PREFACE
There has been a long-running debate in the Indo-Pak region on whether Jinnah simply sought independence for the Muslims and wanted a secular state, or whether he sought an Islamic State. To outsiders it seems very strange that there is any debate at all on such a fundamental detail in the history of Partition. How can the people of Pakistan not be sure of the ideological basis of their country? Isn't it a crucial part of their national heritage? It's like the Americans debating what made George Washington a Founding Father of their country, or the French debating the cause of their country's famous Revolution. Yet Pakistan's rationale really is a major issue, and until this is settled the country will never be able to settle its other problems. The evidence points strongly in favour of an Islamic basis for Pakistan, but many Pakistanis including many scholars choose to deny it. However, a closer look at the debate reveals the real issue in question. It is not Jinnah's objective; it is Islam.
This book began as an article, the aim of which was to show that the late Chief Justice of Pakistan Muhammad Munir, author of the book From Jinnah to Zia, had manipulated a quote of Jinnah to mislead his readers. Munir remains one of the most famous proponents of the 'pro-secularist' theory - i.e. he advocated the view that Jinnah was a secularist. The first edition of Munir's book appeared in 1979 and since it was arguably the first to openly assert that Jinnah was a secularist, it became one of the most famous books in Pakistan's history. Over twenty-five years later, virtually everyone who writes about Jinnah's political objective mentions Munir's book; this is especially true for the pro-secularist camp. The academics as well as more obscure writers frequently take what they think is a quote of Jinnah directly from Munir's book, little realising it is a fake, and use it in their writings. It is so commonly used that I have referred to it in this book as the 'Munir quote'.
Although one of the main themes of Munir's book was the subject of Jinnah's objective, originally I had no intention of writing a rebuttal; the aim of my article was simply to expose Munir's book as unreliable, owing to its use of fabricated evidence. I also wanted to show the extent to which the book has wrongly influenced academics and their thoughts on Jinnah. However, as I did some research on writers who had quoted Munir, I came across other myths about Jinnah that I felt compelled to deal with. As certain myths required longer explanations I realised that it would not be possible to deal with them justly within one article. Hence I decided to discuss them in a book. The original article has since become the first chapter of this book, and the myths are spread out amongst the other three.
I should mention that my dispute is with the Muslim pro-secularist proponents (specifically Pakistanis) rather than the non-Muslims. The Pakistani scholars are the ones who have consistently used the Munir quote (with the odd exception, e.g. Prof. Ayesha Jalal) rather than their non-Muslim - especially Western - counterparts. This is why I have not referred to the work of Western scholars such as Prof. Stanley Wolpert or Dr. Ian Talbot in this book. This doesn't necessarily mean that Western scholarship is any less guilty of perpetuating the myths about Jinnah - but the Western scholars have not used the Munir quote. Of course, this leaves us with some unsettling questions: If the Western (or other) academics have realised the problem with the Munir quote, why has no one mentioned it? And if anyone has put the record straight, why is it not common knowledge everywhere? ... End of excerpt
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