The time has come for the people of Pakistan to realize that they are now engaged in a historic struggle for the mission of their leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, to reach its second stage.
Jinnah achieved a political miracle in the successful creation of Pakistan, and India’s Modi, who has declared his solidarity with Israel, is obsessed with a dream that he can somehow dismantle Pakistan. One day, Russia will realize this.
The second stage of Jinnah’s mission requires a struggle to restore freedom for Pakistan to travel on a political, economic and religious road that conforms with absolute truth in the Qur’ān.
The political road to freedom must commence with Pakistan establishing the same relations with Orthodox Christian Russia, that it now has with China. While Turkey and Saudi Arabia are neither here nor there, Iran has already forged such relations with Russia. It will be long road to political freedom after that, but Iran is already showing the way to political freedom, and Pakistan will thus have company on that road.
The economic road to freedom must commence with an effort to restore such monetary integrity as would arrest the descent to economic slavery. Pakistan will also have to wage a struggle to escape from the venomous grip of Ribā or usury. Politicians, and economists trained in the West, have little or no knowledge of these subjects, so we will have to teach them.
The religious road to freedom requires an articulation and implementation of religious policy that would build such fraternal relations between Muslim Pakistan and peoples of other faiths as would create a common front against the decadent secular godlessness now pervading the West, and encourage and assist all who worship the one God to live lives of religious integrity.
It is not the Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Armed forces and his military establishment who will decide whether or not Pakistan will now struggle to achieve that second stage of Jinnah’s struggle for freedom for Muslims; rather it is the people of Pakistan, – Muslim, Hindu, Christian, and others, who will decide on a common struggle for freedom.
The dye is now cast, and Pakistan has reached the crossroads. Victory in this struggle will open the way for the fulfillment of the prophecy of Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) that an unstoppable Muslim army will march to Jerusalem. The Holy Land would then be liberated from despicable oppression, and every Jew, Christian or Hindu who now condemns that oppression, would be welcomed to join in the struggle for freedom from oppression.
It was not possible for Jinnah to achieve Pakistan, at his time in history, other than through a constitutional struggle; and he waged that constitutional struggle as the consummate scholar of law.
But the struggle for the second stage of his mission has to be waged at a different stage in the movement of history when Britain is no longer the imperial power. It is Iran which has forged the way forward with a successful struggle of peaceful resistance against oppressors who deny freedom. Even if a million must die for freedom, that sacrifice must be made the Iranian way.
We cannot end without recognizing that Imran Khan, a cricketer who played cricket as a lion, is now waging a political struggle as a lion. This is the first time in Pakistan’s history that such a leader has emerged who has recognized the need to struggle for freedom.
Our hearts beat in unison with the people of Pakistan, – Muslim, Hindu, Christian and others, – Sunni, Shia and others, who are now joining hands, fraternally so, in the historic march to freedom.
May this struggle never stop until freedom is achieved. Ameen!
Imran N. Hosein (who was educated in Pakistan).