In a Globe and Mail opinion piece published Thursday, Tarek Fatah examines the politics behind Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's crackdown on militants inside the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in Islamabad.
As Mr. Fatah writes, "Both Gen. Musharraf and the Americans who prop him up must realize that, to fight malaria, one needs to drain the swamps, not kill individual mosquitoes. The best way to fight Islamist radicalism in Pakistan is to ask the general to step down and organize democratic elections without the aid of fraudulent voter lists that deny exiled politicians a return to the country."
Mr. Fatah joined us online Friday to take your questions about Islamic radicalism, the doctrine of jihad, Pakistan and the global tide of extremism.
Your questions and Mr. Fatah's answers appear at the bottom of this page.
Tarek Fatah (Donald Weber /Globe & Mail)
Tarek Fatah is the author of Chasing a Mirage: The Islamic state or a state of Islam, to be published by John Wiley & Sons in 2008. He is the host of the weekly TV show The Muslim Chronicle on CTS-TV and is the founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress.
Mr. Fatah was born in Pakistan, where he became a left-wing student leader. Later a newspaper and TV reporter, he fled Pakistan in 1978 following a military coup and settled in Canada in 1987.
Mr. Fatah was an outspoken opponent of efforts to establish religious courts in Canada.
Sasha Nagy, globeandmail.com: Thanks for agreeing to answer questions on this topic. There are so many questions from readers, choosing the appropriate ones for you to answer could be difficult. There are so many agendas at play and strong points of view. How do you personally approach discussing the topic of jihad, given that is such a polarizing topic?
Tarek Fatah: Sasha. From my perspective, the discussion about Jehad is not about what the Quran or the Prophet Muhammad had to say baout it, but what do contemprary Islamic scholars of the Muslim Brotherhood or the Jamaat-e-Islami ask their followers to do. That is the area that needs to be addressed.
Cdn observer from Toronto writes: Dear Mr Fatah; Two years ago, RCMP described Punjab as the hotbed of terrorism in Pakistan. Now we know some of the 7/7 bombers, and most of the Mississauga gang accused of plotting terror, as well as the leaders of Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) are all from Punjab. Was the RCMP right?
Tarek Fatah: I don't think it was the RCMP that described the Punjab as a hitbet of terrorism, it was another government agency associated with Immigration Canada.
Having said that, most of the people involved in the Islamabad Red Mosque incident were not from the Punjab. The two brothers - the one who escaped dressed a woman in a burka and the one who died - came from the Mazari tribe of Baluchistan. The majority of the students in the mosque were from the Pushtun areas of Pakistan's NWFP province.
Punjabi Muslims have historically been associated with the more Sufi 'Brelvi' school of thought and the most respected saint of Punjabi Muslims is Bullay Shah who died in the late 1700s, and who is equally respected by Sikh as well as Hindu Punjabis.
Punjab was one of only two Indian regions (the other being Begal) that were not overwhelming Muslim or Hindu before the 1947 partitition. This lead to a culture of pluarlism and tolerance.
But that there is no denying that the influence if Jihadi radicals has started to penetrate the culture of Punjab and there is a diminishing of the province's Islamic pluralism.
Albin Forone from Toronto writes: My question is from where a radical jihadist takes marching orders. Some, like the Red Mosque group, seem to have primarily localized national objectives, while others, apparently inspired by Al Qaeda, seem to have global anti-Western ambitions. Is it simply a personal choice of which Imam an adherent decides to follow, or is there more to it?
Tarek Fatah: Most of the Islamic radicalism that you see today stems from from the empowering of Saudi based Jihadi groups that were funded and backed by the U.S. and the CIA throughout the Afghan war against the Soviet Union.
Most secualr and liberal institutions were detsroyed piece by piece and what we are left with is the result of huge amounts of cash and weapons in the hands of the Taliban type, or Al-Qaeda groups that get their intellectual sustenance from the political teachings of the Muslim Botherhood founder Hassan Al-Banna and the leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Abul ala Maudoodi, both of who preached Jehad as an obligation for all Muslims if they saw another Muslim under attack.
