Mirage

“Contemplation is a curse that makes an old confusion worse” I don’t know who said it but whenever I remember these words I feel like I am living my life in a deception. What Einstein tried to prove mathematically I think that we are all a living proof of it, we are living in a relative world where nothing is absolute, not even time, space, people, emotions, feelings, desires, actions, behaviors, perceptions, conceptions, assumptions, presumption nothing, nothing is absolute. So, whenever we come across anything ‘new’ in our mind we stop and think what have we been doing before. Then we contemplate, then we ponder over our actions and then we try to come up with a relative ‘logic’ to satisfy what had been the driving power of our actions.
I wake up, I dress up, I pack my bag and go and attend the classes, I come back I again change my clothes, I sleep sometime and then wake up, I hang out with my friends for some time, study if I have to, and then what, I go to sleep again and then repeat this everlasting routine. This is what most of us do in UET. When some incidents (and surely they happen with everyone) make us to stop and think we just don’t bother and move on with our routines. We don’t want to ‘confuse’ ourselves from any past mistake, or I would say we don’t want to deny our actions our egos even when we know that they were wrong. Isn’t this a mirage, a deception, in which we are spending our lives? What does command our life and actions? What are all our actions about? What are we striving for?
A sapling (tree) when tied up in a particular direction grows into that very direction; it never goes out of the way even if it wants to. This is what our state is; we never want to go outside the boundaries set by the society. If you just try it yourself to take one step astray from the path set by the society and right away you are going to face grave and despicable circumstances and you can try it any time.
Like puppets of the society doing what everybody is doing and we say that the wisdom of mankind is at its apex and we are enjoying a free and liberal world in which we can do whatever we want to, think whatever we want to, and believe in whatever we want to, just think it yourself. We aspire for a life that is fabricated by proctor and gamble, Ferrari, Siemens, BMW, Google etc. we live our lives for the profit of these capitalists who hunt us down by their giant billboards, attractive advertisements and with offers that we cannot deny.
This is why when we have a glimpse of the true responsibilities of us and we try to contemplate, we discover our evilness, what we do is only that we ‘make an old confusion worse’. What is the society controlled by and who is the master of the puppets? I guess it is our instincts that are driving us. And we are giving freedom to ourselves to exploit these animal instincts, this is what some philosophers say, some have said that it is the ideals which control one’s perseverance, some say that it is the biological needs in control of literature, art, religion, music, culture etc. one way or the other in my opinion it is something that comes from within, it is the evil which wants us to be free from all bounds, for this very reason democracy is being hailed. It is the evolution taking place and we are exploring the areas of our conscience, by giving freedom to free lancing. This will prove nothing useful to us on the individual level and on the level of the society as a whole because it will unleash our animalism and there lies nothing good but only the wicked. For a proof of it I think I need no example West with its allies is an actual proof of it.

Turmoil

I was stranded in the commotion of thoughts and was unable to find my way out. I was thinking about the literate group or alliance would be more appropriate to say them. I was trying to figure out their actions that what they were doing and what are their preferences now a-days. All of this contemplation started after reading the columnist writers page in it. It was filled with critic, remorse, optimistic ideas, critiques, and many things. I was thinking of any name or anyone from them or from the other literary people who really did something for the society and who really tried to come up with practical solutions and decisions which could free us from this turmoil of hunger, poverty corruption, aimlessness and terrorism.
It is said that “actions speak louder than the words” and I think the actions of our rulers classically Zardari and his consortium are speaking up in the newspapers and that is what all the headlines and news is about. My question and the reason of my own confusion is that what are the actions of this alliance of so called literate people who bear the responsibility of brainwashing the people and inducting in them their culture and civilization which they themselves emblazon with vanity and delicacy. I guess their actions are so weak that they lose their loudness in the upheaval of other notorious actions of the people in power, or it might be that media has got filter in their ears and don’t hear the voices of these people. In either case I am sad because of their actions as they are not ‘speaking louder than the words’ of the oppressive.
It is always the literary group that has to feel the responsibility and come on the stage to take the lead of change in the society and to revert all of our actions in the right direction and towards the way of Islam. All their actions seem to me to be for money or for their leisure. They are writing for the sake of writing or for the sake of money. I concur this from the fact that their words are only mere words without being casted in action they will remain as they are.
We must go back to our sentiments we must go back to the origin of our culture and we must bring it back in the limelight of modernity, making people aware of our great values of the past which are deceased by the foreign contaminants of culture and secularism, that must be fought and that must be eradicated.

A seed!

A seed
A day before yesterday’s columns had some light in them they were filled with healthy news and some twinkling cluster of pearls. It was refreshing to read it at once. First of all it was delighting to hear that the first Danish school was opened by our very honored and celebrated chief minister of Punjab. It is said that the building of the school spans over 100 acres and has a marvelous infrastructure comparable to Aitcheson School. It was very happy news to hear after all.
The schools are a seed of the very bright future for children who could not do anything else but do what their fathers did, which could not attend the school but only aspire to do so. The schools are a seed for Pakistan’s future. They are the seed of the technological, ethical, civic, and literary development of our country. It is a seed that will produce fruit for the generations to come. I hope that it will harvest the intellect of students in a way that they will lead the future of Pakistan towards the apex of development and will remove the differences faced by today’s Pakistan. The students here I pray will learn InshaAllah the true meaning of the code of conduct that has been taught in schools for decades in the past.
It is again very thoughtful of the CM that he decided to build these schools in the spacious places and in natural environment as it will make the students nearer to the nature which of course has a soothing effect on minds and souls, away from the smoky cities with infected people from pollution, students at Danish School will surely enjoy an adequate education.
It would be a spectacle to see the students coming on bicycles and on their foot with their fathers going in the fields to harvest with dirt all on their clothes, seeing their children off in the schools which are equivalent to schools in which another group of students is admitted with healthy fees and who learn arrogance and vanity there, while this group has fathers who are the people of high authority and capitalists who drop them on their luxurious cars. While Danish group of students will learn simplicity and will amalgamate education with the values of their village which is I believe intact to some extent up till now. People say that corruption always starts from the cities and the villages are always the last to follow. But if now through Danish school systems this modern education and the forgotten values of our ancestors combine, will InshaAllah produce fine students who are going to remove the sense of inferiority from the populace of the upper Punjab and other un-developed areas of this country.
This seed if properly nourished will flourish into a tree that is going to provide shadow to the future generations and is going to give fruits to its inhabitants that will be worth of many lives which are lost now a-days, it is going to protect us from the attacks of despicable strategies of storm being planned by its enemies and it is going to stand firm on the ground to protect its people. The literate of Pakistan should fully cooperate in the upbringing of these schools so that the grim looking conditions of Pakistanis may change in the future to come. I hope that the seed might not have been imported from the West and it might have been locally harvested, otherwise the fruits will all be exotic and malignant for its own inhabitants.

Infliction!

Infliction
In January,2010, Professor Mubashar the Vice Chancellor of UHS said while delivering a lecture on ‘suicide prevention’ that in Pakistan approximately one million people commit suicide every year. “This represents one death every minute, almost 3,000 deaths every day, and one suicide attempt every three seconds.”, and also he said that the suicide rates have increased by 60 percent worldwide over last half century, while suicide has been in the top 10 causes of death in every country. This is only the ecstasy of infliction, the obsession rates of infliction are far from imagination.
Everybody is in a state of war with everyone, against every one. Starting from individuals to the nations everybody is involved in inflicting pain and distress on each other. Whether it is the imperialistic wars, or the egoistic approach of individuals towards life, we see outrage and menace in people throughout. Being practiced by every group of individuals and races without any discrimination; infliction of pain, negligence, abuse, hatred and wickedness is now a very common and every day spectacle of one’s life in the present age of modernization.
Some things are there that we do knowingly and some we do unconsciously, today we practice infliction obliviously. In our heedlessness we inflict suffering to the whole of humanity by not doing something for it, by not acting for a change, by not doing in favor of human souls, by procrastinating everything important to mankind and doing everything that is just for the material well being of one’s own self. In serenity and peace of some, there is distress and havoc for others. Enjoying lotteries in Las Vegas or Dubai while nearly 11% of the world’s population lives on less than 1$ a day. Some are enjoying a tan in summer on beaches while people are being bombarded with bombs and weapons of mass destruction. Corn, wheat and rice is being used to fuel up the exclusive rides while people are dying of hunger in Somalia and Liberia, some are living in castles and homes that are worth billions while people are being dragged out and looted from their houses, the only heaven on earth. Enjoying your success in McDonald’s while many have slept without food. Leading a luxurious life is certainly not possible in this world without being ignorant of what is happening around in the world. This is the infliction, caused by some, that, when taken to an extreme level causes people to dispose off their lives by their very own hands, this makes them to cut and bleed themselves to relieve and weed out the vicious memories and experiences they had in their lives due to this very unbalanced life of so-called modern world.
‘Survival of the fittest’ is now a common saying and this itself represents infliction of pain and suffering for those who are not ‘fittest’. And without asking thyself, people are beginning to question God. This evolution of human fabric has left us to stop and ponder over our sentiments, actions and logic. ‘Rethinking the future’ is a phrase that is being associated with a ‘greener tomorrow’, while the need is to rethink and reshape the entire purpose of perseverance of humanity as a whole. This heedlessness is the strongest infliction of everything bad that is happening in this world. Starting from the individual and spanning over the nations, from the very minute abuses and fights to the severe words of egoism and individualism, humanity, standing at the brink of destruction, moving towards the third or maybe the fourth world war, captivated by corporatocracy and private enterprise, is in the tentacles of infliction being borne by every person without knowing, is declining without question until or unless humans don’t stop to ‘rethink the future’.
I heard about a suicide of a soldier who killed himself because he couldn’t manage to fulfill the queued and enormous desires of his mother who wanted him to send her money for the dowry of her sister and other unending desires of his family. Economic pressure, poverty, discrimination and absence of law are the common reasons of suicides. After hearing about a suicide, one thing that comes into the minds of people is that there must be an economic pressure on that person which compelled him to kill himself. The unequal distribution of wealth is causing the loss of lives in the whole of the world. And every individual whether knowingly or unknowingly is contributing in this racism of wealth and personal gain.
Without caring for anybody because of your progress and neglecting the ones close to you and being unable to understand and comprehend them is the root of the infliction that causes mass wickedness and mischief. This when exaggerated becomes the face of the society which reflects utilitarianism and Marxism. In its very basic, these ideologies inflict pain and loss to a certain group of people while giving a bounty of privileges to others. This is natural for the later group to experience infliction of pain, anxiety and depression. If and only if there is a sound machinery of judicial system in place and accounts for the ways of earning of the elite and stops them from exploiting the poor, it is possible for the society to move on with both the groups side by side.
“We often do not know why we do what we do”
This question must be answered by everyone while doing or thinking anything in his life. Spending 2,3 hours in watching movies, or spending a whole bunch of time on the networking sites, we must stop and ponder about the purpose of our actions. Have we thought about it that our actions might be hurting someone, our vain actions, that may have become one of our attributes. This confusion has led us to the loss of many hearts and minds of very talented people around us, who might have done important contributions to human knowledge and who might have brought important things to notice for humans. If we would just have given them a buck up of whatever they are interested in and had taken an interest in their aspirations, their fate might have been different. This is not only a spectacle experienced by me. Instead it is our common experience that people don’t appreciate others, even the virtuous ones who do something good. This behavior injects infliction of negligence in people who are not self motivated and who are not strong in their belief of what they are doing.
So, working for the world where ‘survival of every one’ is the slogan and where everybody enjoys tranquility without any classification, striving for good and standing against the wicked is a common practice, where removing differences and practicing patience is the daily meditation of everyone, is indeed required to root out infliction in all of its horrific forms. We must think and act to root out this infliction which must not be the heritage of the generations to come, where, ‘every body will be in peace with everyone for everyone’ InshaAllah!

Feeling the extreme authority!!

Today i went to the mosque of my university to offer the the jumma' salah. There the chairman of our islamic studies department was giving the seremon. As the time of jamaat came near the people were all packed up inside. At that moment a thought came into my mind like a wildfire that how much these people were, with a little of guess work i was able to conclude that they were nearly 1000. When the seremon in arabic was started i was seeing an immense wave of spirituality in everybody. Everyone was listening with their heads down. I was seeing the imam as a leader who was telling everybody about the importance of hajj. There came to me a strong desire to see this very imam as a guide, a leader from our todays' war torn and suffering world, which is not only suffering from the loss of lives but also from the loss of ideologies, the loss of true humaan values, in short the loss of every thing unique we humans have in the many creations of Allah Subhanawatalla. I see the imam in our mosques as leaders who must lead this hollow, gloomy, selfish and undignied society to the heights of moral character, and dignity and to inculculate in them the will and desire to fullfill what Allah wants to be fulfilled, what Allah has created them for, what He wishes to see in them, and to provide them an ideal so pure that everyone becomes a living light for others, everyone becomes the eradicator of all the fallacies and lies being faced by humanity, and who lifts up this curtain of uncertainity, deception, aimlessness and above all the inhumanity which is dancing with new robes of modernity and liberty.

The students in the mosque and everybody present there was very keenly listening to the imam. that is why if only every imam, does learn the message of holy quran and truly understands the aim which it has bestowed upon humanity and if only he, understands the duty of every muslim clearly, with a new faith and a new spirit, and he tends to learn about the modern satanic forms and its implicatons and learns to fight them then i am very hopeful that the state of humanity will change in a split of a second. But today i see the imams speaking about groups and i see them distorting the meaning of holy quran so easliy according to their will that i get frightened about what is going to happen with them on the day of the judgement.
An immense and unwaivering faith is required by every muslim in today's world of blasphemy and materialism, faith that prunes to induce determination, selflessness and responsibilty in one's self. Only in this faith lies our salvation, and only there lie my only hopes without which i am hopeless.!!!

Religion by Iqbal !

Iqbal says about religion in his very famous lectures on The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam that:

“Religion is not a departmental affair; it is neither mere thought, nor mere feeling, nor mere action; it is an expression of the whole man.”

Iqbal says that religion by its root is not just a ‘departmental affair’ rather it is superior to that in every sense, it is actually a belief that subjugates all the actions, notions and aspirations of man. It is not something traditional, not something limited, not something confined to a certain circle of rituals or practices, it is rather something that touches every aspect of human behavior and commands it according to its own will. As Allah says in the holy Quran that:

وَمَنْ أَحْسَنُ دِينًا مِّمَّنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهُ لِلَّهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌ وَاتَّبَعَ مِلَّةَ إِبْرَاهِيمَ حَنِيفًا وَاتَّخَذَ اللَّهُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ خَلِيلًا ‌[4-125]
And who has a better religion than he who submits himself entirely to Allah? And he is the doer of good (to others) and follows the faith of Ibrahim, the upright one, and Allah took Ibrahim as a friend.

Submitting yourself to something is religion according to this verse. (And surely Allah Subhanawatala knows best)

It is indeed very disappointing that we as Muslim Ummah have taken the zeitgeist for religion as something that is very much confined in its influence, now we are left with only dogmas which we consider as religion while it is not like that. We don’t want to burn our dead why? Because it is not in our religion and we are ‘Muslims’ by religion and the rest of the things we do 24/7 are just taken for granted as being in islam. Actually what we do day and night and months and years and in our whole lives is our religion, what we strive for is our religion, and what we desire for is our religion.

Similarly, Iqbal says that religion is not a feeling or a thought as he goes on to explain the faith we have in our religion that:

"….Yet it cannot be denied that faith is more than mere feeling. It has something like a cognitive content, and the existence of rival parties— scholastics and mystics— in the history of religion shows that idea is a vital element in religion…."

After reading this I have to admit that what Karl Marx said about religion is again just a department of religion in general. In his very famous saying he says that:

“…Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people…”

Yes it might be that when a person is in danger or troubled he remembers Allah and he calls Him with humility and humbleness but when this troubled situation waivers, he again forgets Allah and again embraces the worldly gains and his previous beliefs as his religion.You know from history that the infidels of Makkah did this and did not deny that Allah alone was their creator but when it came to the question of subjugating their lives according to Allah's will and to give away what they had from world made them to flee from the teachings of Islam, they went back to their supposed religion.
In The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, Almustafa the most widely read English poet in the world after Shakespeare and Lao Tzu says says on the question of religion that:

“Have I spoken this day of aught else? Is not religion all deeds and all reflection…?”

Yes, definitely here Kahlil Gibran and Iqbal have the same voice about religion that it is all of our deeds and reflections. This is what Iqbal has rightly said about religion that it is the expression of the whole man. Now, it is up to us to decide what is our expression or our religion. Is it our own self that we have made our expression or is it the worldly gains or is it the country in which we live in is our expression or is it our family??? What Allah wants to be our religion is that:

إِنِ الْحُكْمُ إِلَّا لِلَّهِ أَمَرَ أَلَّا تَعْبُدُوا إِلَّا إِيَّاهُ ذٰلِكَ الدِّينُ الْقَيِّمُ وَلٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ ‌[12-40]
He has commanded that you shall not serve aught but Him; this is the right religion but most people do not know.

Religion's importance - A poll

I was once very curious about knowing that why do people have ‘religion’ so much in their minds and why do they prefer ‘some things’ to be exclusively decisive by religion. So I thought of conducting a poll through SMS and to some people I verbally asked this question that:

Why is religion important to mankind?

Below are the different replies that came to me, and I would like to share it with everyone.

Moavizz - you can't love without a way to follow, a goal to achieve and a destination to walk towards, Religions satisfactorily do that.

Faizan Rasool – It is the objective and identity of life.

Razzam – For brotherhood it is necessary to have religion.

Zeeshan - Religion is important to mankind because it provides the people the social and Islamic benefits. It also provides a platform of humanities that equalize the human beings to single status.
As we know that Islam is the best religion that serves the whole community without discrimination.

Ubair - Mankind is called mankind because of religion, if there is no religion there is surely no mankind.

Salman - Agar insaan mazhab ki parvi na karey to phirhar insaan apnay tor tareekay ke mutabiq zindagi guzarna chahay ga. If humans do not follow any religion they will wish to spend their lives according to their own ways, due to this a societal disorder will erupt. It is same as a rich person will murder a poor and the poor will not get justice because rich person has superiority over the poor because of his wealth. But no religion in the world gives permission to any prejudice. You either let the humans follow their desires or you can subjugate them under one religion which has its foundations based on nature and that religion is islam, we use the word 'deen' for islam that is superior to word 'religion'.

Bilal Murshid - human powers and his access is limited when he meets different things which are beyond his scope he has to take help of beliefs (religion), i.e. he starts assuming points he cannot reach.
Our Muslim belief is that, God helped Man and Himself showed a brief picture of His whole creations through 'ilhami kutb' (holy books), messengers and some other sources.

Usman Ahmed - In this world religion is required to create brotherhood and peace among people.

Arif Jahan - Religion is very important because it is a complete code of life. To spend life every human has a concept of objectivity and faith and faith aspires itself from religion.

Abdus Sami - Religion civilizes mankind and describe purpose of life. Without these man will turn into a beast.

Yasir Waheed - It is the nature of man that it needs some regularity and laws and ethics in his life, so he believes in some religion.

Ishtiaq - It is important because every religion provides the path of life to its followers, whether it is wrong or right.

Tehreem - Region gives reason to live. Life after death is the doctrine of every religion, that is an eternal life. If we humans will know that there is no eternal life and life is just on earth then we will like to enjoy our lives through all the means possible due to which social system will be destroyed. Religions teach us to stay in our societal structure and to maintain a balance in it, due to this a global empire is founded and everyone is given the chance to live his life, if this doesn't happen then there might be no life on earth, religions enable humans to put aside power and to think of respect of eachother, if religions are not present on this earth then every person with power will kill the weak because it is a desire of everyone to rule. And in this way life will vanish from this earth, religions compell us to spend lives according to the ways of that religion if we want a good eternal life.

Muhammad Umair - For internal satisfaction and you can that for spiritual satisfaction

Nabeel Safdar - Because it is the reason or objective of the birth of humans.

Muzamil - Because it gives you a reason to live

Hafiz Umair - Because religion is the true identity of mankind or simply a man.

Ijaz - because it is the only way for humanity to please our creator

Arslan Shabir - to know the things we can’t verify from our mind but being a human being these questions come to our mind.

Have your say on these comments if you like.