Maria Zulfiqar Khan's Illegal and unconstitutional raid

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

It is a tragedy that seemingly reasonable young women in the media have taken to acting like vigilantes. I do not wish to comment on what compulsions there exist for these women to resort to such behavior, but I will comment on the patent illegality of TV Vigilantes.

First of all these actions of TV Vigilantes violate Article 14 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Privacy of a private premises is inviolable under the constitution as well as under Islam.  The Supreme Court of Pakistan had struck down on the Hasba Bill on the grounds that it violated human dignity, liberty and privacy. In what is a landmark judgment on privacy rights,  the Supreme Court ruled that an Islamic state has no mandate in infringing personal space, liberty and privacy. Maria Zulfiqar Khan not only violated the privacy of what was a private premises but enlisted the help of the state i.e. police officials in doing so.

Ehteram-e-Ramadan Ordinance is unIslamic and unconstitutional

COMMENT: There is no compulsion in religion —Yasser Latif Hamdani

A thousand years before the age of enlightenment and before the idea of religious toleration took root in the west, the Holy Quran said, “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256).

It is often forgotten, when we speak of Islam, that Islam’s approach was reformist. For example, the punishment for stoning to death for adultery existed long before Islam but Islam set the bar for evidence so high that it became virtually impossible for anyone to be stoned for adultery. For slavery, Islam created obligations on slave owners in terms of treatment of slaves and encouraged slaves to be mandatorily freed on the flimsiest excuse. Similarly, Islam strictly regulated the prevalent practice of polygamy by limiting it and further setting a standard for equal treatment that is hard to achieve.

Now our mullahs have forsaken substance and adopted form. Whereas Islam sought to civilise a tribal society, our mullahs’ take is to tribalise all civilisation. Where Islam sought to regulate polygamy and eradicate its social evil, our mullahs’ take is that marrying more than once is a necessary part of faith — ironically a Mormon idea. Whereas Islam humanised and rationalised existing customs and tribal traditions such as rajm (stoning) by introducing strict proof, our mullahs want to de-humanise all laws and while Islam spoke of equality of all mankind and religious freedom at a time when these concepts were unheard of, our mullahs want to end equality and religious freedom in the information age.

The closest precedent for Ehteram-e-Ramzan Ordinance comes not from Islam but from Christian fundamentalists in the Midwest who had enacted the ‘Blue Laws’ that forbade selling of non-essentials on Sunday out of respect for the Christian Sabbath