Fight over legacy of Pakistani rock star-turned-cleric

A vendor shows a DVD of Pakistan's Junaid Jamshed who was aboard a plane belonging to Pakistan's national carrier which crashed with about 42 passengers and five crew members and an engineer on board, apparently killing all of them. File picture: B.K. Bangash/ AP

A vendor shows a DVD of Pakistan's Junaid Jamshed who was aboard a plane belonging to Pakistan's national carrier which crashed with about 42 passengers and five crew members and an engineer on board, apparently killing all of them. File picture: B.K. Bangash/ AP

Published Dec 8, 2016

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Islamabad - The death of Junaid Jamshed, a

Pakistani rock star-turned-evangelist, in a plane crash on

Wednesday has stirred debate over his legacy, raising questions

that cut to the heart of Pakistan's widening cultural schisms.

Jamshed, 52, was one of Pakistan's first rock stars before

abandoning music to advocate a strict interpretation of Islam

that would curtail women's freedoms.

Much of the reaction to the crash, that killed all 47 people

on a flight from northern mountains to the capital, Islamabad,

has focused on Jamshed's life, which seemed to embody a

dichotomy similar to many Pakistanis' struggle between embracing

liberal and conservative values.

Jamshed rose to fame as the heartthrob vocalist of Vital

Signs, a breakout band in the South Asian nation whose 1987 hit

"Dil Dil Pakistan" became an unofficial anthem for the country.

Melding new wave, rock and pop, Vital Signs blazed a trail

for musicians in Pakistan as it emerged from 11 years under

military ruler Zia-ul-Haq.

Many say Pakistan's lurch towards Islamic conservatism began

under Zia's programme of "Islamisation", which banned most music

performances and encouraged strict conservative values.

Back then, Vital Signs soulful songs about love, heartbreak

and disillusionment were deeply subversive. After Zia's death in

1988, the group's popularity sky-rocketed.

"The nineties were a time of transition in Pakistan, from

dictatorship to a democratic dispensation, and Junaid's music

represented the euphoria of that time," said Nadeem F. Paracha,

a cultural critic.

In 2001, however, Jamshed abandoned music to join the strict

Tableeghi Jamaat, which sends clerics across Pakistan and the

world to preach Islam.

He grew a beard and admonished young people for straying

from Islam, vowing never to sing any of his hits again.

In this new guise, Jamshed often commented that women should

not be allowed to leave the house without a male relative.

"We grew up listening to your music and grew old listening

to your sermons ... You will always be remembered," Maiza

Hameed, a lawmaker, posted on Twitter.

"DISCO MULLAH"

Many chose to remember him nostalgically for his voice and

rebellious songs that moulded the cultural identity of a

generation.

They focused on Jamshed the music star, choosing to ignore

his embrace of religious conservatism.

"Today, the last decade didn't happen," said Umair Javed, a

London-based Pakistani academic.

But Ansar Abbasi, a widely read conservative columnist,

asked media not to focus on Jamshed's music.

"Remember him as a preacher of Islam," Abbasi tweeted.

Ahmer Naqvi, another cultural critic, said many Pakistanis

were using the celebrity's death as a lens for their own

politics.

"This is a genuine national pop culture icon who straddles

several kinds of divides," he said.

Among clerics, Jamshed had his detractors, who branded him a

"disco mullah" and mocked his successful clothing brand.

In 2014, Jamshed was accused of blasphemy by a rival for

comments about a wife of Islam's Prophet Mohammad. He later

apologised.

Others chose only to share his music, both Vital Signs' many

hits and religious na'ats, poems praising the prophet.

For many, Jamshed was just trying to figure out his own

identity even as Pakistan itself was experiencing seismic

cultural and religious shifts.

"His voice was so uncomplicated," said Naqvi, of both his

singing, and his preaching. "And everything around him was

extremely complicated." 

Reuters

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