The group would go on to join the PPP in 1967 and the resultant project would emerge as вЂIslamic Socialism.вЂ™ In the 1960s when a group of young leftist intellectuals led by Hanif Ramay was working on an ideological project to merge socialism with the Quranic concepts of justice and equality, the group incorporated a number of ideas that were first aired by Ghulam Ahmed Parvez. Undeterred by the criticism that was being continuously hurled towards him by religious parties and conservative Islamic scholars, Parvez kept emphasising and propagating his views through a number of books and lectures. Though ParvezвЂ™s idea was initially supported by the Ayub Khan regime (1958-69), the government soon backed out when Parvez was vehemently attacked by conservative religious parties and scholars. Parvez wanted to repeat the experiment in Pakistan with Urdu. In the 1930s, modern TurkeyвЂ™s founder, Kamal Atta Turk, had already attempted to introduce prayers and the call for prayer (aazan/baang) in Turkish. In 1961 Parvez created an uproar of sorts in the ranks of the orthodox Islamic scholars when he attempted to popularise the saying of the Muslim prayers (namaz) in Urdu, a language he said most Pakistanis understood (unlike Arabic).

One of the first cover features to appear in the magazine (under Parvez) was titled, вЂMullahs have hijacked Islam.вЂ™ In it Parvez lambasted conservative Islamic parties and the clergy as being вЂagents of rich menвЂ™ and the enemies of the well-being and enlightenment of common Muslims.ДЄfter the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Parvez became part of the Muslim League government but retired in 1956 to concentrate on his scholarly work. Understandably the orthodox clergy and scholarship labelled him as a вЂhereticвЂ™, but Jinnah insisted that Parvez was to be the one to edit Tulu-i-Islam. Parvez had become a prominent вЂQuranistвЂ™ - someone who rejects any Islamic text that was not part of the Quran.

He maintained that IslamвЂ™s holy book is a philosophy that goes beyond rituals and that anything practised or believed by Muslims that was outside the holy book was a fabrication.ДЄccording to Parvez, a majority of Muslim traditions were concocted by forces who wanted to portray the faith as being amoral and violent. In one of his editorials, Parvez claimed that Islam (unlike other monolithic faiths) was not supposed to be an organised religion. Impressed by the young manвЂ™s intellectual energy and prowess, Jinnah asked Parvez to edit an Urdu weekly, Tulu-i-Islam - a magazine JinnahвЂ™s All India Muslim League had begun to use to fend off the attacks Jinnah and his comrades would face from orthodox clerics and anti-Jinnah Islamic parties who accused him of being a вЂfake MuslimвЂ™. His relationship with Iqbal helped the young Parvez come into contact with Muhammad Ali Jinnah -ВВ the future founder of Pakistan. He also managed to strike a friendship with famous poet and philosopher, Muhammad Iqbal, and took him as a mentor. In the 1930s, after mastering the works of some of IslamвЂ™s leading scholars and texts, Parvez moved towards studying the faithвЂ™s esoteric strains, such as Sufism. What would our society have been like if Ghulam Ahmed ParvezвЂ™s unique message had not been rejected half a century ago? When he migrated to Pakistan in 1947, he rapidly rose to become a prominent figure on the rationalist sides of the Islamic discourse in the country.Д¬onsequently, he also became a controversial thinker who would often clash with the traditionalists and the so-called obscurantists until the early 1980s when he finally slipped into a state of disillusionment and self-doubt, passing away as a broken old scholar in 1985. Ghulam Ahmed Parvez was now on his way to becoming one of the most well-informed and prolific Islamic scholars in South Asia. He then went on to bag a MasterвЂ™s degree from the Punjab University in 1934. But Parvez continued to study the Quran and other Islamic literature under various religious scholars to look for answers to all that was perturbing him.

He would often be advised by his worried elders to keep his inquires to himself. He would repeatedly ask why all this ritualism isnвЂ™t creating the kind of a society that IslamвЂ™s holy book talks about. As a young man, Ghulam Ahmed Parvez would frequently wonder: why is the unvarying practice of Islamic rituals by Muslims not creating more upright men?

Kullo wallaho ahad