The Islamization of Pakistani Cricket

Lahore: The Pakistani cricket team that was once known as a hot band of happy-go-lucky stars has gone through a total transformation during the last decade, gradually turning into a coterie of Islamist preachers belonging to the infamous Tableeghi Jamaat (TJ), who are more interested in preaching Islam than concentrating on the game.

The Tableeghi Jamaat or the Party of Preachers, an organization of practicing Muslims, is an Islamic missionary and revival movement founded in British India way back in 1920 to spread the message of the Holy Quran with two main objectives: to ensure that the Muslims strengthen their faith and to carry out humanitarian work.

Long before the Islamists discovered their frightening zeal, Pakistani cricketers were considered a paragon of modern Muslims: they played flamboyantly, partied hard and didn’t flaunt their religion publicly. They were the playboys of their times — polished, educated and dashing; they had their one-night stands, clubbed and tippled; as great exponents of reverse swing as they were ardent admirers of fine legs. They had the lifestyle only stars have — in any country, of any sport, of any religious persuasion.

During the 70s and 80s, Islam and Pakistani cricket team were strangers to each other. The main hallmark of the cricket team at that time was professionalism as most of the cricketers used to play county cricket in England and because of their frequent interaction with the British society, their grooming would show off well in their behaviour. The 3-4 months in a year that the Pakistani cricket stars such as Imran Khan, Majid Khan, Asif Iqbal, Sarfraz Nawaz, Javed Miandad, Zaheer Abbas, Mohsin Khan, Rameez Raja, etc used to spend in England playing county cricket, would make them adopt the lifestyle of any other English cricketer: liquor, night clubs, girlfriends and every thing that comes with the package.

However, those days of cricketing casualness are now memory, as are so many aspects of the secular life Mohammad Ali in Jinnah’s Pakistan. The Pakistani cricketers have never pursued their religious beliefs as devoutly as they do now-a-days. “Bismillah” (In the name of Allah Almighty) or “Inshallah” (God willing) stud their every utterance, no matter they are on the field or elsewhere. The team members huddle together to pray on the ground during pre-match preparations; ‘Islamic beards’ are sported as an advertisement of their faith; batsmen have known to cramp because they fast and play during the holy month of Ramadan.

This religiosity has come about because a clutch of the Pakistani cricket star including – Inzimamul Haq, Mohammad Yousaf, Saqlain Mushtaq, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik, Yasser Hameed and Mushtaq Ahmed — had become members of the Tableeghi Jamaat (TJ), or the party of preachers, participating in public gatherings organised to propagate Islam and stressing upon the virtue of an ‘authentic Islamic lifestyle’.

The extent to which the Pakistani cricket team had been Islamised at the time of the 2007 World Cup could be gauged from the fact that the Tableeghi Jamaat (TJ) had literally invaded the dressing room of the cricket team – the tableeghis with long beards and moustaches could be seen praying with players and reciting the holy Quran for the team’s success (never mind that it has been performing poorly). As TJ membership makes it incumbent upon a person to preach, most of the Tableeghi cricketers, especially the team captain, Inzimamul Haq, often used to conduct preaching tours across Pakistan. Inzimam’s penchant to mix religion with cricket had already sparked accusations by that time that he would favour Tableeghi players over those who are either secular or prefer to confine religion to their private lives. The non-Tableeghi secular group in the team at that time was led by Vice-Captain Younas Khan and included Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Asif, Danish Kaneria, Imran Nazir, Abdul Razzaq etc. This divide often shadowed differences between players.

Inzimam’s religious passion could be gauged from the fact that on tours abroad, one of the hotel rooms was always declared a prayer room, where the Tableeghi players would offer prayers and discuss religious issues. A former television personality and now a member of the Tableeghi Jamaat, Naeem Butt, was usually allowed to accompany the Pakistani team and stay in the same hotel, obviously on the insistence of skipper Inzimam. Naeem Butt used to arrange interacting sessions between the cricketers and officer bearers of the Tableeghi Jamaat chapter of the host country.

The conspicuous Islamisation of the Pakistani cricket team even prompted the former patron-in-chief of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), Ex-President Pervez Musharraf to advise the then PCB chairman Dr Naseem Ashraf to ask the players to strike a balance between religion and cricket. Ashraf subsequently warned the Tableeghi cricketers at a press conference, asking them to “stop exhibiting their religious beliefs in public”. In Naseem Ashraf’s own words: “I had discussed the matter in detail with Inzimam, making it clear to him that religion is purely a private affair and there should not be any pressure on those team players who don’t pray regularly. He assured me that there won’t be any pressure at all on any of the players to do anything they don’t want to do”.

After the team’s disastrous first round exit from the 2007 World Cup in the wake of a humiliating defeat at the hands of an immature Irish team, P J Mir, the then media manager of the PCB had confessed that it was an overkill of piety, the team’s over-indulgence in Islamic rituals, preaching and lack of focus on the game that actually failed the Pakistani cricket team and led to its fall from grace. He claimed that the Pakistani cricketers were more focused on preaching Islam than playing the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. “The other teams were also present in the West Indies but the Pakistani players were more enthusiastic about converting non-Muslims than playing cricket. I was not in a position to disclose this fact before. But I have now informed the Performance Evaluation Committee that most of the players had no focus on cricket and their fixation was on preaching, which affected their preparations”, he told reporters at a press conference in Lahore after the World Cup.

“The boys were up against the most challenging task of proving their skills in the prestigious World Cup tournament, but I am sorry to say they had no drive for the game and were much more active in preaching and praying”, said the ex-media manager. When reminded that Inzimam had dismissed such speculations, P J Mir said it would not have been an issue with him or anybody had it been done within reasonable limits? “I have video footage which will prove me right and I will hand over those tapes to the PCB”, he said. Mir said the players, led by Inzimam, made a public show of their prayers instead of praying privately and in the process compromised with their primary duty of playing cricket. He cited incidents to highlight his point and added that some players even made it a point to pray in the gallery of the aircraft on flights rather than privately on their seats.

The Performance Evaluation Committee, headed by a former Test cricketer Ejaz Butt, the newly appointed chief selector Salahuddin Ahmad and Salim Altaf, was constituted by the PCB to look into the causes of the team’s humiliating exit from the World Cup, which it had won twice in the past. Inzimam, who had to step down as captain and subsequently retired from international cricket after the World Cup, had been criticized for using the cricket team platform for religious activities. The team’s foreign coach from South Africa, late Bob Woolmer, too had complained to the PCB that he found it frustrating to see many players taking part in religious activities after matches when he wanted to discuss cricket with them. He had attributed the decline in the performance of Pakistani cricket team in recent years to the growing influence of the Tableeghi Jamaat on players and their consequent indifference to training as they believed they could win by praying.

Imparting credibility to this perception was former PCB chief Shahryar Khan, who had revealed in an interview after the World Cup fiasco that Woolmer had been voicing his frustration at the religious obligations of his players. Shahryar claimed that Woolmer found it difficult to communicate with his team during match intervals because they would use the time to pray. “Bob told me before the World Cup that he was very frustrated because the team was always at prayer at lunchtime, tea and after play”, he told Sportsweek on BBC Radio Five Live. He was not able to get through to them on cricketing issues. Bob felt frustrated about that and asked me what to do. I told him ‘Please Bob, you are an outsider and foreigner. So do not interfere with anything religiously-inclined because it will be counter-productive’. Eventually, he learned to live it with”.

Amidst conflicting reports about the possible causes of Woolmer’s mysterious death [during the 2007 World Cup in South Africa], the Western media had raised a pertinent question: “Did Woolmer’s criticism of the growing influence of the Tableeghi Jamaat on many players of the cricket team contribute to his brutal murder after the Pakistani team lost to Ireland in the first round?” According to a BBC investigation, Bob Woolmer may have been murdered after angering radical Muslims. The Panorama Television Show aired on May 1, 2007 pointed out that some Pakistani cricket team players were committed members of the Tableeghi Jamaat.

And now the million dollar question — how has the flamboyant cricket team of the past become a Tableeghi Jamaat redoubt? The Islamisation of the team, in a way, has been in tandem with the political and social transformation of the Pakistani society. The transformation began with the 1977 ouster of a moderate Z.A. Bhutto government and the confiscation of power by General Ziaul Haq, an Islamic fundamentalist, because of his being the son of a prayer leader. That was the time when the coterie of moderate cricket stars of the 70s started leaving the scene one by one, thus allowing the Islamic factor to gradually seep into the team. In the early days of the transformation, the Pakistani players didn’t flaunt their religion. But the person who made religion hip in cricket was Imran Khan, as famous for his cricketing feat as he was for his romantic dalliances. His ‘awakening’ following retirement from cricket, and his public, even strident, endorsement of Islam provided a justification for those wanting to wear their religion on their faces — if even Imran Khan could be unabashed about Islam, why shouldn’t they, so went the logic.

It was just the boost for Islamists nurturing the hope of luring cricketers to their cause. Among these Islamists was Maulana Tariq Jameel, who, like Inzimam, is a Multani, and a close associate of Maulana Abdul Wahab, the ameer of the Pakistan chapter of the Tableeghi Jamaat which has allegedly been infiltrated by jehadi elements belonging to several banned militant and sectarian organizations and which might be involved in using the Jamaat’s platform as a cover to promote their extremist agenda worldwide.

Maulana Tariq Jameel began to concertedly target the cricket team once he had converted opening batsman Saeed Anwar to the cause of the TJ. The stylish left-handed opener, and a computer engineer by training, became a born-again Muslim in 2001 after the tragic death of his infant daughter. The traumatic experience prompted Saeed Anwar to find solace in religion; he joined the TJ. His primary task: work on present and former cricketers to join the TJ and spread the message of Islam. About his Tableeghi Jamaat experience, Anwar says: “There is only one aim in my life – follow Allah Almighty’s path and prepare for the Day of Judgment. I am a different Saeed Anwar today; the material world to me is meaningless. I have turned to Allah for solace and am committed to spread the religion to all parts of the world… Islam is a moderate religion and I am not a fanatic or a jehadi”.

Thereafter, religion became a badge the Pakistani cricketers were willing to wear publicly, particularly Inzimam, whose shy and retiring personality acquired an assertive edge under the influence of Maulana Tariq Jameel. Perhaps religion provided Inzimam an anchor in the glamorous and corporate world that cricket has become. With the skipper under its sway, Tableeghi Jamaat now had an open field, winning over players in a number that the team could be said to be divided between the TJ and non-TJ groups. However, Inzimamul Haq denies that the religious activities of the team members used to affect their performance, and insists that the preaching sessions of the cricketers with Islamic scholars used to develop unity in the team. But there are many who allege that most team members had grown beards as a show of allegiance to their captain and boosting their chances of being in the Pakistani squad.

There is the peculiar case of star batsman Mohammad Yousaf, who had converted from Christianity and seemingly never shaved thereafter. Despite repeated denials, many of the Pakistanis feel that Yousaf Youhana converted to boost his chance of becoming captain in the future. Yousaf, however, ascribes his conversion to the influence of the Tableeghi Jamaat preachers at their sessions in Raiwind, Lahore. “My conversion is because of a change of heart and not a calculated move. Danish Kaneria, another team player, is a Hindu and there is no problem. I have already played for Pakistan for ten long years and there has been no problem. I didn’t do this to be captain. Islam is the true religion because it says that life after death is the real life; the better you prepare for it, the better your present life will be”.

Interestingly, however, his transformation was not only confined to his faith, but extended to a change in name, appearance, behaviour–and even performance on the field. A string of tall scores imparts credence to those who say Allah favours those who turn to Him. Residing in a posh Lahore locality, and having bought a Mercedes, Mohammad Yousaf credits the benediction from above for the change in his fortune. And he is going to repay his debts to Allah. How? “After I retire, I plan to serve God by devoting myself to preaching Islam to all those out there who have not been exposed to the real face of the religion”.

However, the non-Tableeghi members of the cricket team pooh-pooh the notion of religiosity helping players perform better and point out the irony of Saeed Anwar, Mushtaq Ahmad, Saqlain Mushtaq and Shahid Afridi, all members of the Tableeghi Jamaat, who lost their form once they took to sporting beards. But Pakistan’s English-speaking opening batsman Salman Butt pleads to the positive impact Islam has had on the team. As for religion-linked cricketing performance, Butt explains: “A lot of people work hard, but only those get to their destination who are lucky and have the help of God. We believe if we pray five times a day and go in the way of God, we will get help. That is our firm belief. It puts all of us in a very good spirit, and has made us disciplined — a definite change in the Pakistan team”.

The non-TJ group, though, has a litany of complaints: a stifling atmosphere, charges of bias, mutual suspicion; that mixing religion with cricket is no way of playing the game. Former cricketer-turned-Tableeghi Agha Zahid argues his organisation recruits sporting stars, as also showbiz personalities, because “if they change their lifestyles, then others who idolise them would follow their examples”. But at the same time, there are those who insist that the issue is not about being religious but the manner in which it is flaunted, thereby threatening some and pressuring others to follow suit. For a society driven by religious passions that often, consciously or otherwise, shrinks the secular space, cricketer-preachers could become the antithetical forces arrayed against General (retd) Musharraf’s so-called agenda of enlightened moderation. This shrinking of the secular space is perhaps already happening in the cricket team. But for those persevering in the way of Allah Almighty, these are minor matters.

amir.mir1969@gmail.com