Rahimullah Yusufzai did not call Sufi Mohammed the Village Idiot, but.....

Alright, Rahimullah Yusufzai did not call Sufi Mohammed the Village Idiot, but....his words in the NEDws were not very convincing either. It makes one wonder, how can this lay simple person, uneducated for the most part, would unleash terror tsunami in Swat?

And if such a simpleton can cause this much apprehension, can you imagine what a more hardy and crafty person can achieve? Over to you Baitullah!

Sobering thoughts ~~~t

The media has been highlighting whatever the Maulana has to say and, in the process, generating one controversy after another. This was to be expected because Sufi Mohammad is a simple village clergyman espousing straightforward opinions on modern and complex issues. He was never known as an Islamic scholar and doesn't pretend to be one. But at the same time he likes to freely comment on topics that impact daily life and have something to do with the functions of the state.

In an interview with this writer in October 1994 just before his impatient followers picked up the gun in Swat and certain other districts of the then Malakand division, he explained his anti-democracy views with the same vigour that he is doing nowadays. For him, the judiciary then was 'English law' and, therefore, un-Islamic and unacceptable. His concept of Sharia then and now is a simple judicial system in which judges, or qazis as he referred to them, would preside courts and dispense quick and affordable justice. The chosen qazis were to match the specifications set forth by him both in terms of character and physical features, meaning they had to be pious and bearded. In Sufi Mohammad's scheme of things, the qazis were to enjoy a status higher than the deputy commissioner or the superintendent of police... Everything about Sufi Mohammad and TNSM then was unconventional.