Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadith (JAH)
Followers of the Prophet's Tradition
A small party, Sajjid Mir's Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadith (Followers of the Prophet's Tradition) is inspired by the Wahabis of Saudi Arabia. One of the most virulent and orthodox of the Sunni sects, Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadith, is said by some to be a creation of the ISI. Ahle Hadith wants the Saudi model of Islam implanted in Pakistan, but without the monarchy. It has supporters and mosques throughout the world, whose aim is to supply cadres and money for the worldwide jihad. Ahle Hadith's armed wing is Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure).
Pakistan took a page from the experience of Afghanistan covert operations for the Kashmir situation. Every guerrilla group had to maintain a office in Muzaffarabad to be eligible for money and weapons from ISI. ISI arranged a forced marriage of various groups with different visions about Kashmir. A political umbrella organization called Tehreek-e-Hurriyat-e-Kashmir was formed, that included both secular and religious groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami, People's League, Muslim League, Muslim Conference, Jamiat-e-Ahle-Hadith. A military umbrella organization called Muttahida Jihad Council was formed, with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen, Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen, Al Jihad, etc.
On 21 April 2000 the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) reached an understanding with the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) to end their mutual confrontation, after joining hands with Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party to fight for democracy. The meeting in which deposed Premier Nawaz Sharif's PML was represented by Senior Vice President Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri included its allies Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadith and Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Pakistan, represented by by Allama Sajid Mir and Sahibzada Fazl Karim respectively.
United Council for Action (Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, MMA) was established in 2001 by the Assembly of Islamic Clergy (Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam, JUI), the Assembly of Pakistani Clergy (Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan, JUP), the Islami Tehrik-i-Pakistan (TiP), the Pakistan Islamic Assembly (Jamaat-e-Islami-e-Pakistan, JIP), the Jammu and Kashmir Jamiat-e-Islami and the Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadith (JAH). The JAH split from the MMA prior to the 2002 election campaign.
On 24 December 2005 the Ahle Haidth Youth Force (AHYF), the youth wing of the Markazi Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadith, demanded that the federal government expel foreign troops and non-government organisations from earthquake hit areas in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and NWFP. Addressing a press conference, AHF leaders said that they would also arrange a national conference on the present political condition of the country to discuss major issues, including the Kalabagh Dam. Youth Force President Imtiaz Ahmed Mujahid, Senior Vice President Abdul Haleem Janbaz, Central Information Secretary Shakeelur Rehman Nasir and other leaders said that leaders from all four provinces and AJK attended the conference on December 25 at Lahore. They alleged that the government was trying to secularise the country under pressure from the United States and Western powers and giving it the name of modernisation.
The 2006 campaign of the PML government of prime minister Shaukat Aziz against Hudood Laws brought to the fore an extremely interesting situation. The ordinance awarded the same punishment to people involved in rape and fornication and demanded the same quality of evidence. A woman complaining of rape could be convicted for fornication punishable with death or qazf or wrongful accusation because she could not produce four pious male witnesses to the act of rape. After almost 25 years of field inquiry and recommendations of repeal by three successive commissions, the law was successfully challenged by a number of Islamic scholars and clerics; and thus ground was cleared for a repeal of the Hudood Laws. In May 2006 the MMA in the parliament opposed any changes in Hudood Laws. Its representative on GEO TV coverage was the Ahle Hadith leader Ibtisam Elahi Zaheer, whose father was assassinated after he wrote a sectarian tract.
On 13 March 2009 Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadith leader Maulana Ibtisam Elahi Zaheer has said that dictator Zia-ul-Haq and Nawaz Sharif did for their personal interest and did nothing for implementing Islamic system in the country. He was addressing the Friday congregation at Jamia Ahle- Hadith at Lawrence road here. Ibtisam said "Sale of liquor and activities at red-light area were not stopped durirng the regimes of Zia-ul-Haq and Mian Nawaz Sharif as both the rulers did never think of prioritize the implementation of Islamic system in the country." He said that even the deposed chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary did not issue any verdict for implementation of Islamic system in the country. Ibtisam said that Ulema of the country should join hands with each other and work for the implementation of Islamic system in the society to ensure justice, human rights and equality. Zaheer stressed upon the need for efforts at all level to enforce Shariah in the society and said that it is the collective duty of every member of the civil society to work for Islamic system.
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