DOCTRINE of HIJACK

Although the Islamic concept of social change is completely different from the Marxist concept of revolution [blogpost link], the present day international Islamist movements in the name of revolution or 'inqilaab' are technically not based on a populist concept either, but rather on the concept that even a non-majority group can coerce a power shift into their own favour on the basis of the threat of violence. This is not the concept of revolution. This is the concept of hijack.

Followers of this doctrine falsely claim to be representing the silent majority whereas actually they have coerced them also into silence by a simplistic syllogism: the claim to be a muslim by default includes support for the practice of Islam. This syllogism serves to conveniently gloss over the critical link of method that spans between holding a general interest in the practice of Islam and the actual instigation of practice. Although the late Zia-ul-Haq sincerely tried to serve the cause of Islam during his governance over Pakistan, he used this same coercive syllogistic approach when inviting people for the referendum of December 19, 1984, in which the people were asked to vote yes or no for five years of him as President on the basis of the following statement:

Whether the people of Pakistan endorse the process initiated by Gen Muhammad Ziaul Haq, the President of Pakistan, for bringing the laws of Pakistan in conformity with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) and for the preservation of the Islamic ideology of Pakistan, for the continuation and consolidation of that process, and for the smooth and orderly transfer of power to the elected representatives of the people.

As sincere as the underlying intent may be, this approach violates the fundamental tenet of Sharia that the obedience to the Almighty Creator of the Universe is rendered null and void if not compliant to the method demonstrated by Prophet, as defined by the 73 factions Hadith [blogpost link].

Coercive approaches overlook the fact that drawing a true parallel for any situation from Sunnah involves a two-step process: first, verification of the situation itself; and second, matching it with a situation in Sunnah on the basis of deep rather than superficial similarities. Any deficiencies in this process pose the risk of the specific category of an invalid conclusionIf known as 'qiyaas-al-mantaqi', or derivation based on simplistic reasoning rather than Divine logic [blogpost link].

If any individual or group, whether in a leadership role or in the form of a populist movement, invokes the use of coercion or it escalation into the use of force, then it will first have to be proven that it is not based on 'qiyaas-al-mantaqi' before it can be accepted as a valid call towards compliance to Sharia. In the absence of systematic justification the use of coercive force by a group to propagate practice on Sharia is an invocation of the 'hijack' doctrine. Their claim of popular support is tainted by the conflict of interest between protection of life and religious preference created by the threat of the use of violence, as evident in the detailed description of this doctrine in the perpetrators own statements and actions collated in the blog 'Ummat Hijacked'.