official fired a member of his staff on account of religion, either before 9/11 or afterwards. True, Muslims did face (and continue to face) a lot of prejudice in the United States after 9/11, something brought out very well in Mohsin Hamid’s Reluctant Fundamentalist, but to say that just after 9/11, Dick Cheney fired a doctor who was part of the team which had saved his life, is a bit over the top.

Similarly, the Pakistani army also gets its share of the overblown Tariq Ali pie. After introducing his readers to Naughty Lateef, ‘the spirited wife of a junior officer eager for promotion,’ who sleeps around with two generals at the same, leading them to fist cuffs, we are told that in the Pakistani army ‘the pretty wives of the more obedient junior and nor-so-junior officers were regarded as fair prey, occasionally to be had with the full agreement of the husbands eyeing a rapid promotion or a sinecure in the military-industrial enterprises and pleasantly surprised that their wives had turned out to be such lucrative investments.’ To begin with, there are the only two Generals at any given time in the Pakistani army, namely the Chief of Army Staff or COAS and the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, unless of course the Army Chief becomes the President of Pakistan, as Musharaff did, in which case the post of Vice Chief of Army Staff is created and the occupant would also be a General. Thus while the current Pakistani army chief is General Parvez Kayani and the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee is General Khalid Shameem Wynne, the next senior-most officer would be a Lt. General. This information is easily available on the internet and one would expect a writer of Ali’s stature to get his facts right. To say that Naughty Lateef was sleeping around with two Generals, (who are not shown to be at the apex of the army pyramid), and to show a third general heading the Inter-Services-Intelligence, which is currently headed by Lieutenant-General Zaheerul Islam, is downright silly. Also, it is very unlikely that the highly Islamized Pakistani army, for all its faults, has a widespread culture of senior officers taking up with the wives of junior officers.

I guess if Ali doesn’t like someone, he will go all out to attack him, even at the expense of the truth or his credibility. Ali does some thing very similar in The Book of Saladin, the second book in this quintet, where he claims that crusaders attacked and desecrated Mecca. Is Night of the Golden Butterfly fact disguised as fiction? Partly, yes. However, some of it is fiction, disguised as fact, within a work of fiction.

The best part of the book for me was Ali’s descriptions of Jindié’s and Confucius’s Hui ancestors and their life in Yunnan. In case you haven’t guessed, Jindié is the golden butterfly who has lent her name to the title. I had a vague idea that China has a Muslim minority generically referred to as Hui, who are very similar to the Han and speak mandarin or dialects of mandarin, but didn’t know till I read this novel that Yunnan province saw a rebellion against China’s Ming rulers in the middle of the nineteenth century in which a Muslim ruler held out against Ming China for eighteen years. Dù Wénxiù, uncle to Jindié’s and Confucius’s great-grandmother Quin-Shi, changed his name to Suleiman and banned the use of pork in Yunnan which had Kunming as its capital, though Dali was its most beautiful city. Sultan Suleiman was a moderate soul, one who treated all his subjects, both Hui and Han, Muslim and non-Muslim, alike. Likewise, his subjects, both Muslims and non-Muslims rallied around him, as he valiantly fought the Ming rulers, who had the support of traitors like Ma Rulong. Ultimately the rebellion failed and the Jindié’s and Confucius’s family left for Burma, from where, after a stint in Calcutta, they ended up in Lahore. Ali holds up the Hui rebellion in Yunnan as an example of how moderate and secular Muslims have been in the past, something on the lines of Moorish Spain or the Muslims in Sicily. Mind you, the description of the Yunnan rebellion forms a small part of the story.

The second best thing I liked about this book is Ali’s depiction of the upper class Pakistani elite, which sounds very authentic. Ali’s characters, who quote from Stendhal and Balzac at the drop of a hat, sleep around a lot. Dara goes to bed with two of Plato’s partners, Alice Stepford and later with the Sindhi beauty Zaynab, who was at one time, married to the Koran (so that her brothers could inherit her share of the ancestral property. I understand that marrying the Koran is not unheard of in Sindh. Incidentally Plato turns out to be impotent, despite much camouflage to the contrary and Dara takes up with Plato’s women only after he finds out. Dara never gets to sleep with Jindié though at one point he comes pretty close. Please read this book to find out why Dara and Jindié never get to make love – it’s got something to do with Dara’s love for coffee. Towards the end of the book, Jindié confesses to having had a couple of liaisons, one of which is, lest you start wondering if Dara and friends sleep only with fellow light-skins, with a Tanzanian. Of course, one in a while, a character from the higher stratum turns religious, as Jindié daughter Neelum does, though she is still a good human being. One friend, Anis, a closet homosexual, is tormented so much by his parents that he commits suicide. Jamshed the Parsi and Tipu the Bengali communist (and Zahid for a brief while) are the only ones who turn to mammon at the expense of their values and of these, Jamshed comes to serious grief.

Money is never an issue for Dara and friends. Either they are extremely successful in their chosen professions, like Zahid is, or they have inherited a lot of wealth or they have a lot of wealthy friends. The only time we see a glimpse of poverty is when Plato, after moving to the UK, is forced to work as a waiter, as a newsagent and finally as bus conductor. However, even then Plato doesn’t despair. Just like every upper middle class individual from the sub-continent, Dara and gang are used to being waited upon hand and foot. When visiting Zahid at his Richmond mansion, Dara, just to be difficult, asks for Pomegranate juice and is told it’s possible. Towards the end of the book, Dara, Zahid, Zaynab, Alice etc. are to congregate at Zaynab’s country mansion in Sindh where they get to see Plato’s final work. They arrive in Karachi. ‘Zaynab’s brother had thoughtfully organised a helicopter and we were met off the gangway by flunkeys. ……… The flunkeys took our passports and escorted us to the hotel’s VIP suite……….. We were taken to our guest cottages, with mine the closest to the house. I was greeted by a refrigerator overloaded with Muree beer, but demanded fresh lime juice without sugar and a jug of tamarind juice with ice and honey.’

Does Night of the Golden Butterfly succeed in exhibiting a moderate and civilised Islam to the outside world? I am not too sure. You see, the bulk of the characters amongst Dara and Co. are practising atheists and left-wingers who have no right to claim to speak for the global Islamic community. More importantly, they form a very minuscule percentage of the global Ummah. Ali does make a few attempts to rope in the common Muslim on the street into the camaraderie and global fellowship exhibited by Dara and friends. We are told that once, ‘after giving a lecture in Olso, I dragged a group of newly arrived Punjabi migrants who attended my talk to the Munch museum to show them their new country’s greatest artist. Some were reluctant to waste precious time, but came anyway. All of them were stunned, and one, Salah, who became a dear friend, had moist eyes, as he whispered in Punjabi, “This is an artist who knew inner pain. Our Sufi poets say that the cure for that lies in oneself. Neither Allah nor a psychiatrist can help.” Do please take a look at Scream and decide for yourself if newly arrived Pakistani-Punjabi migrants in Norway are likely to be so touched by it.

Ali’s characters are deeply upset by the Islamophobia and anti-immigrant feelings aroused by 9/11. They fight back at times. When Zaynab is asked one too many times why female circumcision takes place among Muslims, she responds: “If men can be circumcised, why not women? It was a sign of our equality. Anything a man could bear, so could we.” Once while Zaynab is walking around in Paris, she sees an African man without papers being arrested by a gang of policemen. “It happens in Fatherland all the time, but here too Dara? I was really shocked. People watched in silence and turned away.” “Just like Fatherland,” I told her. “It happens all over Europe. In Italy, they love burning gypsies and taunting Muslims. Repression and cowardice in the face of it have become everyday occurrences. Africans from the colonies, kids from the banlieus, are often treated like shrivelled leaves. Kicked into the dirt. You’ll get used to it.” One is left in little doubt that repression in Paris hurt Dara & Co. much more than anything that might take place in Pakistan. Of course, the fact that Dara and his friends are very unlikely to be so tormented in Pakistan could be one reason for this dichotomy.

Here are links to my review of the first four books in this quintet:

Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree

The Book of Saladin

The Stone Woman

A Sultan in Palermo

Book Review: The Monk, the Moor and Moses Ben Jalloun by Saeed Akhtar Mirza

Saeed Mirza’s latest offering, The Monk, the Moor and Moses Ben Jalloun, a work of fiction, I emphasise the word fiction, takes you on a voyage of discovery undertaken by four young undergrads at Berkeley, each of them from four corners of the globe. The voyage is set off, or rather, is provoked, when one of the undergrads, Omar, is upset after watching a US presidential election debate, where John McCain says something very insensitive about Arabs. An angry Omar then digs around and soon afterwards, drops a bombshell in their literature class where Dante’s Inferno (from his work, the Divine Comedy) is being discussed. According to Omar, Dante Alighieri plagiarised his work from the Book of Ascent or Kitab al-Miraj, which talks of Muhammad's ascension into Heaven (known as the Miraj), following his miraculous one-night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem (the Isra). Omar’s professor doesn’t agree, but the four good souls, Omar Jalloun from Morocco, Sandeep Bose from India, Steven Ntini from South Africa and Linda Mahon from Ohio, work together as a group, do a lot more research into translations of Arabic works (on astronomy, medicine, geography, mathematics and the like) into Latin and find out many more instances of plagiarism by western writers and scientists who had access to such translations in the post medieval period and during the renaissance.

We are told that Omar is a descendant of a Jewish scholar named Moses Ben Jalloun who had lived and worked in Toledo in the mid thirteenth century. Toledo in Moorish Spain was a centre for the translation of Arabic texts into Latin. The Jallouns lived in Al Andalus for many generations until the inquisition commenced, when some of the Jallouns fled to Morocco and converted to Islam. Multilingual Moses Ben Jalloun was one of the best translators around at that time and when the story begins, has just received his latest assignment, the translation of four fresh texts. For this assignment, Jalloun has with him a Cistercian monk and a young Moor from a prominent family in Granada. The Christian monk and the Moor don’t get along well at first and there are arguments. The arguments between the two men run parallel to the voyage being undertaken in Berkeley by Omar and his cohorts and in a way, they lead to almost the same conclusion – that many Arab ideas have been borrowed by westerners and passed off as originals. Towards the end, the Monk loses some of his arrogance and contempt for Islam and becomes a better human being. The arguments are recorded in a diary by Moses Ben Jalloun, which has somehow survived and is now with Omar who shares it with his friends.

Even as Omar and his cohorts dig around, and the Monk and the Moor argue, Mirza takes us on yet another parallel voyage, this one with the renowned Persian scholar Abu Rehan al-Biruni who lived from 973 A.D to around 1043 A.D. Known as Alberonius in Latin and Al-Biruni in English, Abu Rehan was an all-rounder who excelled in a number of disciplines including mathematics, science, history and languages. When Mahmud of Ghazni captured the emirate of Bukhara, he took all the scholars in that land to his capital Ghazni. Abu Rehan ended up living in Ghazna and serving Mahmud and later his son Mawdud, during which time he travelled to India and learnt some Sanskrit as well. Abu Rehan is tutor to his friend’s daughter, a sweet and pretty girl named Rehana who has been named after him. We get to see Rehana married off to one of Mahmud’s Pashtun commanders Dilawar Khan and she too ends up in Ghazna.

It is well accepted that the Arabs had reached the high point of civilization in the medieval period when Europe wallowed in darkness. The Arabs had borrowed many of their ideas from India (numbers) and China (papermaking and gunpowder) and even from the Greeks and Romans and built on them, taking them much further. When Europe started to blossom during the renaissance, Europeans too borrowed ideas and inventions from the Arabs and others. Many of the claims of plagiarism made by Mirza seem to be accepted truisms and are not so earth shattering as made out to be by Mirza. For example, the first claim in this book, that Dante Alighieri plagiarised his work from the Book of Ascent or Kitab al-Miraj, has been accepted by many western scholars such as Miguel Asin Palacios.

We are told of Pope Sylvester, born as Gerbert d’Aurillac, who travelled extensively in Moorish Spain before he became renowned as an authority back home in astronomy and mathematics. Constantine of Carthage was yet another Christian scholar who benefited from an education in Sicily, then ruled by Normans, but with a heavy Arab influence. None of this is problematic until Mirza claims that Constantine’s magnum opus, Liber Pantegni or the Book of the Complete Art of Medicine was plagiarised from the ninth century Persian physician Aby Ibn Abbas’s book Kitab al-Maleki.

Mohammad bin Musa al-Khwarizmi who lived from 780 AD till 840 AD ‘looked at the Indian and Sumerian zero and studied it carefully. What did this dot stand for? Could it have a value? And bingo! He figured out how and where to place it and mathematics took a gigantic leap forward.’ Mirza tells us (rightly) that the word algebra is derived from the name of al-Khwarizmi’s book Al-Jabr wa-al Muqabilah. Algorithms are named after al-Khwarizmi, the man himself.


Jabir Ibn Hayyan (721 AD to 815 AD), known by his Latin name Gerber, was a master chemist who conducted many thousands of experiments and wrote around 3000 treatises. He also went on a hunt for a single element that is the basis of all life on this planet. Ibn Hayyan’s treatises were translated into Latin and read by many in Europe.

The movement of the Brethren of Purity was composed of philosophers and scholars and was founded in Syria and sought to cleanse and purify Islam. Mirza suggests that the crusaders encountered the Brethren of Purity and that the Order of the Knights Templar was modelled on the Brethren of Purity.

Medicine man Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, known to the Latin world as Abulcasis, wrote a treatise of 30 volumes, of which 27 volumes enumerated his experiences as a physician. The remaining three were on surgery and the techniques described there astounded European scholars so much that they were copied right up to the seventeenth century. Ibn Sina or Avicenna, called the Grand Master of medicine, lived from 926 to 1037 AD. He wrote a 5 volume treatise, the al-Kanun al-Tibb or the Canon of Medicine, which was a textbook in European medical schools till the seventeenth century.

Mirza quotes an English scholar Charles Burnett who has spent a long time studying the contributions of Islamic civilization to the West. According to Burnett, if one looked at the medical textbooks for the faculty of medicine in the fledging universities in medieval Europe, almost every author was an Arabic author. It was almost the same for the faculties of philosophy, astronomy, geometry and arithmetic.

Ibn al-Haytham who was born in Basra, but served the Caliph in Cairo, formulated a theorem now called Wilson’s Theorem. In the field of mechanics, he developed theories on inertia and momentum. His magnum opus Kitab al-Manesir on optics and the nature of light, refuted the theories of Euclid and Aristotle and was translated into Latin under the title Opticae Thesaurus Alhazeni. Al-Haytham’s works were read by many western scholars such as Roger Bacon, Pecham, Risner etc. ‘Hundreds of years later, Sir Isaac Newton would come up with his theory of optics which would vindicate most of what Ibn al-Haytham had written and so often proved.’

Leonardo Fibonaccci who was born around 1170 AD spent some time with his father at a trading post in North Africa. Impressed by the Arabic system of counting and accounting which was much more simple and effective than the Roman numerals Leonardo was used to, he wrote a book called the Liber Abaci or Book of Calculations, paying unabashed tribute to Indian and Arab mathematicians. He posed a hypothetical problem and solved it with a number sequence, later called the Fibonaccci sequence.

Al-Jazari was a mechanical engineer who lived from 1137 AD to 1206 AD and invented many mechanical devices and contraptions, such as water clocks, gears, pumps, pulleys, locks etc. His treatise, the Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices which apparently has miniature pictures of his devices was translated into Greek and Latin and astonished Europe. Apparently one of those impressed by the book was one Leonardo di Vinci. ‘Now, everyone has heard of da Vinci. How many know of Al-Jazari?’ Mirza asks us.

Nicholas Copernicus’s book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, published in AD 1543, broke off from Ptolemy’s vision of the known universe and was called the greatest discovery in the history of Western science. In reality, Copernicus’s work was based on two Arab astronomers, one Nasser al-Tusi and one Mu-ayyad al-Din al-Urdi who both lived many centuries earlier. Mirza doesn’t deny Copernicus’s genius for on seeing the correct explanation for planetary motion he accepted it, but suggests that he was most probably a plagiarist.

Arab influence of the West is not restricted to medicine or mathematics. Alphabetical notations of western musical notes have been attributed to an Italian - Guido of Arezzo. According to Mirza, the notations themselves are uncannily similar to the ones used by al-Kindi and al-Farabi around 200 years earlier. Mirza suggests that Pope Sylvester may have come into contact with al-Kindi’s and al-Farabi’s works and might have passed them to Guido. The troubadours of Europe were influenced by Andalusian and Arabic songs – their rhythms are similar and the word troubadour is derived from the Arabic word “tarrab”, which means to sing.

Even when Western experts acknowledged the Arab origin of ideas and inventions, it has been done so in a condescending manner. When Toynbee praised Ibn Khaldun (who wrote a magnum opus al-Muqaddimah, or the Universal History) as having conceived and formulated a philosophy of history which is undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place, he prefaced his comment with a condecending preamble, in which he likened Ibn Khaldun’s achievement to that of a shining light surrounded by a sea of ignorance and brutality.

The most serious of the claims made by Mirza in The Monk, the Moor and Moses Ben Jalloun pertain to Copernicus, Leonardo da Vinci and Sir Isaac Newton. Claims such as this would have been better served and more credible if they had set out in a work of non-fiction with appropriate citations, authorities and a good bibliography. Also Mirza paints Moorish Spain in such glowing colours that one gets the feeling everything was nice and rosy out there. It was, when compared with medieval Europe, but non-Muslims were always second class citizens and never had the same rights as the Muslims. After 1100 AD, there were a few mini-pogroms against the Jews, such as one in Cordoba in 1011 and in Granada in 1066. The situation was much worse in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen etc. where at times Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death. In Moorish Spain, after the Almoravids were replaced by the more conservative Almohads, many Jews emigrated to more tolerant Muslim lands to the east while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms. For example, the great philosopher and scholar Moses Maimonides who was born in Cordoba fled to Egypt with his family.

Since all four undergrads stay together in an apartment just off the Berkeley campus, it is easy for them to dress in costumes while discussing the multiple plagiarisms perpetrated by Westerners. Omar wears a jalaba(sic), Steve wears African tribal markings, Sandeep draps a bed-sheet around himself, but later switches to a kurta and Linda wears a long dress that reaches her ankles. It is also rather easy for Omar and Linda to have an affair and start sharing a room. Linda comes across as a girl torn by guilt on account of the unacknowledged debt owned by the West to the Arab world. Her affair with Steve almost sounds like a form of atonement.

Ever since Islamic fundamentalism and related terrorism replaced communism as the number one enemy of western free market economy and its affiliated cultural mores and values, many westerners and other non-Muslims started to view all Muslims with scepticism. What little sympathy and empathy had existed in the west for middle-eastern and Islamic customs and traditions evaporated and the average Joe assumed all Arabs to be barbarians from the desert.

The crying need to show Islam in a more positive light has been sought to be addressed by many other writers. A few years ago, I read the first four books of a quintet by the famous secular/left wing writer cum activist Tariq Ali who is based in the UK. All four books are fictionalised history and seek to tell the story of how Islamic Empires rose and fell in a non-Eurocentric manner. The first one, Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, is set in Granada after the Re-Conquest by Ferdinand and Isabella. The Book of Saladin is about, well, Saladdin, and is narrated by Ibn Yakub, a Jewish scribe retained by Saladin to pen his memoirs. The Stone Woman, the third book in Ali’s Islam Quintet, is set at the turn of the twentieth century as the six hundred year old Ottoman Empire slowly flickers out. Tariq Ali’s fourth novel The Sultan of Palermo revolves around the world renowned cartographer Muhammad al-Idrisi who lived in the twelfth century and served the Norman King of Sicily, Roger II. The fifth book in Tariq Ali’s quintet, “Night of the Golden Butterfly” was released in 2010 and I hope to read and review it one of these days.

In The Book of Saladin, we are introduced to two crusaders, who did exist. Ali tells us that one of them attacked Mecca and desecrated it, surely a very serious charge. At one point, crusaders did harass pilgrims travelling to Mecca, but to say any crusader attacked and desecrated Mecca is absurd. Why did Ali get carried away so much? I don’t know. Maybe he felt that making crusaders look more evil and ruthless than they were would help negate the bias against Muslims in today's West.

It has to be conceded that there is a great deal of merit in the argument many in the West are not aware of the Arab world’s past glory. However, it is not correct to say that the hatred toward Arabs and other Muslims is solely or even mainly on account of that. Many in the West are not aware of Japan’s past glory and yet, there is very little animosity towards Japan. In fact, the Japanese are part of the Western club! Why is this so? Mirza is not unaware of this issue. After one gets through two-thirds of the book, Linda sits up abruptly on the bed in Omar’s room. ‘What happened to Islam since those times? What has it done in the last 300-400 years?’ she asks Omar in the middle of the night. Omar doesn’t have a straight forward answer. He ducks the question a bit by asking ‘what has Christianity done at the same time? What did it do to the natives in the Americas?...... How can I explain Osama bin Laden? How can I explain the fatwa against Salman Rushdie?' Then Omar cuts to the chase. ‘I believe Islam lost the war of ideas….. Once it lost political dominance, it turned within itself, licked its wounds and slowly clammed up.’ I won’t say any more, but will leave it to you to read this book for yourself and understand what Omar is getting at.

On the whole, The Monk, the Moor and Moses Ben Jalloun, is a good read, though I feel that the answers to the crisis facing Islam have to come from within rather than from outside, as Mirza seems to suggest.

Book Review: “The Caliphate's Soldiers: The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba's Long War”by Wilson John

Over three years ago, on 26 November 2008, a bunch of terrorists infiltrated into Mumbai and attacked a number of targets ranging from five start hotels, a public transport hub, a Jewish community centre, a hospital and the like. The terrorists were young men who were superbly motivated and trained by an organisation which was a state within a state. As powerful as a state, but with no accountability to the international community and with notions of human rights and liberties far removed from what the average civilised being holds. None of the terrorists expected to survive the attack, they were expected to fight to the death and cause as many casualties and as much mayhem as possible. However, one of the terrorists did survive and based on his testimony and other evidence, the world now knows a lot more about the Lashkar-e-Taiba (“LeT”), the organisation responsible for that atrocity.

It was only after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks that the United Nations designated the LeT as a terrorist organisation. Despite that, even now, there is a dearth of information on the LeT. So much has been written about the Taliban and the Al Qaeda and so little about the LeT that Ashley Tellis, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has written the foreword to Wilson John’s The Caliphate's Soldiers: The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba's Long War tells us that ‘there is no book quite like it, traversing as it does a huge swath ranging from the Lashkar’s history to its virulent ideology, to its organization, resource mobilization and operations. John’s book thus functions as a primer in the best sense of the world: it provides a comprehensive introduction to this insidious terrorist group who global reach has increased considerably during this last decade at a time when most analysts and governments, atleast in the West, were consumed by threats posed by the Al Qaeda.’

In certain respects, the LeT does not appear to be much different from other terrorist groups that are spawned and incubated in Pakistan. The LeT runs a number of recruitment and training centres in Pakistan. It openly raises money through a number of front organizations, many of which are charitable ones. The leaders of the LeT live in various Pakistani cities. A lot of money is received from overseas donors. However, in one crucial respect, the LeT is different from other terrorist groups based in Pakistan. At a time when Pakistan seems to be on the verge of civil war, when so many Islamic fundamentalist organizations have broken with the Pakistani government and have attacked the Pakistani army, the LeT has never attacked a single target in Pakistan. In other words, the LeT is closer to the Pakistani establishment than any other terrorist group based in Pakistan.

Does it mean that the LeT has nothing to do with the Al Qaeda? Far from it, the LeT has been actively supporting the Al Qaeda in Pakistan and elsewhere. Does this mean that the LeT is focussed only on Kashmir, which still remains the primary goal for the Pakistani State? No, the LeT’s dream is to establish a global Islamic caliphate, though it is much more active in Indian Kashmir than anywhere else. The LeT acts as a kind of terror BPO, managing terror campaigns for the Pakistani army in Kashmir and for other wealthy patrons elsewhere. It has the ability to do so, with a strength of around 50,000 men, well trained by ex-army men and equipped with the best weaponry that donations can buy. According to John, the LeT is a threat to Pakistan, coalition troops in Afghanistan and the rest of South Asia.

What is the genesis of the LeT? Why was it set up after the Soviet troops had exited from Afghanistan? What are the LeT’s ideological moorings? Can it be said that the defeat of Shah Waliullah’s grandson and his followers at Balakot in 1831 has played a role in the creation of the LeT almost 175 years later? To what extent was LeT’s found Hafiz Mohammad Saeed influenced by Shah Waliullah, Mawdudi and Ibn-e-Taymiyyah? How could an organisation based in Pakistan motivate a paunchy Chicago businessman named David Coleman Headley, aka Daood Gilani, to help them carry out the 26/11 Mumbai attacks? Does LeT have links to Dr. A. Q. Khan? How much funding and support does the LeT receive from the Pakistani army and the ISI? If India and Pakistan were to be embroiled in armed conflict yet again, what sort of role could the LeT be expected to play? Would this ruthless organisation hesitate to use nuclear weapons if an opportunity presents itself? Do please read this wonderfully expansive book for answers to all these questions.

“Pakistan: A Personal History” by Imran Khan – Book Review

Almost two years ago, I had blogged about Imran Khan and my comments weren’t exactly very flattering to the former captain of Pakistan’s world cup winning squad.

I have now just finished reading a book by Imran which combines Pakistan’s history with Khan’s own story. Khan writes well and tells a simple story of how Pakistan has evolved since its independence, the challenges it faces and how Khan’s political party Tehreek-e-Insaf can offer a credible alternative to the established parties. One may not agree with everything that Khan has to say, but one is forced to admit that Khan has passion, drive and determination for his cause.

Khan has a view on a number of issues, ranging from Pakistan’s founders Jinnah and Iqbal to the Taliban to the path which Pakistan should take to get out of the morass it is currently in. Hardly surprising, I guess, otherwise Khan wouldn’t be in politics or write a book for that matter. Khan comes across as a conservative man, one very proud of his Pathan origins, his religion worn on his sleeve. I initially thought Pakistan: A Personal History would be addressed to and meant for young Pakistanis, ones who would vote in the next elections, but no, by the time I finished this book, I got the feeling that Khan was trying to explain Pakistan to the West, to ask for greater understanding (not sympathy- Khan is too proud for that) and respect.

The broad contours of Khan’s story would be known to most people in the sub-continent. As a youngster, Khan had a privileged childhood, went to one of the best schools in Pakistan, had a dream career playing international cricket for Pakistan, led Pakistan to its one and only world cup victory, built a world-class cancer hospital in memory of his mother with public donations, got married to the very pretty and very young Jemima, got into politics, initially made a hash of things, got divorced and has managed to stick around in the political arena till now. Mind you, there isn’t too much about Khan’s rise to fame and glory in cricket, other than occasional references to various incidents, both good and bad ones. If one expects a cricketing biography, one’s going to be disappointed.

Similarly there isn’t much about his courtship of Jemima. Khan tells us that he was all set for an arranged marriage when he met Jemima. He doesn’t use the words ‘fall in love” though he does say that he ‘found her attractive and intelligent and was particularly impressed by her strong value system and the fact that despite her young age she already had a spiritual curiosity.' I though Khan’s account of the reasons for their divorce much more honest and straightforward. I’d say this book is 8/10th about politics and ideology, 1/10th about cricket and the remaining 1/10th is other personal stuff.

There are quite a few interesting anecdotes about Khan. One is set during the 1965 War with India when Pakistanis expected the Indian army to land in Lahore where Khan lived. Some of Khan’s older cousins formed a junior defence league and were armed with guns. Two of Khan’s ‘overzealous cousins almost ambushed, shot and killed two innocent people, mistaking them for Indian paratroopers.’ It is not cleared if the two innocents were “killed” or “almost killed”. There is no mention of any punishment and so I presume it was only “almost killed”, but then you never know in Pakistan. There is another story of how Khan’s tips helped his brother-in-law Ben Goldsmith, who had lost about 10,000 pounds spread betting on cricket, recoup his losses. After the losses were recouped, Ben made enough money (in two days) for Khan to pay off his party’s debts. Mind you, Khan says he never gambled in his life till then and there is no mention of Khan repeating such a performance.

Khan mentions how Zia declared the Ahmediyas to be non-Muslims, but doesn’t comment either in support or against that declaration. Clearly, Khan doesn’t want to lose any votes over this issue. However, in the matter of Salman Taseer's murder, he takes a clear stand calling it tragic. Khan also takes the view that Tasser’s assassination and the subsequent killing of Shahbaz Bhatti is a result of the polarisation in Pakistan brought about by Pakistan’s involvement in the War on Terror. ‘Before 9/11, Taseer’s remarks recommending a change to the blasphemy law in order to prevent its misuse might not have even got a mention in the newspapers. At worst they might have roused a few statements by clerics wanting to mobilise public support among their constituencies, but in the current polarised climate everyone and anyone is at risk if they happen to be on the wrong side of the divide.’

Khan goes out of his way to explain Islam, Pakistan and the Pashtuns (who can do no wrong) to the outside world, sticking his neck out in the process. Most of what Khan has to say is sensible and correct – to an extent atleast, such as that Islam has had a glorious past when it produced a number of scientists and geometricians and the like (when the West wallowed in darkness), that a genuine Islamic state would necessarily be a welfare state which would tolerate minorities, that the Taliban were fundamentalists, but never terrorists, that no Pakistani had taken part in the 9/11 attacks, that the Taliban could have been persuaded to have Osama bin Laden tried in an Islamic court of law, that it is still possible to make an honourable peace with the Taliban. Khan leaves one in no doubt that if his party comes to power, the Pakistani army will stop participating in the War on Terror. Khan doesn’t want Pakistan to get American aid, he feels it makes Pakistan aid-dependent and most of the aid money lines the pockets of the rich and powerful.

When Khan talks of the honour system, yes the very same idea which causes fathers to kill their daughters who fall in love before marriage, he says, ‘the concept of honour has received a bad press because of the deeply offensive honour killings, but by upholding one’s honour impoverished people living hard lives can maintain a sense of dignity and command respect. In the tribal area, the highly decentralized form of democracy is based on the jirga system – local councils of village elders, similar to the Athenian democracy of the city-states of......’ I’m going to leave this at that.

Again when Khan talks of opposition to women’s liberation, we are told, ‘While the masses in Pakistan are impressed by the tremendous technological progress of the Western world, their understanding of the Western moral value system mainly comes from watching television and they do not respect what they see. Therefore they are deeply suspicious of any attempt towards westernization – particularly women’s liberation. They don’t regard this as women having the right to fulfil their potential, but rather as having the right to be sexually permissive. Therefore westernised Pakistanis are considered to have loose morals too. One of the many derogatory things which people say about westernized couples is that "he does not get angry and she has no shame." It is because of this attitude that sometimes modernization is resisted because it is perceived to be westernization. People are also therefore wary of foreign NGOs dealing with women.’

Khan’s sense of righteousness and destiny shine forth brightly, as Khan discusses Pakistan’s current political dilemma and the role he would play if he could win political power. We find statements like ‘that left only my party and the religious parties to take a stand.’ Khan wants Pakistan to ‘reclaim the vision and wisdom of the modernist reformers who paved the way for the creation of Pakistan. We need to do this because we badly need a cultural, intellectual and moral renaissance in Pakistan so that we are able to create societies and communities that are educated and enlightened, just and compassionate, forward-looking and life-affirming. We need to utilize our rational faculties and engage in scholarly discussion and reflection to find a solution to contemporary issues such as the blending of the positive aspects of Western culture with Islam. The new renaissance must also offer an alternative to the Western materialism and consumerism that has been totally imbibed by our ruling classes and which our country cannot afford.’

Khan is quite clear that it is the current ruling classes of Pakistan who are at the root of Pakistan’s misery. Not only do they covet foreign aid money, which they then siphon off, they also ape the West and do not subscribe to the values which Pakistan’s founders had espoused. The English language schools of Pakistan, which follow a curriculum different from that of state schools come in for some severe criticism for creating brown sahibs. ‘When Pakistan became independent, we should have rid ourselves of these English medium schools,’ Khan sermonises and then adds, ‘in other post-colonial countries such as Singapore, India and Malaysia, they set up one core syllabus for the whole country.’ I can’t speak for Singapore, and Malaysia, but Khan should have done some more research on India before making such a flattering statement. If India had done away with all English language schools, yours truly would not be posting this piece on Winnowed and Khan would not have written Pakistan: A Personal History in English if Pakistan had done away with all its English language schools.

Khan doesn’t want Pakistan to have the Western form of secularism. While noting that ‘Islam gives all the freedom of a secular society – yet an Islamic state cannot be secular. To understand secularism as it exists in the West today, it is important to remember the evolution of Christianity within the Roman Empire. When the Roman Empire became Christian, the State and the Church had their distinct boundaries. Over the centuries, many other influences have shaped modern-day secularism. But the separation of Church and State could not happen in Islam since it has no concept of a Church.’ I don’t think the Church and State were so distinct during the days of early Christianity. Also, I don’t see how Islam not having a Church should prevent the State from disassociating itself from religion. Khan does offer an explanation by quoting Iqbal who said that ‘when a State is governed without the moral values that are rooted in religion then naked materialism is likely to replace it – exactly the observation made by Mohandas Gandhi when he remarked, ‘those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.’ The two greatest institutional tyrannies of all times, the Nazi Reich and the Soviet Union, were Godless constructs.’

Khan ends his 364-page (sans le index) tome on the most positive note, telling us that his political party Tehreek-e-Insaf is the only party which can get Pakistan out of its current desperate crisis. ‘For the first time I feel Tehreek-e-Insaf is the idea whose time has come,’ Khan tells us.

Pakistan: A Hard Country by Anatol Lieven – Book Review

For the past many months, I have been planning to write an article on ‘when will Pakistan break-up?’ or ‘What should India do when Pakistan breaks-up?’ Well, I no longer have such plans, having just finished reading Anatol Lieven’s masterpiece on Pakistan where he convincingly argues that though Pakistan might be going through a very bad phase, it is not a failed country and is very likely to survive for quite some time to come. In fact, if Pakistan were to collapse, it is most likely to be the result of water shortages and other problems caused by climatic change, arising from over-exploitation of the waters of the Indus.

Lieven covered Pakistan as a journalist working for the Times and knows his subject matter very well. I doubt if there are many native Pakistanis who could analyse as well as Lieven the nitty-gritty of Pakistan’s internal divisions, both regional and sectoral (between the Shias and the Sunnis) and most importantly the challenges faced by Pakistan on account of the Taleban. Lieven’s account was such a pleasure to read and so very gripping that though it took me almost two weeks to finish the 560-odd page tome (which includes end-notes and the index), I felt sad when the book, like all good things, came to an end.

I learned so many knew things about Pakistan, I didn’t know before. For example, I had a vague idea that the Bhuttos and Zardaris were Shia, but I didn’t know that they displayed outward signs of being Sunni. Thanks to Hosseini’s Kite Runner, I used to think that the Hazaras are a downtrodden community on both sides of the Hindu-Kush. No, Lieven tells us that in Pakistan, the Hazaras (who had migrated from Afghanistan) are a relatively modern and prosperous community.

One of the most important stereotypes dismantled and put aside by Lieven is the one that Pakistan is a feudal society, not much different from 15th century England. No, rather it is one where ties of kinship are very strong. The head of the clan or tribe is expected to look after his people. For this, he squeezes out all that he can from the government, through corruption or otherwise, and spreads it around. Pakistan has one of the world’s highest rates of charitable giving per capita. Politicians are corrupt, but they work very hard in spreading the booty within their clan and support base. The politician who doesn’t do so, will be left without a clan before long. For this reason, Lieven says Imran Khan will not do particularly well in Pakistani politics since no one expects Imran Khan to have much loot to hand out. The army is very powerful and corrupt, but again, corruption is more in the form of standardized rewards for army officers, such as housing plots and plums postings after retirement, rather than individual officers diverting funds for their personal use without other officers knowing about it.

The most surprising thing about the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and the Taleban in Pakistan is that the duo is still so weak and their growth has been so slow. The obstacles to the growth of fundamentalism in Pakistan are the same as those which prevent the spread of democracy, namely kinship and nepotism which forces Pakistanis to resist change. Also, the Barelvi Islam followed by most Pakistanis is very different from the version espoused by the Taleban. Barelvis worship at the shrines of saints who they believe would intercede on their behalf with God and carry out miracles. In many cases, Shariah is actually a modernising force and is less harsh on women than customary laws like Pashtunwali followed by the Pathans or the customs of the Baloch. However, the laws implemented by many Teleban leaders in their areas of control within FATA or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a mix of the Shariah and Pashtunwali, with more of the latter than the former.

The most impressive aspect of Lieven’s treatise is his felicity in conveying to his readers the complexities of Pakistani society and politics in simple bytes. For example, when he talks of the Pathans, he tells us that they are ‘eighteenth century Scots without the alcohol.’ The Barelvis are compared to Catholics, if the Taleban can be called Puritans, that is. When discussing Punjabi attitudes to other ethnicities in Pakistan, we are told that:

'Punjabis from north central Punjab certainly feel superior to the other nationalities in Pakistan. They are harder working, better organised and more dynamic than anyone else in Pakistan except the Mohajirs. Punjabis respect Mohajirs, but since the latter are not farmers, they cannot really be fully fitted into the traditional Punjabi view of the world. For the Sindhis, the Punjabis have a rather amused and tolerant contempt, as for pleasant and easy-going, but lazy younger relatives. For the Baloch there is contempt without the tolerance, as primitive tribesmen sponging off Punjabi charity. Punjabis believe they are more modern and economically dynamic than the Pathans. Yet in Punjabi Muslim culture there is also an ingrained cultural and historical respect for the Muslim pastoral warriors who repeatedly swept across Punjab from Afghanistan, and from whom many Punjabis – especially in the upper classes – are or claim to be descended. And the Pathans, however savage are widely seen as Muslim warriors par excellence, who prowess has been celebrated in Pakistani literature and propaganda in all the modern wars from Kashmir to Afghanistan.'

Does Punjab dominate Pakistan? Yes, to some extend it does. However, Lieven doesn’t think it is entirely one-sided. Unlike the Sindhis, Balochis or Pathans, Punjabis identify themselves with Pakistan as a whole, to the point of almost submersion in Pakistan. They haven’t made any effort to develop Punjabi as a provincial language. ‘Whereas Sindhis and Pathans almost always speak Sindhi and Pashto among themselves, educated Punjabis usually speak Urdu with each other, when they are not speaking English.’ On top of this, Punjabis are not a monolithic group and there are so many divisions within Punjab. For example, in most of Southern Punjab, a distinct language called Seraiki is spoken.

Lieven does not seem to have much sympathy for the Baloch nationalist movement. Lieven quite rightly points out that though Balochistan occupies 43% of Pakistan’s land area, it has only 7% of Pakistan’s population. Therefore, crying out for a greater share of wealth, isn’t necessarily very fair. Lieven feels that, if Balochistan gained independence, ‘Baloch tribalism would reduce it to a Somali style nightmare, in which a rage of tribal parties – all calling themselves ‘democratic’ and ‘national’ – under rival warlords would fight for power and wealth.’

Lieven keeps asking around for information and comes up with gems. For example, a military acquaintance tells Lieven that ‘while A.Q. Khan certainly profited personally from some of his deals, at no stage was he truly a ‘rogue’ element. Rather, every Pakistani president and chief of army staff knew in broad outline what A.Q. Khan was doing. They might not necessarily have approved in detail – but then again, they took good care not to find out in detail. ‘He had been told, “get us a bomb at all costs”, and this is what he did.’’ All of this makes a lot of sense.

A former minister in Nawaz Sharif’s cabinet sums up his character for Lieven as ‘not at all educated but very shrewd, intelligent, determined and courageous. But unfortunately also autocratic, impulsive, reckless and hot-tempered, which has often been his downfall.’ This descripton differs rather drastically from the one provided by Ahmed Rashid in his Descent into Chaos.

Lieven has a good eye which notices the small things as well. While visiting Nawabzada Bugti, a Baloch leader, he comes across Bugti’s ‘small, thin, dark-skinned servants’ who are called ‘Mrattas’, since they are apparently descendants of Marathas from central India, captured in war by the Mughal emperors and given to their Bugti troops in lieu of wages. I’ve never heard of this community before. I assume they have converted to Islam. Does the Indian government have any plans to seek their repatriation, I wonder? Would the Mrattas want to be repatriated?

Lieven’s conclusions are interesting – they could have been made by a nationalist Pakistani politician. Lieven asserts that the US led campaign in Afghanistan has been responsible, above everything else, for increasing Islamist insurgency and terrorism in Pakistan since 2001. Lieven wants the US and other coalition forces to recognise that ‘Pakistan’s goals are in part legitimate, even if the means by which they have been sought have not been and this legitimacy needs to be recognised by the West’. Pleading for restraint in drone attacks on targets in Pakistan, Lieven is vehement that US ground troops should not be inducted into Afghanistan. Rather, he would have the US and Pakistan negotiate with the Taleban. I can’t say I fully agree with Lieven, though this position is understandable. For Lieven, the Taleban are just a manifestation of Pashtun society. In the past, even during the time the British ruled India, it was common for religion to be used to rally the Pathans against outsiders. After, Pathans are always willing to die for Islam, though they don’t necessarily live by it.

Lieven briefly says in his conclusion that a collapse of Pakistan will be disastrous for India too, generating chaos which will destabilise the whole region. Lieven does not explain this in detail. I had taken a similar position in this post published over two years ago.

The Collaborator by Mirza Waheed – A Book Review

'Captain Kadian takes a large swig from his glass tumbler, closes his eyes for a moment, smacks his lips and says, "the job is not that hard you see, you just .....................'

The opening sentence of Mirza Waheed’s novel gave me the feeling that I was reading one of those Soviet era books set in the years following the October revolution and that ‘Kadian’ was possibly the abbreviation of an Armenian name. But no, Captain Kadian is employed by the Indian army, has been deployed in Kashmir for a three-year tour of duty and is responsible for most of the unnamed Protagonist’s nightmares. Though ‘Kadian’ is not a common Indian name, Wikipedia informs me that there exists a Jat clan called Kadian and we are told by the author that Captain Kadian is ‘young, handsome, north Indian. A Punjabi perhaps, a Jat probably.’ A humble Gujjar lad, the Protagonist is a collaborator who runs dirty errands for the cruel Captain Kadian, who the Protagonist hates and fears in equal measure.

I began to hate The Collaborator even before I crossed the first twenty pages. Set against the backdrop of the insurgency in Kashmir in the early 1990s, The Collaborator depicts the Indian army as extremely ruthless and cruel. There are mentions of large scale massacres and mass-rapes where all women in a village are raped. I do know that truth is the first casualty in any war and that there have been human rights abuses by Indian security forces, but I felt that the ‘allegations’ in The Collaborator are over the top. More importantly, it shows the Indian army as overwhelmingly strong, powerful and successful in fighting the insurgency, practically killing insurgents at will. No sooner do a number of Kashmiri boys trained in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir cross over into India than the Indian army crunches into action and kills off most of those crossing over at a time of the army’s choosing. In fact the author goes to the extent of telling us, through Captain Kadian, that the Border Security force (BSF) is even tougher and nastier than the Indian army. There is one instance where the BSF’s intelligence unit, the G-Branch, is shown as giving the army a lesson in mountain warfare when some militants were holed out in a few caves and the army didn’t know how to clear them out!

However, as I progressed, I got to know the Protagonist better, and even his fears and dreams, I started appreciating The Collaborator better. The Protagonist, who remains unnamed till the end, does not appear to support Azadi in any serious manner. True, he is petrified of the Indian army and the black cat commandoes who carry out the occasional cordon and search operation and dawn raids. He admires the Kashmiri insurgents who are always shown as inferior in strength to the Indian army, whose soldiers are very shown to be very fit and strong. He is fearful of the ruthless and cruel Pathans, Afghans, Arabs and Chechens who have contempt for Kashmiris’ fighting abilities. He gets bugged when a militant group broke up video rental shops, torched cinemas, dragged frightened little girls out of school, checked their hands for nail polish and sent them home in knee-length burqas. We hear that Gujjars are not trusted by other Kashmiris, though some of them do become insurgents. Slowly we get to know that the Protagonist’s father, the village sarpanch, had fought the tribal raiders from Pakistan just after independence. The sarpanch is liked by the villagers who saved him from the insurgents’ wrath.

After all his friends cross the Loc and go to Pakistan and he is the only teenager left behind in the village, the Protagonist too tries to follow then over the LoC. As he proceeds towards his rendezvous with the guide who is to take him across, he thinks thus of Pakistan: ‘A place of which I had an obscure vision, an image, as being the country where we boys went to become militants and which supported us and welcomed us with open arms, and where they were all Muslims and were in fact sending their own sons to fight alongside us, but a place I did not really know. It was, now I understand, and still is, a khayal, just an idea.’ The Protagonist does not make it across since he is turned away by the guide, with a gentle reminder of his father’s past fighting tribal raiders and accepting government grants.

Captain Kadian uses the Protagonist for a dirty chore. The chore itself is unrealistic (I would rather not reveal what it is and play spoil sport) and descriptions of Captain Kadian’s operations are equally unrealistic, as explained earlier. The soldiers are there in strength in the Protagonist’s village since it is very close to the LoC. Around there, ‘the Indians kill just about everyone. Who will know and object, leave along protest, in this remote, cut-off wilderness? You know, sometimes I wonder – because for Kashmir, there is always an Indian and a Pakistani version of everything – what if they have their own pasture of dead boys on the other side of the border? Their own stash of the infiltration residue? Young men who lost their lives while learning to walk the perilous path to freedom. Treachery is a word everyone should learn.’ One hears an old man tell the Protagonist of elite Makara soldiers who even eat people, old people mostly. The Protagonist seems to believe every word he hears. Later when the Protagonist’s friends leave him behind and cross the LoC, the village is at the receiving end of the army’s raids. Curfew is imposed for days at a stretch.

Kashmir has a new governor, a man very stern and ruthless, who is described as ‘the former leader of the demolition gangs and their bulldozers (who ran over the one-room tenements and lavatories of the poorest of poor squatters in India’s capital because their haphazard slum-clusters had no storm-water drains), the clinical undertaker of forced, compulsory vasectomies.....’ Though not mentioned by name, it is very obvious that the reference is to Jagmohan Malhotra who was the governor of Jammu & Kashmir from 1984 to 1989 and then for a few months in 1990. I found this implicit reference to Jagmohan a bit confusing since in the beginning of the novel, there is a reference to a dead militant’s watch which keeps ticking and shows the date as ‘16 April 1993’. The blurb on one of the side flaps of this book says ‘It is Kashmir in the early 1990s......’ From May 1990 to March 1993, Girish Chandra Saxena was the Governor of Jammu & Kashmir and not Jagmohan, but hey, this is fiction and one shouldn’t nitpick, right?

Towards the end of the novel, one hears of the insurgents torturing the guide and his family who they (wrongly) suspect of having helped the Indian army. By that time, the villagers have had enough of searches and curfews. They all pack up and leave, all except the Protagonist and his parents. Where do the villagers escape to, with all their cattle and other belongings? Do they cross the LoC in the middle of the winter? I was half-expecting them to, since they had nowhere else to go. But no, to escape from the Indian army, they flee to ‘India’! By this stage, I had started liking the Collaborator.

A lot of the information that is conveyed to the reader by the Protagonist is hearsay. A man is snatched from the Protagonist’s village by black-cat commandoes who turn up in LMG-mounted gypsies. The Protagonist tells us that from a distance, the commandoes looked like a ‘pack of animals’. After the snatched man is returned to the village, theories abound. One theory is that he was not harmed at all since he readily divulged all that he knew. Another theory is that ‘he was tortured day and night by Kashmiri Pandit police officers, bent on revenge after their tragic exodus from the valley...... Another theory was that ‘he was made to pee on an electric heater while they threw ice-cold water over him; they pierced a red-hot knitting needle through his...... Finally the Protagonist goes to visit the victim one afternoon and without being asked, the victim lifts up his kurta and shows the area above his groin which has small, etched black pits all over the pubic area.

Captain Kadian trusts the Protagonist sufficiently enough to give him a pistol. The Protagonist hates Captain Kadian enough to want to use it on Captain Kadian. Does the Protagonist summon enough courage to do so? Do please read this extremely interesting book, written in exquisite prose, to find out. Exaggerations notwithstanding, it is a very good read.

The Author of The Collaborator Mirza Waheed spent his childhood in Srinagar, read English Literature at the University of Delhi and later worked as a journalist in Delhi for four years. Since 2001, he has been living in London where he works for the BBC's Urdu Service as an editor.

The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left - By Ed Husain

Unlike the Reluctant Fundamentalist which I reviewed last week, the Islamist is a true story, the story of Muhammad Mahbub Husain, who became an Islamic fundamentalist, saw the light and then went back to civil society.

Husain's main thesis which runs through the entire book as he tells his story is very simple. There are two types of religious Muslims. The ones like his father who are extremely religious, but have the sense to keep their religion private and never let it influence their political views and outlook. And there are others – the fanatics – who believe that Islam is a complete solution which teaches men how to pray, govern themselves, conduct wars, dress, interact with others etc. The second group is much smaller than first group, but is a lot more vicious and has been spoilt by democratic and tolerant Britain. Democracy, or people's rule, is anathema to fundamentalist Muslims since only Allah should govern (and the Koran contains Allah's words and will). Using the democratic institutions they seek to subvert, Fundamentalist Muslims have wreaked havoc within Britain, especially within the Islamic community in their quest for a global Islamic state. Husain calls upon the British authorities to crush the fundamentalists, for the fundamentalists cannot be reformed. Fundamentalists Muslims will always try to subvert democracy and civil society, even if they are allowed to preach and practice their version of Islam. It is incorrect to say that past injustices against Muslims have given rise to Islamic Fundamentalism of the type preached by Omar Bakri, the erstwhile leader of the Hizb-ut-Tahir.

Husain's book was released in May 2007 at a time when the British government was facing a great of criticism for having invaded Iraq and fuelled the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Iraq and elsewhere. This book was gratefully seized upon by many people as proof that growth in Islamic fundamentalism is not the result of the Iraqi invasion or any foreign policy mistake.

Husain has a straightforward style which makes his book easy to read. However, Husain's story is not as straightforward as his style.

Husain claims to have had a happy childhood, surrounded by his doting family and caring teachers. His father came to the UK in 1961 and is an ex-restaurateur. Husain doesn't tell us what his father did after he stopped running a restaurant. Husain's family lives in a three storied Victorian terraced house at Limehouse. Young Husain spends a lot of his time with his father's spiritual guru, Shaik Abdel al Latif, who hailed from Fultholy (is it a place in Bangladesh?) and preached a benign version of Islam. Husain addresses the Shaik as ‘Grandpa’ and learns a lot about Islam from him, an Islam based entirely on piety, devotion to God, love for the Prophet, and which does not try to influence an individual's politics.

Later his parents move him to the boys-only Stepney Green School, contrary to the advice given by his primary school teachers. He is in a classroom full of boys from Bangladesh who watch Bollywood movies, indulge in gang warfare and have little in common with mainstream Britain. On his own initiative, Husain starts taking extra lessons in religious studies along with another student Falik. It is not very clear why Husain would want to do that. I assume not many 15 and 16 year olds would opt to spend a few extra hours at school learning about religion. But Husain and his friend do exactly that. They start with Gulam Sarwar's book on Islam which apparently is taught in British schools even now. Gulam Sarwar talks of the political system of Islam. An impressionable Husain is led to believe that religion and politics are one and the same. Islam is a complete way of life. Sarwar tells his readers that currently there is no pure Islamic state, but wants his readers to try and create one.

Husain’s study-mate Falik is a member of the Young Muslims Organisation, the YMO and very soon, before you realise what’s happening, Husain is a YMO member. The YMO is a front organisation for the Jamat-e-Islami, a fundamentalist outfit started by one Abdul Ala Mawdudi. Mawdudi is a man who wanted to create a global Islamic state. The tactic advocated by Mawdudi for doing this is the gradual infiltration of political systems and the takeover of sovereign states, especially in the middle-east.

So, by the age of sixteen, Husain is a full-fledged member of YMO, distributing pamphlets and sticking posters on walls. Husain takes great pains to explain how he had to hide his ideology from his parents, especially his father, who never approved of Mawdudi. Later when his father finds out about Husain's work for the YMO, he is very angry. Husain actually leaves his parents and lives in a mosque for three nights before his father takes him back, such is his pious father's hatred for political Islam!

But Husain does not stay with the YMO for long. He switches to the Hizb-ut-Tahir, an even more virulent organisation run by the notorious Omar Bakir. Unlike the Jamat-e-Islami, the Hizb-ut-Tahir advocates a violent overthrow of governments for the establishment of a global Islamic state. By now, Husain is a student at the Tower Hamlets College. They persuade women to wear the hijab, convert non-Muslims to Islam, break up meetings of rivals and aggressively promote their brand of political Islam. Husain's parents are very upset with Husain, but there is little they can do about his activities. Husain is slightly troubled by the fact that Hizb activists are not spiritual at all. They spend little time in prayer. And when they do, they pray bare-headed. Ordinary rules of Islam don't seem to apply to them. Husain is troubled with all that, but he stays on as a member, mainly because he likes the idea of a global Islamic state.

Husain meets Faye at the Tower Hamlets College. Husain does not detail the courtship, but we are given to understand that after a period of cold-shouldering by Faye, Husain manages to win her heart. Faye accepts Husain’s marriage proposal, but tells him that the nuptials can take place once after they complete their studies.

One day, things change all of a sudden in Husain’s life. There is a knifing inside the college campus and a Christian Nigerian is murdered by a Hizb activist. In Husain's own words, 'that murder – the direct result of the Hizb-ut-Tahir's ideas, served as a wake-up call for me.' This is very interesting in that, till then Husain has been working for a global Islamic state, to be achieved by the violent overthrow of sovereign states by military coups and the like. And then, when blood is spilt for the first time, he is distraught. Husain is all of 20 years old when this happens.

Husain’s grades suffer as a result of his Hizb activities. But after he becomes disillusioned with the Hizb-ut-Tahir, he works hard and manages to clear his A levels. Faye and Husain join the University of North London. Husain cuts himself off from the Hizb. But Husain is still not ready for a purely spiritual Islam even though he wants to 'flush out the Hizb within him'. He joins the Islamic Society of Britain and starts learning Arabic. He hopes that reading the Koran in original Arabic will teach him more about spiritual Islam. But he does not last very long at the ISB which has ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Husain wants to lead a normal life. He votes in the 1997 general elections (for Labour and Tony Blair) despite a Hizb injunction that democratic elections are haram. At the age of 22, he applies to HSBC and gets a job. Within two years, he is managing portfolios worth half a million pounds. But Husain is not very happy with the way the Bank makes its money. Though HSBC does nothing illegal, Husain finds it to be too greedy, not always acting in its clients interests. Money making is given priority, something Husain cannot stomach.

In August 2000, Husain and Faye get married. They go to Turkey for their honeymoon. Husain admires the Sufism he finds in Turkey, but describes Kemal Ataturk a ‘secular fundamentalist’. Clearly, Husain is not in favour of a situation where religion is kept totally private and the separation between the Mosque and the State is absolute.

In the middle of 2001, Husain quits HSBC and downgrades to a clerical job in local government so that he can focus on his Koranic studies. In early 2002, Husain and Faye register themselves for part-time Arabic studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. They make plans to go to Syria to study Arabic. After 2 years in Syria, they move on and go to Saudi Arabia where Husain’s disillusionment with Islamism is complete. Between the time Husain arrives in Damascus and the time he leaves Saudi Arabia to return to England, he is totally transformed. It is as if a genie from Arabian Nights decides to make over Husain so that he is acceptable to mainstream British society. Husain talks of how in Damascus he and Faye start to prefer the company of non-Muslim Britons to other Muslims. Islam can only be a spiritual community, never a political bloc, Husain declares. Husain speaks approvingly of Tony Blair in a couple of places. He is happy when in August 2005, the government prosecutes an array of Islamic organisations. He cannot understand why Arabs hate Jews. The distinction between Zionism and Jews, which many Arabs make, is dismissed. Suicide bombings have only brought misery in Israel and Palestine, Husain emphasises. The flaws and injustices in Arab society, especially in Saudi Arabia, makes Husain open his eyes and realise how wrong he has been all along.

At Damascus, Husain and Faye teach English at the British council, which helps them support themselves. Syria is full of surprises. Husain is shocked to find Syrians travelling to Iraq to fight the coalition troops. Why should there be a Jihad in favour of a military dictator such as Saddam? Husain wonders The Islam practised in Syria is to Husain's liking. Women have a lot of freedom. Christianity is tolerated. Sufism is widely practised. When Husain spots a couple of Hizb activists at Damascus university, he actually tips off Syrian intelligence. The biggest surprise for Husain is when he realises that there is nothing like a global Muslim community. Regionalism dominates. People question his about his origin. He is brown skinned and can't be an European. He is not Arab. So what is he? He can't be just a Muslim. The Syrian's hate the Turks who once ruled over Syria. Syria and Egypt had once formed a single country – the United Arab Republic, which hadn't lasted very long.

In Saudi Arabia, racism is rampant, but luckily, Husain is able to pass for an Arab since he can speak good Arabic. Black Muslims are treated like dirt. Foreigners can never become Saudi citizens. Most Saudi men are lecherous and nasty towards women. Students at the British Council download pornography from the computers there, something not possible outside the British council. Many Saudis support Osama bin Laden, condone attacks on western targets and hate Israel. Husain quite rightly blames the policy of segregation practiced in Saudi Arabia for this state of Saudi society. At Mecca, the Wahhabi guards are abusive. They are unable to make a distinction between worshipping the Prophet (which is forbidden) and showing love for the Prophet, as a result of which they kick anyone who as much as bows at the Prophet's tomb.

When Husain returns to the UK, he starts missing Arab society. He is not entirely happy with the state of British society. How does one integrate into a society where the pub is the centre of all social life? Husain wonders. Not for Husain a society where he is forced to hide all traces of his religion as is done in Turkey or one where, even an iota of spirituality is treated with contempt, as in the UK.

Husain ends on a positive note. Each country has its version of Islam. Husain definitely approves of the milder versions practised in Malaysia and Syria and hopes that a British version of Islam will evolve soon.

It is hard not to feel some sympathy for Husain when one finishes the book. However, I will not be surprised if Husain writes another book where he talks of how disenchanted he is with a writer's life, how the publishing world is full of hypocrites and how he looks forward to a world where writers get published and sell their books without any hype or unnecessary marketing and publicity.