KARACHI: The eight-day standoff between the government and militants led by the maverick cleric Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi finally ended on July 10 after Ghazi was shot dead in crossfire during an operation against his followers holed up in the Lal Masjid complex in the capital.
The foundation of this historic mosque in Sector G-6/4, in the heart of the city, was laid by Maulana Abdullah, the father of the militant cleric, way back in 1965. In the 1970s, Maulana Abdullah, who was affiliated with the Deoband school of thought, had close relations with the Jamiatul-Ulema-Islam (JUI) led by Maulana Mufti Mehmood, the father of the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly and JUI chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman.
During the Anti-Zulfikar Ali Bhutto agitation, he played a very important role by mobilising the masses and had to face the wrath of the government. The dismissal of the Bhutto government in 1977 changed the fortunes of Maulana Abdullah, and Gen Ziaul Haq developed a close rapport with the cleric owing to his fierce opposition to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. During the regime of Gen Zia, Maulana Abdullah was able to increase his influence banking on the support of the Zia regime.
During this period he was able to establish Jamia Fareedia in Sector E-7, the city’s prime sector, and enrolled thousands of orphaned and poor students to this Madrassa. The seminary received considerable support and assistance in the shape of funds from the Arab sheikhdoms as at that time the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan necessitated the need for producing a diehard brand of militants who were prepared to lay down their lives to foil the influence of communism in the region.
It is interesting to note that Maulana Abdullah used to criticise the government on various occasions in order to dispel the impression that he was close to Gen Zia. In the mid-1980s the country witnessed the rise of the militant Sipah-i-Sahaba, Pakistan, led by Maulana Jhangvi, and Maulana Abdullah, with his staunch Deobandi roots, extended his wholehearted support to the sectarian outfit.
Maulana Abdullah was endowed with great qualities of oratory and his Friday sermons used to attract thousands of the faithful at Lal Masjid. During the mid-1980s Maulana Abdullah directed his tirade against the Shias and launched a well-calculated campaign to undermine what he believed to be their increasing influence in the country. He was of the opinion that Iran was patronising Shias in the country. His anti-Shia campaign caused lot of embarrassment for the government as it fanned sectarian hatred in the country. He also became the prime target of hard-line Shia groups who threatened him with dire consequences if he continued his campaign.
In 1988, when the government of Benazir Bhutto came to power, Maulana Abdullah bitterly criticised the role of women in politics and termed it un-Islamic. It is interesting to note that when Maulana Fazlur Rehman joined hands with the Benazir government Maulana Abdullah parted ways with him and labelled him as a “Sarkari Mulla”.
In the mid-1990s, he laid the foundation of the Jamia Hafsa seminary for women near Lal Masjid. Philanthropists and various social circles extended financial assistance to the newly established women’s seminary and within no time it became the country’s prime women’s Madrassa.
In 1998, Maulana Abdullah was assassinated in the compound of the Lal Masjid, causing a severe backlash. At this juncture his eldest son, Maulana Abdul Aziz, prevailed upon his followers to exercise restraint and thus avoided a sectarian clash in the city.
Maulana Abdullah belonged to Rajanpur district of the Punjab and left behind two sons and two daughters. His eldest son Maulana Abdul Aziz was considered to be a soft-spoken person who had devoted his whole life to the teachings of Islam at the Madrassa Jamia Fareedia. His second son, Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, was a liberal person who always differed with his father’s conservative style. Despite Maulana Abdullah’s best efforts to indoctrinate Maulana Rashid along religious lines the younger son refused to accept his father’s commands.
Abdul Rashid Ghazi refused to enroll himself in Jamia Fareedia and did his graduation and masters from the Quaid-i-Azam University.
He used to wear Western dress and was against the concept of women wearing a veil. He was married in a well-off family of Murree and his wife was an educated woman who used to drive a car. Moreover, he refused to be called Maulana and developed serious differences with his father and brother over this issue.
The violent death of his father Maulana Abdullah brought a revolution in the life of Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi and left indelible imprints on his personality. All of a sudden the Westernised Rashid became a hardline cleric vowing to impose a strict interpretation of Sharia on the lines of the Taliban.
Rashid Ghazi was employed in the Ministry of Education as a Grade-17 officer and was later deputed to Unicef. After the death of his father he quit his government job and began to take interest in the affairs of the mosque and Jamia Fareedia.
His brother, Maulana Abdul Aziz, was a staunch supporter of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and dreamt of imposing a similar interpretation of Islam in the country.
The vigilante activities of the past six months, including an attempt to clamp down on vice in the capital and the kidnapping of women and policemen, were a reflection of that mindset. The traumatic developments of 9/11 brought the two brothers in direct confrontation with the government as they viewed the government’s anti-Taliban stance as a U-turn and a sell-out to the US.
The crisis came to a boiling point when the brothers issued a controversial Fatwa in 2004 in which they declared that Pakistan Army soldiers who died fighting against the tribal militants (who they termed Mujahideen) were not martyrs. This Fatwa set the brothers on the path of direct confrontation with the government and sowed the seeds for the final showdown.
