Transition of power within Islamic world- Succession in the Ummah ——Razi Azmi
Iraq’s transition from monarchy to republic in 1958, thanks to a coup led by Brig Abdul Karim Qassem, was accomplished when the executed members of the royal family, including King Faisal II, were hung by their feet outside the palace
The road to high political office in the Ummah is a perilous one, frequently littered with corpses. In a dispensation of interminable tenures, where all the spoils belong to the victor, aspirants to political power must tread with care, for a wrong move could cost one his liberty or life. Those fortunate enough to reach the pinnacle of power must never let down their guard. Not even ties of blood or association, or holy lineage, ensure safety for either incumbent or aspirant. The struggle to get to the top and stay there results in farce, comedy and, most often, tragedy.
No government in Pakistan’s history has been able, or willing, to peacefully transfer power to a successor at the end of its term. One elected, autocratic prime minister was sent to the gallows and a military dictator was blown to smithereens in mid-air. Pakistan’s three most popular leaders, including two former prime ministers, are now living in forced exile abroad.
Bangladesh’s founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was killed by a band of junior officers, along with nearly everyone who had the misfortune of sharing his genes. The new strongman, Maj-Gen Ziaur Rahman, hanged a hero of the liberation war and his close comrade, Col Abu Taher, in order to consolidate his power. Zia himself was later assassinated by military officers who were, in turn, quickly dispatched to meet their maker.
In Malaysia, Mahathir Mohammad sacked and jailed his deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, on false allegations of sodomy when the latter became overtly ambitious. Adding injury to insult, his police chief, Nur, personally kicked and punched the hapless Anwar — blindfolded and his hands tied behind his back.
Oman’s Qaboos bin Said installed himself as the Sultan in 1970 after deposing his father and imprisoning him. Qatar’s Crown Prince Hamad Bin Khalifa overthrew his father to become Emir in 1995.
In Jordan, a terminally ill King Hussein sprang from his deathbed in USA and briefly returned to his country in 1999 to depose his brother Crown Prince Hassan, his designated successor since 1965, and nominate his son Abdullah instead to succeed him.
Coups were an annual feature of Syrian politics until defence minister Hafez al Assad seized power and ruled with blood and iron for 30 years until his death in 2000, to be succeeded by his son Bashar al Assad.
Gamal Nasser, who had seized power by deposing King Farouk in 1953, offered to resign after leading Egypt to a disastrous defeat in the six-day war against Israel in 1967. However, the people begged him to stay on, and stay he did, until God removed him. Not so lucky was his successor, President Anwar Sadat, whose life was cut short by a hail of bullets in 1981. President Hosni Mubarak will soon complete a quarter century in office.
Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi has been there even longer, since overthrowing King Idris in 1969. When Algeria’s generals denied the Islamists the fruits of an election victory in 1991, they avenged this by slitting the throats of anyone on the government’s payroll they could catch as well as his womenfolk and children.
In neighbouring Tunisia, Prime Minister Ben Ali seized the presidency in 1987, for 84-year old Habib Bourguiba, president for 30 years and increasingly senile, had shown no inclination to quit. The former president-for-life lived his last 13 years under house arrest. Ben Ali has now been president for 18 years.
In 1985, Sudan’s President Gaafar Nimery, survivor of three coups since 1969 and a recent champion of sharia, hanged an Islamic scholar, Muhammad Taha, 76, accusing him of apostasy. The show trial was televised and the hanging of Taha was a public spectacle. Nimery was deposed later that year by his top general.
Afghanistan’s King Zahir Shah was overthrown in 1973 by his cousin and former prime minister, Sardar Mohammad Daoud. Five years later, President Daoud himself was brutally murdered by military officers along with his entire family. His successor, Nur Mohammad Tarahki was smothered with a pillow by his deputy, Hafizullah Amin, who was killed during the Soviet invasion.
After the Soviet withdrawal, the various factions of the mujahideen, brothers-in-Islam, fought a vicious struggle for power which, besides killing and crippling many tens of thousands of fellow Muslims, reduced Kabul to rubble. Out of the debris emerged the brutal Taliban regime, which killed everyone who offered a different opinion.
The Shah of Iran was overthrown by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. Lusting for retribution against the previous regime, the president of the Revolutionary Courts, Ayatollah Khalkhali, set about his task with zeal and gusto. He later claimed that, in the first four months alone, he condemned to death over 400 officials and army officers of the previous regime, including the Shah’s longest-serving prime minister, Amir Abbas Hoveida.
Not content with this, the Ayatollah “led an assault on the tomb of the Shah’s ancestors in 1980. After 200 militia men worked with bulldozers and high explosives for 20 days, the tomb was a pile of rubble and the bones of the dead lay smashed, scattered across the desert.” The Islamic Republic’s first elected president, Abolhassan Bani Sadr, himself did not feel safe from the murderous frenzy of the ayatollahs. Discretion being the better part of valour, he fled the country dressed as a woman.
Iraq’s transition from monarchy to republic in 1958, thanks to a coup led by Brig Abdul Karim Qassem, was accomplished when the executed members of the royal family, including King Faisal II, were hung by their feet outside the palace. Hysterical crowds dragged the body of Abd al-Ilah, the king’s uncle, former regent and presently crown prince, through the streets of Baghdad, where it was hacked into pieces. Prime Minister Nuri al-Said escaped, dressed as a veiled woman, but was caught and dragged through the streets from a car until there was nothing left but half a leg.
Qassem himself was tortured and killed in 1963. Faisal II was the great-grandson of Al-Hussein bin Ali, the last of the Hashemite Grand Sharifs of Mecca, descendents of Hazrat Ali, custodians of the holy cities and rulers of Hejaz for 700 years. That rule ended in 1924, when Al-Hussein was chased out by Abdul Aziz ibn Saud of Najd, the father of the present King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.
However, Al-Hussein was more fortunate than both his great-grandson Faisal II and son Abdullah, king of Jordan, with whom he found refuge after fleeing Mecca. Abdullah was assassinated in 1951 as he was entering Al Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem (which was under Jordanian control until 1967) to offer Friday prayers.
In Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s rise from vice-president to president in 1979 was spectacular. At a meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council on July 22 he suddenly started reading the names of “enemies of the state”. There was a stunned silence as the list included the names of many of those present. “As names were read from the list, each was arrested and taken away from the council meeting. Within mere hours, 21 of the men that Saddam named were dead”.
Politics anywhere can be rather unpredictable, but among the Ummah it is, quite literally, a deadly serious issue, a life-and-death matter.
This is the third article in a series of four. The second appeared on March 10th. The last episode will look at the historical Ummah. The author, a freelance writer, may be contacted at raziazmi@hotmail.com |
