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Culture Vulture: My friend Yousaf

Shahid Nadeem

He still looked handsome and gentle behind his greying beard but he was not the same Yousaf. He was now alahazrat abual Hasnain Shaikh Yousaf Ali, author of many books on Islam, ex-advisor to the Saudi government, a favourite of Zia-ul-Haq and with a long line of followers

Yousaf Ali, the convicted blasphemer, is dead, sentenced by a sessions judge but executed by a Sipah-i-Sahaba activist.

I also knew a certain Yousaf Ali. He was my roommate at Government College Lahore's New Hostel. The scion of a jeweler's family, Yousaf was new to Lahore and visibly nervous. He was handsome like the proverbial Yousaf, simple like an average Paindu and innocent like a child - a perfect target for hostel bullies. I had been in the college for two years and had earned some nuisance value by then. He appeared so vulnerable, so afraid, that although the same age, I decided to take him under my wings. He would literally hide behind me when he faced a difficult situation. He would discuss his intimate thoughts, his family problems, his dreams, and his ambitions. He was not an exceptional student but was organized, dutiful and responsible. He was a truly gentle soul and could never think of hurting anyone.

His parents were also very simple and affectionate. They were proud of their son, who was the first in the family to go to Lahore for higher studies and enroll at the prestigious Government College Lahore. Yousaf said his prayers whenever he could, but was not particularly religious. He was an emotional person and took relationships seriously. Sometimes he would appear insecure. He would start crying over minor issues. I could never figure out the source of this insecurity: family relationships or something psychological. But there was obviously an emotional imbalance.
Although we were good friends and roommates, we started drifting apart by the second year. I was becoming more active in student affairs and writing, while Yousaf was planning a different career. He had decided to join the army. He had hardly any quality that might fit the military stereotype. He was delicate, sensitive and gentle, certainly not qualities that would be a plus point in the army. Probably it was the family pressure. But I always felt that Yousaf wanted to join the army to overcome those very feelings, of being weak, vulnerable, and inadequate. Perhaps he wanted to prove to the world, to himself, that he could also be tough and aggressive. I was present at his PMA passing out at Kakul. He looked so handsome in his second lieutenant's uniform, brimming with happiness at having successfully passed the ultimate test of manliness. It was time to get married. I was a wakeel at his nikah.

I thought Yousaf did not need a protector any more. He was now a part of the system. A system I had decided to challenge in my own naïvely idealistic way. Inevitably, we lost contact. Yousaf became a fond memory of the past. Then Zia-ul-Haq arrived at the scene and thus began a nightmare which has yet to end. The hitherto secular and Westernized Pakistan Army was infused with a fundamentalist ideology. Those were the years when Jehadi groups mushroomed under State patronage and the phenomenon of “soldier-saints” emerged. There were army men, in service and retired, who metamorphisised into holy men. On the other hand, social activists were thrown into prisons and exiled. After having gone through both, I returned to Pakistan in 1987, and was told that Yousaf had left the army and had become an eminent religious personage. I found it hard to believe because the Yousaf I knew had no such inclination or potential. But then I met him by chance. I could hardly recognize him. He still looked handsome and gentle behind his greying beard but he was not the same Yousaf. He was now alahazrat abual Hasnain Shaikh Yousaf Ali, author of many books on Islam, ex-advisor to the Saudi government, a favourite of Zia-ul-Haq and with a long line of followers. I could not even share the hostel jokes or college memories with him. He looked so unapproachable, sitting with a saintly smile on his high pedestal. We hardly talked, and never met again.

I read about Yousaf Kazab, the false prophet, in an Urdu newspaper. The man was supposed to have made “blasphemous” claims about the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and God, in his speeches and writings. For quite some time, I did not link this “evil” man with my friend Yousaf. Then a common friend disclosed that it was the same Yousaf. I wondered if the campaign against Yousaf Kazab was motivated by honest religious sentiments or by a desire to sell more hatred and hence more copies. But even if he was guilty as charged, did he deserve to be sentenced to death by a judge and then brutally killed by a convicted murderer (who is now being compared with Ghazi Ilam Din Shaheed). Could he not be ignored for his indiscretion and absurd claims or at the most referred to a psychologist? Why was he seen as such a big threat to the second biggest religion in the world? Did he kill, did he sell heroin, did he smuggle lethal weapons, did he terrorize society?

I wonder. Had Bulleh Shah lived in our times, what would be his fate? Could Sir Syed live his natural life today; would even Iqbal be spared by these people? I am reminded of Baba Tahir, a blasphemy accused, who was poisoned to death in the same Kot Lakhpat Jail; of poet Naimat Ahmar, accused of blasphemy by a rival and stabbed to death by a fanatic; of Manzoor Masih, gunned down in front of the Lahore High Court, before the blasphemy charge against him could be proved or otherwise, and the assassination of Justice Arif Iqbal Bhatti for passing an “undesirable” judgment in the Salamat Masih case. I think of the Gujranwala doctor, burnt to death by a frenzied mob for an unsubstantiated charge of burning a copy of the Holy Quran; of Bishop John Joseph who killed himself to protest the misuse of the Blasphemy Law; of Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan, who was dragged from one city to another for a blasphemy case filed by a disgruntled ex-employee; of Dr Younas Shaikh, currently facing death sentence for a charge of blasphemy filed by a student. And so on.

How many more victims do we need before our leaders wake up and stop fudging the issue? Isn't it terrorism of the worst kind? Can't we assess the serious damage such cases are doing to our image abroad and, more than that, to the freedom of religion and thought in our own society? Is it just a coincidence that the man who took Yousaf's life had also killed several Shias, and had perhaps fought for some lost cause in Afghanistan? If a dangerous convict can have access to a gun in a prison which is soon to receive Al-Qaida prisoners, then which place and which person is safe?
There are other questions that bother me. Was Yousaf Ali, my friend, and Yousaf Ali the “convicted blasphemer”, the same person? If so, how did a sweet, small-town lad become a “demon”? And what kind of a society are we where Yousaf was spotted and patronized by a military chief, served as advisor to the Saudi Arabian government, admired by thousands of believers, given his own columns in national newspapers, and then suddenly abandoned, demonized and eventually crucified? South Asian Islam has had a proud tradition of toleration, even embracing non-conformists: the dervishes, malangs, sufis, faqirs. Why are we hell-bent on destroying that many-splendoured rainbow of beliefs and religious expression?

Shahid Nadeem is a playwright and TV
producer of repute

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