By Kamran Haider and Faseeh Mangi
Photographer: Asad Zaidi/Bloomberg
Pakistan cleric Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri speaks during an interview in Islamabad, on Sept. 12, 2014. Qadri, who promotes a softer, more mystical version of Islam, issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, against suicide bombings and terrorism in 2010.
Islamic cleric Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, who has mobilized his followers in Pakistan’s capital in a monthlong campaign to oust Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, often sits down with his young grandchildren to ask their advice.
“I take opinions from even my grandchildren aged nine, ten or eleven for family decisions,” Qadri, 63, who heads Islamic educational organization Minhaj-ul-Quran International with branches in 95 countries, said inside a bullet-proof shipping container thronged by thousands of supporters in Islamabad. “Their response helps me to take decisions and this is the only procedure to train them democratically,” he said. “I’m the best practitioner of democracy.”
The protests led by Qadri and opposition leader Imran Khan are the first major test for Sharif’s 16-month old government, risking an economic overhaul essential for loan disbursements from the International Monetary Fund. China’s President Xi Jinping postponed a visit to South Asia’s second-biggest economy, where $34 billion in deals were scheduled, on a trip to the region this week that will take him to India and Sri Lanka.
Related:Pakistan Opposition Suspends Talks With Government After Arrests
While the protest numbers have tapered off to several thousand, Qadri, a dual citizen of Canada and Pakistan, commands a support base of as many as two million people in Pakistan -- about 1 percent of the population -- according to his spokesman Shahid Mursaleen. In January last year he led tens of thousands of people in a four-day protest in Islamabad to push for electoral changes, tapping public discontent with the major parties in a country ruled for half its history by the military.
‘Clean Slate’
Qadri, who promotes a softer, more mystical version of Islam, issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, against suicide bombings and terrorism in 2010.
“Qadri is a religious cleric from Canada with a clean slate and away from backroom dealings,” Burzine Waghmar, an academic at the Centre for the Study of Pakistan at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said by phone. “Pakistanis who have lost hope will turn to him and see this man has something substantial to offer.”
He is yet to translate his ability to mobilize supporters into an electoral force, having not contested any polls for more than a decade. Sharif hasn’t budged despite protesters being camped outside the parliament building since mid-August, alleging that last year’s general elections were rigged.
Qadri and Khan both suspended talks with the government for a second time last week after supporters were arrested. Aside from removing Sharif, the two have said they seek fair elections and a governance system that’s truly democratic, without giving further details. More than 40 Khan party supporters were detained after skirmishes with police in front of the Supreme Court building, Samaa TV reported today.
“We are sitting to send this corrupt government home,” said Qadri, wearing a loose traditional tunic and a prayer cap. “We want a national government to be formed with the consensus of our political parties in a democratic way.”
As Islamabad remains thronged with protesters, flooding in Punjab and Pakistan-administered Kashmir has affected 2.4 million people, with thousands of houses and acres of crop destroyed, according to the finance ministry.
Lawyer, Scholar
Qadri, the son of spiritualist ash-Shaykh Dr Farida’d-Din al-Qadri, was born in Jhang in Punjab province and undertook religious training in Saudi Arabia when he was 12, according to his official biography on the Minhaj-ul-Quran website. Obtaining a Master’s degree in Islamic studies from the University of Punjab in 1974, he worked as a lawyer in Punjab before completing a doctorate in Islamic law and becoming an adviser to the Supreme Court and the Federal Shariat Court.
The sit-in is taking place in the high-security zone, less than 500 meters from the prime minister and president’s official residences. Supporters use a broken pipeline for public showers, read the holy Koran and play cricket, waiting for the revolution called by Qadri.
“We aren’t terrorists,” Qadri said. “We have no arms in our hands. We don’t believe in militancy. We don’t believe in violence. We can just prolong the peaceful sit-in as long as necessary.”
Pressure Group
The turmoil in Islamabad fueled a 6 percent fall in the benchmark stock index in August, the biggest monthly drop in three years. Pakistan’s rupee fell 3 percent, the worst performer in Asia, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“Qadri’s basic support is religious followers and he is now raising issues that go beyond religion to expand his reach,” Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based analyst who formerly taught at Columbia University in New York, said by phone. “If he wants to keep a presence, he needs to contest elections. Otherwise he will fade away or just continue to act as a pressure group.”
Qadri established Pakistan Awami Tehreek as a national political party in 1989. He won the sole parliamentary seat for his party in 2002, then resigned a year later, and the party has not contested elections since. Secretary general Khurram Gandapur said the party will stand in the next vote once its electoral reform demands are met, while Qadri will not run given his dual nationality.
‘No Chance’
Qadri moved to Canada about a decade ago to focus on academia after resigning from parliament, and runs his Lahore-based Islamic organization from Canada. His latest return to Pakistan in June was delayed as his commercial plane was diverted to Lahore when it failed to get permission to land in Islamabad.
The cleric has targeted what he calls the “dynastic” and “elite” nature of Pakistan politics. “There has been no chance,” he said. “Great grandfathers, grandfathers were members of parliament and now their children are there.”
Haji Saleem Qadri, 65, leads a team of about 50 to cook food for the 20,000 people the cleric claims to have gathered. A former clothing material importer who has handed his company over to his sons, he has been serving his leader’s mass gatherings for 15 years.
Extremism, Terrorism
“I was a communist and hated mullahs,” says Haji Saleem Qadri, who is not related to the protest leader. “Qadri is different. He teaches spiritualism. He teaches that Allah doesn’t just want worshipers but people who look after and respect each other.”
Qadri decided to protest with Khan after he was unable to register a police complaint against the Prime Minister and his brother Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab, for a clash that left 14 workers dead and 85 injured.
Supporters of Minhaj-ul-Quran got into a fight with police on June 17 in Lahore when law enforcement officers tried to remove security barricades in front of the cleric’s office. The complaint was later registered following government negotiations.
“My whole emphasis has been on peace, democracy, morality, tolerance, love, interfaith harmony, socio-economic justice and equality of law,” Qadri said.“I have been fighting against Mullah-ism, extremism, terrorism and sectarianism. Not just in Pakistan but all over the world.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Faseeh Mangi in Karachi at fmangi@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net Naween A. Mangi
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