Academics From Pakistan

"India is using troops in Kashmir. They are losing the battle of heart and minds. It's like treating cancer with dispirin."

"No matter what I do I could never become an English man. If you paint stripes on a donkey, that doesn’t make it a zebra."

"If anyone from Pakistan goes to India to fight jihad...he will be the first to do an injustice to Kashmiris, he will be the enemy of Kashmiris."

"It (standing by Kashmiris) is jihad. We are doing it because we want Allah to be happy with us, it is a struggle and do not lose heart when the time is not good. Do not be disappointed as the Kashmiris are looking towards you, would win if the stood by their side."

"If a woman is wearing very few clothes it will have an impact on the man unless they are robots. It’s common sense."

"What is happening in Afghanistan now, they have broken the shackles of slavery.... When you adopt someone’s culture you believe it to be superior and you end up becoming a slave to it. You take over the other culture and become psychologically subservient. When that happens, please remember, it is worse than actual slavery. It is harder to throw off the chains of cultural enslavement."

"What a time I have come – so much excitement.…"

"Today, we should understand what happened in East Pakistan and the atrocities committed. The party there which won a majority and should have been Prime Minister, was denied their right. We lost half the country. We cannot imagine the damage done to the country. Because people make decisions behind closed doors, a handful of people that don't know how the rest of the world is operating, make decisions."

"Let me talk about climate change; I have seen a lot of leaders talk about this. But I don’t see world leaders really realizing the urgency of the situation. We have a lot of ideas; but as they say, ideas without funding is mere hallucination. Pakistan is among the top 10 nations in the world affected by climate change. We depend on or rivers, we are mainly an agricultural country. 80 percent of our water comes from the glaciers and these are melting at an alarming pace. We detected 5000 glacier lakes in our mountains. If nothing is done, we fear humans are facing a huge catastrophe. In , a province of Pakistan, we planted a billion trees in 5 years. Now we are targeting 10 billion trees. But one country can not do anything. This has to be a combined effort of the world. My optimism comes from the fact that the Almighty has given humans great powers. We can do great things. And this is where I want the United Nations to take the lead in invoking this will. Rich countries who contribute the most to green house gas emissions must be held accountable."

"In my country, when I took charge of our government a year back, in the 10 years preceding that our total debt went up 4 times. As a result; the total revenue we collect in one year, half of it went into debt servicing. How will we spend on our 220 million population when our money was plundered by the ruling elite? And when we located properties of these corrupt leaders in western capitals, we find it so difficult to retrieve it. If we retrieve the plundered money, we could spend it on human development. But there are laws protecting these criminals. We don’t have the money to hire lawyers worth millions of dollars. The rich countries must show political will; they can not allow this flight of capital from poor countries through corruption. How can poor countries meet the United Nations SDG’s when money for human development can easily leave our countries? There must be a deterrent; the corrupt ruling elite must not be allowed to take money out and park it in tax havens. Why is it legal to have tax havens where you have these secret accounts? The world is changing; if the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, there will be a crisis soon. It will lead to a major crisis. The world bank, the IMF, the Asian developing bank must find a way to stop this plunder."

"There are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world. Muslims living across all continents. Islamophobia has grown since 9/11 and it is alarming. It is creating divisions. Muslim women wearing Hijab has become a problem. It is seen as a weapon. A woman can take off her clothes in some countries but she can not put more on? And why has this happened? Because certain western leaders equated Islam with terrorism. What is radical Islam? There is only ONE Islam and that is the Islam of Prophet (PBUH). Why is there Islamophobia? How will an average American differentiate between a moderate Muslim and a radical Muslim? This has nothing to do with our religion. We have faced Islamophobia while travelling abroad; and in European countries it is marginalising Muslim communities. And marginalisation creates room for and leads to radicalisation. My point here is that we must address this. Post 9/11, war against “radical Islam” started, rather than Muslim leaders trying to explain to the West that there is no such thing as radical Islam. There are radical fringes in every society, but the basis of ALL religion is compassion and justice. Unfortunately the Muslim leaders were unable explain. We failed as the Muslim world to explain that there is no such thing as radical Islam. In Pakistan; we were the eye of the storm and our government coined a term “enlightened moderation.”"

"About Suicide attacks; because the 9/11 bombers did suicide attacks, all sorts of theories came out like those about virgins in heaven. This bizarre thing happened where suicide attacks were equated with Islam. No one bothered researching the Tamil Tigers and the Japanese Kamikaze bombers. No one blamed religion when they carried out suicide attacks and rightly so because no religion teaches violence."

"One of the reasons for Islamophobia; in 1989 this book was published maligning, ridiculing our Prophet (PBUH). The west could not understand what was the problem. They don’t look at religion the way that we do. And so; in their eyes Islam was an intolerant religion. It became a watershed. And every 2-3 years someone would malign our Prophet (PBUH), Muslims would react, and the west would term them intolerant. I blame some people in the West who provoked Muslims. But this is where majority of the Muslim leaders let the Muslim community down. Our Prophet (PBUH) was the witness to our Divine book, the Holy Quran. The Prophet (PBUH) is the ideal we want to live up to. He created the state of Medina which was a welfare state. I hear such strange things about Islam that it is against women and minorities. The state of Medina was the first that took responsibility of women; the widows, the poor. State announced all humans were equal; whatever the colour of their skin. The Prophet (PBUH) announced that one of the greatest deeds is to free a slave. But if you have to; treat them as an equal member of the family. And as a result, the unprecedented happened, slaves became kings, and slave dynasties were formed."

"In Islam, it was a sacred duty to protect places of worship of all religions. It was announced that all human beings were equal. The 4th caliph of Medina lost a court case against a Jewish citizen. No one was above the law. When a Muslim community is unjust to a Minority, it is going against the teachings of our religion. Our Prophet (PBUH) lives in our heart, and when he is maligned, it hurts us. I always imagined what I would say and educate the world about Islam if I ever stood on this forum. In western society, the holocaust is treated with sensitivity because it hurts the Jewish community. So that’s the same respect we ask for; do not hurt our sentiments by maligning our Holy Prophet (PBUH). That is all we ask."

"Now I want to move on to talk about Kashmir. When we came into power; my first priority was that Pakistan would be that country that would try its best to bring peace. Joining the war on terror, Pakistan went through one of its worst periods. We lost 70,000 people to the war, 150 billion dollar to our economy. We joined the war against the Soviets in the 1980’s. Pakistan trained the then “Mujahedeen” at the behest of the Americans. The Soviets called them terrorists, the Americans called them freedom fighters, then. Soviets left, US packed up. Come 9/11, now that we had to join the US and tell the same indoctrinated people this is now not a “freedom struggle” but “terrorism”. They suddenly saw us as collaborators; it became a nightmare and they turned against us. 70,000 Pakistanis lost their lives, due to a war Pakistan had nothing to do with. No Pakistani was involved in 9/11. So when we came into power; we decided to disband all militant groups. And this was a decision taken by all political parties. I know that India keeps saying we have militant organisations but I invite UN observers to come and see for themselves. Secondly we started mending fences. We engaged with Afghanistan, Iran."

"And then India; let me tell you my relationship with India. Because of cricket, which is followed with great passion in the subcontinent, I have great friends in India. I’ve always loved going to India. So my first move was to reach out to Modi and I said let’s work our differences, leave our past behind and our main priority should be our people as we have similar problems; poverty and climate change. Highest number of people reside in subcontinent. On zero response from India; we thought we should wait till the Indian elections since BJP is a nationalist party. Meanwhile, a Kashmiri boy radicalized by Indian forces blew himself up on an Indian convoy. Immediately India blamed Pakistan. I told India to give us any proof and we’d act. We had actual proofs of Indian intervention in some terrorist attacks in our Balochistan province. We even caught their spy Kulbhushan Yadav who admitted to crimes. Instead of sharing proofs of any Pakistani’s alleged involvement in Pulwama attack, they tried to bomb us. We retaliated. We captured their pilot; but returned him the next day because we did not want the situation to escalate."

"I have to explain what the RSS is. Mr Modi is a “life member” of RSS. An organisation inspired by Hitler and Mussolini. They believed in racial superiority the same way that the Nazi’s believed in the supremacy of the Aryan race. This Is open knowledge. RSS believes in the racial superiority of Hindus. It was hatred for the Muslims and Christians. They believe that the golden age of Hinduism halted because of Muslim rule. They openly stated hatred for Muslims and Christians. This is all open knowledge. You can all just google the founding fathers of the RSS like Golwalkar. This ideology of hate murdered Mahatma Gandhi. The hate ideology allowed RSS goons under Modi’s CM ship in Gujarat to butcher 2000 Muslims. The Congress party gave a statement that terrorists were being trained in RSS Camps. Modi was not allowed to travel to the US. What kind of a mindset locks up 8 million people? Women, children, sick people. What I know of the west, they wouldn’t stand for 8 million animals to be locked up. These are humans. Arrogance has blinded PM Modi and BJP. This racial superiority; what does he think is going to happen when he lifts the curfew? You think Kashmiris will accept a new status quo under revocation of Article 370. 100,000 Kashmiris killed, thousands of women raped. UN reported on this. But the world did nothing & sees India as a huge market. Materialism has trumped humanity."

"What will happen when the curfew is lifted? Modi says this is done for the prosperity of Kashmir. But what will happen when 8 million Kashmiris come out of a lockdown and face 900,000 troops? I fear there will be a bloodbath. The way Kashmiris are caged like animals in homes. Their political leadership arrested, even pro India ones. 13,000 boys picked up & taken to unknown locations. Youngsters blinded with pellets. This will only lead to further radicalisation. We fear another Pulwama incident. And for that, India will again blame Pakistan. Indian FM says Pakistan has 500 terrorists waiting on the border. What will 500 terrorists do against 0.9 million troops? They just want an excuse, the catchword & mantra of Islamic terrorism. The phrase Islamic terrorism allows India to dismiss human rights and further increase cruelty on the people of Kashmir. Why would we ever want to disrupt peace? But it’s because there is no other narrative left for India. There will be another Pulwama incident because of their own cruelty in Kashmir, they will blame us and try to bomb us again."

"Supposing a country 7 times smaller than its neighbour; faced with a question. Either you surrender, or you fight till the end. I ask myself this question. And my belief is ‘La ilaha illAllah’, there is no God but one. We will FIGHT! I am not threatening here about a nuclear war; it is a worry. It is a test for the United Nations. You are the one who said Kashmir right to self determination. This is not the time for appeasement like that in 1939 in Munich. This is the time when you, the United Nations, must urge India to lift the curfew; to free the 13,000 Kashmiris who have disappeared meanwhile and this is the time when the UN must insist on Kashmir’s right to self determination!"

"It [jihad call] was unbecoming of the office he holds. Pakistan not behaving as a neighbour should. This open call for jihad is not normal behaviour. [...] He [Imran Khan] used provocative and irresponsible statements in UNGA too. I think he does not know how to conduct international relationships. The most serious thing is he gave an open call for jihad against India which is not normal."

"Our country's healthcare spending is less than one per cent of GDP, even though the WHO recommends 6pc. And only 4pc of Pakistani children receive a 'minimally acceptable diet'. These poor healthcare and standards expose the flaws of the prime minister's reasoning that our youthful demography will protect us against the worst of the pandemic; malnourishment can hardly boost immunity."

"The question is whether aggressive battle is by itself commendable or not. If it is, why should the Muslims stop simply because territorial expansion in these days is regarded as bad? And if it is not commendable, but deplorable, why did Islam not stop it in the past? … Aggressive Jihad is lawful even today for the purpose it was lawful in those days."

"None of them was able to compose even a few sentences to match the Qurānic verses. Just think that they were a people who according to ‘Allāmah Jurjāni, could never resist ridiculing the idea in their poetry if they heard that there was someone at the other end of the globe who prided himself on his eloquence and rhetorical speech. It is unthinkable that they could keep quiet even after such repeated challenges and dare not come forward… They had left no stone unturned for persecuting the Prophet. They tortured him, called him insane, sorcerer, poet and sooth-sayer, but failed utterly in composing even a few sentences like the Qurānic verses."

"Since wealth is the property of God, humanity does not have autonomy in this ownership but through the specific path He has instituted in the Islamic Shari‘ah."

"Nothing destroys one’s respect in the hearts of others more than greed."

"[elements of explicit modernity are engulfing] the whole world in the tornado of nudity and obscenity, and has provided an excuse for fornication, and more so it has led under thunder claps to the passage of a bill in the British House of Commons to legalize homosexuality. It is in the shadow of the same modernity that Western women are openly displaying banners on the streets demanding legalization of abortion."

"Now, the “rope” or means from Allah refers to the case of those whom Allah Himself has, through His own commandment, saved from this disgrace - for example, children, women, or those who are totally devoted to prayer and worship and never go to war against Muslims. The “rope” or means from men refers to a treaty of peace with the Muslims, or a permission to live in a Muslim country on payment of the Jizyah (the tax levied on non-Muslims living in a Muslim country, which exonerates them from military service etc.) Since the Holy Qur'an uses the expression “from men” and not “from Muslims”, a third situation is also possible - the Jews may make political arrangements with other non-Muslims, live under their backing and protection, and thus be in “peace”. ... Thus, Verse 3:112 helps to elucidate Verse 2:61, and also dispels the doubt which sometimes arises in the minds of the Muslims at the sight of the so-called “Israeli state” imposed on Palestine. For, they find it difficult to reconcile the two things - the Holy Qur'an seems to indicate that the Jews will never have a sovereign state, while they have actually usurped Palestine and set up a state of their own. But if we go beyond the appearances, we can easily see that “Israel” is not an independent sovereign state, but only a stronghold of the Western powers which they have established in the midst of Muslim countries in order to protect their own interests; without the backing of these super-powers the Jewish “state” cannot survive for a month, and the Western powers themselves look upon the Israelis as their henchmen. The “Israeli state” has been living, as the Holy Qur'an says, “through a rope from men,” and, even at that, living as a parasite on the Western powers. So, there is no real occasion to have a misgiving about what the Holy Qur'an has said on the subject. Moreover, the half of Palestine which the Jews have usurped and the parasite state they have set up there is no more than a spot on the map of the world. As against this, we have vast expanses of the globe covered by Christian states, by Muslim states, and even by the states of people who do not believe in Allah at all. Can this tiny blot on the map and that too under the American-British umbrella, negate the disgrace which Allah has made to settle upon the Jews?"

"The Israelites were thus being ungrateful and impertinent. Even otherwise, it was so usual with them not only to transgress divine commandments but also to deny them outright. They had also been slaying a number of prophets at different times - they knew they were committing a misdeed, but their hostility to the truth and their stubbornness in disobedience made them blind to the nature of their conduct and its consequences. Through such persistent and wilful misdemeanour they drew upon themselves the wrath of Allah. Disgrace and degradation settled upon them for ever. That is to say, they no longer had any respect in the eyes of others, nor magnanimity in themselves. One form of this disgrace is that temporal power has been taken away from them for ever. For only forty days, however, - and that too when the Day of Judgment will have come close - the Dajjal (Anti-Christ) belonging to the Jewish race, will have an irregular dominion like that of a robber. This cannot be described as having temporal power, in the proper sense of the term. Allah had made it quite clear to the Jews through Sayyidna Musa (Moses) that if they continued to be disobedient, they would always have to live under the domination of other nations. Says the Holy Qur'an: “And when your Lord proclaimed He would send forth against them, unto the Day of Resurrection, those who should visit them with evil chastisement.” (7:167) As to how the Companions, their successors and the great commentators have interpreted the disgrace and degradation which has settled on the Jews, let us present a summary in the words of Ibn Kathir: “No matter how wealthy they grow, they will always be despised by other people; whoever gets hold of them will humiliate them, and attach to them the emblems of servitude.” The commentator Dahhak Ibn Muzahim reports from the blessed Companion 'Abdullah Ibn 'Abbas that the Jews will always remain under the domination of others, will be paying taxes and tributes to them - that is to say, they will themselves never have power and authority in the real sense of the term. Another verse of the Holy Qur'an also speaks of the disgrace of the Jews, but with some addition: “And disgrace has been stamped over them wherever they are found, unless (saved) through a rope from Allah and through a rope from men.” (3:112)"

"Moving among dead bodies These dead cried out to the dead: Dervishes, go on sleeping! There is no morning tomorrow."

"So my answer to why I wrote this book [about Pakistani textbooks] is: I have written for posterity. (Sometimes I feel that I have written all my books for the generations whom I will not see). In a hundred years' time; when the future historian sets out to contemplate the Pakistan off an age gone by and look for the causes that brought it low, he might find in this book of mine one small candle whose quivering flame will light his path."

"I am hoping that potential recruits from the diaspora of Pakistani youth will realize they are being taken for a ride by the Islamists and are nothing more than gun fodder for the supremacist cults that use Islam as a political tool to further its goals. I hope Pakistanis and their children realize that they are victims of what one of Pakistan’s leading historians, Professor K.K. Aziz, called The Murder of History. In his book by that name, he reveals that for fifty years Pakistanis have been fed myths disguised as truths."

"The message is clear and loud. The fortunes of the persons who rule the country and the contents of the textbooks run in tandem. When Ayub Khan was in power in 1969 and the Urdu book was published it was right and proper that the bulk of it should be in praise of him. When, in 1970, he was no longer on the scene and this English translation was published it was meet that the book should ignore him. All the books published during Zia's years of power followed this practice. The conclusion is inescapable: the students arc not taught contemporary history but an anthology of tributes to current rulers. The authors are not scholars or writers but courtiers."

"Secondly, the student is trained to accept historical mis-statements on the authority of the book. If education is a pre- paration for adult life, he learns first to accept without question, and later to make his own contribution to the creation of historical fallacies, and still later to perpetuate what he has learnt. In this way, ignorant authors are leading innocent students to hysterical conclusions. The process of the writers' mind provides excellent material for a manual on logical fallacies. Thirdly, the student is told nothing about the relationship between evidence and truth. The truth is what the book ordains and the teacher repeats. No source is cited. No proof is offered. No argument is presented. The authors play a dangerous game of winks and nods and faints and gestures with evidence. The art is taught well through precept and example. The student grows into a young man eager to deal in assumptions but inapt in handling inquiries. Those who become historians produce narratives patterned on the textbooks on which they were brought up. Fourthly, the student is compelled to face a galling situation in his later years when he comes to realize that what he had learnt at school and college was not the truth. Imagine a graduate of one of our best colleges at the start of his studies in history in a university in Europe. Every lecture he attends and every book he reads drive him mad with exasperation, anger and frustration. He makes several grim discoveries. Most of the "facts", interpretations and theories on which he had been fostered in Pakistan now turn out to have been a fata morgana, an extravaganza of fantasies and reveries, myths and visions, whims and utopias, chimeras and fantasies."

"Here I may add an interesting footnote to the sociological history of modern Muslim India and Pakistan. Almost every Muslim of any importance claimed, and still claims today, in his autobiography reminiscences, memoirs, journal and bio data, that his ancestors had come from Yemen, Hejaz,* Central Asia, Iran, Ghazni,† or some other foreign territory. In most cases, this is a false claim for its arithmetic reduces the hordes of local converts (to Islam) to an insignifi cant number. Actually, it is an aftermath and confi rmation of Afghan and Mughal exclusiveness. It is also a declaration of disaffi liation from the soil on which the shammers have lived for centuries, and to which in all probability, they have belonged since history began. If all the Siddiquis, Qureshis, Faruqis,‡ ... have foreign origins and their forefathers accompanied the invading armies, or followed them, what happens to the solemn averment that Islam spread peacefully in India? Are we expected to believe that local converts, whose number must have been formidable, were all nincompoops and the wretched of the earth—incapable over long centuries of producing any leaders, thinkers, or scholars?”"

"What I have written will bring no change to our textbooks or to the education system which produces them. Few will read this book. Fewer will remember it after reading it. Our own little stubborn world will go on as it has been going on for 45 years."

"The Orientalists and their indefatigable intellectual curiosity, scholarship, and translations had incalculable consequences for the development of art, philosophy, and politics in Europe, an influence passionately chronicled by Raymond Schwab in The Oriental Renaissance. Orientalists changed forever the intellectual and spiritual landscape of Europe, and allowed artists, writers, and composers to enter imaginatively and sympathetically into civilizations hitherto unfamiliar to Westerners, to accord the Orient dignity and respect, and to people European works with Orientals, seen as equals. It was in this intellectual and spiritual milieu that Mozart created some of his most sublime music. Perhaps Die Zauberflote, Il Seraglio, and cantata K.619 can be seen as reflections in art of Orientalist research."

"All the atrocities commited by the Pakistani army clearly shows that it was nothing but a religious war. When I read the Koran and compare the actions of the Pakistani army I find an absolute link between the killings and the provisions in the Koran. To the Pakistani military, the Bengalis were not true followers of Islam, but hypocrites. So they wanted to get rid of these nonbelievers (the Bengalis) as per the provision in the Koran and hadith. The whole world knows the truth. The truth is that the genocide in Bangladesh was conducted by the Islmic army of Pakistan to save Islam and to completely annihilate the unbelievers."

"A few weeks later, an opportunity came for me to ask one of these Islamists as to what would happen to them since they had committed the sin of Zina (illicit sex/adultery). He was very surprised at me for this impertinence. He told me that they had committed no sin. What? No sin! My brain must have failed to work! I simply could not hold my breath any longer to listen to what he had to say. He told me that Thais were not Muslims, so having fun with their girls was all right. In fact, he told me that that had been the practice in Islam for centuries. Whenever the Muslims defeated the non-Muslims, they could do whatever they wanted with non-Muslims. The Muslims could use the non-Muslim women as sex slaves and please themselves as they wished. A Muslim even had the right to kill the women if he wished. In simple language, the non-Muslims were not really human beings. They were inferior even to cattle and animals. Moreover, the Pakistani told me that the Prophet had allowed sex if a man was living overseas. I could not believe what I was hearing! He then quoted from memory many verses from the Koran and Hadith to support his views."

"Then came the topic of creation of Bangladesh. Naturally, they sided with the Pakistani Islamic army, although they expressed sorrow for the lives lost. When they heard that 3 million people were massacred and that the action of the Pakistani Islamic army could not be dismissed simply as an act of restoration of peace and order, they simply laughed. The reason was that they did not believe what had happened to our people in the occupied Bangladesh. When we asked them how many Bengalis were killed, they quoted a figure of three thousand. They also insisted that those killed were mostly Hindus, so we should not bother too much about the massacre. That was to say that the killing of Hindus was all right. We pointed out that the figure of 3 million was not invented by the government of Bangladesh but the figure was from reliable foreign sources such as the Agence France Presse, Reuters, and Time magazine. We also told them that a Pakistani journalist by the name of Anthony Mascarenhas has written a book titled The Rape of Bangladesh,' where he had quoted a similar figure. The Pakistanis simply dismissed those facts and said that the foreign journalists were bribed by India to write these figures. When we asked them how did they get the figure of three thousand, they said that that figure was released by the military authorities. And what about the two hundred thousand rape cases? They were adamant that not a single woman was raped. Such is the power of Pakistani Islamic oligarchy and Pakistani Islamic military to condition peoples' minds..."

"I started to question the necessity of religion in our lives and the inhuman and illogical practices in many religions, including Islam. You might wonder what triggered my distaste for religion. It all started in my school days when I witnessed the slaughter of a dear Hindu friend of mine (along with his entire family) in Chandpur, Bangladesh. I can never erase that memory from my mind. That was a devastating experience. But more shocking was that many Muslims were actually happy about that slaughter and even went further, supporting the idea that we (Muslims) should kill more Hindus because the Muslims in India are being slaughtered, too. It was also declared by some Muslim clerics that killing of non- Muslims is an act of jihad and therefore anyone participating in jihad will be rewarded with heaven. At that tender age I knew very little of Islam and nothing about other religions. However, the little conscience inside me told me that what was being done and what was being practiced were not right. However, I had little power to change the course of events. I personally visited the house of my slain friend and found that all the members of his family, including his parents, brothers, and sisters, were killed by axes and swords. I saw pools of blood in their kitchen and bathroom, where they hid to save their lives. The incident happened in the dead of night and no one came to help them. When I went back to my school, I was extremely ashamed in front of my Hindu friends. I was speechless and could say nothing. I feared that my Hindu friends might one day attack me. To my great surprise I found that my Hindu friends did not really bother very much and treated me as usual."

"Why I am Not A Muslim is not a book of fantasy - or of veiled attack - like Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. It is a deeply felt intellectual tour de force by a great Muslim scholar whose heart bleeds for the fate of his fellow Muslims, and whose thirst for knowledge has led him on a path of incomparable research and study. Because of the well-known (and widely feared) Muslim proclivity to violence the book had to be brought out by an American humanist publisher rather than any of the major publishing houses. It is doubtful that there exists another work on the subject as scholarly, as detailed or as comprehensive, not to say as courageous. Looking at the scene in India, the writings of Hamid Dalwai and A.B. Shah have set many people thinking about the nature of Islam. If Ibn Warraq's book were to be made widely available in India, it may serve to open the eyes of the people further."

"Ibn Warraq's book will either be ignored with deadly thoroughness or cause an enormous riot."

"Ibn Warraq is the pen-name of the author whose parents emigrated from India to Pakistan as a result of the Partition. He was brought up in Pakistan, which was supposed to be an Islamic Republic. His experience revealed to him that the Muslims of India had been cheated in the name of Islam and its projected principles of equality, free will and democracy. As he grew up, he noticed that Islam had become an effective tool of convenient morality and achieving political goals; a religious or secular leader could prove anything from the Koran and Hadith to suit his purpose, yet every faithful believes that there is no contradiction in the verses of the Koran!"

"Ibn Warraq's book is so inspiring and so full of brilliant ideas and hard facts as well, that the reviewer never stops wanting to mention further chapters."

"His work will one day be seen as the moral and intellectual breakthrough that led to the Islamic Aufklarung."

"Why I am Not a Muslim does have a mocking quality, to be sure, but it is also a serious and thought-provoking book. It calls not for a wall of silence, much less a Rushdie-like fatwa on the author's life, but for an equally compelling response from a believing Muslim."

"When Warraq speaks of science, he allows that it is in this domain that "we come at last to the true greatness of Islamic civilization" ... But Warraq argues that it was despite Islam that Islamic science developed."

"Perhaps the writer who has best identified the problems within the Muslim world is the philosopher Ibn Warraq, of Pakistani origin, author of Why I Am Not a Muslim. That this courageous man writes under a pseudonym shows that even in the West he does not feel safe."

"As early as the thirteenth century, thinkers like Nur-ud Din Mubarak Ghaznavi, working at the court of Sultan Iltutmish [ruled 1211-1236] set the aggressive tone of Islamic presence in India. Nur-ud Din elaborated the doctrine of Din Panahi [protection of religion], by which Islam had to be defended from the defiling Hindus who were idolaters who must be kept in their place, and insulted, disgraced, dishonoured and defamed. Ziauddin Barani [Diyā al-Dīn Baranī: 1285-1357] who was an Indian jurist, historian, political thinker, writer, and a companion of Sultan Muhammad b. Tughluq [1309 –1388], wrote a Fürstenspiegel, a Mirror of Princes, akin to Machiavelli’s The Prince, the Fatāwā-yi Djahāndārī, in order to educate the de facto rulers of the day, the sultans, in their duty towards Islam in an age of corruption. Barani advises sultans to enforce the sharī‘a, to curb unorthodoxy ( especially speculative philosophy, falsafa), to degrade the infidel, who must be treated harshly. The Sultans must fight like the Prophet until all people affirm that “there is no God but Allah.” It is the duty of Muslim rulers to overthrow infidelity, uproot it completely, and apply the Holy Law, the Sharia on all. Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309 – 1388), the Turkic Muslim who reigned over the Sultanate of Delhi (1351-1388) carried on the intolerant tradition of the early invaders, and believed that by extirpating Hinduism wherever possible he served God."

"David Margoliouth warned us not to be too credulous about the authenticity of so-called pre-Islamic poetry. Two of his principal arguments were the probity, or rather the lack of probity, of the earliest compilers and editors of pre-Islamic poetry, and the fact that many putative pre-Islamic poems contained words, phrases, and religious concepts derived from the Koran, even though the authors had died long before the Koran can have been said to exist."