Pakistan Muslims recall Bhutto

Leader memorialized at prayer service

Khalil Khatri (center) prayed with fellow Muslims at the Islamic Center of Boston as they remembered former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was slain last week at a political rally, and 20 others who were also killed in the attack. (David Kamerman/Globe Staff)

WAYLAND - Bowed down on bended knee, Muslim mourners rocked gently back and forth as they recited passages from the Koran under their breath. In a stone-quiet, rug-lined room, they quietly prayed for the departed soul of slain former Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, and that the country find its way from unrest to peace and prosperity.

Some 100 men and women gathered yesterday at a solemn religious ceremony, called a Quran Khawani, at the Islamic Center of Boston to pay tribute to Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader who was assassinated at a Dec. 27 political rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

The mourners, many of whom had met Bhutto during her frequent visits to the Boston area and referred to her by first name, remembered her as a kind, courageous leader whose death has left the local close-knit Muslim-American community stricken with grief, anger, and fear.

"It's been devastating," said Dris Djermoun, president of the mosque. "She was a glimmer of hope for a country in turmoil. She was the face of democracy in a dictatorship. Now she's gone, and I can't fathom what's next."

At a round-table discussion after the prayer service, Tahir Chaudhry, president of the Pakistan Association of Greater Boston, compared Bhutto's assassination to John F. Kennedy's as a landmark political and cultural event.

"This is truly a 'Kennedy moment' for Pakistan," Chaudhry said. "It will be ingrained in our minds forever. But we hope that her very sad and tragic death will help restore democracy to Pakistan."

A two-time former prime minister, who in 1988 became the first woman to head the government of a Muslim nation, Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October after eight years in exile. Her death sparked widespread violence that has left at least 47 people dead.

Many who came to pay their respects yesterday are first-generation immigrants with family living in Pakistan who said they are deeply worried about family members in the volatile political climate.

"They are all so scared," said Humaira Kirmani, a 60-year-old from Lexington whose brother had to leave his car and walk 3 miles home to avoid riots and angry demonstrations in Karachi. "We are scared for them."

Kirmani wore a traditional Sindhi shawl that Bhutto had given her at a dinner party in 1969, when Bhutto was a student at Harvard University.

"I have felt so bad about what happened," she said. "I had to take it out today, to honor her memory."

Malik Khan, a former president of the mosque who lives in Boxborough, said the brutal, indiscriminate nature of the attack, which killed at least 20 others, has "put a cloud of anger, regret, and uncertainty over our community."

Khan and others said they admired Bhutto's courage in the face of great danger from Islamic extremists and said they were enraged at the barbaric nature of the attack, even more so because it targeted a woman.

"It's just the way of our culture," he said.

"A lot of people feel as if their daughter or sister has been hurt. She is the mother of children."

As mourners entered the mosque, they signed a condolence book next to flowers and a gold-framed picture of Bhutto, which she had inscribed to Barry Hoffman, Pakistan's honorary consul general in Boston.

Hoffman said her death, apart from its political ramifications, was a profound personal loss.

"She had that special magic," he said. "She would talk to you as though you were the most important person in the world."

Others criticized Bhutto as a flawed leader and sometimes divisive figure, but said her death has been a unifying force.

"A lot of people were disillusioned by the charges of corruption" aimed at her government, said Adil Najam, a Boston University professor of international relations.

"But you don't have to agree with her to be deeply saddened by her death. There is immense grief and fear of what comes next."

Najam speculated that Pakistanis were mourning "the culture of violence" that has gripped the country's political identity as much as Bhutto's death. But others said grief over Bhutto's murder crossed political boundaries.

"We have all become one," said Asmat Rafiq, a former commander in the Pakistani navy and a close family friend.

Amid fear of the current unrest, many said, was a flickering hope that her death would ultimately help advance the cause of democracy.

"She believed you needed democracy to root out the evils of dictatorship," said Faisal Khosa, 35, whose father is a legal adviser to Bhutto's party, the Pakistan Peoples Party. "You have to have hope, but how real that hope is remains to be seen."

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