The problem with the critics who call Pakistani progressive thinkers desi liberals is that they ignore many dimensions of a single problem. They see things in black and white. When a progressive person speaks about the horrors of Arabisation, they suddenly come up with the pictures of Pakistani youth wearing jeans and using mobile phones and remind them of western imperialism.
Let us bust this myth today. First of all, let's define Imperialism. Edward Said, a famous anthropologist and academic defines imperialism as any system of domination and subordination organized with an imperial center and a periphery. There are two major types of Imperialism. Regressive and Progressive Imperialism. Then there is colonialism but let's not confuse it with imperialism because it is just for territorial control and/or commercial aims coupled or not with imperialism. Now there have been many kinds of imperialisms in the history. Ottoman/Turkish, German, British and Tsarist Russian and now this Arab. Arabia is a vast land comprised of multiple cultures from Morrocco to UAE including completely versatile cultures like Jordan and Oman. However, when we talk about Arabisation, we are talking about imperialism, centred in Saudi Arabia. A recent article written by Abdul Majeed Abid [1], one finds the summary of the events stating how Abdul Wahab convinced Al-Saud to declare Salafiism as a state religion. What followed next is more proof. Now this was the result of a pact signed between Al-Saud and Wahab where the king promised to expand that religion across Arabia and all over the Muslim world by whatever means necessary in 1744 [2]. Abdul Wahab was a Hanbali mufti and so was his father and he was largely influenced by the teachings of Ibn Taimiya, the same Imam who completely shut down the chapter of Ijtihad and declared that everything should be Islamised according to existing knowledge and no new knowledge will be incorporated in Islam. Does one see why we still fight over Tooth Brush and Miswak? I know many have a positivist view and they will dismiss this example and my argument on the grounds that there are many scholars who have no problem with toothbrush but this is not actually the case. They still are convinced otherwise and would tell you to prefer Miswak. Those who actually believe in the same like Dr. Farooq Khan and Javed Ghamidi are either murdered or in exile due to their “unorthodox” views. A friend of mine who is an MPhil in Biochemistry from a top university of Pakistan and a forensic scientist in ministry of defence keeps Miswak in his pocket and claims that it has more benefits than tooth paste.
