Nationalising Mosques

Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

The last Friday we were in Karachi we expressed the desire to visit a famous mosque called Tooba in the Defence Area in Karachi. It is mentioned in the Wikipedia entry on Karachi and is supposed to have an architectural design that is worth viewing.

Our hosts conscious of our safety were quick to dissuade us, being a large mosque it was a potential target for would be bombers wishing to extract revenge or carry out a false flag operation depending on whose analysis you believe. Instead a mosque guarded by Rangers was chosen as our Friday prayer venue.

The Friday sermon in the masjid was preceded by the traditional lecture or wa’z, in it the imam was at pains to point out that the leaders of various Islamic parties in the country were at odds with each other but the problem arose with the people at lower ranks in the various parties who were much more hot headed and felt that causes of disagreement had to be resolved with war-war rather than jaw-jaw.

As we left the mosque after the Friday prayer we passed by a Salafist mosque on the main road in the hunt for a sweet shop. This reminded me of the prevalence of different types of mosques many within a stones-throw of each other. Each serving a particular type of worshipper with their own set of beliefs. Besides the Salafists, there are mosques for Tablighis, Brailwis, Jamat-e-Islamic to mention a few.

Worshippers will sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to avoid praying in a mosque that is manned by people whose ideas they do not agree with. The result of this self selecting behaviour is that every particular group is exposed to a limited set of views. While one group may assume it is correct and should avoid another group the very behaviour of avoidance disadvantages other people in other mosques as they are not exposed to ideas beyond their own perceived area of correctness. This results in concrete thinking from the point of view of the general population who only look at various issues in black and white terms. ‘You are either with us or against us’ sort of mentality.

One possible solution that comes to mind would be to nationalise all mosques in Pakistan. Each one should be taken over and run by the government at a financial and administrative level. As for controlling the opinions that are preached from the mimbar or pulpit these do not need to be policed but should be subject to a policy of random allocation. In other words every Friday the appointed pool of preachers should be allocated to give their Friday sermons at a randomly chosen mosque. Over a period of time this would result in the general population being exposed to many competing ideas. Given such a playing field it would allow the best ideas to come to the fore.

The attractiveness of the idea from a government perspective is that it is likely to reduce sectarianism and result in a general population that is more likely to group together on a moderate course. The attraction to the various preachers and groups is that it will give them an opportunity to reach across to new people in a manner that was previously not possible. A win-win solution. Allah knows best.

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