Tyranny of the Majority
Article by Pakistani Professor (Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed, Professor of Political Science at the University of Stockholm, Sweden)
The Light (UK), April 2007 Issue (pp. 7–8)
There is an article in the Pakistan newspaper The News International, entitled The Age of Rights by Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed, Professor of Political Science at the University of Stockholm, Sweden. The link to this article on the paper’s website is: http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=45219 [Link no longer active]
(Unfortunately, it is impossible for us to give the date of publication because the above webpage merely displays the current date.) The learned Professor writes:
“It is, however, important to emphasise that democracy without human rights of individuals and cultural rights of minorities being safeguarded can only mean majority rule and majority decisions. This can easily become the tyranny of a brute majority.
Unfortunately Pakistani democracy has had the tendency of becoming majoritarian tyranny. Was it not the popularly-elected Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who used his parliamentary majority to have the Ahmadiyya community declared non-Muslims? Now, I am not saying that Sunnis and Shias must accept the claims of the Ahmadis that they are Muslims. Ironically, Ahmadis also do not consider those other than them proper Muslims.
Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, a leading Ahmadi, did not participate in the funeral prayers of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, even when the latter had appointed him as Pakistan’s foreign minister. So, I hold no brief for any sects accepting each other as good Muslims. It is quite all right for each sect to believe that it alone represents the true message of Islam but such a conviction should be kept out of politics. My point is that a democracy has no business to connect the religious beliefs of its citizens to their political rights.”
The declaration of Ahmadis as non-Muslims by Mr Bhutto’s National Assembly (parliament) in 1974 was not a case of an elected majority party overruling the minority opposition. It was a case of the majority secular party deciding to follow the minority religious parties who had fomented riots against Ahmadis all over the country in support of their demand to have them declared non-Muslim. Seeing the apparent mass popularity of the opposition’s demands, Mr Bhutto sought to capture that appeal for himself by accepting them, so that he could claim the glory of this great achievement.
It was a case of tyranny by religious leaders who are able to mobilise their followers to come out on the streets and intimidate the rest of the population. The rulers, as well as the educated and enlightened sections of the country, were too afraid to resist the demands of the religious fanatics, and to expose these demands as being contrary to Islam and detrimental to harmony between Muslim sects in the country. Until the rulers and the intelligentsia discharge their duty of educating the people in matters where they are wrong, instead of courting popularity by encouraging ignorance and prejudice, there will be no hope for any improvement.
As to the Professor’s comments that
“Ahmadis also do not consider those other than them proper Muslims”
and that Sir Zafrullah Khan did not join the funeral prayers for Mr Jinnah, these actions do not reflect the beliefs and practice of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement. On the question of “proper” Muslims, we believe that being a “proper” or “true” Muslim is an ideal to be aimed for, but which all Muslims, whether Ahmadis or not, fall short of. It is impossible for any human to determine who is a proper and true Muslim; only God can determine that. The only issue to be determined by Muslims is: who should we treat as a Muslim in our dealings in this world? The only issue to be determined by Muslim state authorities is: who should be treated as Muslim for the purposes of the law of the land?
The answer provided by Islam, and fully accepted and promoted by the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement, is that any person who proclaims his faith by the Kalima Shahadat, or any person who prays facing the Qibla in Makka, is a Muslim. Towards such a person we must fulfil all the obligations and duties that Islam requires of a Muslim towards a fellow Muslim. And that person, must, of course, fulfil the same in return towards us. With the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement this is not simply a statement made in words. Our Movement came into existence in 1914 to uphold this doctrine when it was being rejected and undermined by a section within the original Ahmadiyya Movement, the section to which Sir Zafrullah Khan belonged. The Lahore Ahmadis have staunchly supported this great principle of Islam and defended it by producing some of the most authoritative writings ever in the history of Islam on this issue. They stood and argued against the Qadiani Jamaat stance which taught that Ahmadis must not hold funeral prayers for any deceased who is not an Ahmadi because all such persons are outside the fold of Islam.
In 1914 Maulana Muhammad Ali was well settled in Qadian and heavily involved in the literary, missionary and community work of the Movement since 1900. Yet he gave up everything for the sake of fighting for this principle. He wrote:
“I have an urge in my heart that compels me to speak out even if I have to accept all manner of tribulation. Calling the followers of the Qibla as being kafir [non-Muslim] is the crime which Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad bitterly accused his opponent Maulvis of committing. But alas! Today we ourselves are doing what we accused others of. I shudder at the thought of calling those who recite the Kalima, ‘There is no God but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah’, as being kafirs and excluded from the fold of Islam. … I am prepared to face whatever consequences I may have to bear, and I pray to Allah to give me the strength to be steadfast upon the truth and grant me patience in adversity.” (Paigham Sulh, 19 March 1914).