The ulema and DNA
By Durdana Najam

According to a survey conducted by The Economist, 57 countries in the Organisation of Islamic Conference spend a meagre 0.8 percent of GDP on R & D.

In one of the regular support group meetings chaired by Dr Saad Bashir every Wednesday at the Sukh Chan Club, Lahore, the topic that led to confusion was why the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) refused to accept DNA as primary evidence in rape cases. Taking note of the past, we remember how radio, fans, loudspeakers, television were banned at different times, both in mosques and homes, for reasons of religious sanctity by the ulema (clergy). Why would the ulema ban anything that is progressive and scientific was the discourse that led nearly everyone to question the different interpretations of Quranic injunctions and Islam for being discriminatory and anachronistic. Such responses are natural when ignorance is pushed by none other than those who claim to be an authority on religion, in this case the CII. It is strange how Islam has been militated against in our country, whose ideology was purposefully bent through the Objectives Resolution in a direction that was never in the mind of the architect of Pakistan. A continuous war between the secular and the conservative, both claiming equal right on the founder of Pakistan as one of them, has failed to give any shape to the country. In spite of scores of books written on how science and Islam are compatible, we conveniently disregard anything scientific. Even more interesting is the fact that the militants fighting against the state, purportedly for its un-Islamic features, use the media, modern warfare, and information and communication technology to conduct combat and spread their words of terror.

The outreach of the militancy in Swat has been attributed to FM radio used decisively first by Haji Namdar, leader of Tanzim Amr bil Maroof wa Nehi Anil Munkir (Suppression of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue), followed by Fazlullah, also known as Mullah Radio, for his excessive use of FM to persuade the masses through his sermons. It is said that Namdar had hired the services of a Deobandi Sunni cleric, Mufti Munir Shakir, to give sermons on radio. In a tit-for-tat, Pir Saifur Rehman, a Barelvi cleric, set up a rival FM station to counter the narrative of the Deobandi clerics. In 2006, the Bara tehsil of the Khyber Agency had become a contested ground, causing the killing of many people as the conflicting sermons flowed through the radio waves. According to Pakistan’s Electronic Management Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), before the Swat operation in 2009, there were around 100 private radio stations in Swat, and some 300 FM mullahs. PEMRA described Maulana Abdullah Shah’s FM station in Charsadda and Maulana Tayyeb’s radio station in Panj Pir as very popular. The radio was used primarily to give fatwas (Islamic decrees) essentially against the Pakistani state, calling it un-Islamic. What was to take years to accomplish became a reality in a matter of days by exploiting the wonders of science. Fazlullah and others did not have access to the modern use of information technology, nor was and are Pakistan’s north-western areas advanced enough to provide for the latest media technology. FM radio, being the cheapest and easiest to establish, was vastly used to the advantage of the militants.

One is convinced of the fact that the mullah or cleric sitting in the CII is no different from those hiding in the forbidding terrain of North Waziristan. Using their blinkered religious views, they have turned Muslim against Muslim. As soon as the news was out that the CII had ruled out the use of DNA as primary evidence in rape cases, the TV channels scrambled to get the viewpoint from the clerics on the issues. Lo and behold, one of the clerics defending the CII’s decision, when asked by a doctor on the show about DNA, described it as a machine that could draw a wrong sample! Now the problem, it transpires, is that what the CII held against DNA testing was about wrong or inaccurate samples that could lead to a wrong indictment. However, calling DNA a machine by the cleric shows the depth of their understanding of science and technology.

Today, Muslims are known for being distant from research and development (R & D) in the academic world. According to a survey conducted by The Economist, 57 countries in the Organisation of Islamic Conference spend a meagre 0.8 percent of GDP on R & D. Compared to this, Israel, considered the sworn enemy of anything Islamic, lavishes 4.4 percent. Knowledge, though considered important and a path to seek Allah’s blessings, is restricted to attaining information on the Quran or Hadith (the traditions of Prophet Muhammad [PBUH]). Critical thinking even to understand the Quran is considered a domain of the so-called ulema. Prayer, having become ritualised, is nevertheless keenly practiced. The Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad has three mosques on campus, with a fourth underway, but no bookshop. To prove its glory, the Quran is usually positioned against science. A course book recently introduced in Saudi Arabia, The Unchallengeable Miracles of the Qur’an: The Facts That Can’t Be Denied By Science, suggests an inherent conflict between belief and reason. This conflict is driving enlightened Muslims away from Islam. They are hard put to understand why a religion that takes knowledge as the basis for the creation of Adam could put up barriers to critical thinking. The resistance to reasoning stems from a belief that a philosophical pursuit of knowledge leads to waywardness. The concept of ghaeb (the unknown), an integral part of the Muslim faith, is, according to this school of thought, thereby violated. Since one could not get to the ultimate truth, the chances of straying from the right path and getting trapped in kufr, which literally means a mound that shrouds light, become greater, and a person is removed unknowingly out of the fold of Islam. This reasoning against reason versus belief, however, gave the ulema unusual power, as the fear of straying into kufr kept the masses away from seeking knowledge. This new power, the self-awareness to have an all-encompassing knowledge about Islam, opened many vistas for the ulema, as we read about them becoming an important part of kings’ courts in the past. The Farhangi Mahal in the subcontinent was famous for training ulema for the court. It was this trapping that is believed to have produced an extreme version of Islam as the radicals in the absence of proper guidance through research confused rituals with religious values.

Countries like Turkey, Iran and even Saudi Arabia have added value to the research work done in their countries by earmarking more funds for it. What is needed more than funds is the ability to fill the gap between religion and reasoning. As many times as the Quran speaks of prayer, it talks about ghaur-o-fikr (contemplation and reasoning), or simply put, deep thinking. Even a prayer without deep thinking is but an exercise in vain.

The CII has been conspicuous for lacking scholars with intellectual capacity. Either we make the CII subservient to parliament, as the former is sovereign and therefore not bound to follow the CII, or the quality of the ulema enjoying perks equivalent to senators is raised by employing them on merit and not simply because of their ties to political bigwigs. Though we could not come out clearheaded from the meeting on the role of the ulema in Islam, there was, however, an assurance in all of us that despite different interpretations of religion, it is anything but rigid or narrow-minded.

The writer is an Assistant Editor at Daily Times and can be reached at durdananajam1@gmail.com

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