That's what the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan governor -- officially, a US "ally" -- says. In an effort to remind the jihadists around the Afghan border that, really, they're all in the same boat, the governor, in no uncertain terms, makes clear that the "interests" of nuclear-armed Pakistan are one with the "interests" of Islam -- which may pose some problems if, as some Muslims claim, jihad is the "pinnacle" of Islam, as depicted in the following hadith: "Islam is the head of the order; prayer, its back; jihad in the way of Allah, its summit" (The Al Qaeda Reader, 81). "Governor says weak Pakistan amounts to damaging cause of Islam," from the Associated Press of Pakistan, August 14:
PESHAWAR, August 14 (APP): The NWFP Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani has said that to weaken Pakistan and damage it would tantamount to weakening and damaging the cause of Islam. Therefore, he added, the actions, which undermine the strength of the state of Pakistan served no other purpose but to strengthen its enemies. This, he stated in a message of felicitation on the eve of Independence Day. The complete text of the message of the Governor is given below:“Today we are celebrating the 61st anniversary of the creation of Pakistan. While the day is an occasion of celebration, it is also a time when the nation must soberly contemplate the challenges that it is facing.
While other countries are founded on racial, geographical or historical nationalisms, Pakistan is the only Muslim country whose nationalism is based on Islamic ideology. Whatever the shortcomings in its governmental systems; individual practices fully follow the same spirit.
Islam is still its raison detre, its unifying force and above all the ideology to live and die for. Secondly, Pakistan is the only Muslim nuclear power, with a vibrant civil society and a disciplined army.[...]
This year’s Independence Day demands the highest degree of consciousness from us. We must rise above our personal interests and internal dissensions to make this country an impregnable fortress of Islam where we can fulfill the dream of our predecessors who had so selflessly striven to gain independence from an alien ideology and culture.
My message to all Muslims is that to weaken Pakistan and damage it is tantamount to weakening and damaging the cause of Islam.
And how do Muslims who claim they would never, EVER engage in violent jihad view "the cause of Islam"?
Pakistan is the only Muslim country whose nationalism is based on Islamic ideology.
On what basis is this statement made? Arabian and Iranian nationalism are equally dependent on Islamic (note: AP didn't say ISLAMIST) ideology.
The birthplace of Islam? The Islamic Republic?
That both of these geographical areas existed before Islam is irrelevant. The countries that we know today are very much based on Islamic ideology. The Arabian peninsula was not united without the influence of Wahhabist ideology. Iranian nationalism is intertwined with Islam and there's no getting around it. How long would either country exist in its present form without the cause of Islam?
Welcome to Jihad Base Pakistan, where our jihad is the purest jihad.
"While other countries are founded on racial, geographical or historical nationalisms, Pakistan is the only Muslim country whose nationalism is based on Islamic ideology."
He's right, there. Other major Moslem states have nationalist traditions, as in Turkey, Arabia, and Iran. But Pakistan is an artifact of British colonial rule. When the British Indian Empire was broken up, it was split into four countries: India, Pakistan, Ceylon, and Burma. Burma and Ceylon had their own histories as independent kingdoms to build upon. Neither had been part of any Indian empire prior to the British, and the British had simply lumped them together with the rest of India for administrative convenience.
Pakistan was different. There had never been any country called Pakistan, nor any country under a different name that approximated the Paki territory. Historically most of Pakistan had been part of one or another empire; most often the Persian (Iranian) Empire, but at times part of a central Asian empire (as under Tamerlane), or a Delhi-based Indian Empire. Whenever imperial control was weak, the area was a group of warring tribal principalities. When British India was broken up, these areas, being a contiguous Moslem-majority area, were simply bundled together as a new country called Pakistan. Millions of Moslems in India proper feared rule by Hindus, and migrated to Pakistan, adding another ethnic element to the tribal mix. Almost the only thing that Pakis had in common was Islam. To that one might add 50-100 years of British rule, depending on the region.
East Pakistan (Bangladesh) was different. It, too, was Moslem-majority, but it had a legitimate claim to a real national identity. There was the Bengali language, and an historic Bengal state. Bangladesh is truly a nation.
Pakistan is a country, and a state, but not a nation. Its Islam is a unifying force, being one thing that its peoples have in common. But Islam is a disintegrating force as well, since Pakistan is only one Islamic country among dozens, and several of Pakistan's neighbors are also Islamic. So if one is to be loyal to Islam, then there are other choices besides loyalty to the capital at Islamabad.
My message to all Muslims is that to weaken Pakistan and damage it is tantamount to weakening and damaging the cause of Islam."
-- from the article above, quoting NWFP [Northwest Frontier Province] Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani
This is exactly -- word for word -- what was said repeatedly by the government of Pakistan (then West Pakistan) when its troops were killing and raping and rampaging through East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during the war for Bangladeshi independence -- that such a splitting of Pakistan constituted an "attack on Islam." Some of the most fanatical local Muslims in what was to become Bangladesh, the razakars, found this argument convincing and collaborated with the Pakistani army by killing and terrorizing fellow Bangladeshis in the name of protecting Pakistan, and thus of protecting Islam
So, we should have invaded Pakistan rather than Iraq?
We shouldn't invade, and certainly not "reconstruct" or "help" or lavish aid after any invasion, any of them. A Cordon Sanitaire needs to be erected. No Muslim state can be allowed to acquire major weaponry. That will require measures up and down the line, including preventing Muslims from studying subjects relevant to nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, anywhere in the Infidel world, and of course interdicting the delivery of any material useful in such weapons projects.
When a country such as Saudi Arabia, or the U.A.E., is sold planes, those planes should be carefully "fixed" so that their use, or rather mis-use (in our view) can be prevented from Western computers, or the computers on-board themselves jimmied not to work outside a certain range. There are all kinds of things that can, and should, be done.
No more transfer of wealth, other than what is used to pay for oil and gas (and that use has to be brought down, quickly, coute que coute). No more aid to Muslim states that should be told they can go to their rich fellow members of the Umma, and not to Infidels. No more immigration from Muslim lands. No more toleration for the building of mosques and madrasas and other expenditures by the Saudis or other outside Muslims, and a stony refusal to meet any further Muslim demands for changes in Infidel legal and political institutions and social arrangements. Instead of the will-o'-the-wisp of "integration" of Muslims, let there be widespread education about the texts, tenets, attitudes, atmospherics of Islam, even if this goes against the spirit of the age. Explain that Diversity, real Diversity, is not to be tolerated in Islam: in the end, all of humanity must consist either of Muslims, or of non-Muslims who will be subservient to Muslims, as dhimmis, that is forced to endure a condition of permanent humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity.
This is something that can be taught. This is something that Muslims cannot permanently hide. The texts are there, a click away.
"Historically most of Pakistan had been part of one or another empire; most often the Persian (Iranian) Empire, but at times part of a central Asian empire (as under Tamerlane),"
ebonystone,
You are talking about West Punjab and Sindh area.
http://www.historyofjihad.org/india.html?syf=contact
Bangladesh is as illegitimate as Pakistan - it was a part of the larger (British) Indian state of Bengal. While Pakistan was made up by splitting Punjab and tossing in Sind, Baluchistan and Pashtoonistan, East Pakistan was made up by similarly splitting Bengal into West Bengal and East Bengal. In addition to the bloody population exchanges that took place (which imo is a good model for Mohammedans to be expelled from the West, and indeed the entire Infidel world), major Buddhist tribal areas in Arakan - on the Burma border, which included Chittagong - which weren't Mohammedan at all - were handed over to East Pakistan.
Bangladesh may have had a rational reason for seceding from Pakistan, but it's raison de etre for being separate from India is as specious as Pakistan's. Take Islam out of both countries, and they lose their reasons for not being parts of India (similar to East Germany and maybe someday North Korea with Communism instead of Islam)
For India today, Bangladesh is a bigger terror threat, and was the Tora Bora of the bombings in Bangalore and Ahmedabad a few weeks ago. Don't think that they are any better than Pakistan.
"My message to all Muslims is that to weaken Pakistan and damage it is tantamount to weakening and damaging the cause of Islam"
That sounds like a good reason for weakening and damaging Pakistan.
But it also sounds like a grandstand play to make Pakistan seem more important in the Islamic world than it is. Historically, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, and Turkey have all been more important centers of Islam than Pakistan.