Words should be understood in their correct context. The word Pakistan literally means ‘the land of the pure’, it was coined by Choudhary Rahmat Ali by taking alphabets from the names of different regions of the country (P from Punjab, A from Afghan province/NWFP, K from Kashmir, S from Sind, and tan from Baluchistan) but it has another more subtle meaning which comes from the Islamic ideologies (and the context in which it was coined) underpinning it. It is the way our forefathers understood this word. One can easily see which meaning we follow today. Unless we as a nation develop a deeper understanding of ‘Pakistan’ we will keep dragging this nation from one extreme to another and keep arguing about whose Pakistan this is, and we will keep embarrassing the souls of our forefathers.
The potential benefit of not confining ideologies to geographical boundaries, ethnicities, languages, and cultures is versatility i.e. the ideology can be applied universally. When I mentioned somewhere above that Pakistan can be used as a springboard for uniting the Ummah this is what I meant by it. So who knows! if we can sort out the way we think about Pakistan and sincerely work towards making it the platform our forefathers wanted it to be then one day we could be a force for uniting the Ummah, others could be joining us. Call it wishful thinking but that is exactly what ideologies are, wishful thinking until they are ultimately realized. Who would’ve thought that the Muslims of Arabia, a people considered so backwards that two imperialistic empires in their neighborhood wouldn’t even care to invade them, would one day defeat both of them at once? Who would’ve thought that Tariq Bin Ziyad would conquer Spain and Muslims would rule there for hundreds of years? Who would’ve thought that Pakistan will be born one day when Allama Iqbal gave the idea of a separate homeland during his presidential speech to Muslim League in 1930? And likewise no one might think of Pakistan the way I think about it, but that doesn’t make it impossible.
The person in this picture is like the one who says I am Pakistani first and Muslim second, or as some Pathans say I am Pathan first, Muslim second, and Pakistani third. This shows the confusion of our people regarding the concept of nationalism. The idea of Islamic Ummah is the only nationalism that we should work for, however, we don’t live in a utopian society. We can’t bring back the Khilafa/the feeling of an Ummah in an instance, it will need steps in the right direction, many steps. And the path will be made up of many curves, it will very rarely be straight. Khilafah is a building, Pakistan is a wall in that building. This wall is not perfect but it was started with near perfect intentions. So rather than bringing down the wall and then rebuilding it, it would be sensible to just make adjustments to it. We both have the same end in mind, our means seem to be different.
One of the best and most useful blogs I’ve read so far on the internet, and bro, I’ve read a lot of ’em.
So I take it then (dear Author) that you are in fact NOT “a Pakistani” but actually a “Khilafatian” ??? So just where is this country? Is it part of the UN, or the OIC or recognized by ANY ONE else in the world??? What a joke!
Very important article!
“nationalism means believing in a country with a flag, defined geographical boundaries, and only a particular set of people living in it with a particular set of languages and cultures”. That is exactly what nationalism should be. If what you are saying is true, then Iran, Iraq, Syria, UAE, Pakistan should be one country. It is not, and never will be. Assuming the whole world follows islam and implements sharia, even then, there would be as many countries as today if not more. There would be as many wars if not more, as much discord if not more.