The Bible of Militant Atheism
by Aasem Bakhshi Contrary to the mainstream religious belief, incredulity and skepticism regarding the ultimate nature of truth, existence of God and eschatological claims of scripture is not an entirely modern phenomenon. In his famous thought experiment Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, Ibn Tufayl the famous Muslim philosopher of 12th century Spain, aesthetically described discovery of God as the “joy without lapse, unending bliss, infinite rapture and delight” and inability to find Him as “infinite torture”. The curious … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books, Philosophy, Religion, Science
Book: The Romance of Raja Rasalu and Other Tales
By Raza Rumi Story telling has been a primordial urge, never quite expressed in its fullest measure, but always lingering and floating like life. There was a sub-continent before the colonial interaction that brought in its wake an aesthetic hardened by the industrial revolution and its uniformity of life and space. This was a world rich with myriad identities, of whispers and tales all interlaced in a peculiarly complex kaleidoscope. Since the 19th century that particular aspect of folk story telling and transfer of generational accounts gave way to what is now known as education and knowledge – instruments and reflections of power and a linear world view set elsewhere but adapted awkwardly to the local context. This is why Simorgh Women’s Resource and Publication Centre in Lahore, under the leadership of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Arts and Crafts, Books, culture, translations
Linguistics and Islam
Kim Stanley Robinson’s alternate history novel,”The Years of Rice and Salt” posits a world in which an overwhelming majority of Europeans are decimated by the Black Death in the 14th century thereby Christinaity and the white race never get the chance to shape the world as we know it. History of the world, thus, is informed by dominant cultures of the day; the Islamic world, India and the Far East. One of the qualities that sets this novel apart from other novels of the what-if genre is the intelligent observations, commentary and inquiries the writer makes into the nature of Islam. The following extract is taken from a book within this book entitled “Mohammed [pbuh] Meets Confucius”. Zia Ahmad … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books, Fiction, History, Islam, Literature, Religion
Pakistani Literature – Evolution and Trends
By Gilani Kamran The novel in Pakistan The novel in Pakistan emerged with Qurratulain Heider’s Aag ka Darya (The River of Fire, 1957). It has been generally held that the novel is about the problem of self-identity, yet it moves in a wider orbit and traverses the curvature between self identity and the collective identity of the people who were placed in a criticasl situation on the eve of Independence in 1947. Leslie Flemming has regarded this novel as A Tale of Three Cities, where the whole phenomenon of Independence has been witnessed as a feature film’s scenario. Thematically, the novel intends to discover some equation between geography and history, though in a much wider sense the human existence is not more than mutability and transmigration of human forms. The novel had … Read entire article »
Filed under: Arts and Crafts, Books, culture, Identity, Literature, Pakistan, Partition, Urdu, Writers
"Pakistani Writing is Older Than Pakistan, Novel itself"
By Mayank A Soofi I caught up with Mr Mr Ali Sethi, a young Pakistani novelist, in the lawn of Delhi’s Ambassador Hotel during the last week of July, 2009. He was visiting India for a book tour of his first novel The Wish Maker. Mr Sethi’s parents, Najam Sethi and Jugnu Mohsin, run The Friday Times and Daily Times, two of Pakistan’s most popular newspapers. He lives in Lahore. Hello, Mr Ali. You are 25 and … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books, New Writers, Pakistan
Silence Is Easy
By Max Dunbar The Case for God: What Religion Really Means, Karen Armstrong, The Bodley Head, 2009 Of all the recent pro-faith books to hit the review pages, Karen Armstrong’s is the most original and interesting. The dinner-party truism runs that spirituality is not the same thing as organised religion. Armstrong’s view is the opposite: ‘Religion, therefore, was not primarily something that people thought but something they did.’ She reminded me of the protagonist of Michel Houellebecq’s Atomised, who complains of the hippie movement that ‘they’re still convinced that religion is some sort of individual experience based on meditation, spiritual exploration and all that. They don’t understand that it’s a purely social thing about rites and rituals, ceremonies and rules.’ … Read entire article »
Einstein and Zionism
Albert Einstein was not only a scientist and universal eminence, but also a proud Jew who had a longtime association with the Zionist movement. In the 1920s, he toured America with Chaim Weizmann to gather support for the creation of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. When Weizmann died in office in 1952 as Israel’s first president, Einstein was proposed as his successor by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books, Palestine-israel, Reviews
Fighting for Jinnah's Pakistan
From DAWN By Ashfak Bokhari There has never been so great a need to revisit Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s legacy as now, under the changed circumstances, to renew our resolve to adhere to his ideals, his principles and his vision of Pakistan. Nor has there been so much urgency to disseminate and popularise the political philosophy of Mr Jinnah — the Quaid-i-Azam to most of us — which has now largely been either ignored by the political community … Read entire article »
Rethinking Islam (Part 3 of 3)
(From Ziauddin Sardar’s Islam, Postmodernism and Other Futures.) But the violence performed to sacred Muslim concepts is insignificant compared to the reductive way the Qur’an and the sayings and examples of the Prophet Muhammad are bandied about. What the late Muslim scholar Fazlur Rahman called the ‘atomistic’ treatment of the Qur’an is now the norm: almost anything and everything is justified by quoting individual bits of verses out of context. After the September 11 event, for example, a number of Taliban supporters, including a few in Britain, justified their actions by quoting the following verse: ‘We will put terror into the hearts of the unbelievers. They serve other gods for whom no sanction has been revealed. Hell shall be their home’ (3:149). Yet, the apparent meaning attributed to this verse could … Read entire article »
Rethinking Islam (Part 2 of 3)
(From Ziauddin Sardar’s Islam, Postmodernism and Other Futures.) Islam is not so much a religion as an integrative worldview: that is to say, it integrates all aspects of reality by providing a moral perspective on every aspect of human endeavour. Islam does not provide ready-made answers to all human problems; it provides a moral and just perspective within which Muslims must endeavour to find answers to all human problems. But if everything is a priori given, in the shape of a divine Shari’ah, then Islam is reduced to a totalistic ideology. Indeed, this is exactly what the Islamic movements – in particularly Jamaat-e-Islami (both Pakistani and Indian varieties) and the Muslim Brotherhood – have reduced Islam to. Which brings me to the third metaphysical catastrophe. Place this ideology within a nation-state, … Read entire article »
Rethinking Islam (Part 1 of 3)
Ziauddin Sardar is a notable Pakistani London based writer and cultural critic who has been writing for thirty years. Rethinking Islam is the first chapter of his 2004 collection of essays, Islam, Postmodernism and Other Futures. The author addresses issues in this essay that hold significant relevance for our Pakistani condition. This informative essay is reproduced in three installments. Serious rethinking within Islam is long overdue. Muslims have been comfortably relying, or rather falling back, on age-old interpretations for much too long. This is why we feel so painful in the contemporary world, so uncomfortable with modernity. Scholars and thinkers have been suggesting for well over a century that we need to make a serious attempt at ijtihad, at reasoned struggle and rethinking, to reform Islam. At the beginning of the last … Read entire article »
The White Tiger of Pakistan
The White Tiger of Pakistan If Billo Halwai Lived in Pakistan You Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don’t have entrepreneurs and our nation- though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy or punctuality- does have entrepreneurs. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of them, especially in the field of technology and these have setup all these outsourcing companies that virtually run America now. Only three nations have never let themselves be ruled by foreigners: china, Afghanistan and Abyssinia .these are the only three nations I admire. My country is the kind where it pays to play it both ways. The entrepreneur has to be straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere at the same time so I am … Read entire article »
Filed under: Activism, Afghanistan, ancient civilisations, Books, Colonialism, culture, Democracy, Economy, Europe, FATA, Fiction, human rights, Identity, Iran, Islam, Justice, Literature, Philosophy, Politics, Punjabi, Religion, Sufism, Taliban, Writers
Interview:British-Pakistani Novelist Tariq Mehmood
UK Political Debate: Q & A with Tariq Mehmood Tariq Mehmood is a broadcaster, writer and filmmaker. His first two novels are both set in Bradford UK. He has published two illustrated books for children. Tariq co-directed the award winning documentary Injustice. He is the editor of Sangi, the only magazine in his mother tongue, Pothowari in UK. Tariq and Rock musician Aki Nawaz host the Political Show “The Point” in UK on sky satellite 836. Tariq is visiting Pakistan to cover current political situation. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Activism, Arts and Crafts, Books, Cinema, Citizens, culture, Democracy, Education, Europe, Fiction, Heritage, human rights, Identity, Images, India, Islam, Islamabad, journalism, Kashmir, Languages, Left, Literature, magazines, Media, minorities, movements, Music, New Writers, Pakistan, Politics, Religion, Society, south asia, Sufism, Travel, video, Writers, youth
Book Review: Premier Gillani’s Urdu Memoirs
by Bradistan Published biographies on the book shelves while the writer is still in Political office is a risky strategy. In case of Obama it paid huge dividends financially and politically and in case of Musharraf it caused embarrassment and innuendos. Premier Gillani’s book is like the gossip from an old friend who has attained position of authority and pays you a surprise visit. I revisited the idea of writing this review after the imposition of governor rule in Punjab and disqualification of Sharif bothers known to be personal friends of Premier Gillani and political rivals of President Zardari. Now Premier Gillani is again flying too close to the wind for reports of his alleged differences with his party chairman, fellow ex-prisoner and current President of Pakistan Mr Asif Ali Zardari. The Background of the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Activism, Army, Benazir Bhutto, Books, Democracy, dynasties, India, Islam, Islamabad, journalism, Media, New Writers, Politics, south asia, Taliban, Terrorism, Urdu
Ifti Nasim: Muslim and Gay?
By Bradistan Calling Ifti Nasim also known as Iftikhar Nasim is a pioneering Pakistani gay poet who now lives in the U.S. He has written many books of poetry in Urdu and English languages. He has also written prose in both languages. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Activism, Arts and Crafts, Books, culture, Dance, Identity, men, minorities, Pakistan, Politics, Rights, sex, Urdu, USA, Writers
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