Jamhooria Islamia, a monthly Baluchi magazine published from Panj-gar, published an interview in its 1999 February issue with Maulana Nawabzadaa Nabiullah Khan, a confidant of and adviser to Maulana Qazi Ahmed—the Amir of the leading Pakistani Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami. The interview was conducted by Jalil Amir. The following constitutes are excerpts from that conversation which reveals the fundamentalist ideology and designs of the organization and its leader.

EQUALITY OF MEN AND WOMEN IS STUPIDITY

Q: The women issue is very controversial nowadays. Taliban and some fundamentalist organizations restrict the freedom of women while some progressive Muslim intellectuals are insisting that the women are equal to men in all spheres. What are Qazi's views on women?

A: As I said earlier, the Prophet Mohammad's (PBUH) views on women are the exact views of Qazi Ahmed and the Jamat. Equality of men and women is stupidity. What men can do, women cannot do. Women are weak physically and mentally compared to men. Men have to take care of women all the time.

WOMEN MUST STAY HOME

Women should not have a life outside the family. Education can be provided to them, but not to compete with men in public.

NO VOTING RIGHTS FOR WOMEN UNDER SHARIA

Qazi had said once that when JI comes to power in Pakistan, he will abolish the voting rights of women and minorities. Only the Muslim men can participate in voting or standing for elections. When I asked the proof from Hadiths, he had quoted many Hadiths in support of that. I asked him why is it that it is never talked about openly in the public by the Jamaat? Qazi had said that the hints are all over the place. But JI did not make it a big issue since the women who currently have the voting rights may vote against JI in the elections if such a thing is said openly.

NON MUSLIMS IN MUSLIM COUNTRIES MUST PAY JIZYA

Q: That brings us to the question of minorities. Will they have to pay Jizya tax?

A: Yes. They have to pay the tax. As explained by Qazi Ahmed , the idea of Jizya is not protection money. But it is a monetary force on the non-Muslim to convert to Islam. Once the Jamaat comes to power, the minorities will be induced (forced) to become Muslims either by monetary or psychological factors.

ALL INDIAN HINDUS WILL BE CONVERTED INTO ISLAM

JI is already equating India with Hindus so that the Hindus of Pakistan will be forced to become Muslims. This was a very successful strategy during the Babri Masjid riots. JI was actively involved in destroying the Hindu temples in Punjab and Sindh. We ordered the destruction of the Hindu family property too. But our main aim was to destroy the Hindu temples. We wrote in the JI pamphlets that destroying each pagan temple makes a Muslim move closer to the heaven of Allah. We used the Hadiths in all the pamphlets. Babar destroyed the Ram temple in Ayodhya because he was a true believer. The same way, every Muslim should take it upon himself to destroy the Hindu temples in Pakistan. O! ur idea was to encourage the Muslims of India also to destroy the Hindu temples in India. But this was not met with much success since the Hindu police in India started attacking the Muslims who were doing Allah's duty.

Q: What kind of government does JI envisage for Pakistan?

A: It will be the Sharia government. Sharia will be made our constitution so that the eminent Muslim scholars who had completed the schooling in Madrasas will be appointed as the Judges in every court. Qazi wanted to make the presidium on the same model as the Khalifa. Presently our idea is that the entire top leadership of JI as well as all three military Generals will be part of the presidium for which the Qazi will be the Khalifa.

OUR MOTTO IS CONSTANT JIHAD

Our motto is "Constant Jihad". The idea is to keep Pakistan in a constant state of Jihad all the time. Qazi's vision is that Pakistan will be! the centre of the new Islamic Empire that stretches from Burma to Afghanistan and from Srilanka to Tajikistan including Kashmir

Towards that end, the Jamaat will use all tactics from terrorism in the kafir-controlled areas to negotiations in the Muslim controlled areas. Already the Jamaat leaders of Bangladesh and Jamaat leaders of India have accepted the primacy of Pakistani leadership in this regard.

SRI LANKA AND BURMA WILL BE PRESSURIZED TO CONVERT TO ISLAM

Q: What about Srilanka and Burma?

A: Both are Buddhist nations. For that matter even Baluchistan and Afghanistan were Buddhist once while Sindh and Punjab were Hindu earlier. Buddhists are generally weaker in matters of faith. Hence we hope they will become Muslim with a little pressure. But that will happen only after Jamaat conquers first Pakistan and then India.

Q: What are the plans for India? It looks like the entire India policy of the Jamaat revolves around Kashmir.

A: Yes that is true. But that is for a very good reason. See Kashmir is like a keystone that sits on top of the arch. It is true that the arch holds the entire weight of the keystone. But if you remove the keystone, then the whole arch falls down. That is why it is called the keystone. Kashmir is the keystone for India. Once you remove that, then India can no longer be secular and it will not be a united country either. Once Kashmir is taken out, these militancy movements will break India by asking the similar freedom for Nagaland, Kerala, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, Assam, Jharkand, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Khalistan.

INDIA WILL BE MADE A 100% MUSLIM NATION

Q: Coming back to the same point, if India was to become many countries, how do you deal with the individual Hindu States? They may even become big enemies of Pakistan. Or they may again re-group to challenge Pakistan.

A: Given the differences between the nationalities in India, the options for Pakistan are endless. Qazi's vision is to make the entire India a 100% Muslim Nation. A United India, where Hindus are majority is an impediment to that. Like Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) made Muslims out of pagans of Arabia, Qazi also wants to make Muslims out of the pagans of India.

Q: This is a great vision since this was not even possible for the Muslim dynasties and Moguls who ruled India for the last 700 years.

A: True. That is because they had never really established the Muslim Empire. Though the Kings were Muslims, they had entertained the Hindus in positions of power. When you make an unequivocal statement that only Muslims are voters and declare that India is an Islamic Republic, then automatically the people will become Muslims. Little bit of terror had to be applied to the heart of Hindus and Christians. I will give you a best example. The portions which now constitute Pakistan had 25% Hindu population before Independence.

TERRORIZATION IS THE BEST CONVERSION TOOL

After Independence, a lot of Hindus migrated to India. Yet after the migration, the Pakistani Hindu population was 15%. Do you know what is the percentage now? It is less than 1%. How was this made possible? How did the Hindus convert to Islam in a short span of 20 years whereas for 700 years they had never converted to Islam? That is purely because of the terror of the Partition.

That terror forced the Hindus who remained in Pakistan to become Muslims. Pure and simple. JI used similar techniques in Punjab and Sindh. Each time a riot breaks out in India, we had used that pretext to strike terror among the Hindus, Christians and Ahmaddiahs. The similar terror will be at the heart of every non-Muslim, both Hindu as well as Christian, in the coming years in the entire of India. PRPOHET SUCCEEDED WITH TERROR SO CAN WE Qazi is an analytical genius who knows every strategy that was used by Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and which will be and should be used in India to achieve the total submission to Allah.

Q: Do you envision a possibility that when Kashmir becomes part of Pakistan, there could be large-scale riots in India against Indian Muslims? Hence unwittingly Kashmir could lead to more deaths of Indian Muslims and damage Islamic Ummah.

ANY MUSLIM ASSOCIATING WITH A POLYTHEIST BECOMES A POLYTHEIST

A: Yes that is a possibility. But our ideology is based on Quran and Hadiths. Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in numerous Hadiths and Allah in Quran had said that any Muslim who associates with a polytheist is a polytheist. Muslims cannot be friendly with a non-Muslim. This includes the Christians, Jews and Hindus. Also Mohammad (PBUH) says that even if the Muslim ruler is not good, the Muslims stay with the ruler rather than go out to a non-Muslim country. Hadiths and Quran are very explicit regarding this. All the Muslims who did not migrate to Pakistan during Partition are in essence Hindus. They may think that they are Muslims. But not before Allah.

They are as self-deluded as the Ahmaddiahs who think they are Muslims when everyone knows that they are not Muslims. Hence the Muslims of India who had decided to stay in India during Partition are not Muslims and their progeny are not Muslim (since they did not migrate to Muslim lands).

Another thing that I noticed in my journeys in India is that the Hindu farmers generally offer their entire harvest to their gods at the end of their harvesting season. This makes the entire crop as haram for Muslims. Yet these so-called Muslims of India are forced to eat this food which was already offered to some other God other than Allah. This is explicitly forbidden in Quran.

MUSLIMS GOING TO NON MUSLIM COUNTRIES TO SETTLE DOWN ARE KAFIRS

And this is one of the serious problems of living in non-Muslim countries. Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) knew such things; that is why he ordered Muslims not to live in non-Muslim areas. Yet knowingly these so-called Muslims live in India. AGAIN ALL THE MUSLIMS WHO MIGRATE TO OTHER NON MUSLIM COUNTRIES AND US ARE NON MUSLIMS . Only the Muslims who intend to come back are Muslims not the ones who decide to stay in such countries. Hence we do not care if such Indian Muslims die in the riots.

But due to strategy reasons we do have excellent relations with these Muslims. All the Muslims who work for Pakistan and for the glory of Ummah are real Muslims. They are our front line troops in non-Muslim countries. Hence we have to distribute the arms and ammunitions to these real Muslims in case riots come to their door.

The Kashmiri Muslims are pure Muslims who are toiling under the yoke of Hindu rule. They are victimized by the international conspiracy to keep them under the Hindu rule. That issue is part of the incomplete Partition, whereas the Indian Muslims have accepted Partition and stayed on in India knowingly.

JAMAT WILL BRING SLAVERY BACK TO PAKISTAN Arabians own slaves. Though Allah says that the slaves should be treated in a nice manner, he did not advocate the abolition of slavery. If slavery is bad as considered in today's world, Allah certainly would have said that slavery is wrong. Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) also said that the slaves should be treated in a good manner and the slaves should be released often. But if there is no slavery, how can anyone release slaves? Hence the re-introduction of slavery in Pakistan is one of the future plans of the Jamaat.

ALL CAPTURED HINDUS WILL BE MADE SLAVES

All the captured Hindu Indians and Srilankans will be made slaves to work for Pakistani Muslims. Every God-abiding Pakistani Muslim will get slaves once we conquer India. All the slaves who embrace Islam will be set free. Slavery is Islamic. Jamaat is the only political party, which does not voice any opposition to the slavery in Pakistan. We went around all over Arabia. We were surprised to know that there are some Hindus in Yemen. These ancient Yemeni Hindus are not Indians. In my opinion, these Hindus are traders from India in the ancient times. I was also surprised to know that they have a Shiva temple in Yemen. Qazi was very unhappy over this. When he talked to the Yemen leaders, he broached this subject. But the Yemeni leaders refused Qazi's suggestion of forced conversion of these people to Islam. I don't know why they refused. I think it may be due to the large population of Hindus from India who work in Yemen and Arabia. He disliked the current leadership of Arabia for this reason.

In his opinion, Arabia should not allow any non-Muslim into the holy lands of Arabia. Arabia should be 100% pure. A large number of Hindus in Arabia is corrupting the Arabians. Though they live as contractors, they have the potential to corrupt the minds of the Arabians.

HINDU TEMPLES POLLUTE MUSLIM LANDS

One such thing is the presence of Arabians in the Qatar Hindu temple. First the king allowed the Hindus to build a temple and church in the holy lands, thereby polluting the Holy Land. Second is that even a member of the Royal family visited that temple to inaugurate that temple. To the horror of Qazi, he had learnt that one of the powerful members of the Qatar Royal family is a devotee of a god called Aayappan. This news resolved Qazi to fight the force of the devil thousand fold.

Q: Such things happen in Pakistan today. I mean a friend of mine goes to a Hindu temple. Another friend goes to church meetings.

A: Yes. One of Qazi's relatives wanted to become a Hindu. He did not have a child for many years and it seems he had prayed to a Hindu God and got the child. Hence he felt thankful to that god and wanted to become a Hindu. Qazi got to know of this and called him and threatened him with dire consequences. That relative did not become a Hindu. But that incident made Qazi read more about apostasy.

PUNISHMENT FOR APOSTASY IS DEATH

Quran and Hadith clearly say the punishment for abandonment of Islam is death. Since Sharia is not the law in Pakistan, and the current Pakistani Constitution grants the right to change religion, it is legally correct to declare oneself as Hindu or Christian. But once the JI takes over the government, it will make Sharia as the Constitution. Then Pakistan will also legally execute any person who leaves Islam and joins Ahmaddiah, Christianity or Hinduism the same way Iran and Taliban treats its apostates. He also opined that the presence of the Hindu temples in Pakistan is the root cause of the problem and hence we want to destroy all the Hindu temples and Churches in Pakistan.

Q: This brings us into another area. Right now the Internet is becoming widespread. Even Saudi Arabia is connected with the outside world. Destroying the temples may be good, but how can we insulate the Pakistani and Muslim people against the corrupting knowledge totally?

A: JI had taken a principled stand on the matter of science and religion. Religion is far superior to science.

ALL THE WORLD�S KNOWLEDGE IS IN QURAN AND HADITHS

Whatever man needs to know is in the Quran and Hadiths. Knowing more will create problems like the Atom bomb and Television.

MUSIC TV AND PHOTOGRAPHY ARE SATANIC AND HARAM Quran and Hadiths are explicit in denouncing pictures. Yet the lure of Satan in the form of photography and television is eating our lives.

Music previously was confined only to the vocal singing. Now science and technology made the music widespread at a cheaper price. These are the lures of Satan. We have to be on guard against these harami things.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ARE BAD FOR CIVILIZATION

Hence, more science and technology is bad for the civilization. I had completed civil engineering. Hence I am privy to scientific knowledge. I can tell you how corrupting that is. It even makes you question the glorious Quran.

EARTH IS FLAT There are many Hadiths, which say that the earth is flat. But any science will tell you the earth is a sphere. But you can use the same science like the relativity theory to prove that the earth is flat. It is the same case with evolution. But the point being that doubt is sown in the minds of the people on the validity of the Quran as the word of God. More and more we work hard to prove the Quran's scientific correctness, more and more people will get apprehensive of the truth of the Quran. This is an abomination.

WHEN ISLAM TALKS OF GET EDUCATED IT MEANS QURANIC EDUCATION

This is why when we talk of education, we talk of religious education and not scientific education.

It is true that science grew after the Prophet's revolution in Arabia. That was the start of science. Now each and every science is filled with anti-god stuff. If you want to become a doctor, you have to read evolution. If you have to read any engineering, you have to believe in the billions of years old universe theory which effectively says that human beings came to the world only just one or two million years back.

Q: But we still need the arms and knowledge of the Western world, which believes in science. And again you had referred to television as evil. If we abolish photography how can we have passports or identification cards?

A: Yes. That is strategic. With the help of Allah, we will be given oil for them to run their cars and we will have arms in that place. We will use their arms to destroy them in the course of time.

PHOTOGRAPHY WILL BE BANNED UNDER JI

As far as photos are concerned, they will be banned as it was done in Afghanistan under Taliban. If there is no need for people to go out of Pakistan, where is the need for the passports? For those who have to travel to other countries like the leaders of the revolution, they only will be given the passport with photos. For that, we will allow limited photography licensed only to the government. And the biggest corruption in today's Pakistan is Indian satellite TV and Indian cinemas and Indian songs. We have to abolish these too.

ARABIC WILL BE MADE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF PAKISTAN

Q: Currently we have a lot of opposition from Mohajirs regarding reservations. What kind of reservation policy will the JI will have in Pakistan?

A: We approach that problem as the problem of language. Urdu-speaking Muslims and Sindhi-speaking Muslims are fighting now. We plan to abolish all the regional languages like Pashto, Sindhi, Baluchi, Urdu, Punjabi and Brahvi. We want all the people of Pakistan to speak Arabic which is our divine language. This will make everyone equal before everyone else and there would not be any need for language or region based reservations. We also hope that this will make the Quran and Hadiths easier to understand and will make the people follow the Quran and Hadiths to the letter.
 

Q: There could be language riots. One such language riot resulted in Bangladesh.

A: Bangladesh was not a result of language riot. The very idea that they are Muslims will bring the Bangladeshis to Arabic. We already fund heavily the Arabic language courses all over India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. From Morocco to Iraq speaks in Arabic, I don't see any reason why from Morocco to Burma we will not bring Arabic to the people. Even Bangladesh will start speaking in Arabic. That time there won't be any Bangladesh where the country name itself has the name of the language. Yes. Right now our aim is just for reunification without touching on the language issue of Bengali. JI of Bangladesh is working towards this aim.

Q: The secular journalists of Pakistan oppose the JI. For example the Dawn and News are very critical of the JI. How do you see their role in the future?

A: Ardheshir Cowasjee is able to work only because of the present Constitution of Pakistan. When Sharia becomes the Constitution, he cannot even approach the court, as he is a kafir. We see secular journalists as our main enemy in the current struggle to reach power. These secular journalists are digging our statements we made during the pre-Independence days and trying to beat us. Of course we opposed the creation of Pakistan during the British times. But that was a different Jamaat. Our history starts with Independence.

SECULARS ARE KAFIRS

Secular journalists are not Muslims even though some of them are carrying Muslim names. Let them come to us and let us ask questions on the Quran and Hadiths. We will prove each and every thing we say is from Quran and Hadiths. Let them prove what we say as wrong from the Quranic angle. Then we will accept them. But they cannot. They cannot match us in any debate concerning the Quran and Hadiths. We can comprehensively prove that they are indeed non-Muslims.! They are like Quadianis who say that the Muslim need not take up Jihad as an obligation. That is pure nonsense.

Q: Thanks for your time.

A: May Allah's blessings be with you.