As inescapable Talibanization of entire Pakistan occurs at a rapid pace, umpteen times have the so-called progressive Muslim intellectuals expressed their nostalgia in recent times as to how the Taliban are destroying the dreams of Pakistan’s founding fathers, Allama Muhammad Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jinnah et al., who had ‘allegedly’ dreamt of an all-inclusive secular state.

For example, to show Jinnah’s dream for truly secular Pakistan, these intellectuals, adept at cherry-picking, would invariably quote him:

“You will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.”

With due respect to their sincere concern that Pakistan is poised to regress into middle-age barbarism with rapid Talibanization (a trend expanding globally), I must point out that these so-called progressive, liberal Muslim intellectuals—who are either half-educated or blatantly dishonest—are of little help in the battle against obscurantist Islamists. When the helm of progressive intellectualism of a nation lies in their hands, it can only regress into where Pakistan is headed.

When Muslim societies face mortal dangers from the violent and regressive Islamists globally, what we need is a thoroughly knowledgeable and ruthlessly honest progressive intelligentsia, if we at all hope for deliverance from this menace. Dishonesty and lies never serve any noble cause, neither is ignorance of any help. We may probably learn from the book of the Taliban, who have an Islamic agenda solidly grounded on the Quran and Sunnah (prophetic traditions) and they are resolutely honest and unequivocal about it. And their success amongst the intended audience is glaringly visible.

The above quote, showing Jinnah’s purportedly secular ideals, was made in a speech on 11 August 1947 after the creation of Pakistan was formalized and Jinnah was elected President of independent Pakistan. It was obviously intended for consumption of the internationals community, whose recognition, support and aid was now a necessity for him. Jinnah’s secularism must, instead, be read in his statements and actions in the course of his campaign for creating Pakistan.

Concerning the intended polity of the Pakistani state, listening to Jinnah’s mentor Muhammad Iqbal’s ‘Presidential Speech’ at the All India Muslim League Meet at Allahabad in 1930, the linchpin of the Pakistan movement, would be helpful. The crux of the speech was the incompatibility of Islamic ideals with secular democracy: Iqbal feared that Islam in united secular India would become a personal creed divorced from political power—an abomination existing in the secular West. He said,

“The proposition that religion is a private individual experience is not surprising at the lips of a European…The nature of the Prophet’s religious experience, as disclosed in the Quran, is, however, totally different.”

He, thereafter, went on to expound the problems Muslim society of India was facing:

“Religious ideal of Islam is, therefore, organically related to the social order which it has created. The rejection of the one will eventually involve the rejection of the other. Therefore, the construction of a polity on national lines (i.e. united secular India), if it means a displacement of the Islamic solidarity, is simply unthinkable to a Muslim. It is a matter which at the present moment concerns the Muslims of India.”

Iqbal followed up by floating the ‘Two Nation Theory’:

“I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sindh and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state.”

Iqbal strengthened this campaign of a separate Muslim homeland until his death (1938), and passed it onto Jinnah, who galvanized its realization creating Pakistan in 1947 at the immense cost in human life and sufferings.

Moreover, “Pakistan” means “land of the pure”. In Islam, non-Muslims are filthy, impure (Quran 9:28). So the name “Pakistan” was carefully chosen to make it exclusively an abode of a pure people, Muslims—completely disconnected from the filthy non-Muslims. And Jinnah’s tool to create this pure, organically Islamic, state was “Jihad” or holy war: he tried to emulate Prophet Muhammad’s model of Jihad that he had applied to create the first Islamic State in Arabia by slaughter, expulsion, enslavement and forced conversion of the infidels en masse.

The Direct Action rally in Calcutta on 16 August 1946, which inaugurated Jinnah’s campaign for creating Pakistan, was a “Jihad”. The date chosen was the 18th day of Ramadan, coinciding with the day of the Prophet’s stunning victory at the epoch-making war of Badr. Secret pamphlets, circulated amongst Muslims (also read out in mosque sermons) by the Muslim League Party of Jinnah, read:

"Muslims must remember that it was in Ramzam that the Quran was revealed. It was in Ramzan that the permission for Jehad was granted. It was in Ramzam that the battle of Badr, the first open conflict between Islam and Heathenism [i.e., idolatry, which equates Hinduism] was fought and won by 313 Muslims; and again it was in Ramzan that 10,000 under the Holy Prophet conquered Mecca and established the kingdom of Heaven and the commonwealth of Islam in Arabia. Muslim League is fortunate that it is starting its action in this holy month.

By the grace of God, we are ten cores [100 millions] in India but through our bad luck we have become slaves of the Hindus and the British. We are starting a Jehad in Your Name in this very month of Ramzan. Pray make us strong in body and mind—give Your helping hand in all out actions—make us victorious over the Kafers [i.e. enemy of Allah, e.g. Hindus]—enable us to establish the Kingdom of Islam in India and make proper sacrifices for this Jehad—by the grace of God may we build up in India the greatest Islamic kingdom in the world."

Muslims in their Direct Action Jihad at Calcutta unleashed—with the connivance of the police directed by the Muslim League government in power—brutal massacre, pillage, plunder, rape and arson of the Hindus and Sikhs. After suffering one-and-a-half days of brutal savagery, the Hindus and Sikhs hit back, outnumbering Muslim the rioters and paying back in like manners. Five days of continued violence racked up some 5,000 dead-bodies with some 43% Muslim casualties in Calcutta, where Muslims constituted one-third of the population.

The Direct Action also ignited, over following months, violence, often of much greater horror and atrocity, in Muslim-dominated parts of India (except the Bihar riot after the Calcutta and Noakhali riots), which later became Pakistan. The purpose was to cleanse those areas of Hindus, Sikhs and other non-Muslims, either by mass-slaughter, expulsion, forced conversion, and even enslavement through abductions. In Noakhali riots (Oct. 1946), 95% of the estimated 400,000 Hindus were converted to Islam on the pain of death.

While Muslims continued incessant butchery of the infidels in one part or another, Hindus and Sikhs, when realized that the creation of Pakistan was inevitable, initiated a counterattack in early August 1947 on the backdrop of continued and recently intensified violence against their coreligionists in today’s Pakistan.

The Jihad that Jinnah ignited succeeded in achieving its intended goal, the creation of Pakistan, albeit at the cost of up to two million lives (roughly equal on both sides). Hindus and Sikhs—likely a few million—were forcibly converted to Islam, and tens of thousand of predominantly Hindu and Sikh women were raped and a similar number were enslaved through abduction and married to Muslim thugs. Some twenty million people were forced to cross borders leaving their homes and belongings behind.

While Jinnah’s Jihad campaign to create a pure land for Muslims, devoid of the filthy infidels, achieved tremendous success, the job remained unfinished because of the dogged refusal of Hindus and Sikhs to leave their ancestral homes or convert to Islam. The purification of Pakistan, to be achieved sooner and later, continued and is nearly done. Hindu population in today’s Pakistan has fallen to less than a percent from some 10% in 1947. Some 11 million Hindus have been driven out from Bangladesh alone after 1947, reducing the Hindu population from 25-30% to some 10% today.

Obviously, what the Taliban, fast engulfing Pakistan, is going to bring to this nation is the completion of Iqbal’s and Jinnah’s dream, to make it a “pure land” for Muslims, where Islamic law would be the heart of its polity.

Much has been said of Jinnah’s lack of Islamic credentials: like, he was secular and hardly a Muslim, who loved pork and alcohol etc. It may be true. He may have even wanted a truly secular state, but that dream lied only in his heart. The common Muslims, who soldiered his mission with utmost barbarity, directed by his Muslim League Party, heard only what Iqbal and Jinnah spelled out clear and loud. "Jihad" in not waged for creating secular states. It is immaterial what lied in the heart of a couple of hypocritical Muslims; it matters what the common Muslim, who propelled the cause, were told and aspired.

Pakistanis have been fooled for too long by Jinnah to begin with, depriving them of a truly Islamic state. Thanks to the Taliban, they are about to realize their ‘dream state’, for which they relentlessly fought and sacrificed immensely. On this, the words of Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the ever-honest leader of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, is most instructive:

“Complete Islamisation of Pakistan has been the genuine and long-standing demand of the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis. Not only that, it is also the appropriate answer to the lurking fears of Talibanisation, growing rapidly with every passing day, as a natural response to the suppression of this public demand at the state level.”

Like Bob Marley sang, “...you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

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Note: M. A. Khan’s book, Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism and Slavery, details the events surrounding the creation of Pakistan.