Khan, contraire as ever, goes on to dismiss an internet poll, in which Dr Qadri surprisingly emerged as the most popular candidate for prime minister among a number of salient figures listed (including, of course the leadership of PPP and PML, in addition to third-front parties). He argues, rightly in this case, that internet polls, for reasons of exclusion, cannot be representative, but forgets that the poll in question as a matter of quantifiable fact built on several thousand votes and that it would only be natural that such a poll be used as part of the campaign of the victorious party. One does not expect either the various factions of PML or PPP to have shied away from making political capital had they won the poll. But they didn’t.

It is, ergo, futile to argue that Dr Qadri has no position in Pakistani public life or in international public life (as Khan argues under the section heading “Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadr goes global”). Indeed during the post-December standoff with India, he was chosen by General-turned-President Musharraf as a goodwill ambassador to Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, where he met with the respective leaders of these countries (monarch, president, prime minister, etc.).

Now as to the actual voting strength of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), Khan is sceptical and perhaps for good reasons. PAT has contested national/provincial elections only once and that too a decade back, subsequent to which they withdrew from electoral politics. But this is not to say that the recent local polls can be dismissed entirely. While they were of course based on prima facie non-party basis (a fact, Khan does not mention), successful candidates who were either members of PAT or sympathetic to it measured in the thousands. The exact number is anyone’s guess, but we are on a national plane certainly talking four digits. Moreover, in many situations (such as that which emerged in Lahore) the PAT votes were decisive in titling the balance in either direction when it came to elect the chief councellor. Whether such relative success can be sustained in national elections is a question which revolves less around the will of the populus than the outdated electoral system in place in Pakistan. An alternative system of proportional representation, used in all of continental Europe, would not only weaken the stronghold of feudalism and corruption whilst providing more stable coalitions (together with a heightened sense of political compromise), but also increase the salience of parties like PAT, PTI and a host of contender parties. Perhaps, Khan and his like should devote more time to talk about substantive structural adjustments, rather than amateurish journalism. At least, PAT has multiple, and sensible, policy proposals to offer.

On Dr Qadri’s stance against terrorism, Khan cannot fault him: Here is one important religious figure, who spoke out in the strongest terms, and without demagoguery, condemning Al-Qaeda whilst counselling the Taliban to cooperate with the Western coalition. Yet Khan has to complain about something, so per him discourses based on national-interest are misplaced in a moment when the nation had to assess its options. Luckily, Khan has no prospects to become a decision-maker outside the wondrous world of cyberspace anytime soon, so we can treat this maxim with the nonchalance it deserves.

Continuing a discussion of post-September 11 events, Khan is completely off the track. Khan, the same Khan who denounced talking of national interest, suddenly describes as “careless and irresponsible,” Dr Qadri’s statement, directed to the West, about the Muslim world’s unease with the growing number of casualties in Afghanistan—because, says Khan, this was contrary to national interest. Now this volte-face is not only entirely stupefying but also devoid of moral quality, the exact quality which distinguishes human beings among creation. Khan should know that US air bombardments had already by mid-December caused more civilian deaths in Afghanistan than innocent civilians killed in the Twin Towers in New York. By February 2002, the number vastly exceeded 4,000. Add to this, the number of combatant casualties, all in defensive positions, which is estimated to be 10-12,000 plus a daily death-toll of well over 100 (in particular elderly and children) due to hunger. The hunger scenario, of course, was greatly exacerbated by US military tactics which disallowed the distribution of aid on the ground and which declined military escort to international relief agencies. Finally, the use of cluster-bombs, which do not explode on impact, have caused and will cause hundreds of casualties from among the civilian population. To Khan all this is irrelevant, because the Americans and the British are not to be denounced for their war-crimes. The reader himself can judge who is the “careless and irresponsible” party here.

Then he accuses Dr Qadri for merely puppeting George W. Bush (a leader with an exceptionally low IQ and absolutely not a model for emulation), by saying that the world community should “redefine” the concept of terrorism. Yet, President Bush never defined the concept of terrorism – and that is the exact point – for he used the concept only to militarize responses. So a “redefinition” of terrorism would call for differentiating acts of politicized violence from legitimate resistance to occupation, afforded by the Geneva Conventions. The point is entirely valid. Bush would never want to grant it, though, and Khan would never get it.

Having failed, for what its worth, on empirical analysis, Khan once again turns to malicious tones. He argues, based on no source at all, that Dr Qadri can, notwithstanding his aspirations, not be a successor to Jinnah, as their foundational assumptions and visions remain at loggerhead (my formulation; Khan’s is more primitive). To Jinnah he ascribes a vision of Pakistan as a pluralist state while Dr Qadri, he erroneously assumes, is a proponent of “theocracy.” Perhaps the first issue to clarify here, is that the term “theocracy” is entirely of European pedigree and has no resonance in the intellectual history of Islam (Khan should read my forthcoming book to learn more about Islamic concepts of the state). Traditionally, the Islamic state has been based on a trichotomy of power between the Caliphate, as the source of authority and spiritual locus, the Sultanate, as the temporal power, and the jurists, as administrators of the sacred law and the countervailing force vis-à-vis the excesses of power. Historically, and ideationally, the jurists did not rule in Sunni Islam, so the term “theocracy” belongs to another tradition and is entirely redundant even for a pseudo-intellectual discussion. The second issue to be clarified, is that Dr Qadri vision is hardly theocratic, but described on the various PAT websites as making Pakistan a “modern Muslim welfare state,” with a “progressive society and dynamic economy.” If Khan, moreover, would have bothered to check the rank-and-file of the PAT, he would have found few religious scholars and a host of office-bearers from assorted categories (retired military officers, professionals, educationalists, philanthropists, and defectors from other parties).

One of the definatory characteristics of the Schinan Tribe, it appears, is its condemnation of all stripes and colours of sectarian zealotry. Dr Qadri record here is spotless. From Karachi to Peshawar (and, yes, several times in Jhang) has he hosted multigroup conferences, in which different dominations from the Deobandi over the Barelvi to the Shi‘a have, literally, joined hands to pledge ummatic fraternity. This has been a consistent feature of Dr Qadri’s propagation back from 1986 when one when his Minhaj-ul-Quran Movement organized one of the biggest Islamic events ever held on the soil of London with participants from a multitude of countries and all denominations. In Pakistan, the presence of Shi‘a clergy during major religious occasions (e.g. Lailatul-Qadr) is a recurrent theme in the conferences of Minhaj-ul-Quran. And this is no recent innovation. In fact, one of the first publications from the hand of Dr Qadri is his book, Firqa parasti ka khatima kjun kar mumbir hai? (How to Abolish Sectarianism). Dating back from the mid-eighties, it has been reprinted endlessly, but Khan is clueless.

Now, another ill-informed Schinan tribesman complained that while it is true that Dr Qadri had hitherto not displayed sectarian animosity, he had the potential to turn sectarian. I wonder whether this was a philosophical reflection on the human condition (equal to say, Khan’s potential to turn criminal), rather than a reflection of Dr Qadri’s message. To be certain, to have even the potential to turn sectarian one must declare allegiance to one of the parochial sects. But it is notable here that Dr Qadri had repeatedly said that he belongs to the broad tradition of the Ahlul Sunnah, not to Barelvism, Deobandism, or other isms (indeed the Quran itself commands “We have named you ‘Muslims’,” and this must be the self-identity of those adhering to the Quranic creed). This transcendentalism, as it happens, is the exact grievance of the sectarian detractors of Dr Qadri: That he does not call himself “Barelvi” and does not exclude, say, the Deobandis and the Shi’ites from the pale of Islam. Now, while Khan is decidedly amateurish is most of his critique, he has the exceedingly bad taste of providing a web-link to this exact sectarian fringe group, whose main grievance is that Dr Qadri identifies with the umma at large rather than individual subgroups and that he allows Barelvis and Deobandis to pray together (this they call “The way of Satan”). In fact, a rogue section of this group had the audacity to attempt an assassination of Dr Qadri in a South African mosque back in 1997, but failed. The fact that Khan, in his anti-Qadri inflection, allies himself with the worst kind of sectarianism (that of takfir, excommunication, and kital, murder) severely taints his essay, and indeed questions his whether his pan-Islamic sentiments are genuine.

Note the difference between an entirely insignificant voice as that of Khan’s and the decency of Dr Qadri’s poise when the latter says that he will not succumb to disparaging remarks or terminology of exclusion (like being “unpatriotic”) in political discourse. Rather issues must be evaluated on the basis of their soundness and actions on the basis of their intentions plus consequences—but for this premise, too, Khan condemns Dr Qadri for not being a bigot! Khan, who claims to be a democrat, should realize that in a democracy you allow people, even those with whom you disagree, to speak freely, because a curtailment of their right of free speech, even if obnoxious, is unprincipled and run counter to pluralism.

Expanding the purview of his discussion and going to the issue of Muslim-Christian dialogue, Khan admits that Dr Qadri and his organization have taken the unprecedented step of developing Pakistani fora in which representatives of the two faith can interact for the greater good of the nation. Dr Qadri personally has convened meetings with leaders of various Christian churches and organizations in Pakistan. But, as always, rather than applauding this initiative which few Muslim leaders in South Asia have been bold enough to take, Khan disparages it by seeing it as an opportunism. Perhaps we should remind him that allying with the Christians in Pakistan is absolutely no vote-winner (it could, on the other hand, get you shot). Thus when Dr Qadri interacts with Christian communities, it is on the basis of his recognition of a shared humanity and a shared nationhood—exactly as the early Muslim recognized their duties toward the non-Muslim minorities in the Islamic heartlands. That Dr Qadri is perceived as sincere by the Vatican itself was betokened by its invitation to him to be part of the 24th papal meeting at Assisi to participate in an cross-religious common prayer and in addition to speak on the contributions of religion to world peace. That he was the singular Pakistani to be invited would alone impress unprejudiced observers, but Khan, had he known, would probably argue that the Pope was bribed.

As a human being, Khan must realize that cynicism is a reflection of the dirt of the nafs, the human lower self. As a Pakistani, Khan must realize that PAT, as a party untainted by corruption and greed, as a party driven by the aspiration of the destitute and the disenfranchised, and as a party led by the most able of leaders, provides for the most progressive option in a political landscape haunted by shaky demagoguery. Yet, since Khan cannot fault Dr Qadri on any issue of principle, Khan becomes unprincipled, which is to say in the plain English to which Khan is so accustomed, hypocritical. In the process, he exposes not Dr Qadri but himself as less concerned with the issues at stake and rather more fixated on a mischievous project of character assassination. Well, as those who have tried to character assassinate (and assassinate) Dr Qadri hitherto, Khan falls short because, to paraphrase himself, is low both is substance and style. Ultimately Khan’s fallacy lies in his assumption that the reader is as ill-informed or analytically unsophisticated as Khan himself. Now this, to quote a Harvard colleague of mine, should earn him “a fail for stupidity.”