Yaum-i-Ishq-i-Rasool on the streets of Pakistan

By announcing ‘Yaum-i-Ishq-i-Rasool’ on Friday, the Pakistani government has absolved itself from any responsibility towards its citizens – letting chaos prevail throughout the cities. This public holiday had been called out to pacify the masses apparently, but if anything, the scene on the streets of the country is doing anything but pacifying us… instead it seems to be terrorising us further.

Yaum-i-Ishq-i-Rasool had been intended to mark a day to observe, declare and demonstrate love for the Holy Prophet (PBUH). What we see since morning instead is the burning of cinemas and toll plazas, mobs clashing with police and incidents of looting and plundering. How do these acts display love – love for the Prophet?

Was this day really meant to observe religious sentiments or does it have more to do with political gimmicks – more so, allowing the criminals to have a field day.

While some remain holed up inside their homes, others take to the streets shouting slogans, carrying sticks and stones. No message of peace being delivered today – instead every scene seems to exude violence and intolerance.

The army was called in Islamabad to protect the domestic enclave after protesters broke through a barrier of containers set up by police to block a road leading to the area. So the army is protecting the domestic enclave, but who is protecting the common man on the street?

What would have been the correct way to observe this day and what kind of protests should have been carried out?

Did the government take the right step by calling for Yaum-i-Ishq-i-Rasool – and if it did, does it have no responsibility towards what goes on in the streets of Pakistan today?

 

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162 Responses to “Yaum-i-Ishq-i-Rasool on the streets of Pakistan”

  1. Tahira, USA says:

    People are just taking out their accumulated daily frustration while hiding behind this rally. Most have no love for any one but have no other outlet. The government needs eyes to see and ears to hear.

  2. Mohammed Abbas Sukhera(USA) says:

    Our leaders who made the decision to declare a holiday for the love of Mohammed (PBUH) are ignorant of Islamic teachings and so are the people who burnt police vans and property of fellow Muslims. I visited Pakistan few years ago and the local Masjid hardly had 10 people who came for Fajir prayer. I know 99% of the people living close to the Masjid were Muslims. Our honorable prophet’s last words before his last breath were” Guard your Salat (prayer)”. The first question asked in the grave will be about Salat, if the salat is ok, the rest will be easy. The difference between a Muslim and a non-believer is the salat.
    Allah (SWT) mentions in the Quran that if you want Allah (SWT) to love you, follow the prophet’s teachings and Allah (SWT) will love you and forgive your sins”
    The best way to please Allah (SWT) and his prophet is to bring prophet’s Sunnah in our lives. This is the climax of hypocrisy that we say that we love Mohammed (PBUH) and will die for him but don’t follow his teachings. Allama Iqbal summarized this very eloquently and the crude translation is “that if you are faithful to the Prophet’s teachings, you will not only rule this world but also the write the destiny with your own hands”. Allah’s (SWT) promise that if you follow my Deen, I will make you the leader of this world is true. How can they dare to insult the prophet if we rule the world? My fellow Muslims, don’t blame others, the problem is with us. You are hurting yourself when you damage the property of fellow muslims and the government. We beseech ALLAH (SWT) to help us understand the true teachings of Islam and guide us on the straight path. Ameen.

  3. Usman says:

    Simple: Its all of the general situation with the masses in this country that caused all that to happen on that day. Correcting the root causes shall make the positive difference…

  4. Khan says:

    Pakistanis are angry people.
    They get angry over anything and everything.
    It was expected that Friday would be a day of rage against the movie.
    The government’s attempt to sugarcoat it as a “Day of Love” was just absurd.

  5. Ali, Muhammad says:

    Our prophet will be so disappointed seeing this kind of day for his love.

  6. a s ahmed says:

    Govt of Pakistan is to be blamed for declaring a holiday, when they know the mob mentality of Pakistanis. Politicians are intellectually bankrupt not to have this Forsyth and should be held responsible for this chaos. Day of love? or day of death, destruction, looting and mob violence. If the prophet was alive today then he would have declared Pakistanis to be nonMuslims.

  7. Frd says:

    rioting and burning things as an expression of love?

    how odd that sounds.

  8. Atique says:

    The manner in which Ishq-e-Rasool day was observed showed total disrespect to Hazrat Mohammed (SAW). Seemed like demonstrators were on the side of evil film maker. We expatriate Pakistanis are ashamed of our fellow Pakistanis destructive and unacceptable behaviour on that day.

  9. inam says:

    Pakistan dont need enemies. They are doing a good job themselves and for free. They are hippocrates. Give them offer of a free visa and they will line up at US. councilate at 2 in the morning. This will include Mullahs that encourage them to voilence.

  10. NASAH (USA) says:

    It was as if the government had officially INVITED the people to leave their work their schools, their colleges — and come on the streets to make mayhem — and then it forgot it had issued the invitation.

  11. Khan says:

    Every one has put in their two cents. No one has addresses the real issues. The real issues are frustration, poverty, corruption, lack of social justice, in security, socio economic problems. Intolerance, street crimes, no law and order, no water no light, no electric, we are an angry and frustrated nation, and we will not hesitate to put some one on fire for petty crimes. Haven knows where we are heading to…………………

    • sham says:

      there is grinding poverty in many parts of the world with all these problems. But people elsewhere don’t take to violence the way pakistanis do. Admit it! Pakistan is a highly radicalized nation where rich and poor, educated or not, all commit or condone violence in the name of religion. a very few so called intelligencia just babble about peace and minority rights.

  12. Misbah-ul-Haq says:

    People looking in pictures doesnt seems to be any concerned with Religion. I have a feeling that these are the same people who did violence at the time Benazir Bhutto assassination.
    Event on Friday also shows the biasness of media who didnt covered the peacefull protests all over the Pakistan and just showed the violence in some places to run their business.

  13. efaz says:

    Our society is sick and uneducated. they strongly believe that killing someone who has insulted our religious figure is justifiable. Moreover, most of them think its a 6 element of Islam.
    Only one world comes out from my mouth and its sound better in Urdu too “JAHILL”

  14. kindness says:

    The protest should be there, but they should be peaceful. There were some rallies on that day which were peaceful but they did not receive any media attention and so nobody knows about them. The rally in which i participated in person was a peaceful Ahlesunnat and all other of their rallies are peaceful.
    I will participate in another peaceful rally organised on 29th from Noorani Chowrangi to Tibet Center at 10am and I invite all my dear readers to participate in person.

    • dinmab says:

      just a honest question. would u go on a rally if other prophets of islam are offended ? or is it only prophet muhammad who gets this treatment ?

    • Secular Paksitan says:

      This was a dark day for Islam and Muslims. It was a wasted event and a black eye for Islam the world over. No tmany will come on Muslim’s side.

  15. Ahsan says:

    Yom-i-ishq Rasool was observed throughout the Pakistan. On that day people shown their love with their beloved prophet Mohammad S.A.W If we see in past,we did not found any example of such a great protest made in Pakistan. previously we have an example when assassination of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was occurred. at that day we saw the mobs coming out at roads and sabotage and destroyed the public property. that was totally embarrassing for us as nation. Now when we compare it with the protest like we have made for against the film”Innocence of Muslim), we saw that it was only 0.1% of the destruction of the property as compare at the time pf protest of Murder of Benazir Bhutto, and this i am sure was occurred due to some hidden miscreants involved in the protest. All in all that was a great day in the history of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan have sent the message to the world that world might get suffer in any great destruction if this irresponsible behavior continued in future.

    • peace says:

      what do you mean “only 0.1% of the property was destroyed”. If that 0.1% was your house and if the 0.0001% loss of life was only your wife,dad or mother will you still thank yom-i-ishq rasool. It’s because of morons who still think blood and hatred as revenge, the country is below par on many ways.

    • irfan says:

      Great day how so? 20+ dead, thousands if not millions of dollars worth of property destroyed. I guess a violent an intolerant nation can only judge its performance for other worse events of its history. A sane person should ask as to why this happend altogether not if was better or worse than the last time.

    • Nasir says:

      True..

      • Malik says:

        Quit shifting responsibility and blame on ‘hidden’ hands. This is what Pakistan has become…violent. We should be offended by those who commit violence… and learn to follow Islam that prohibits these acts… including reaction to Blashphemy…just read Prophet (pbuh)’s live and preachings.

  16. KP says:

    Hi,

    Unfortunately the laws in Pakistan are only safeguarding against one religion and its few sects and one is free to commit any Blasphemy for any other religion. And the fact that the descrimination starts from the text books of Governement run schools it is quite difficult to convince Muslim minority countries to amend their laws.

    This is the time to amend Pakistan Laws ( Like Blasphemy Laws) to include religious tolerance and Punishments for any one who does some thing wrong against any religion or sect. Any person who is committing something against any other persons beliefs should be punished.

    Once these impartial laws are implemented in Pakistan and minorities are not abused in this country. The same law should be made a case example and implemented globally.

    Regards

  17. Maryam Naseer says:

    We will destroy ourselves happily. During the earliar time of Islam, when Prophet PBUH used to go to preach teachings of Islam, people of that time had thrown pelts, garbage on him, abused him but not even a single Sahabi took revenge of that, instead our Prophet prayed for them. Was not that the insult of our Prophet IF WE BELIEVE THAT THIS MOVIE is? Does we claim to be more faithful to Islam than the Sahaba Karaam? If not, than why we are giving importance to that pathetic movie? I feel shame how muslims reacted throughout the world “especially” in Pakistan.

    • Asma Ali says:

      Well said Maryam.

    • Latif Palekar says:

      Sister Maryam, I completely,totally & absolutely agree with your sentiments. No human can ever insult Allah’s Nabi, whom Allah himself has described as “khalaq -ul-azeem”. Good Muslims should ignore these provocations & pray for better sense to prevail amongst the bigots. But to burn, loot & destroy is not Islamic. And that is the reaction our enemies wish to elicit from us.unfortunately we always fall in their trap. Please oh please dear Muslim brothers, do refrain from such acts. In Allah’s name, please.

  18. Abdul Basit says:

    My friend called me on friday after prayers and asked me to come with him to find if there is any place in Karachi where peaceful protests are being made. My only reply was, I dont want to be looted, mobbed or want my car broken and burnt.
    It is shameful to say but a lot of people do know what is going to happen on such a day. Utter stupidity from the government of Pakistan who should know the principles of management which requires planning, and organising as well as contingency plans prepared.
    All of those foriegners moaning about the crisis in Pakistan, when so called literate Englishmen in UK created a havoc during the London riots just for the sake of an individual being shot. this is much justified, when most of the Pakistanis are illiterate and here we are talking of someone who is most dear to heart of any Muslim anywhere in the world.
    Overall, whatever happened! Should’nt have but again… such things happen on such events! No point discussing and giving opinions as nothing would change for coming years in Pakistan.
    May Allah prove me wrong. Ameen

    • areluctantpakistani says:

      “Just” for the sake of an individual being shot??

      No wonder we kill scores everyday and have no issues with it! We have no value for the human life it seems. We value arbitrary concepts or emotions higher than real people. We take slight at words and pictures but dismiss reality so completely. We take umbrage in Allah’s name but slaughter his own creation so heartlessly.

      We are all hypocrites. We do not love Allah, we cannot, as we definitely do not love his greatest creation, man. We are ready to kill and die for obscure and tenuous links to religion but will not even think about being considerate to the apparent reason for that religion being introduced in the first place, man.

      We deserve what we get.

    • efaz says:

      MQM Protest was peaceful, right front of the Press club.

  19. Azmat says:

    A visibly senile minister playing to the gallery brings more shame to Pakistan. An inept government abdicates the security of its people to the extremists & an irresponsible activist media.
    This is the story of Pakistan today…and the silent majority watches helplessly… Hello Pakistan , wake up , before it is too late…..

  20. Shahid Butt says:

    Control the religious group and politicians like mr Bilour who are inciting people.Those people who have done damage to public property, put them in jail for long term

  21. Ali says:

    Correct way to observe this day:

    1. At personal level: adopt a sunnah of Holy Prophet PBUH as one of your own behaviour.
    2. At national or government level: All governments saying empty words of anger should have pooled in money and created a series of 25 movies about the great aspects of Islam and Prophet Muhammad PBUH, given worldwide intense media campaign and released them on youtube at same time together…..

  22. Rajesh says:

    I had better expectations from a peace loving religion and a peace loving country. Oh… that’s just another hogwash.

  23. Osman says:

    How did we manage to create such a chawal (stupid) and ignorant society? Our Pakistani kaum is trying to show to the world that we are worse than any western claim.

    …like I said, what a chawal society…

    • Umer says:

      Apathy…

      Apathy is what has created this society. We are all responsible for this. The ignorant amongst us for not knowing better and the enlightened amongst us for not doing anything about the ignorant half.

      The “Apnay kaam se kaam rakho” attitude.

  24. malik says:

    This movie was on internet since june. No muslim knew about it, till an egyptian radio mentioned it. The person who made this movie clip, is an egyptian american. Pakistani showed the world they are not civilized. They like to kill.

    • Naeem says:

      I do not understand my brainwashed fellow citizens who have neither any idea about Islam nor do they practice Islam. Can these fanatics explain to me how does a derogatory film about Prophet Muhammad made by an Egyptian American in the USA gives them the right to kill fellow citizens, burn and destroy property owned by Pakistani Muslims, force other people to close shops and join in an unruly demonstration that our beloved Prophet would be ashamed of and further more accuse another Pakistani Muslim of being blasphemous because he did not close his shop and join the unruly protest? These idiots have embarrassed the Holy Prophet instead of showing their love for him. If they really loved the Holy Prophet, they would stop killing of fellow human beings, work harder in their lives, stop corruption and give more charity and eliminate poverty from their country. Then and only then can they say they love their Prophet.

  25. Baldev Chawla says:

    Pakistani Muslims are fantastic. Theybhave started playing God to protect His son the Prophet who indeed does protect all. He always lives in peace. Therefore do bot repeat pbuh again and again. He does not need your blessings. He is the rasool of Allah and not your rasool. He came to the world because Allah wished it to be. He came because of the rasool of God and not because he needed any protections from the infidels
    Who defy his tenants by being cruel and violent. Please leave him alone. He is unassailable. Mulla wants to remain in business at the cost of Pakistanies who have lost sense of proportion. Chawla

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