Pakistan Banishes Walter Raleigh

By A GHOSH

Sir Walter Raleigh ), English sea captain, writer and court favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, was born in Devonshire and was related to many seagoing gentry of Southwest England. He spent short periods of study at Oxford University and may have served as a soldier in France. He went to Ireland as a soldier and then returned to England in 1581. He had a checkered career and finally was executed, October 29, 1618.

However, Sir Walter Raleigh was known to us school boys through the medium of our English books, for a chivalrous act of his. It was related in the books, that on one occasion, Queen Elizabeth, when about to descend from her horse-drawn carriage, found that part of the road was waterlogged due to an earlier shower. No doubt, the Queen’s shoes would be sullied in the mud if she did get off the carriage and the gathered men and sentry did not exactly know what to do to prevent the predicament.

The story says that Walter Raleigh (not a ‘Sir’ yet) happened to be there at the moment. He took off his jacket and threw itand laid it on that part of the road which was muddy. The idea was that the Queen could then step on his ‘still dry’ jacket and walk over the muddy part without getting her shoes soiled. And that is exactly what the Queen did; she jumped off the carriage, stepped on Raleigh’s jacket and walked over to the dry part of the road. Everyone was greatly relieved. The Queen was immensely impressed and soon after Walter Raleigh was made Sir Walter Raleigh, by Queen Elizabeth I.

Remember, when we were growing up and going to school, in the late thirties or early forties, India was still under British rule. Such anecdotes in our school books were common in those days. Sir Walter Raleigh’s story’s importance lay in the fact that it lent itself quite aptly in explaining and demonstrating to the school children the true meaning of the word ‘chivalry,’ -- the word was explained to us as a sum of gentlemanly qualities, which included courtesy, generosity, valor and dexterity, qualities which were very much appreciated when displayed in a man’s dealing with a lady.

I am sure that story is still taught in most public schools in India. But not so in India’s Mohammedan schools. The standard was set by Islamic Pakistan. The ball was set rolling when a Saudi Islamic scholar (call him a high power mullah) visited Pakistan and the Pakistanis, so eager to prove their Islamic pedigree, showed him their syllabus for schools. That syllabus, of course, included Sir Walter’s story.

The Saudi mullah was horrified. First of all there is no such word as chivalry in Arabic, in the lingo of the Prophet. If anyone wants to verify this fact, pleaseany English Arabic dictionary and look up the Arabic equivalent of the English word chivalry. The word is translated as bahaduri or courage and heroism. There is nothing nearing the concept of chivalry in Islamic ethics.

The relationship between a Mohammedan male and female is different from that in other civilized societies. In Islam, women are considered things to enjoy. A woman’s main duty in Islamic society is to give sex satisfaction to the husband, at any time and at all times, at his command. The Holy Quran says (3/223): "Your women (women, because Mohammedans often have more than one wife) are tilth for you, so go into your tilth as ye like..."

In fact, the notion ofchivalry as others know it, is foreign to Islam and hence ‘forbidden’ to Mohammedans of piety. The Saudi scholar was horrified and went to the Education Minister of Pakistan. Having been born and brought up in undivided India, nurtured under the British, the Education Minister of Pakistan, could not in his wildest dream, believe that there was anything wrong in the story of Sir Walter Raleigh. But then, although Pakistan was now a free Islamic country, at least that is what many Pakistanis had thought at the time, it became quite clear that in the matter of Mohammedanism, they still had to learn a great deal of things. The Hindu roots of present day Pakistanis had first to be exorcised and then the vile influence of the Christian British (although known as ahl-e-kitab, meaning people of the book and thus supposed to be nearer to Islam than the heathens are) had to be totally removed.

The matter went to the Pakistani President, who was not too knowledgeable in Islam either. To him, the essentials of Islam really meant to be anti-Hindu and do things that are forbidden by the Hindus, such as cow-killing, shouting in the name of religion to disturb others’ sleep, preventing others from having fun and games, for Islam is a kill-joy society, a society where walls of ‘no’ are erected all around their people, almost like the veil, cutting off the sunlight.

After some heated discussions, the Saudi saw to it that the Pakistanis, the recent Mohammedans as opposed to the Mohammedans of al Arabiyya al Saudiyya, the ‘sune hue Mussalmans’ of Pakistan as opposed to the ‘dekhe hue Mussalmans’ of the desert of Arabia, gave in; they had to for the simple reason that a great deal of oil money was flowing from Riyadh to Islamabad to keep the Islamic plant fed and watered. And thus the entire education system of Pakistan was abruptly changed and Sir Walter Raleigh banished. Today, of course, some Pakistanis are making an effort to prove the pedigree of Pakistan, they talk of Mohenjodaro, of Harappa of even Buddhism and various seats of Hindu learning in hinterland of that Mohammedan country. But that is all eye wash. That is jahiliya or darkness for the simple reason that anything and everything that had existed before the Prophet belongs to the dark ages. Pakistan is squarely under the camel drivers’ thumbs and there is hardly any room for it to even move.

The exile of Sir Walter Raleigh means more than denying a story to the school boys of Pakistan; it means closing of one more window of human values and further darkening of the land. Although the river Sindh is still flowing through that land today, but just wait, in years to come, the river is to dry up, almost like the ancient Sarasvati. The desert of the Middle East will take over Pakistani territory, across Makran of Iran, Registan of Afghanistan and so on. The blessing of 6th century god will dry up trees, plants and the spirit of the raiders will take over. The camel and horse-riding looters well set out to rob adjoining countries of their harvests and their women and children for slaves to do their chores. For essentially, the people there are lazy and suffer from the wicked thoughts of robbing others, of an alien faith. Chivalry is not what they seek; Islam has provided the Pakistanis with good reasons for a new way of life!

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