WHO WILL INHERIT PAKISTAN?

Model at fashion show in Lahore celebrating Valentine Day

OR

Jamaat i Islami women supporting Kashmiri muslims

OR

Two million Afghan refugees in Karachi alone (celebrating Eid I think)

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

HAROON…………the gentle one

I am listening to the tafseer of Surah Al Araaf by Farhat Hashmi. She comes to the part where Moses (AS) is called by Allah SWT to give him the message, and as he gets ready to leave he asks his brother Haroon to take care of the Children of Israel when he is gone.

She then describes the temperament of Haroon (AS)………..born in the same household as Moses (AS) older brother to him, and yet unlike him, he is soft spoken, gentle and non confrontational.

My mind goes to another Haroon………soft spoken, gentle and non-confrontational. Born in a pack of five brothers and one sister some older than him some younger.

Old colonial home in Amritsar,check the rooftop contiguity

He at age one hunkering down in the darkened rooms of his grandparents home in Amritsar at night in a blackout that is only brightened by the torches of the Hindu rioters near my grandmother’s house.

My grandmother lived at the border of the Hindu section in a large sprawling bungalow that connected in the city with other homes through the closeness of their roof tops, My grandfather was the physician at the Hospital nearby treating Hindu’s and Muslims equally during the riot of Partition between Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan.

Neither my grandmother nor my grandfather ever thought of leaving their ancestral home in the Punjab ever. My father, who had gone to Pakistan to set up a Hospital, had left my mother and her three boys and one on the way with her parents in a safe, affluent neighborhood close to the hospital.

I can hear my mother relating “the night” Here is what I remember of what she said:

“As the evening shadows would lengthen the house would be plunged in complete blackout to deter the rioters from discerning who if anybody lived there. After many days of siege of the Muslim quarter, my father was stranded in the hospital and could not return home because of the mobs at the gates of the muslim quarter.
Our fresh food was slowly running out, the first item of need was milk for Haroon.

As darkness would fall, my mother would rant and rave and send baduas to each member of the Hindu mob, and then would send her son to run across the rooftops and bring some milk in a lota. He being twelve, a lota was all he could carry while running over the roof tops, dodging bullets and trying to avoid being seen.

Haroon………..would cry when the shots rang out, but his crying also was quiet sobbing, he would never raise his voice as if he knew of the pre eminent danger they were in.”

Haroon my brother never cried aloud as far as I can remember. I recall the wordless tears in his eyes at age nine when he went to Boarding School in Murree, wordless tears in his eyes when my father died. I thank God he never witnessed my mothers or my sons death.

His smiles were also gentle; his laugh hearty but never raucous ……………..Haroon how aptly named was he.

Haroon arriving in Pakistan around one and one half year of age and living with our parents in an apartment in Lady Wellington Hospital where my father worked after partition.

My mother was physically and emotionally stretched as the hospital was mostly filled with the carnage that was carried out on the trains to Pakistan which arrived with people dismembered and severely injured.

Muslim refugees on the train to Pakistan

Her mother and sister had been recruited to nurse the injured while my grandfather & father did surgery. Meanwhile my mother was taking care of her three children and her newborn baby. Haroon became a favorite of a half blind, very affectionate elderly woman from our family called “Mami Muradi” who had sought sanctuary with my parents after all her family was killed in Partition.

I see his photo; he is clinging to Mami Muradi’s legs and looking at the camera from behind the folds of her shalwar, his signature lock of dark hair on his forehead, his intelligent eyes assessing you before he accepts your presence in his life.

Haroon with the gentle hands that eased headaches without medicine, Haroon with the sharp wit and sarcasm that could reduce egos to a heap of sand

Haroon absorbing the pain and disappointments of life without batting an eyelash, Haroon writing a story of a father and a son………..Haroon breaking the academic records in all the commonwealth countries, Haroon spoiling his daughters with joy. Haroon working in Borders in the States.  and saying he enjoys it while in his heart he was homesick for Pakistan.

Haroon absorbing the pain of life till he could absorb no more and his heart exploding with it, spilling out all the anguish, releasing him forever from the ungentleness of this world……………

“Inna lil lahi wa inna elayhe rajaeown”. May his soul rest in peace and May Allah Subhanawataala give him Maghfirah, and guide his daughters and his siblings to the path of Allah Subhanawataala.

May his daughters pray for him everyday in every prayer, for his solace and Maghfirah in the Hereafter!

On being asked once why he spoils his daughters so much he said “they are all I have!”………….and now their prayers are all he has left in this world.

ISLAM, PAKISTAN AND AMERICA….

Prayers at Eid Gah Karachi

(Written for a Pakistani colleague to be presented at an American Church locally)

Islam and Pakistan are intimately intertwined such that one cannot be mentioned without the other.

Paksitani flag: 99% muslim, 1% other faiths

Immigrants to America fleeing religious persecution in Europe

Like America, where immigrants who were the victims of religious persecution such as those who fled the Spanish Inquisition, the French Huguenots and the Pilgrims, Pakistani immigrants also were the target of religious persecution in undivided India by the Hindu majority, despite being under British rule.

Muslim refugees fleeing religious persecution in India, boarding the train to Pakistan, 1947

Both sets of Immigrants, those to America and those to Pakistan settled in their respective countries to seek a sanctuary to practice their Abrahamic religion in peace and tranquility.

Unlike America Pakistan is not an island and has a 1000-mile border with a hostile country that has had its eye on its abundant crop and water sources from day one.

Like Nebraska, the Punjab or the land of five rivers has been the breadbasket and the fruit basket of not only Pakistan but of the entire South Asian world.

Unlike Nebraska its fertile soil and produce is eyed by India and Afghanistan with the intent of taking it by force rather than trading for it.

Like Americans, Pakistanis when transplanted any where in the world are entrepreneurial, diligent, and ambitious and have a great work ethic.

America who has demonstrated its friendship with Israel though thick and thin, has neither respected nor supported the political work nor the silent, steady and unswerving, continuous support and friendship of the Pakistani people despite the tumultuous politics they have faced in the subcontinent of India and Pakistan in the past sixty years.

There are three major ways that Pakistan has enhanced the status of America in the world:

Agha Hilaly of Pakistan & Kissinger off to China

1.   Pakistan opened the gates of China for America by being a bridge through complex and highly confidential negotiations to bring them together via a secret meeting between Nixon, Kissinger and the Chinese elite.

Agha Hilaly of Pakistan meeting with Nixon & Kissinger on the China mission

2.    It opened the gates to Afghanistan for the supply of soldiers and arms to fight the Russians, which broke the back of Communism and shattered the iron curtain forever.

3.    It opened the gates to Pakistan and Afghanistan to allow America to find and apprehend the perpetrators of the violence of 911

In return it is a sad fact what the American people and the American Government has given to the people of Pakistan:

The beauty of Pakistani cotton

1.    After the deal with China, The World Bank at the instigation of a few American partners pulled the rug from under the cotton industry of Pakistan, which at that time was the largest business industry in Pakistan. The World Bank demanded that the billions of dollar in loan be paid in three days, resulting in a total collapse of the cotton industry.

Following this economic debacle, Pakistanis slowly but surely bounced back through their innate optimism and their trust in God and grew and traded cotton with the other side of the world, the south Asia rim and tried to recover from the economic blow that America had given Pakistan thus discounting its friendship.

2.    Succeeding that America placed sanctions on Pakistan because it had a nuclear bomb, whereas its neighbor India was not placed under similar sanctions, this further squeezed the economics of the population of Pakistan, significantly, widening the economic gap between the well to do and the poor and thinned the middle class, which used to be the back bone of the country (unlike its neighbor India which was teeming with the extreme poor or the few very rich)

An afghan refugee girl receives bread from a restaurant owner in Karachi

3.    Pakistan absorbed three million refugee children and women (men were dead) from Afghanistan after the US supported war on Russia.

Pakistan was left with no support to assist in the economic rehabilitation of these orphans and widows that flooded the border cities and trickled down to the seaport of Karachi, 1000 miles away creating serious social issues.

4.    America supported a military dictator instead of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, and gave millions of dollars in military aid that never left the United States except in the form of arms or military training of officers brought here to be trained. Meanwhile the people of Pakistan were reeling from the sanctions, the endless stream of refugees and the crash of their cotton trade.

Afghan Refugees fleeing to Pakistan

5.    Into this scenario came 911 and Pakistan’s assistance in the war on terror became for them a war of terror, as the incessant bombing of Afghanistan brought three million more women and children in to Pakistan, again with no help in sight to date.

Why has America used Pakistan in this manner?

In my humble opinion it comes from a basic tenet of judging the world of people by size.

In the eyes of some American policy makers, if one is large like India, one is likely to be more powerful and useful and vice versa.

What has escaped the attention of most strategists and foreign policy makers in the United States is that in the region of the subcontinent of India and Pakistan, size has never mattered.

History has borne witness that a small tribe of the Mughals conquered almost all of India and ruled it for several hundred years. Later a small country located on an island in Europe named ‘Great Britain’ ruled all of India for 150 years. Thus size does not matter, at least not in the complex mix of the sub continent of India and Pakistan.

What matters most in this exchange between nations of basically honorable god fearing people is integrity, loyalty and a sense of honesty and respect for each other’s values, and an attention to the retention of memory of deeds done for friendship and perhaps a vibrantly alive conscience to repay the favor in a similar form.

Pakistani’s have always admired the American people for their work ethic, their sense of fairplay and most of all for their lack of stuffiness.

Salaat where ever you are

American’s on the other hand have admired the Pakistani’s who have migrated to the United States for their integrity, their work ethic, their industriousness and their moral values, all of which stem from their faith Islam.

Islam is the faith of 99% of Pakistanis and it is an integral part of their life and thinking, no matter where they live.

Islam is reflected in their humility of demeanor which is sometimes misconstrued as weakness, in their hospitality which is sometimes misconstrued as excessive and overdone, it is reflected in their soft manner of speech, which is sometimes judged as insecurity, it is reflected in their generosity which has sometimes been commented on as foolishness and it is reflected in their sensitivity to  wastefulness which had sometimes been thought of as stinginess.

All these attributes observed in Pakistanis are the key social elements in the practice of our religion Islam. We have learned these at the knees of our elders who have learned them from the etiquette of our Prophet Muhammad peace and blessings be upon Him.

In summary I would like to say that in so many ways Pakistanis and Americans are intrinsically alike in their values and beliefs, even though their religion and their countries have different names.

In the final analysis we are at a crucial crossroad and we must evaluate what is the role of Americans in their own future?

The world has suddenly become transparent by being “connected” the borders have melted and the cyber roads have no impediments in spreading the actions of people of every nation.

Thus Americans now find themselves in a position where they have to cast their vote for a foreign policy.

Since America is no longer an island and the actions of the Americans are visible to all and asunder, it is urgent that each American cast his or her vote on foreign policy based on what they would want for themselves and therfore must want the same for their friends and neighbors. The Quran and the Bible both instruct you and me to “treat others as I wish to be treated”.

It all boils down to:  Do we want friends who have integrity, ethics and are reliable in their consistency of support or do we want predatory avaricious partners who are blind to ethics? Can we treat other differently from us?

A conscious decision must be made for us to be transparently honest with our children, and ourselves.

We stand at the brink of a global world where the borders of this island have been breached making the quality of our friends, of renewed and vital importance in our future lives.

THE LIGHT OF MY CANDLE……..

A memory from my childhood…….……………

I am waiting in the wings, in line with the other school children with my candle. The stage under the shamiana is set for the school play celebrating March 23rd.

It is the date on which the Pakistan Resolution was passed.  A date on which my young mother, a minority Muslim student in a Hindu majority college in undivided India was endangering herself by openly being jubilant.

I do not remember how old I am, perhaps in kindergarten or first grade, I just know that all the students in the tableau are older than me. As I look across the stage it appears to be huge to my young eyes.

In the tableau illustrating this poem, I am the flame that lights the world with ilm (knowlege of Deen that helps us live in a humanistic manner). I do not understand the nuances of the poem, but each word is embedded in my brain, to surface much later in life.

I have to walk almost half way across the stage with my candle at a particular part of the poem………..My mother is in the audience…looking out for me and all the other kids in the tableaux.

Suddenly the light is dimmed, that is my cue.  I am nudged to walk onto the school stage. I slowly begin my walk, my candle flickering, and my eyes on the curlicue of the paisley of the Persian carpet in the middle of the stage.

I have to reach the designated point in the design of the carpet halfway across what seems to be a humungous distance, without letting my candle go out. Instinctively I know that in order to keep the flame burning I have to walk very slowly. Something that life has taught me to do if I am to be steady.

Little do I realize that I will be walking with this prayer in my heart half way across the world and eventually all over the globe, slowly allowing it to actualize in its essence.

At this time with the candle in my hand, all I am concentrating on is to keep it alight. I reach the designated part of the middle of the stage where I have to turn and return. I slowly begin my return to the wings of the stage, carefully protecting the flame of the flickering candle. Without understanding the significance of the light of the flame in the prayer……….

Many years later I hear the poem again and the entire meaning sinks into my heart like water sinks into the parched earth which has been devoid of rain for a long time.……bringing out from the cynicism of this materialistic world around me, the hidden idealism of the child with the candle.

So here it is for you, a memory of  the little girl in Pakistan endeavoring in the gusts of the winds of cynical and skeptical times, to keep the flame of her candle from going out.

with english subtitles:

The school girls in Pakistan, in urdu only:

PAKISTAN ZINDABAD!

A Country founded by a man struggling to practice Islam and make a home for those who wanted to and could not:

A TRIBUTE to all those who had vision and were selfless, in voting for a muslim homeland knowing full well that the small village that they lived in would never have the freedom to practice Islam as those in Pakistan…..and yet they wanted for their brother and sisters what they wanted for themselves.

My deepest gratitude to Allah for sending them to the polls with a pure heart:

AND FOR THOSE PAKISTANI’S WHO GOT IT WITHOUT EFFORT:  A REMEMBERANCE WITH A GUIDED TOUR:

MAY ALLAH SWT PROTECT ALL PAKISTANI’S NO MATTER WHERE THEY ARE PHYSICALLY.

PAKISTAN: AN ACHING HEART IN FLAMES

It is raining gently, like the subdued weeping of a child for her mother. The few yellow leaves left over from fall are mixed with the new green of the plants that have been fooled into unfurling by the odd misplaced warmth in the middle of winter.
Odd and misplaced that is how I feel. My hometown is ablaze and instead of being thankful for being safe, I want to be there! People have taken the freedom to be a muslim in a muslim country for granted. The Baron of arrogance has been treating Lady liberty in a cavalier manner.
The people of Pakistan have been bottling up anger for many years, and now they are letting it all out, every bit of it. Life and property has no meaning. In the final analysis what meaning does life and liberty have to those who have eked out a drudgery of an existence in the face of injustice, dishonor and treachery?
The people of Pakistan, both in and away from Pakistan have been cheated at many levels. Starting with ourselves we have been cheating ourselves by placing our ideals in the lap of materialism, for trading our Sidq for false security provided by human beings and by robbing our own kin to enrich others.
In these years somewhere in the flow of life in the big city of Karachi, the reason for living as commanded by Allah got lost. Life became a daily trudge to work, to play, to eat and drink and stay alive. I see how tenuous the hold on life is, and somewhere in the process of living we forgot that it is not we who hold our lives but Allah subhanawataa’la. As I see the pictures of my hometown being ravaged, I am reminded that He (SWT) has power over all people and all things.
My heart is being barraged by the onslaught of grief, and it is rattling with pain. In every torch lit car in Karachi I see an aching heart that has finally burst into flames.
It is as if Allah Subhanawatalla is not only leveling the playing field but also testing the muslims of Pakistan, both in Pakistan and elsewhere. It is a test, to see how we perform when we are under fire. How well do we remember Surah Nisaa? What does it say about engaging a fellow muslim in battle. In what circumstances are we allowed to battle and kill a fellow muslim? What does it say about oppression and finally what does it say about a muslim who is a killer and a muslim who is killed without a defined juristic reason?
Never should a believer kill a believer; but (If it so happens) by mistake, (Compensation is due): If one (so) kills a believer, it is ordained that he should free a believing slave, and pay compensation to the deceased’s family, unless they remit it freely. If the deceased belonged to a people at war with you, and he was a believer, the freeing of a believing slave (Is enough). If he belonged to a people with whom ye have treaty of Mutual alliance, compensation should be paid to his family, and a believing slave be freed. For those who find this beyond their means, (is prescribed) a fast for two months running: by way of repentance to Allah: for Allah hath all knowledge and all wisdom.

Quran 4:92 translation by Yusuf Ali
The surah is succinct in its clarification; Farhat Hashmi’s tafseer rings in my ears. In the heat of the battle, if I were in the midst of the rampant expression of sorrow, would I remember the surah? Probably not, unless I had embedded it in my heart and soul long before I was faced with this.
The punishment from Allah is severe and everlasting. It is not only for the killer but the killed in a fight between two muslims both earning their place in the fire of Hell. One for killing a fellow muslim and the other for having the intention to do so.(Barring specific reasons) please read or listen to the details of the explanation of Surah Nisaa in Farhat Hashmi’s tafseer on www.alhudapk.com

If a man kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell, to abide therein (For ever): And the wrath and the curse of Allah are upon him, and a dreadful penalty is prepared for him. Quran:4:93
translation by Yusuf Ali
How easy it has become to kill in the name of ……….whatever, property, vendetta, honor, anger etc.
The most primitive part of our brain is the temporal lobe. With it we feel, smell and are quickened to rage. It is the rest of the brain that tempers the temporal lobes reaction. If released from the control from the rest of the brain, it can unleash, unlimited rage and devastation.
It is the chivalry and the deep-seated respect that every muslim has in his heart for women, that has been violated and has undone the whole nation. As a woman fell from the impact of her aggressor’s onslaught, the impact touched every man woman and child. This nation of muslims rose in outrage and responded entirely and completely from the most primitive part of the brain, the temporal lobe! All feelings of rage spilling out unchecked by the higher senses.
Anger, grief, years of oppression, hatred, feeling of being at the bottom of the barrel, watching helplessly as injustice is meted out, layers of superficial living, the increasing divide between the haves and have-nots, the vast divide between the practicing and in- name muslims, the increasing distance between master and servant, between faithful and faithless spouses, between wannabes and have-beens and the intense desire to either imitate someone or to destroy those who desire to imitate others, all this has spewed out as a raging inferno triggered by the death of a woman.
As the trigger was pulled to release the agent of death for Benazir, so was a trigger pulled to propel Pakistan into a future where the innocence of the average Pakistani is consumed in the fire of anguish and anger. From the ashes will rise the phoenix and unfortunately the vultures.
The true fight for survival between the phoenix and the vultures will then begin. Pakistan is a country created in the name of Allah as a sanctuary for muslims. What does Allah Subhanawa taaala have in store for it?

How will Allah subhanawataala, judge my compatriots, who in their anguish have been transformed from the oppressed to the oppressors?

Dua/supplication: May Allah guide all of us and keep us under His protection, and forgive us for our transgressions. Ameen

BENAZIR……………

Leaders may come and leaders may go but somebody’s mother, somebody’s daughter and somebody’s wife died today. Inna lil lahi wa inna elayhe rajaeoon. It is from him we come and to him we shall return.
Being a prominent political figure, finger pointing is probably rampant at this moment. None of which is of any use to the one who has passed into another realm. Her book of actions is closed. She can no longer add or subtract a single word.
As Khalil Gibran says:
The moving finger writes and having writ moves on,
Not all thy piety nor wit, shall erase a line
Nor all thy tears wipe out a word of it.
What she wrote in her life, her deeds, her actions, her piety, or lack of it, and her efforts, or lack of it for the sake of Allah are all documented and now nothing can be changed, and no one knows what awaits her except her!
She leaves behind loved ones, followers, family who grieve for her departure, some are angered some are anguished, but are there any who can change her book of deeds or make the scale weigh in her favor on the day of judgment?
Her children: do they in their cloud of sorrow have anyone to hold their hand and guide them through this maze of grief. Are they running around seeking justice, perhaps vendetta, or are they spending these three days doing something for her as she is questioned in the grave. In the first three days after death, if the children and close family continuously read the Quran, it is beneficial for the dead person. Her children can seek salvation for their mother, read the Quran, pray for their mother, and seek leniency in the relentless questioning that takes place in the grave.
From her children’s vantage the window of opportunity to do something for their mother is so small, and yet there are so many things of dunya to distract them or perhaps they do not know what to do. Perhaps they are fortunate and do have the guidance of an elder who is helping them ease their sorrow at their loss of their mother.
Allah Subhana wa taala says in Surah al Imran:

Nor can a soul die except by Allah’s leave, the term being fixed as by writing. If any do desire a reward in this life, We shall give it to him; and if any do desire a reward in the Hereafter, We shall give it to him. And swiftly shall We reward those that (serve us with) gratitude. Quran:3:45 translation by Yusuf Ali.

I paraphrase it ‘everyone is born with a pink slip at the time we come out of our mothers womb, with the date and time of when we will leave this world’. The way we die is just an excuse staged by the angel of death to make it acceptable for the people left behind.
I do not know when my pink slip is due, and yet I know that it was given to me and written in my Qadr when I was born.
The passage of time in this world can be easy or harsh but in the clock of the Universe, it is a nano second. Those of us who forget why are we created: Allah SWT says “Humankind and jinns were created for nothing else but to worship their Lord” then why do we forget? And forget we do, despite being reminded repeatedly.
Benazir a mother, a daughter and a wife was here yesterday gone today. Was she able to fulfill the reason why she was created? Futile questions for past events. Am I fulfilling the reason I was created?
Apathy, distractions, money, ambition, love of this world, love of the things in this world are all reasons not to think that one unknown day, each one of us too will leave this world. I do not know if it will be with a blast or quietly and gracefully, only Allah knows.
……….And yet what most people will focus on now will be the fitna aspect, i.e. who did it, why did they do it? Categorize the people into monsters and facilitators, enemies & friends etc. Some advise that if she had not stood up “perhaps she would not have died”; Allah Subhanawataala says in Surah Al Imran:

(They are) the ones that say, (of their brethren slain), while they themselves sit (at ease): “If only they had listened to us they would not have been slain.” Say: “Avert death from your own selves, if ye speak the truth.” Quran: 3:168 Yusuf Ali’s translation
What escapes all of us is that no matter how famous, how beautiful, how young, or how powerful one may be, we all have to go to our final destination, it is just matter of time.
The relevant question is: Have we arranged for a house in our life in the Hereafter and where will it be?

Dua/Supplication: May Allah forgive her sins, accept her good deeds and save her from the tribulations of the grave and advance her towards Jannah. May Allah give sabr and emaan to her family and to the people of Pakistan. Ameen.