My Journey as a Holy Warrior

Nar­ra­tor: Rana Irfan

It had been quite some time since Zia-ul-Haq’s eleven years mil­i­tary regime had end­ed with his sud­den death yet the fiery ser­mons in mosques had not aban­doned prais­ing him and his poli­cies. Jiha­di orga­ni­za­tions were active­ly work­ing all over our city dis­trib­ut­ing Jiha­di lit­er­a­ture in the form of pam­phlets, books, audio and video cas­settes. Instead of any antic­i­pat­ed change because of the regime change, the jin­go­is­tic songs, demon­stra­tions, arms exhi­bi­tions and speech­es were on a con­stant rise.

I come from a strict­ly reli­gious fam­i­ly of Chin­iot, a city in cen­tral Pun­jab bor­der­ing Jhang, the lat­ter being the birth­place of sec­tar­i­an ter­ror­ism in Pak­istan. My fam­i­ly was fer­vent sup­port­er of a new­ly formed sec­tar­i­an Jiha­di orga­ni­za­tion. I did not have to go through train­ing to devel­op hatred against oth­er sects and infi­dels; I inher­it­ed it in the very envi­ron­ment I grew up in. This mind­set was going to play the cru­cial role of push­ing me into a per­ilous jour­ney.

A col­lege stu­dent back then, I was under­stand­ably eas­i­ly inspired by the mil­i­tant lit­er­a­ture cir­cu­lat­ing among stu­dents. It took me no time to become famil­iar with all those strange faces that reg­u­lar­ly came to our local­i­ty for preach­ing and recruit­ing for Jihad. I, along with new fel­lows, start­ed attend­ing their local meet­ings and ral­lies. In the light of the hero­ic tales of great Mus­lim con­querors and fight­ers, we were told that arms are orna­ments of a true Mus­lim. Apart from the reli­gious rea­sons, the exhi­bi­tion of mod­ern weapons and prospect of an adven­ture did lure us to wear these orna­ments.

Moti­vat­ing us on the beat of enthu­si­as­tic jiha­di songs, these new friends of mine denounced any method of peace­ful preach­ing, and urged us to take ‘prac­ti­cal steps’. We were required to learn these teach­ings by heart and prop­a­gate them among our fam­i­lies and acquain­tances. As I set out to preach, I start­ed fil­ter­ing my friends; I boy­cotted those who did not pay heed to my advice of reg­u­lar­ly offer­ing all the prayers. I devel­oped my own cri­te­ria of piety in every­day life to decide if some­body was wor­thy of any rela­tion with me. Those who wouldn’t lis­ten to me were less than human for me and were des­tined to burn in hell. With every pass­ing day many of the famil­iar faces were van­ish­ing from my life, and being replaced by new beard­ed ‘angel­ic’ ones.

Con­fer­ences on Jihad were being reg­u­lar­ly held in Chin­iot by var­i­ous reli­gious groups, and I would make sure to attend them despite all my edu­ca­tion­al engage­ments. Muja­hedeen would come all the way from Kash­mir and Afghanistan and would enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly tell us sto­ries of their adven­tures in the holy war. I remem­ber them telling us how Mus­lims were being oppressed all over the world and all the non-Mus­lim coun­tries have only one agen­da of sub­ju­gat­ing the Mus­lims. Armed strug­gle is need of the time and any attempt to pla­cate the Mus­lims through preach­ing peace equals trai­tor­ship. Their ser­mons and flash­es of Jiha­di orna­ments, i.e. arms con­tin­u­ous­ly bred rest­less­ness in me to do some­thing for my fel­low Mus­lims.

1989 was the year when I final­ly decid­ed to go for Jihad. Through local sec­tar­i­an out­fits, I came into con­tact with the Jiha­di orga­ni­za­tions work­ing in Chin­iot. I met the local Ameer (leader) of muja­hedeen who admired my fight­ing spir­it and prayed for the ful­fil­ment of my desire for mar­tyr­dom. On a beau­ti­ful spring day of 1989 I, along with 25 oth­er boys, packed some nec­es­sary things and cloths and reached at the local office of the muja­hedeen. The local Ameer hand­ed me over a let­ter to be giv­en to the Ameer of Miran Shah, a town in North Wazi­ras­tan of Fed­er­al­ly Admin­is­tered Trib­al Areas of Pak­istan (FATA). After a long and rest­less jour­ney we reached at the camp of Harkat­ul Muja­hedeen at Miran Shah. They ver­i­fied our par­tic­u­lars right away and then divid­ed us into groups of ten to twelve peo­ple. When they fin­ished form­ing these groups, a vehi­cle took us towards north-west of Miran Shah lead­ing to Afghanistan. After enter­ing Afghanistan, anoth­er vehi­cle took us to a Jiha­di camp in the out­skirts of Khost city. We were to get Jiha­di train­ing in this camp for forty days. After wel­com­ing us they gave us dif­fer­ent kinds of forms and affi­davits to fill in; the forms entailed that we had come to Jihad by our own free will and if we die, the orga­ni­za­tion would not be answer­able to any­one.

Our train­ing start­ed the very next day. After morn­ing prayer and recita­tion of Holy Quran, they would give us just two min­utes to change uni­form and shoes to leave for a phys­i­cal train­ing drill. The arms train­ing con­tin­ued from break­fast till after­noon prayer in which we would learn both about light arms and heavy arms like rock­et launch­ers. The recruits who were doing spe­cial com­man­do train­ing would con­tin­ue their train­ing till late after­noon prayers, while we cleaned our arms and took rest. After late evening prayer, there used to be long Jiha­di speech­es in which the virtues of Jihad and sto­ries of atroc­i­ties against Mus­lims in Kash­mir and Afghanistan were told. The forty day train­ing fin­ished and I was sent to fight against North­ern Alliance with­in Khost province. We fought in groups; after every fif­teen days a group of fight­ers was replaced by anoth­er and the ear­li­er one was sent back to the camp for rest. In the camps we were reg­u­lar­ly asked if we want­ed to con­tin­ue Jihad with an advanced commando’s train­ing. The com­man­do fight­ers enjoyed perks and earned great respect in the eyes of senior muja­hedeen.

I showed my desire to go for advanced train­ing and they sent me back to Peshawar. After going through for­mal­i­ties in Peshawar cen­tre they took me to a camp in Jalal­abad (Afghanistan) where anoth­er three months train­ing ses­sion start­ed. This camp was head­ed by Philip­pine fight­ers who were flu­ent in Ara­bic, Pash­to and Eng­lish. Most of the trainee fight­ers were unable to under­stand these lan­guages. I was able to devel­op a close rela­tion with my new com­man­ders as I could con­verse with them in Eng­lish. I worked as an inter­preter between the trainee fight­ers and the com­man­ders. In this advanced train­ing we were taught to use heavy artillery, light weapons and devel­op strate­gic skills. After com­plet­ing this course we were to be sent to the fronts in Kash­mir, Tajik­istan and inte­ri­or Afghanistan; being free to choose one of the three.

The nights at the train­ing camp were appar­ent­ly peace­ful but every now and then the silence of our nights was torn apart by the echoes of fiery Jiha­di speech­es. We would have night­mares of scream­ing muti­lat­ed bod­ies as depict­ed in Jiha­di lit­er­a­ture. We would wake up in ter­ror and call out our Kash­miri brethren promis­ing them to lib­er­ate them from Indi­an occu­pa­tion. The cool Himalayan winds com­ing from the north were like heav­en­ly breeze for us. We could not wait to embrace the hoories in par­adise.

I, along with some oth­er fel­lows, showed inter­est to join Jihad in Kash­mir, so Muza­farabad was our next des­ti­na­tion. From there we went to Ath­muqam in Pak­istani admin­is­tered Kash­mir where we were wel­comed in an office of Pakistan’s pre­mier intel­li­gence agency. On a cold night of Octo­ber 1989 we crossed the bor­der of Indi­an held Kash­mir under the pro­tec­tion of Pak­istani intel­li­gence agency. But the heavy snow­fall blocked our way and we had to wait on the way indef­i­nite­ly.

Mean­while I got to know that my father had been search­ing for me and had some­how reached Muzaf­farabad. I wished to meet him so I was sent back to Muzaf­farabad on a spe­cial vehi­cle to vis­it my father. My father per­suad­ed me that I was need­ed at home because of my mother’s ail­ing health and oth­er fam­i­ly issues. Emo­tions over­pow­ered him while he was talk­ing and his beg­ging made me decide to go back home for a while. I came back to Chin­iot with my father. I was wel­comed at home with a great jubi­la­tion, but I was no more the same per­son.

The pre­car­i­ous con­fronta­tion with pos­si­ble death and the spir­i­tu­al brain­wash­ing had devel­oped inside me a deep sense of arro­gant piety. I looked down upon peo­ple around me for shirk­ing from the great cause of Jihad. I despised them for liv­ing their rou­tine lives with­out ever think­ing for their reli­gious oblig­a­tions. To me the whole life of a non-Muja­hed was noth­ing short of a sin in itself. The news of arrival in the city spread rapid­ly among the local reli­gious cir­cles and the sup­port­ers of Jihad. I start­ed to get din­ner invi­ta­tions every oth­er day from the peo­ple whom I nev­er knew before. The more respect and recog­ni­tion I earned from these peo­ple for telling the sto­ries of my Jihad, the greater dis­gust I felt for the ordi­nary non-reli­gious folks.

Soon I decid­ed to go back to the front. I secret­ly left my home with a close friend of mine. Mean­while my father came to know about my going back and he stopped me at the bus stop. While cry­ing he tried to con­vinc­ing me not to go, he even threat­ened to com­mit sui­cide if I left. I felt noth­ing could stop me at that time from achiev­ing the ulti­mate objec­tive of my life, i.e. mar­tyr­dom.

I left my cry­ing father behind with a cold heart but dur­ing my argu­ments with him, I missed the last avail­able bus to FATA. The inci­dent of los­ing my bus struck me as a bad omen. I sud­den­ly felt a spasm of guilt for aban­don­ing my fam­i­ly when they need me the most. But on the oth­er hand my ego­ist piety and desire for heav­en were stop­ping me from going home. After think­ing for a long time I con­clud­ed to go back home. I decid­ed that I will nev­er go for Jihad again but the way my mind had been mould­ed into vio­lent thoughts at Jiha­di camps always kept me rest­less.

In 1992 I met a mil­i­tant of a sec­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tion. After devel­op­ing a lev­el of trust and frank­ness, he took me to a mosque which stored a big amount of mod­ern weapons and ammu­ni­tion. The invit­ing sight of weapons and the per­sua­sion of my new com­rade urged me to become a Muja­hed again, this time of a dif­fer­ent sort. Because of my fam­i­ly back­ground and Jiha­di train­ing, I was already clear on the sta­tus of cer­tain sects in Islam. I believed that some hereti­cal sects such as Shias were worse than infi­dels and deserved to be killed. This fel­low intro­duced me to an oppor­tu­ni­ty of Jihad at the local lev­el by tar­get­ing these sects. I joined it eager­ly. To start with, the plan was to tar­get the promi­nent Shia fig­ures of our local­i­ty by dam­ag­ing their assets and busi­ness. I was so con­vinced of the apos­ta­sy of Shias that our planned crime of rob­bing them looked to me noth­ing short of a great virtue.

Under the ban­ner and direc­tion of sec­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tions and with the help of pro­fes­sion­al crim­i­nals, we start­ed loot­ing and steal­ing. Till then every crim­i­nal act of mine was a step towards imple­men­ta­tion of Islam and towards pre­serv­ing the man­dat­ed respect for Saha­ba, the com­pan­ions of Holy Prophet. I had dozens of ways to answer any objec­tion raised against my actions and to keep my con­science at peace until the day when I wit­nessed these pious ‘Muja­hedeen’ stoop­ing to low­est lev­el of moral deca­dence. It hap­pened at one of our rob­beries when a woman from a Shia house unex­pect­ed­ly resist­ed us. My com­rades treat­ed her with such dirty lan­guage and bru­tal beat­ing that I am unable to recount here.  Her pleas for help in my moth­er tongue touched my heart more than any of those imag­i­nary cries which I was made to hear while in Kash­mir or Kab­ul. This ulti­mate degra­da­tion of a woman in my own home­land deeply trau­ma­tized me to ques­tion the whole moral and polit­i­cal nar­ra­tive of Jihad. Dur­ing the last two and half years when I was busy killing the infi­dels and risk­ing my own life and that of my fam­i­ly, I nev­er both­ered to have an informed and bal­anced look at what I was doing and who was ben­e­fit­ting from it.

The inci­dent of that night became a turn­ing point and putting aside the one sided pro­pa­gan­da of Jiha­di lit­er­a­ture, I start­ed read­ing about oth­er sides of the pic­ture. Soon I real­ized how bad­ly I had ruined my stud­ies, fam­i­ly life, career and ener­gies. Fol­low­ing this real­iza­tion, it took me quite an effort to become hum­ble and nice to the peo­ple in order to rec­om­pense for my hate­ful behav­iour. For my eco­nom­ic wor­ries, I start­ed run­ning a gym in the city. Mean­while some rem­nants of the ide­o­log­i­cal con­fu­sion and ques­tions kept me men­tal­ly occu­pied.

On a sum­mer day of 1992 when I was at my gym, police raid­ed my place, arrest­ed me and locked me up. After­wards I got to know that due to my past asso­ci­a­tion, I was a sus­pect in a recent rob­bery in the city. After a long legal bat­tle I was final­ly acquit­ted. I left my city the same day. The intro­spec­tion that I was able to do while in incar­cer­a­tion at the police sta­tion made me fur­ther crit­i­cal of the choic­es that I made in the past. From Chin­iot, I reached Faisal­abad. I felt relieved after con­fess­ing all about my crim­i­nal past to a bar­ber in Faisal­abad who shaved my beard.

Today I am liv­ing a total­ly dif­fer­ent life in Lahore. Though the wars that we have been wag­ing for decades have reached our homes now, I am glad that at least my chil­dren are born in a dif­fer­ent cen­tu­ry. I work as a teacher here, and dur­ing teach­ing I try my best to teach my stu­dents to spread love and be tol­er­ant and peace lov­ing Pak­ista­nis.

Many of my com­pan­ions from Afghan and Kash­mir Jihad did not return alive. Many are those who came back but they still look down upon com­mon peo­ple think­ing them not ‘pious’ enough, and there are oth­ers who still await accep­tance by the peo­ple includ­ing their fam­i­ly and friends. And many are those who, with the fear of fac­ing any unex­pect­ed sit­u­a­tion, are still liv­ing in moun­tains and miss­ing their home­land. I still remem­ber the words of my Philip­pine com­man­der when I asked him when will he go back home. There was great pain in his eyes and he said with a sigh, “May be nev­er”.

I am lucky to be liv­ing a new life with my fam­i­ly so that I could tell the new gen­er­a­tion mem­oirs of the ter­ri­ble ven­tures of my gen­er­a­tion.

Read Urdu ver­sion of this arti­cle here