MEMRI has translated a Pakistani news report on comments by a Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) convention calling for “exposing a network of American terrorists in Pakisan” and calling for the death penalty for US embassy employee Raymond Davis. recently involved in a shooting incident in Pakistan. According to the MEMRI translation:
A jirga (meeting of tribal elders) organized by the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan in Lahore has called for exposing the “network of American terrorists” in Pakistan in the wake of Raymond Davis controversy, according to an Urdu-language daily. Syed Munawwar Hasan (pictured above), Emir of the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, told the convention that thousands of Raymond Davises are running amok in the country and instead of controlling them, the government is killing innocent tribals in the military operations in Pakistani tribal areas. According to a report in the Urdu-language daily Roznama Jang, the jirga demanded that Raymond Davis, an official of the U.S. Consulate in Lahore now under Pakistani custody over double murder charges, be hanged. Hasan asked the Pakistani government to quite the so-called U.S. against terror, adding that the U.S. and India are behind terrorism in Pakistan. He demanded that all security operations in the tribal region be stopped.
Earlier posts have reported that the leader of the JEI Pakistan has blamed terrorism on “U.S. tyranny” and his remarks by in which he accused the West of being the “real terrorists”, complaining that Western societies will not allow Muslims to practice Islam in their daily lives, labeling practices such as jihad as terrorism.
The JEI was founded in 1941 and is Pakistan’s oldest religious party. The party had its origins in the thought of Maulana Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi (1903-79), the most important Islamist intellectual in the history of Southeast Asia. Maududi was also a major influence on the global Muslim Brotherhood with whom the JEI has long enjoyed close relations. In the United States, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is generally considered to represent the JEI. ICNA has a particularly close relationship with the Muslim American Society (MAS), a part of the U.S. Brotherhood, and the two organizations have been holding joint conferences in recent years. In addition, many past and present leaders of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), also part of the U.S. Brotherhood, have backgrounds that are strongly associated with JEI. One notable example is India-born Muzammil Siddiqi, a past ISNA president and leader of the Fiqh Council of North America. A previous post has discussed a recent speaking invitation by ISNA to another JEI leader.