Mystical Form of Islam Suits Sufis in Pakistan
A New York Times' piece where I was quoted.
The closed minds that deny a civilisation’s glories – where I was quoted
I was most pleased to read this piece by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown entitled The closed minds that deny a civilisation's glories. I would like to thank Yasmin Alibhai, whom I have always respected for her integrity and courage, to have quoted a few hurried lines posted by me in response to tge butchery perpeterated by the extremists in Pakistan and elsewhere:
Muslims are seeing Koranic injunctions where none exist
Confused Dad Mohamed from somewhere in the US sends his dilemma to an Islamic guidance website through whom Allah apparently communicates his orders - on how we dress, what we do minute by minute, unholy TV programmes, wicked vitamins and even wickeder relations between males and females.
I paraphrase Mohamed's frantic appeal for clarity. His children watch cartoons, and have stuffed toys, quilts and pillow cases with Mickey Mouse on them. Is all that halal? Now many of us detest the addictive and manipulative Disney brand which targets young children. But this fully grown, procreative adult cannot trust his own mind and seeks instructions from unverified voices of authority. How abject is that?
These global sites control people, push through Maoist "cleansing". Miserable mullahs are closing down the Muslim mind and heart the world over. Meanwhile "true believers" desperately seek enslavement and thank their enslavers. The questions posed are startling in their naiveté. May we sing? Is it OK for a man to listen to a woman singer? Do I watch a female newsreader? Yes, says a wise one - as long as she is properly covered up and not wearing perfume. Don't laugh. It is tragic, not funny.
Somehow in the last decade or so, millions of believers have been persuaded that they are repositories of sin because they watch films, love music and paintings, read books, experience temporal pleasures and ecstasies. Remember the ferocity with which the Taliban destroyed all pre-Islamic treasures? Saudi Arabia is guilty of similar vandalism. Thus they seek to recreate the piety of triumphant Islam. Well they didn't have cameras, mobile phones, cars and computers then. Should these be banned too?
Muslim children are now programmed to obey - robbed of imagination, independent thought and refinement. UK Muslim parents are increasingly coming out against school visits, music and drama, novels, exercise, scientific facts. Teachers know these parental demands leave Muslim children under-educated and emotionally numbed, rendered unresponsive to artistic words, sights and sounds.
This is a travesty of our history, our love of truth and beauty, the intellectual energy that throughout history uplifted Muslim civilisations. The current Science Museum exhibition of Muslim inventions that shaped the modern world proves we were never the barbarians promoted in Western demonology. Some of the earliest manuals on surgery and optics, astronomy and flying machines came out of Muslim regions. And those same places were creative hubs producing great works of art, incredible buildings and intricate crafts.
There is no Koranic injunction against the depiction of the human form, yet pictures from previous ages would today not be painted - a kneeling, sensual angel by an Ottoman artist in the mid-16th century, a man filling his cup of wine. Passion plays were performed through the centuries in all main Arabian conurbations. Poetry was written and recited by both men and women. Music, devotional and romantic, was in every household. All that is under threat today.
The Pakistani blogger Raza Rumi writes: "Who are these butchers of culture? What religion do they follow? They have no religion except barbarism." Exactly. British Muslims for Secular Democracy (of which I am chair), supported by the British Council, is tomorrow organising a conference on artistic and cultural freedom at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Speakers include Miss Pakistan (who is also a professor), fashion designers, the entrepreneur Saira Khan, painters, stand-up comics, musicians, writers, others who are concerned. The event is open to all. Check the BMSD site. We will be launching an advisory guide for teachers on protecting the interests of the Muslim child.
The Speech of Mr. Sris Chandra Chattopadhya (Opposition to Objectives Resolution, Constitutent Assembly of Pak, 12 March 1949)
This is a historic speech and a document that posterity will re-examine. Seldom has one piece of legislation caused so much trepidation. Thanks to my firebrand friend Usman Qazi, I got to read this speech that I had heard about from many people. Here is the text of the address of Sris Chandra Chattopadhya (Opposition to Objectives Resolution, Constitutent Assembly of Pak, 12 March 1949).
Mr. Sris Chandra Chattopadhya (East Bengal : General) : Mr. President, I thought, after my colleague, Mr. Bhupendra Kumar Datta, had spoken on the two amendments on behalf of the Congress Party, I would not take any part in this discussion. He appealed, he reasoned and made the Congress position fully clear, but after I heard some of the speakers from the majority party, viz, Muslim League Party, the manner in which they had interpreted the Resolution, it became incumbent on me to take part in this discussion.
I have heard Dr. Malik and appreciate his standpoint. He says that "we got Pakistan for establishing a Muslim State, and the Muslims suffered for it and therefore it was not desireable that anybody should speak against it". I quite agree with him. He said; "If we establish a Muslim State and even if we become reactionaries, who are you to say anything against it?" That is a standpoint which I understand, but here there is some difficulty. We also, on this side, fought for the independence of the country. We worked for the independence of the entire country. When our erstwhile masters, Britishers, were practically in the mood of going away, the country was divided – one part became Pakistan and the other remained India. If in the Pakistan State there would have been only Muslims, the question would have been different. But there are some non-muslims also in Pakistan. When they wanted a division there was no talk of an exchange of population. If there was an exchange of population, there would have been an end of the matter, and Dr. Malik could establish his Pakistan in his own way and frame constitution accordingly. It is also true that the part of Pakistan in which Dr. Malik lives is denuded of non-Muslims. That is clear.
Dr. Omar Hayat Malik: On a point of order, Sir, I never said that. He has understood me quite wrongly.
Mr. Omar Hayat Malik: I never said that Pakistan was denuded of non-Muslims. My friend on the opposite has misunderstood me.
The Destruction of Holy Sites in Mecca & Medina – Destroying Islamic Heritage
The Asian Age: The Arabian Peninsula, the cradle of Islam, is being demolished by hardliners. In countries such as Saudi Arabia almost all of the Islamic historical sites are gone, but this is not the first time they have been destroyed.Muslimness – shifting boundaries
Muslimness is an elusive state of being. There are watertight strictures of the theological identity defined by men, interpreted as the Sharia, on the one hand; and the broad political and cultural sense of the self, on the other. Identity, in any case, is a messy affair: shifty, shifting and eventually, imagined. While 9/11 placed Muslims at the centre stage of global politics, the broth had already been simmering in the cauldrons of biased academe and pop reality mirrored through the blood-thirsty lens of corporate media.
So what is it to be a Muslim? An inflexible bag of rituals? Or a cultural sense of belonging or a deeper dogma ingrained in young minds? I have never considered myself anything but a believer, a ‘practicing Muslim’. This has never been at variance with my secular and inclusive pretensions, despite the fact that the clergy in my country considers secularism akin to atheism, a sort of mirror image of the Pakistani political foundation. The clerics translate secular as la-deen , at best irreligious, and at worst, godless.
Ironical that this business of religious identity is articulated in a land that was the crucible of the secular Indus Valley civilization, non-militant Buddhism and a peculiar version of South Asian Islam that spread via the Sufi khanqahs and was a sort of amalgam of the Central Asian with the ancient South Asian. Even more ironical is the reality, neglected and veiled, that lived Islam is located around dargahs , tribal codes and customs which are irreligious in their own way. But who cares? Referred to as the world’s most dangerous country, Pakistan, according to the pundits of global opinion, is a haven for Islamic terrorists. Collateral damage, therefore, is kosher and a necessity to undo the unstated part of the ‘axis of evil’.
Labels and more labels. On the global shelves such products sell well and work in favour of a war machine hungry for energy resources, territory and blood.
Chal Way Bullehya Chal O’thay Chaliyay – Let’s go where everyone is blind
No priests needed – search of a Pakistani identity
Raza Rumi wonders why we remain in search of a Pakistani identity
Half-truths are what we love to indulge in. One of the countless crimes committed by President Asif Ali Zardari is that he wears a Sindhi cap instead of a Jinnah cap. That by preferring a Sindhi topi and thundering at the occasion of late Benazir Bhutto’s death anniversary, he undermined his Pakistani identity, is truly mystifying. After all, what is a Pakistani identity and why is the Jinnah cap being elevated to the level of an article of national faith?
If anything, Mr Jinnah’s patronage of Muslim identity mark was an afterthought. His usual attire was a well-tailored pucca-sahib-like suit. It was only in the nineteen forties and that too close to India’s independence that Mr Jinnah started donning the Muslim nobility’s attire.
So what is this fuss all about? Constructing Pakistan’s ideology based on theological interpretation of a universal religion like Islam has been a carefully executed project of the Pakistani establishment and its shadows in the non-state domains. Such cliques have grown bigger, mushroomed and are now essential to our lived reality. Therefore lambasting of Zardari on not sporting a Jinnah cap finds public resonance and broad acceptability within the populous Punjab province where the Urdu press flourishes and finds readers and writers aplenty.
Maulana Azad’s interview given to Shorish Kashmiri, 1946
I was intrigued by this interview of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad given to the famous journalist Shorish Kashmiri for a Lahore based Urdu magazine, Chattan, in April 1946. This interesting document has been discovered and translated by a former Indian minister Arif Mohammad Khan. Covert Magazine and newageIslam website have recently published it. The contents of this interview are difficult to agree with. Azad is speaking from a nationalist angle, anti-Pakistan movement platform.
However, the narrative has some interesting observations and predictions for Pakistan that cannot be rubbished simply because Azad was a Congressite. This interview was conducted over a period of two weeks (parallel to the proceedings of the Cabinet Mission) and has not been documented in any book except that of Kashmiri’s book on Abul Kalam Azad, which has been out of print for decades. Its discovery is a welcome step towards better historiography on both sides of the border.
Q: The Hindu Muslim dispute has become so acute that it has foreclosed any possibility of reconciliation. Don’t you think that in this situation the birth of Pakistan has become inevitable?
Iqbal – The Universal Reformer
The Message of The Quran : By Leopold Weiss [Muhammad Asad]
Take simplicity as your companion
Pakistani blasphemy laws should be repealed
This is a pertinent post on my blog-zine Pak Tea House. Readers should take a closer look.
It is therefore quite clear that what is purported to be some sort of a defence against blasphemy has become a vehicle of oppression and persecution of minorities in Pakistan. These laws are the most draconian in the world and have no justification even in Islamic jurisprudence. It is time- as one Pakistani MNA said- to repeal them for they have done more harm to Pakistan, Islam and humanity then good. Indeed they haven’t done any good but have only reinforced negative stereotypes about Islam
Conversations with History
This is quite an interesting account. Am posting it for the readers - Eid Mubarak
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfAGnxKfwOg]
Virginia synagogue doubles as mosque for Ramadan
Out, Out, Damned Atheists – Karen Armstrong weighs in on God
Religion of the heart
RAKSHANDA JALIL writing heremendicants. While Ajmer and Nagaur remained important centres of the Chistiya silsila, Delhi was fast gaining popularity as the axis of the Islamic east. And it was to Delhi that they came – to set up hospices, to gather the faithful around them, and to spread the word about a new kind of Islam. In the years to come, the Islam of the Sufis spread
Dealing with the dual challenge
I do not blame the young men and women of our age – they have been indoctrinated by the pernicious text-books, Zia’s ideology and the infiltration of Jamaat-i-Islami and jihadis into every nook and corner of Pakistan. This is why Pak Tea House (an e-zine I edit) as a voice of reason, faces the dual challenge of tackling the right wing and handling the global stereotyping of Pakistan as a jihadi haven. Not an easy challenge by any account — Raza Rumi
Qurratulain Hyder – it is as if she were an oracle
It is not a coincidence that Qurratulain Hyder, grand dame of Urdu literature, is remembered whenever we are faced with crises of state and society. Hyder was not just a fiction writer but a chronicler, for her sense of history remains unparalleled in the annals of South Asian vernacular literature. Her magnum opus “Aag Ka Darya” (AKD) was written and published in the highly contested milieu of the post-partition Indian subcontinent, when the new nation states were re-writing their historical discourses. In Pakistan, AKD was a sensation right from the time when it was published in the late 1950s. The controversy it created remains pertinent despite the passage of five decades.
Hyder’s nuanced and highly sophisticated vision was not easily apparent to officialdom or to state-sponsored literary critics in Pakistan.
Bulleh Shah – on rejecting caste
A popular kafi of Bulleh Shah, sung by Abida Parveen "BULHE NU SAMJHAWAN AAINAN BHAINAN TE BHARJAIAN" earlier posted as " A stove is better than Bulleh" am posting its english translation thanks to Shahidain's invaluable contributions.
People discouraged Bulleh Shah from accepting Inayat Shah as his master and said " Bulleh you are a scholar and a descendent of of prophet Mohammad (pbuh). Does it seem right to you to go to an ordinary gardener of low caste and become his disciple? Is it not embarrassing?" But Bulleh showed great love and reverence for his master and did not pay any heed to this objection.
Pakistan’s martial state is a self-perpetuating reality
The Taliban phenomenon was erroneously, and rather dangerously, projected as a herald of a new dawn
The Pakistani state policy of nurturing jihad factories over the decades is staring back at its architects, supporters and sponsors. Zafar Hilaly, a close aide of the late Benazir Bhutto, recently divulged in his memoirs that BB had confessed how the support to the Taliban was perhaps her most regrettable mistake. She could recognise it was more of a function of being out of the power ambit for nearly a decade. The compulsions of exercising power and playing it by the rules set by the national security obsessed state are perhaps germane to Pakistan's creation as an insecure postcolonial state that was neither prepared not committed to reverse the colonial modes of governance.
This is a long war
Published in The NEWS
By Raza Rumi
This is a critical moment in our history perhaps unmatched for its severity and its brutal reality. The experiential nightmare that our country is passing through is perhaps unparalleled for the enemy is neither foreign nor fully identifiable. At the same time, never has there been a clear backing of a military campaign against domestic agents of subversion and anarchy. Forget the doctored samples of opinion polls, often conducted by foreign agencies. That by itself should make us ashamed for our proclivity to accept what others have to analyse and determine for us. Even ignore the fringe voices of dissent led by those who neither have credibility or sagacity to comprehend the existential crisis faced by Pakistan. The army has shown vision and displayed courage in tackling a menace that alas is a home-grown cancer due to our short-sighted strategies in pursuit of phantom depths. The battle to be won is now the country itself.
The political consensus of sorts that has accompanied the military action against the Taliban is also remarkable. Notwithstanding the spin doctors posing as analyst-anchors on the idiot box, the political class has recognised that its survival is embedded in the battle against extremism that predicates itself on elimination of sane, moderate and secular politics itself. This was the Swat model – blow the polity to bits and create a vacuum for a takeover. An age-old recipe employed by the hordes from Central Asia that invaded Muslim Delhi again and again during Sultanate and Mughal periods of our common histories which refuse to be partitioned.
Sufi hearts in Delhi
Published in The Friday Times (May 22 issue)
Raza Rumi discusses a new book on Sufism by Sadia Dehlvi
Getting a visa to India is a nightmare for ordinary mortals. My application was not very politely returned last month with technical objections. It was only when a letter from Harper Collins arrived that the High Commission rather efficaciously allowed me to enter enemy territory, that too with special instructions that cantonments were out of bounds. I guess the South Asian officialdoms have yet to discover that Google Earth has permanently altered the shape of boundaries and secrecy.
Misinterpreting Islam to Oppress Women
On Khalwat, Misyar & Mutaah
By Syed Akbar Ali
In Malaysia we frequently read reports of Muslim couples being arrested for the offense of committing ‘khalwat’ or being in ‘close proximity’ to each other. For the benefit of all thinking humans it is best that we explain a little what is meant by ‘Muslim couples’ and what is meant by ‘khalwat’ or close proximity.
For the purposes of khalwat a ‘couple’ refers to a man and a woman who can lawfully get married to each other. The word used to describe such a couple is ‘not muhreem’. ‘Muhreem’ is derived from the Arabic word ‘raheem’ which means womb.
The Road to Mecca
An exclusive post by Kazim Aizaz Alam
(Allama) Muhammad Asad aka Leopold Weiss -- b. 1900 d. 1994 -- is a well-known name at least in the Muslim world. I have recently read his wonderful book ‘The Road to Mecca’. Let me write here briefly what I think of the book and its writer, who is undoubtedly one of the most distinguished Muslim scholars of the last century.
About the writer:
Muhammad Asad was born into a Jewish family that lived in Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was a lawyer and grandfather was a rabbi. At age 22 he travelled across the Arab world first time as a Middle East correspondent for European newspapers. He converted to Islam in 1926. In later years he travelled extensively in the entire Muslim world. Though his mother tongue was German, he wrote ‘The Road to Mecca’ in English. Besides German and English, he knew French, Arabic, Persian and Urdu as well. He translated and explained the Quran as well as Sahih al-Bukhari from Arabic into English.
Review of Wahhabi Islam (Natana DeLong-Bas)
Natana DeLong Bas’ Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad is not a bad book, but it is not a particularly helpful book either. One of its strong points is how adroitly DeLong-Bas eases the reader into topics. This is no small feat since the protagonist is Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab (d. 1792) , a controversial Shaykh who lived during the eighteenth century. The reformer made an alliance with Muhammad ibn Saud, ruler of a small market town Diriyya, and this led to the formation of a state which claimed to live under the guidance of the Shariah and tried to bring the pastoral tribes all around it under its guidance too. More than I care to admit, the book was a page-turner for me, in spite of its moderate heft.
However, the simplicity comes at a price. The narrative, especially when it discusses Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab, is afflicted by a linearity that becomes unconvincing after a while. The book proves incredibly readable throughout, but the one-dimensional character that DeLong-Bas chooses to maintain for the Shaykh quickly becomes a cartoon superhero- too good for his own good, so to speak, and quite unbelievable.
Slippery Stone: An Inquiry into Islam’s Stance on Music – Reviewed by Dr. Mahmood Ghazi
Review by Dr. Mahmood Ghazi
Title: Slippery Stone: An Inquiry into Islam’s Stance on Music
Author: Khalid Baig
Publisher: Open Mind Press
Year: 2008
384 pages.
Slippery Stone: Cultural Colonialism and the Music Question
The dawn of the colonization of Afro-Asian world in general and the Muslim world in particular brought in its wake efforts by the western academia to justify colonization in a variety of ways.
Baytunur – an academic platform in Lahore
Announcement by Taimoor Khan Mumtaz
Baytunur registered as a trust in the year 2006 to promote the understanding of the spiritual branch of Islam known as ‘tasawwuf’ or "Sufism". Managed and supported by six trustees, its academic activity is overseen by a board that includes three trustees and three scholars. It also has an academic advisory council.
The Islam Seminars: are a series of seminars and/or colloquiums that are held in spring and/or summer each year where different scholars are invited to speak in an interactive environment on a certain topic. The topics are usually set on public demand. The inaugural seminars were held in collaboration with Iqbal Academy Pakistan in Lahore, Pakistan and Teachers’ Development Centre, Karachi in 2007. To date a total of six Islam Seminars have been conducted.
Ghamdi on Islam and the Taliban
A friend sent this piece with an introductory message that ” Ghamdi’s life is under threat by the Taleban as they want to eliminate all who can challenge them. Can they eliminate 168 million of us?” Ghamdi is a beacon of hope and enlightenment in these dark days.
The Taliban say that democracy is a concept alien to Islam. According to them, the ideal method of establishing a government according to Islam is the method adopted by Mullah Omar in Afghanistan. Constitution, parliament and elections are evil innovations of modern times. Islam is not bound by any of these institutions for its enforcement. The interpretation of governance conveyed to us by the Hanifi School of jurisprudence is enough for us. The ijtehad of modern jurists are also vague. The ancient jurists have delivered their decisions regarding individual and collective life. These have all been arrived at
New book: Wanted—Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family
Reviewed by: Yoginder Sikand
Muslim family laws have for long been—and continue to be—a hugely controversial subject. Critics contend that these laws seriously militate against basic human rights, especially of women. On the other hand, conservative ulema and Islamist ideologues hail these laws as the epitome of divine justice and refuse to consider any changes therein.
Understanding Islam and its history
Toby Lester's incisive article What Is the Koran? argues that researchers with a variety of academic and theological interests 'are proposing controversial theories about the Koran and Islamic history, and are striving to reinterpret Islam for the modern world...' I was struck by this passage at the end:
Increasingly diverse interpretations of the Koran and Islamic history will inevitably be proposed in the coming decades, as traditional cultural distinctions between East, West, North, and South continue to dissolve, as the population of the Muslim world continues to grow, as early historical sources continue to be scrutinized, and as feminism meets the Koran. With the diversity of interpretations will surely come increased fractiousness, perhaps intensified by the fact that Islam now exists in such a great variety of social and intellectual settings—Bosnia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United States, and so on. More than ever before, anybody wishing to understand global affairs will need to understand Islamic civilization, in all its permutations. Surely the best way to start is with the study of the Koran—which promises in the years ahead to be at least as contentious, fascinating, and important as the study of the Bible has been in this century.
Read the full article here
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Pak Tea House
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World music on NPR
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- Pakistani media – an alternative view
- Qurratulain Hyder
- Sonargaon – A poem by HUR
- Story of a Painting – Mehrgarh, Indus and Ghalib
- Sufi Zikr – inspiration for a painting
- The rescued letter of Mahatama Gandhi
- Waves of anger and fear…
- Welcome Hatshepsut
- What is arrogance?
- Faiz translated by Vikram Seth
- Faiz translations (by Rehan)
- Femme Feryal
- Halaku, when you will come to Baghdad this time…
- I found Roses in Konya… 2/3
- I found Roses in Konya… 3/3
- I will meet you yet again – Amrita Pritam
- Ideology of intolerance
- Images from Data Saheb’s Shrine
- Images from Mahboob Ali
- Jal gaya tha ik roshniyon ka shaher
- Kafka Country – published in the Friday Times
- Kafka Country published in the Friday Times
- Links
- More of Bulleh Shah – keep swooning
- Mughal Princess Zebunnissa
- Muhammad’s Sword
- Muslim Bloggers from India
- On ‘The Great War for Civilisation’
- On Qurratulain Hyder –
- On Vidya Rao
- Open the Door
- Peace to Beirut with all my heart… 2/3
- Petal to Petal …..More of Parveen Shakir
- Qasmi – Urdu literature mourns a giant 2/4
- Qasmi, Literary Fueds and National Neglect
- Rare objects discovery points to ruins treasure
- Raza Rumi
- Revisiting Kabir – the Weaver, the Myth, the Master
- Sadequain 20 years later
- Shared visions: Khushwant Singh and Fahmida Riaz 2/2
- Standing Alone in Mecca (book review)
- Surveys show that Pakistanis (and Muslims) reject “terrorism”
- Teray Ishq Nachaya – Bulleh Shah – full text
- The Lost Jewel – Rediscovering Hazrat Ali’s Letter
- The roar of Rumi – 800 years on
- The Sultan of Hearts – Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya
- This world without Dr. Schimmel… 2/3
- Tum bilkul hum jaisey nikley
- Ustad Bismillah Khan is no more
- Web resources on Qurrutalain Hyder
- Why I love Pakistan? Top 5 reasons
- Darwin and the grand unity of life
- Khusrau: The shadow of power
