Deconstructing Zaid Hamid (III)
Cloaking in divine garb an otherwise worldly matter is a specialty of conspiracy merchants like Zaid Zaman Hamid. He is trying to elevate Iqbal to the level of at least a prophet. Iqbal never made such grandiose claims as he was a much wiser person than ZH
The past has to be bared to settle all accounts, so that one could proceed further.
(Barthold Brecht)
Ali Azmat kick-started the show by telling his audiences that Iqbal studied at Oxford, when in fact, Iqbal was a student at Cambridge University, 84 miles from Oxford.
ZH: Un main Indian nationalism kay germs thay (He had germs of Nationalism) and he ‘radicalized’ into a pan Islamist
Comment: Indian nationalism is a disease in your twisted logical framework. The use of the phrase radicalized (and those were his exact words) is a window to the mind-set of Mr Zaid Hamid.
ZH: Sicily kai so sal tak musalmano ka garh raha hai (Sicily was a Muslim stronghold for centuries).
Comment: Muslim rule in Sicily was from 965 A.D till 1072 A.D. That makes a total of 100 and 2 years. Like I said before, you do the math.
ZH: Topkapi museum main 1400 sal ki khlafat kay nawadir pare huay hain (Topkapi Museum houses treasures of 1400-year-long caliphate).
Comment: There was no “centralized” caliphate for 14 long centuries. After the first four pious caliphs (Khulafa-e-Rashideen) and an initial period of Umayyad Rule, there were always splits and factions (Reference: Hamari tarikh fehmi, paper by Hasan Jaafar Zaidi).
ZH: Allama lqbal was 'elected' as one of the founding members of London Muslim league.
Comment: Iqbal was a member of the London Muslim League founded by Syed Amir Ali. A Bengali philosopher and writer, Ali was a contemporary of Sir Syed. Only a few students of Pakistan history know him because his efforts have been criminally ignored by our textbook writers. How can a person be ELECTED as founding member, is beyond logic.
ZH: The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 and it financed the global turmoil.
Comment: The Federal Reserve was in fact created in 1913 but the USA didn't take part in the world war until 1917. Also, there wasn’t any wire transfer or PayPal through which an America-based bank could finance events unfolding across the Atlantic.
ZH:-Iqbal had predicted that after a world war, ideologies like democracy, liberalism, feminism, modern education will be implemented.
Comment: This is another demonstration of contempt for knowledge Zaid Hamid-style. Democracy was working in the USA, France and the UK even before Iqbal was born. Similarly, the first wave of feminist movement convulsed the West in the late 19th century.
Regarding Iqbal’s views on democracy, in his letter to the Civil and Military Gazette published on May 28, 1937, he says: “For Islam the acceptance of social democracy in some suitable form and consistent with the legal principles of Islam, is not a revolution but a return to the original purity of Islam.”
In another letter in the Civil and Military Gazette published on July 30, 1930, he said: “If anybody thinks that approach to democracy means sailing into a kind of lotus-land, he cannot have read a word of history. The truth is exactly the opposite. Democracy lets loose all hues of aspirations and grievances which are suppressed or unrealised under autocracy. It arouses hopes and ambitions, often quite unpractical, and it relies not on authority but on argument, on controversy from the platform, in the press, in the parliament, gradually to educate people to the acceptance of a solution which may not be ideal but which is the only practical one under the circumstances of the time. Democratic governments have attendant difficulties but these are difficulties which human experience elsewhere shows to be surmountable (Reference: Iqbal, the Destruction of False gods and Islamic Revolution by Prof. Khawaja Masud, from his soon-to-be-published book Lessons of My Life).
Episode 6
ZH:-Un ko talash kia, build kia aur ultimately tayar kar k deliver karwya dia, qaum bhe un ko bna kay di. (He [Iqbal] found him [Jinnah], built him and later delivered and manufactured a nation for Jinnah as well).
Comment: This is absurd. Allama Iqbal did have an influence on Jinnah but it didn’t happen the way Zaid Hamid narrates. They met in London in 1931-2 when Allama Iqbal was there for one of the Roundtable Conferences. Later, there was correspondence between the two that can be read here. These letters show that Zaid Hamid is concocting stories just for the sake of his convenience. Also, no-one can singlehandedly MANUFACTURE a nation. Another important point to note is that Jinnah himself was a famous politician and barrister. He didn’t need to be “found”.
ZH:-Un kay munh se jo baten niklin, unko itefaq se kahi jane wali baten nhe kaha ja skta (Whatever he [Iqbal] said could not have been a co-incident).
Comment: Cloaking in divine garb an otherwise worldly matter is a specialty of conspiracy merchants like Zaid Zaman Hamid. He is trying to elevate Iqbal to the level of at least a prophet. Iqbal never made such grandiose claims as he was a much wiser person than ZH.
ZH:-Our youth can’t speak Urdu.
Comment: This is an exact quote from Mr. Zaid Hamid. At the very least, he should have used the medium of Urdu to say this, which he didn’t. Most of the conversation that took place during the course of the programs he hosted, was a mixture of English and Urdu. Nadeem Farooq Paracha points out in his article for Dawn, “The GMG (Groovy Media Guys) has a lighter and a tad more liberal side to it as well. It has a cultural wing consisting of sirens in the shape of trendy looking androids that are fed burgers and French fries to further fatten their complete ignorance of reality. They talk in strange tongues also called “Minglish” and “Hinglish”. One of the biggest successes in this respect has been conversion of Zion Hamid who was once an uncaring, burger-hopping DJ at a Tora Bora Disco. Today he is the hero of GMG”.
ZH:-He explains ilm, tadabbur, hakumat as democracy, equality, liberty, women's rights. Iqbal warned against them.
Comment: Literally, these terminologies should translate as knowledge, equanimity and government. Zaid Hamid gave his own description and a different twist to what Iqbal was saying. Iqbal was a wise man and he would not have warned people against enlightenment.
ZH:-The root cause of injustice in this world is Riba, Usury, and Sood.
Comment: Usury is ‘Sood’ in Urdu. Another grand claim made by Zaid Hamid here. The issue of Riba and its role in the modern economy is discussed in detail by Bilal Ahmad, an economist, in his book “Pakistan main Iqtisadi Pasmandagi”. His complete essay can be read here. What Zaid Hamid and people who blame ALL ills on Usury and Riba don’t actually know how the capitalism works. Also, the system that they propose is not any different from capitalism.
ZH:-They started the First World War so that they can destroy the world and then give Marshal Plan to get them on their roll.
Comment: The Marshall Plan or the European Recovery Program started in 1948. The First World War ended in 1918. The Second World War ended in 1945. According to Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy (volume 2; page 95, published in 2002) Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet Communism. It was actually named after US Secretary of State, George Marshall.
ZH:-Muslims were spreading in Eastern Europe with the Ottoman Empire and were already present in the East, courtesy Spain.
Comment: Zaid Hamid got his history wrong again. The Turkey-based Ottoman Empire expanded in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. After conquest of Constantinople in 1453, there was no further expansion of the Empire for many years. Meanwhile, in Spain, the last Muslim ruler left for Morocco in 1492. Thereafter, the infamous Spanish inquisition happened eradicating all traces of Islam from Spain.