Murder in the Name of Allah — Page 45
Prophets and Troopers good. Secondly, even if those intentions are good, the opposition parties cannot be condemned out of hand. It is inconceivable that every member of the opposition is cruel, unjust or evil, while every member of 'God's troopers' is pious, God-fearing and free from greed and lust. The fact is that parties which start the work of reform with high-flying claims are the ones which soon become greedy for power, their good intentions burned up by the flames of greed. The Maulana himself explains how uncontrollable is the desire for power:. As everyone knows, power is such a dangerous demon that the very desire of it is accompanied by an all-consuming greed. Man eagerly looks forward to owning earthly treasures and controlling his fellow creatures so that he may exercise absolute power over them. 18. One problem in uttering such uncontrolled rhetoric is that even an experienced journalist like Maududi forgets the inherent contradictions within his writings. If the very thought of power can bring a dangerous change of heart, what guarantee is there that the 'upright' members of the. Jamaati Islami would not be corrupted by absolute power? No doubt these 'upright' men have undergone the 'civil service training' prescribed by God, i. e. Islamic worship (prayers, fasting and zakat), but this 'service training' is not restricted to the Jamaati Islami. Ahmadi worship is not accepted as Islamic worship, according to Maulana Maududi, but what about Brelvi and Deobandi worship? Is Shiite worship not Islamic worship? Would anyone say that the prayers offered by Ahli Quran are non-Islamic? If so, why should not these Muslim sects 'rise against governments based on false principles, seize power, remove the wrongdoers and establish a government based on sound and just administration?' 'False', 'wrongdoers', 'sound' and 'just' are relative terms. What is false according to the Jamaati Islami may not be false according to the. Deobandis. What is sound and just according to the Deobandis may not be sound and just for the Brelvis. Then, what about non-Muslims? They, too, have their own views about what is right and wrong. If their views were no different from those of Muslims, they would have queued to join. Islam. Would they also have had a right to overthrow the government of the day?. Good intentions or reform projects cannot become an excuse to overthrow governments. There are such vast differences in the definition of 'uprightness' between different political parties that if all these differences were accepted, no party could be considered 'upright'. For instance, according to the Maulana, the Ahmadiyyah Movement has no connection with Islam; the British government created it to divide the 45