There is talk of war again. There is a familiar web of lies, half-truths and deceit. As if the smouldering cities and dying civilians in Iraq were not enough to quench the blood-thirst, the global war machine now wants another victim. Full entry here >>
Blast kills 67 on India-Pakistan friendship train PANIPAT, India, Feb 19 (AFP) At least 67 people burned to death after a blast aboard a train from India to Pakistan that officials said Monday was intended to damage the peace process between the two neighbours. Article here >>
Ali bin Abi Talib, the fourth Caliph and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, wrote a long letter of guidance after appointing Maalik al-Ashtar to be Governor of Egypt.
We remember the Danish Cartoons controversy and the reaction it evoked across the Muslim world. I was pleasantly surprised to find out about this amazing treasure of a website that also happens to be perhaps the first on-line Urdu journal of its kind.
The journal is called Ham-Asr (contemporary) Urdu edited by Huma Nasar & Nasar Malik. In its introduction the website states:
“URDUHAMASR.DK , is an internet magazine of studies in URDU & DANISH literature, is aimed at URDU-readers who are not familiar with Danish language but would like to read its literature. URDUHAMASR.DK provides them large varieties of Danish literature translated into URDU. ”
”URDUHAMASR.DK is also intended for those who, prefer to retain their link with their heritage language URDU. Urdu is a beautiful language of the Indo-Pakistan Sub-continent, and its literature is rich and vast, comparable to those of the few better known modern languages of the World . On the other hand the study of the Danish literature translated into Urdu can in itself be a rewarding act, regardless of the reader’s orientation. Like Urdu, Danish is not only a language, it is a culture.”
The website has several Danish short stories and poems translated into Urdu. In particular, the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805 - 1875) famous for children’s stories finds a special place here.
This is a remarkable effort and deserves to be commended. This also proves that not all of [Pakistani] Muslim diaspora is an inward looking, gun-friendly community out to ‘destroy’ the West as Fox news would make us all believe.
Literature, with universal relevance and appeal, has an important role in bridging divides in the fractured world we live in.
Picasso’s Guernica is an immortal mural painting. It shows the horrors of the war in a timeless fashion.
More from David Hart’s amazing website on this great mural:
Spanish painter Pablo Picasso painted mural (1937) of bombing of Basque city of Guernica by German airforce during Spanish Civil War. Depicts victims of war, suffering women, children, and horse. Perhaps greatest painting about war ever made. Focuses on victims. Timeless and universal in its themes.
And now further details on the mural, again from David Hart’s website:
Scene takes place in darkness in open space, possible town square surrounded by burning buildings.
Figures within the triangle: the central pyramid
- fleeing woman - the fleeing woman
- the wounded horse (suffering humanity, originally had small winged horse/soul leaving gash in side) - the horse’s head
- the broken statue of the warrior (classical image perhaps of fallen Spanish republicans) - the fallen warrior (left) - the fallen warrior (right)
Tip of triangle “eye” of electric light globe (image of sun/eye) and woman with the lamp (light holding darkness/bull at bay) - the woman with the lamp
To right burning building with falling woman (perhaps also burning, in stance of suffering Mary Magdelene) - the falling woman
To left wailing woman with dead baby (originally on ladder, like bringing Christ down from the cross) behind which stand bull (threatening or protecting woman and child?) - Far left - bull, woman and dead child
Other figures are bird (rising or falling, originally small winged horse/soul) and flower (symbol of regeneration and hope, like 600 year old tree left standing) - Detail of the Flower
Thank you David Hart for such an amazing website and its contents
I am grateful to Zahid Hussein from Islamabad for introducing me to these lines. The Wahdatul Wajood (Unity of Being)school of thought in Sufism is attributed to the musings of Ibn-e-Arabi…
My heart is open to all winds:
It is a pasture for gazelles
And a home for Christian monks,
A temple for idols
The Black Stone of the
Mecca pilgrim,
The table of the Torah
And the book of the Koran.
Wherever God’s caravans turn,
The religion of love shall be my religion
And my faith.
(Muhammad Ibn ‘Arabi Mystic, philosopher, poet, sage Spain, 1165-1240)
A useful link is http://www.ibnarabisociety.org
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