Tahir-ul-Qadri and Doomsday Conspiracy

Originally Published on Pak Tea House.

Ok this comes in a little late as I was confused on 21st December about what to do. 

Curse Mayan calendar for wrongly scaring the whole world for nothing, watch the movie 2012 again and laugh or consider it alright as self-claimed “Sheikh-ul-Islam” Prof. Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri was “launched” in Pakistan on that day and in Nazir Naji’s words, after this incident we don’t need a separate doomsday.
Whole world almost gone crazy about probable occurrence of doomsday and did pre-emptive measures to counter the calamities and we Pakistanis, as always, welcomed the sugar coated calamity with arms wide open.

I personally don’t like to bother about ‘conspiracy theories’ but this matter is of slightly different nature. Mr. Qadri has been a controversial character ever-since he gained popularity back in early 90’s, first that dream, fake attack story, and then countless revelations that Sheikh-ul-Islam sb came up with time to time.

Here’s a small story that I read in Ashfaq Ahmed’s Zavia-1. It goes like once a saint was travelling with one of his followers and they saw a snake, badly hurt and about to die. Saint picked up the snake, fed him, kept in safe custody until that snake came back to life and first thing he did, was bit saint’s hand. Saint calmly took him off his hands and continued travelling. Follower inquired about the incident, saint replied ‘it’s his way of expressing gratitude, all snakes bite regardless of how you deal them’. Story ends here and many readers would recall the first political stunt of Qadri sb when he accused Mian Nawaz Sharif of attacking him and whole episode was found fake (court’s remarks in link). I don’t support any party’s political agenda here just that Mian Sharif was the one who gave Tahir-ul-Qadri wings to fly and his son was the first person whom Qadri sb chose for character assassination. It doesn’t mean I called Mian Sb a saint or Qadri sb a snake, these were mere characters of the story to make my point. He might return the favor in similar manner in days to come.

Tahir-ul-Qadri who went in self-exile and moved to Canada for “research” purposes is known to twist facts and manipulate his own statements as and when required. This video, that I found online, is testimonial of the fact. He has done a great damage to the religion Islam ever since he got audience. He might be welcomed by ‘secular’ circles within the country but a common man never want such ‘enlightened moderation’ that is achieved on cost of one’s own identity and ideology. 

Now comes the part of Qadri’s return and agenda. He runs an NPO namely ‘Minhaj-ul-Qura’n’ which has many donors worldwide and this institution provides both religious and worldly education to students. Pakistani’s witnessed massive TV campaign about Qadri’s return and message with posters and banners well placed in all the places in major cities. Now the question arises, who is supporting Qadri? Who sponsored his campaign and bearing all other expenses? The message that Qadri gave is not new. As mentioned by honorable Nazir Naji sb in his urdu column on 22nd December, this slogan, with different versions, has been used before as well. All our dictators chanted the same slogan and needles to say what they did to Pakistan, so will Qadri sb, if God-forbid, he comes to power. Also his version of Government is beyond debate.

Political parties like MQM formally and PTI informally ‘embracing’ Qadri’s version and columnists like Hassan Nisar praising Qadri as if he’s long-waited Imam-Mehdi, gives a hint that Sheikh-ul-Islam is being backed/launched by uncle-sam. In my humble opinion, he’s just a ‘guest-appearance’ for an ‘item number’ or two, just to give whole story a boost and enhance ‘marketability’.

All I, or common people like me, can do is keep our eyes open and pray to Almighty that none of our political leaders fall prey to Qadri’s attractive words and derail the system for worst.

May Almight save us and our beloved country for Qadri sb’s conspiracy is no smaller than that of doomsday conspiracy