Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA)
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (moo ta HEE da MAJ lees eh AH mal), the United Action Front, is an alliance initially headed by Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani, leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan – the political representative of the Barelvi school of Sunni Muslims.
Its leaders are strongly opposed to the US-led anti-terrorism campaign in neighboring Afghanistan that ousted the Taleban from power. The group believed Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had become a tool of US foreign policy. The MMA campaigned on promises to enforce Sharia law and in support of the withdrawal of US forces based in Pakistan in the campaign against international terrorism.
The MMA is an alliance composed of 4 powerful religious parties: Jamaat Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (S), and Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (N). The coalition has in its fold both factions of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, which represents the Deobandi school, Professor Sajid Mir's Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadith and Allama Sajid Naqvi's outlawed Shia group Tehrik-e-Jafria, which in its present incarnation is known as Pakistan Islami Tehrik. But the motivating force behind the formation of the MMA is one of the country’s most organised political parties, the Jamaat-e-Islami.
Qazi Hussain Ahmad of Jamaat Islami is the most visible leader of MMA in Punjab. Maulana Fazlur Rehman of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) is strong in Baluchistan and enjoys the prestige of having been a defender of the interests of the Taliban in the grand Deobandi alliance mostly spearheaded by the jehadi militias. He also looks after the interests of the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba of Maulana Azam Tariq. Maulana Samiul Haq is the leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (S) and is in MMA because of his pro-Taliban madrassah. Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani is the leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan whose party has only gradually gained some ground after the decline of the MQM in Sindh. His anti-Americanism is offset by his less extreme Bereave Islamic beliefs.
The religious alliance won an absolute majority in October 2001 regional elections. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal now rules the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. On November 25, 2002 the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal formed the government in the NWFP, after the alliance’s huge success in the province, at both the provincial and national level. In June 2002 the parliament in North-West Frontier Province approved legislation to make Sharia -- or Islamic teachings -- the governing law in the region. Since taking control of the province, the ruling Islamic alliance banned music on public transport, medical examinations of women by male doctors, male coaches for women athletes and male journalists from covering women's sports.
Taliban fighters are recruited and trained in Pakistan's tribal areas of Baluchistan and North-West Frontier Province where the central government has little influence. In the 2002 general elections, both provinces voted overwhelmingly for Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, an alliance of religious parties openly critical of US-Pakistan cooperation.
The Jamiat Ahle Hadith (S) broke off with the alliance in August 2002, after differences with other members. The unity of the alliance suffered a setback in late August 2002 with the departure of Sajid Mir, head of the Jamiat Ahle Hadith. Mir is close to Nawaz Sharif and was unhappy with Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Shah Ahmed Noorani on the meeting of Qazi with General Musharraf in August. It is believed that though the two sides could not resolve their differences, General Musharraf succeeded in reaching some sort of understanding with the Jamaat chief. After this meeting, the anti-Musharraf rhetoric vanished from the speeches of Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Shah Ahmed Noorani [although the anti-Americanism remained].
The MMA has the most direct appeal of all the parties. Prior to August 2002, it venomously attacked the Musharraf government for having betrayed the Taliban and sided with the US in its supposed ‘war against Islam’. They reject any change to the Kashmir policy and have emerged as the only outright supporter of the Kashmir ‘jihad’. They attack the presence of the American troops and agencies on Pakistani soil and speak in favour of the militant groups banned by the Musharraf government. Leaders under the MMA umbrella have issued fatwas of death on Americans and have denied the 9/11 attack by Osama bin Laden. The four parties are opposed to the present fiscal system and want it Islamised together with a complete enforcement of ‘shariah’. All of them are pathologically opposed to America as a world power and its ‘handmaiden’, the IMF, and want Pakistan’s foreign policy turned around. At the verbal level, MMA is closest to the minds of the Pakistani people.
On 11 December 2003 the president of the MMA Maulana Noorani, an eminent cleric and political leader passed away, aged 78. Politicians from different political parties paid tribute to the services of the late Maulana Noorani. The death was seen as a significant setback to the MMA.
In November 2003 Pakistan cracked down on four religious groups accused of having links to terrorism. The groups had earlier been banned and reorganized under new names. President Pervez Musharraf banned three of the groups. The government placed a fourth group on a watch list, leaving open the possibility of future action. All four represent renamed and reorganized versions of groups that Pakistan outlawed two years earlier as terrorist networks. Two of the originally banned groups, the Lashkar-e Taiba and the Jaish-e Mohammed, have been named as terrorist organizations by the US State Department. Pakistan Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said the government originally had taken a wait-and-see approach to the new versions of the banned groups. But the crackdown sparked political debate. Qazi Hussein Ahmed is a senior member of Parliament and the leader of Jamaat-e Islami, said the banned groups had no ties to militants. One organization -- Tehrik-e Islami -- is part of the Muttahida Majlis-e Amal. Tehrik-e-Islami is the only group representing Shia minority in the religious alliance.
