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So here's a curious Tablighi Jamaat story.
This is Muhammad Mahmood Alam climbing into his F86 jet at Sargodha. 1/
This is Muhammad Mahmood Alam climbing into his F86 jet at Sargodha. 1/
Alam was a fighter ace in the 1965 war, claiming 7 kills, including, in an insane sub-tree-top-level encounter, Ajit "Peter" Rawlley, the man who years before had taught my mum to shoot.
2/
2/
The day after that encounter, 7 September 1965, Alam also claimed four Hunters in a single 270° firing pass, a feat that would have elevated him to Werner Voss or Saburō Sakai levels of flying genius - if anyone outside of the PAF believed it. 3/
His countrymen believed it anyway, which is why 7 September is still Pakistan's Air Force Day.
Just 6 years later, the two countries were at war again. But bizarrely, a fighter ace of this stature found no role in the air war of 1971. The reasons ascribed vary. 4/
Just 6 years later, the two countries were at war again. But bizarrely, a fighter ace of this stature found no role in the air war of 1971. The reasons ascribed vary. 4/
But two of them are relevant to our times and both are ways in which people will continue to shoot themselves in the foot. 5/
One factor may have been bigotry. Alam was a Bengali speaker of Bihari origin. The best accounts of the 1971 conflict were published years later, which is why the world realised the scale of the Punjabi-dominated West Pakistani contempt for the Bengali East Pakistanis. 6/
A contempt that would simmer for years before boiling over into appalling genocide. Alam would not have been the only Bengali with a stellar service record who found himself sidelined. 7/
The other was religious fundamentalism. It may seem hard to believe now but in pre-Zia Pakistan secularism still had a fig-leaf on, especially in the armed services. 8/
Alam was a religious fundamentalist at a time when it was still considered a bit "off" for a serving officer to be one. His involvement with preaching Islamic purity and a return to 7th century values grew to absorb him almost entirely and he was soon sidelined. 9/
The organisation for which this former fighter ace devoted so much of his time, one that wants a return to practises as they were during the actual lifetime of the prophet Muhammad?
The Tablighi Jamaat.
10/10
The Tablighi Jamaat.
10/10
