Sunday, May 31, 2009

REGRET: An amazing article by Maulana Muhammad Aslam Shaikhupuri

I am staring in bewilderment at the burnt corpses of the innocent little twin brothers....

The Divine Power has His own scheme of providing or withholding offspring, which is without doubt a wisdom-based system. Some yearning arms remain empty forever; some are given boys, some girls, and others both. It is another debate that a Mu'min should have firm belief in destiny, but the desire for boys is ingrained in the human breast. One can of course pray, or even wish, but not act in any way that would anger the Decider of male or female. One hears of couples that get out of their minds in their wish for a male child, are again and again swindled by doctors, hakims, quacks, so-called magicians, but even then never give up hope. Even their trials and tribulations fail to lead them to the sweet satisfaction of bowing to Allah’s will. The acquisition of a son seems to them the greatest gratification and the solution to all problems. Man faces problems and his nature makes him believe that if this problem were solved he would be happy and content with no other worries or desires to bother him; the second, third, fourth problem leads him through the same feelings and he, designating it the last one runs to solve it like a mad man. Problems keep getting worked out but his madness instead of being satiated gains new heights...the desire for sons is one such desire that maddens those who are not aware of daughters being a mercy and dissatisfied with destiny.

But you would rarely have heard a tragedy so sad, that a mother burnt her lovely innocent children with her own hands. But we, who are gradually becoming the heirs of the practical, moral, and social waywardness; immoralities, excesses, lawlessness, and corruption of bygone nations; are finding such shocking and heartless acts recurring incidence. A number of unmarried mothers do such a thing to cover their black deeds, but the little twins I am talking about were the legitimate children of their mother. The little angels were not given up to lashing flames by any other than their own mother who wrapped them in a blanket, poured kerosene over them and struck a match. The mother who is a shade of love, a sea of affection, a tower of greatness, a fortress of adoration, a sign of heaven, the most beautiful gift of nature, a sweet gentle breeze.........the mother who gives up her warm and dry bed to her wet child, becomes a shield in troubled times, provides coolness in the harshness of the world...no one can even imagine how a mother who conjures up the music of falling water, the coolness of stars, and the fragrance of flowers could throw to flames her own flesh and blood? Imagine it or not but it is the truth. This did happen at the hands of a mother in the cultured metropolis of Karachi. A woman named Zahra, laying aside family traditions, honor and shame, married a handsome, well-dressed, eloquent man of her choice.

The print and electronic media have afflicted our sisters and daughters with the disease of idealism. A number of them knock around on roads, parks, markets, clubs, parties, colleges, and universities looking about for their ideals. A few meetings and outward get up are enough to decide them on their “life partners”, putting aside family background and practical and moral drawbacks. The parents are taken aback by their daughter’s imprudence; they beg and cry, try to frighten her with pictures of future unfaithfulness, with the dishonor among the family...but she hardly cares and rejects all appeals labeling them narrow-minded social hurdles; her enemy, and God knows what. She stands fast on her decision because this is what she has learnt from digests and tele dramas.

The first few months go by in a dream and she proudly shows off her love and laughs at the “frights” given her by her family and relatives. Then the rosy tints fade and life faces her in all its crudeness, then she starts lamenting her decision. The well-dressed, handsome, loving man she had married starts to change. The outer shell sheds and out comes a frightening, hard, loathsome character. The sentimental, unwise girl who spurned the love of her parents, the sincerity of here siblings, and the concern of relatives becomes frightened. She feels alone in a place where beasts abound and there is no sympathetic hand to help her out.

And when she is left all on her own with that piece of paper with “divorce” written on it, she is either compelled to sell herself or hide her face and beg on roads, or give up her life, or...like Zahra, burn the beautiful pictures she herself created. Countless Zahras are regretful of their decisions after emerging from their intoxication and deceitful pride...but this regret is of no use.

Come to think of it, this regret should also encompass the parents who never question their daughter’s freedom, licentiousness, mixing with the opposite sex, going alone in parties, making boy friends...but when their honor is at stake, they shake the sky with their cries.

This regret should also be shared by the untruthful flag bearers of women’s rights who encourage young girls to elope and stand against Islamic traditions and who then present such cases as models for others to follow.

This regret should also be shared by those reformers who have become negligent of their duty of social reform in their pursuit of unnecessary debates, indulgence, and desire for wealth. It is the result of their negligence that has resulted in the meaninglessness of shame and honor; that has made fornication easy and marriage difficult, that has advanced dowry and countless other meaningless customs that has made the easiest of the Sunnah of Rasoolullah (salallahu alaihi wasallam) the most difficult.

Until and unless there is a restraint on the free mixing of the sexes, until the importance of chastity and modesty are impressed in hearts, until reformers play their roles in society, unless marriage is freed from unnecessary, self-made, and ignorant customs, emotionally unstable “Zahras” will continue revolting against their families; temporary bonds will continue to bind; shells will continue to break; bitterness will continue to raise its head; homes based on lust will continue to break; divorces will continue to proceed; regrets will continue to be wept over.......but there will be nothing left except burnt bodies, cracking bones, blackened corpses, news reports and lamenting newspaper columns!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Wasting Time...

Dharney ko dil pey yaan na utha haath per se haath
Kaamon se log apne nimat ker chaley gaye

Time...the most precious commodity..you waste it and you face the consequences..sigh...today was grammar exam...in the three days I spend staring at the sentence structures and trying to know the difference between tense, aspect, time, and making the assignment, I think I spend most of the time allowing myself to daydream. The rest of the world saw me dug in my books..My sister called me from Malaysia..said to me.."would you ever care to separate yourself from books and talk to me instead"... called me a 'studious sister'..huh! Another sister is arriving from US on the day before my next exam and she has warned me that if she sees me studying she won't hand me the books she is getting for me...haha I laughed at myself..My brother asked me to get a life and my nephew and nieces think I am a lazy bump!


I decided to write this because I couldn't afford to waste more time...thoughts don't stay in one place all the time...they are a very clever specie..will find a way out through other means and haunt you for days at length:) Am I making any sense? I used to listen to a song when I was in school..liked its lyrics...

"Time, where did you go?
Why did you leave me here alone?
Wait, don't go so fast
I'm missing the moments as they pass
Now I've looked in the mirror and the worlds getting clearer
So wait for me this time...."

Sunday, May 17, 2009

"Women's Protection"

'Ek Zinda Haqiqat Mere Seene Mein Hai Mastoor

Kya Jaanega Woh Jiske Ragon Main Hai Lahoo Sard


Na parda Na Taleem, Nai Ho Ke Purani


Niswaniyat E Zan Ka NigeBaan Hai Faqat Mard


Jis Qaum Ne Is Zinda Haqiqat Ko Na Paya,


Us Qaum Ka Kursheed Bahut Jald Huwa Zard’.


-Iqbal

Tuesday, May 12, 2009


"Life without a friend is like death without a witness."

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

SO WHAT!


So what if the sky is blue and the grass is green and the moon is full

So what if the wind is blowing and the trees are gently swaying

So what if there is fog all around and the snow is falling

So what if the leaves are falling and the sky is showing all colors

So what?!

So what if the children are playing in the ground and the old couple is walking hand in hand

So what if the home is warm and cozy and the whole family is having dinner together

So what if the bird is making a nest to lay eggs and the cat is licking its kittens

So what if the sea is deep blue and so silent you can hear a pebble drop in it

So what?!

So what. . .

Saturday, May 2, 2009

A WILD MAZE

A reader might judge me as wise or lame! How then is it possible to guess who I am? I am not the only one thinking on the same line. But there are times when I think I am the only one with such brains. I am even capable of imagining myself in the lowest pit of the society. I seek help, I seek knowledge, I seek pain, I seek comfort, and I even seek undefined love. I know I'm a human-but wait; is not mass the quantity of matter a body contains? Am I that large mass of cognizance? Who knows? -I do! -How come? - Oh nonsense, why because I am a man!

It is a wild wild maze. Am I one of the stereotypes? They say a bride needs to look pretty so makeover is essential. They say US is a super power so it is reverent to bow. They say it is mundane to go to church, mosque, synagogue or any other place of worship and so it is! They say that having milk over fish causes stuff like –itis, -emia, -omas or –megaly and I believe them?! ‘You are such a priest’, they say, and that is the final word. They say ‘Wow it is an Italian glass and it becomes unique.

Ever heard of Jeremy Bentham? He designed the famous panopticon style prison consisting of several cell blocks interconnected by main administrative block. What exactly is a “panopticon”, anyway?

The means by which the abstract space of the machine and the social space represent a unifying theme of utopia spatial organization. Bentham struggled for decades to promote his vision of how reconciliation might be accomplished through the construction of his architectural and social experiment; the panopticon (all seeing place) – each cell would be separated by walls on either side, so that the prisoners are “secluded from all communication with each other”. A window on the wall facing the building’s exterior and an iron grating facing the buildings interior would ensure constant surveillance over the activities of each individual by an inspector who was located in a tower at the center of the panopticon. This surveillance was unidirectional however as a set of blinds covering the windows in the inspector’s power would prevent prisoners from watching their captors.

In the modern times Bentham’s panopticon concept could be integrated into many social functions. The organizations of our private relation, “are like so many cages, so many small theaters, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualized and constantly visible.” Like the prisoners in the panoptiscopic penitentiary, the citizen “is seen, but he does not see; he is the subject of information, never a subject in communication”.

We have so rigidly created our own worlds that we forget that this phenomenon should not focus on the structure of the architecture but on “the space between the lines”.