WHAT is the Makkah Pact and how can it help take the Muslim world towards a new height of destiny? A detailed dialogue on this subject brought back, with particular intensity, memories of my late and revered teacher, Professor Syed Mateen-ur-Rehman Murtaza. As students, we once approached him with a request that we be allowed to organize an event outside the university, at a hotel. Our teacher believed deeply in dialogue. Unlike some administrative heads who settle matters with a stern look and a simple yes or no, he would listen, engage and encourage discussion. He heard our request with affection. After sending Ghafur Baba out for tea, he turned to us and asked, “What is a university?” Whenever Mateen Sahib asked such a question, it was usually the prelude to something important. After a brief silence, he explained that a university is called a university because it is, in a sense, a separate world—a universe of its own. It stands apart from the hustle and bustle of cities and does not merely absorb their culture; rather, it gives society a culture founded on knowledge. Its other great responsibility is to provide the intellectual nourishment necessary for the building and advancement of nations. Last week, I witnessed precisely this spirit at the University of Lahore.
A comprehensive dialogue on the Makkah Pact was held there, bringing together representatives of the government and opposition, intellectuals, diplomats, retired officers of the defence forces, businessmen and people from many other walks of life. Watching this dialogue, I understood what my teacher had meant by a university and what a university ought to be. Owais Rauf, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the University of Lahore and Munir Ahmad Khan, with the support of their colleagues, made real something that had become a cherished part of our imagination during our student days but which we had longed to see in reality.
The dialogue was attended by Federal Minister Professor Ahsan Iqbal, former Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, veteran journalist and intellectual Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami, Jaleel Abbas Jilani, Aizaz Chaudhry, Allama Tahir Ashrafi, Sohail Warraich, Professor Dr Khalil Toker and Professor Dr Sardar Demirel from Türkiye, General Ghulam Mustafa, General Nasir Janjua, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, Air Commodore Khalid Chishti and my dear friend Farrukh Shehbaz Warraich, among many others. Both sessions were moderated by my dear friend Ajmal Jami, who performed this responsibility with great skill and grace. His command of national and international affairs was evident throughout. Most participants focused on the military and diplomatic dimensions of the Pact. However, while summing up the discussion, respected Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami made a particularly significant observation. He said that the Makkah Pact occupies a unique place in diplomatic history because its greatest strength lies in the fact that it enjoys support not merely among governments but among the people of the Muslim world. In other words, the Pact represents the practical expression of Muslim aspirations.
I submitted that the decline of the Muslim world began with the First World War. The Ottoman Empire disappeared and a great Muslim political power was fragmented into numerous smaller states. After the Second World War, the world was divided into two major blocs: one under the influence of the United States and the other under the Soviet Union. For the countries of the Third World, this meant that their effective sovereignty was largely confined to their domestic affairs. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the bipolar world disappeared and a unipolar order emerged, dominated by the United States. This imbalance contributed to crises such as 9/11, after which the Muslim world increasingly found itself isolated and stigmatized. Muslims were portrayed as uncivilized and as a threat to global peace. Muslim thinkers had begun to recognize the implications of this situation as early as the First World War. Among them, Allama Muhammad Iqbal and Syed Jamaluddin Afghani are particularly noteworthy. Their writings reveal that the need for a global centre and a collective political voice for Muslims was already being felt. When Iqbal expressed the desire to transform Tehran into a “Geneva of the East,” he was envisioning a centre of collective consultation and cooperation. He also imagined Muslim unity for the protection of the sacred sanctuary:
Brief meaning: Iqbal calls upon Muslims to unite from the shores of the Nile to Kashgar, not merely to protect the sacred sanctuary, but to safeguard their collective dignity, honour and sovereignty. I therefore argued that the historical and political forces behind the Makkah Pact have their roots in the upheavals that began with the First World War. The Pact represents the first major step towards the realization of a dream that Muslims have carried for more than a century. But it is a step, not the destination.
—This writer is former advisor to President, author & mass media theorist.
(farooq.adilbhuta@gmail,com)
