Obscure content

Here is a poem called Inkaar-e-Iblees, by Pakistani poet Allama Iqbal, in which Satan/Iblees the rebellious angel addresses God/Allah.

This is part 2 in the series of things Mike Camel can't find anywhere on the internet.

This version, by an unknown translator, was published in the Peshawar-based English-language daily newspaper Frontier Post in 1999.

The Frontier Post is running again, after being burned down by a mob of extremists in 2001, after inadvertently publishing a letter to the editor which was seen as insulting the Prophet (SAW) and therefore blasphemous. (BBC story)

The Post maintain it was part of a conspiracy against the independent newspaper and the Pakistani people. The former editor of the paper, Rehmat Shah Afridi, remains in prison after being framed by police for the possession of large quantities of drugs in 1999. This relates to his investigations into cooperation between Pakistani anti-narcotics forces and drug barons.

Some Frontier Post staff were arrested on charges of blasphemy (a capital offence) over the letter. Mohsin, the sub-editor on the letters to the editor pages that day, explained the fatal slip as being due to the fact he was recovering from heroin addiction at the time. From the pages of Jang (Urdu daily with English pages), blackly comical:

After hearing 24 witnesses and examining the record the inquiry judge observed, "There was mismanagement in the newspaper and a single individual has to perform the duties of five to six persons." In addition, he noted, the staff of the daily was not paid "for the last four to five months". The judge's statement further said: "Mehmud Shah Afridi, who was not a professional (journalist), took charge (as) the Editor and thus the state of affairs (went) from bad to worse."

The tribunal was able to establish that Munawar Mohsin was "a drug addict for the last ten years" who escaped from the heroin ward of the Government Mental Hospital Peshawar a couple of days before he was assigned the op-ed pages of the Frontier Post. This naturally had to "result in blunders".

The report concludes that the publication of the letter was a result of personal negligence on Mohsin's part and the general negligence of Aftab Ahmad and Mehmud Afridi.

The Peshawar court awarded a life sentence and ordered Rs50,000 in fine to Munawar Mohsin in a blasphemy case over the printing of the blasphemous letter in the daily Frontier Post. The additional district and session's judge, however, acquitted other co-accused, Aftab Ahmad and Wajihul Hassan.