Symbolic and Actual Blasphemy

Blasphemy is defined as the act of expressing disrespect for God or for something sacred, whereas respect is  "to pay proper attention to or the willingness to obey". 

Being a muslim whenever one hears the word blasphemy one is bound to think about Salman Rushdie, Danish cartoons or maybe some of us might think of Rajpal, the publisher who published Rangeela Rasool, who was later killed by Ghazi Ilmuddin, the latest additions are obvious. Who is the worst of them all?

As the most sacred personality for the muslims is that of Muhammad PBUH so any one who decides to instigate the Muslims seems to have an easy target.  As a result alleged Muslims go on chanting around in whatever piece of land they occupy, burning and breaking around whatever they manage to find, even killing people for not joining them.

Everyday, one way or the other, we are bound to neglect the Prophet's teachings more frequently than not and none of us feels shame while preaching them to others. Another way to put it is we commit blasphemy everyday by expressing our disrespect for God in the following ways. When we don't pay proper attention to (disrespect) the message he has sent to us, showing the willingness to obey seems to be a far cry. Our Korans are placed in places which are way too high for us to reach i.e it is not humanly possible to approach them, let alone read them and just forget about understanding.

It seems we have misunderstood the word respect to the extent of controversy. To understand the symbolic nature of our respect towards, our religion in general and, God and his Messenger in particular lets look at the word respect. Respect is the acknowledgment (proper acceptance) of any concept , personality or religion for that matter and to make things a bit more clearer acknowledgment is the recognition of the existence or truth of something.So in short respect is the proper acceptance or recognition of the existence of something.

Coming to the practical ramifications of the word respect lets study the case of Abu Jahl. Abu Jahl was an enemy of the Prophet SAW, he used to say to the Prophet that "I have no doubt in my mind that you are telling the truth but I cannot accept what you preach". If we stick to the above mentioned definition we can conclude that Abu Jahl respected the prophet but did not accept his message. That is more or less the same thing that we are doing.

What made Abu Jahl despicable was the fact that he did not practice what he believed to be true rather he left no stone unturned to stop the truth from spreading and proved to be the worst enemy of Islam. Compliance was the element that made all the difference for him. If he would have complied to what he believed he would have been the best of men.But instead he stood between the truth and the world or at least he tried to stay that way.In that respect He was the worst of the Blasphemers.

Today if we were to name the greatest hindrance in the growth of Islam it would be the Muslims who are proving to be the worst enemies of Islam. We believe Islam to be the true religion and don't bother to practice it. And for those of us who boast about practicing it, we only practice the symbols of Islam and not the essence i.e we keep beards but breed hatred in our hearts for anyone who does not belong to our school of thought.We go around chanting slogans about all that has gone wrong with the world and don't bother to look at our own deeds.We even kill, using the name of RahmatallilAalameen. Well I don't think killing someone or anyone for that matter was part of His teachings. In short we the silent majority of the so called Ummah are the worst of the blasphemers. We are the Abu Jahl's of our time as we say that we believe what our Holy Prophet has taught us but in practice we never comply. 

It is symbolic blasphemy that we are against the one that Salman Rushdie has commited as this sort of blasphemy has always proven fruitful for the propagation of Islam i.e whenever such a controversy arises people from all around the world get curious about Islam  and it's teachings. But to the other side it is our collective ignorance that is proving to be the worst sort of blasphemy the one that resonates with Abu Jahl's attitude towards our beloved Prophet SAW.

          

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Proud to be a Pakistani !

Barbaric, brutal, abominable, horrid, loathsome, inhumane, atrocious, callous..............  i went through my thesaurus and couldn't find the right word to describe what has happened in Sialkot. Watching the video as agonizing as it was one could only think it was being played on some uncensored version of The National Geographic Channel for except two of them the rest were definitely not humans. 

Although i had lost my senses for about two days after watching the video, my memory takes me back to the event of two robbers being burnt in Karachi by an angry mob and the series of murders that took place after that in the same manner in Lahore as well. Is this the freedom for which millions of our ancestors gave their lives " freedom to kill" . Well to be honest our elders did not set a great example for us except for those who died. We'll some of our parents might testify to the fact that in 1947 mobs were moving around the whole country to avenge the deaths of our fellow muslim brothers and sisters. Anybody who was considered to be a hindu or sikh was teared down into pieces by our great ancestors the reason being that the hindus and sikhs in India were doing the same to muslims and mind you had there been video cameras at that time the images would have been a trazillion times more agonizing than what we saw a few days ago. To our advantage there were no cell phones with video cameras at that time therefore we can be proud of ourselves and our ancestors. Moreover there was no strong media to report such events so we might not be able to find a trace of what we have done.

So what are we ashamed of now is it the cellphones we posses or is it our media. By the standards set by us in the past these acts should be rewarded and the rest of the nation including us should feel proud of what we have done, as  some reports suggest the brothers were robbers.

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Bewildered!!!

I was amazed as I recently went through a news article about a Lebanese T.V anchor who has been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia under the charges of sorcery. His sorcery constitutes a T.V show in which he used to predict the future of the live callers. He was visiting Saudi Arabia for a pilgrimage in 2008 when he got arrested.

Interestingly Ali Hussain Sibat was arrested by the religious police(the mutaween) of the Kingdom which happens to be the same force which prevented schoolgirls from escaping their school, when it was on fire, on the ground that they did not have their heads covered.

The striking question that came to mind was what would be the situation if this version of Sharia was implemented in Pakistan. The Mamus , chachus and aunties predicting future on our morning and evening shows would be facing the prospects of execution all of a sudden. All the Burqa less bibis on the streets would be flogged on a regular basis. Oh My God! where would all the models go, it's funny read impossible to imagine vaneeza going across the ramp wearing a burqa. Bearded men wont be considered as Taliban any more on the contrary clean-shaved men would be suspected for being zionist agents. Well to tell the truth this sort of a situation seems Scary! Moreover the murderer of Adnan, the UET Peshawar student who was killed by Jameeat activists because he was playing music in his hostel, would be rewarded by the sharai government.

Ironically, the Kingdoms strict sharia is only applicable on ordinary people, the elite class is exempted from all laws. It's hard to believe this is the Islam of RehmatullilAalameen(PBUH), who ordered his forces to avoid even plants from getting damaged during a war.

May God help MR. ALI.

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Enough!!!!!

Without doubt our mass media has made one hell of a controversy out of the Shoaib-Sania wedding. From Ayesha Siddiqui to the passport confiscation, from official guest-ship to becoming ambassadors of the population ministry (though its a bit too early i suppose) from the bruises of Sania's mother to the tears of Sania, it has been havoc in the real sense. 

At last Shoaib gets the chance to request the media to bring down the hype created over this marriage. No matter what happens around us this issue has remained top of the list in all news bulletins for about a month now. Although lots of significant events have gone by during this period but nothing seems to divert the attention of the media. The eighteenth amendment and its outfall, the death of Dr. Israr, the energy crisis and the new energy policy nothing seems to be important enough or rather interesting read ad-attracting enough.

Its time someone pricks the balloon and blows some sense into the media guns, so that the couple can plan and adjust themselves.

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Iqbal and Ijtihad.

There is only one genuine threat to Islam and that is so called Muslims. The fact that most of us are so called Muslims gives our so called Ulema a chance to manipulate us and so they are doing it.

The distorted version of Islam we are witnessing is nowhere near the true teachings of Islam.

Islam was supposed to be a dynamic religion as it was to guide mankind till eternity. The Ulema have left it to be static because dynamism signifies change and change is an obvious threat for Ulema as it could hurt their self aggrandized stature in the Islamic society.

Iqbal links this dynamism of Islam with the principle of Ijtihad which was supposed to be the cornerstone for all evolution in Islam.

Iqbal's lecture on the reconstruction of Ijtihad goes a long way in departing from the prevalent interpretations of Islam and at the same time it aims at restoring the original universalism and dynamism of Islam.

Lets study and understand the philosophy of Iqbal and look for the true meanings of Islam.

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If Only!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The opposition between Allah Mian and iblis has caused my life to swing like a pendulum. My childhood perception of Allah Mian was something similar to that of Mumtaz Mufti saab. He goes like this , Firstly, Allah Mian is big read huge " Allah mian sab se bara ha" . Secondly, Allah Mian was supposed to get angry very quickly especially with children, " shararten na karo Allah Mian naraz ho jae ga" ," shor na karo Allah Mian naraz ho jae ga" , " bahar na jao Allah Mian naraz ho jae ga". Thirdly, once Allah Mian got angry he would throw any and all that made him angry into hell. 

This sort of image of Allah Mian is bound to create a fear of Allah Mian in the hearts of children and so  was the case with me. I was afraid of Allah Mian but the problem was that I was also afraid of the dark, my father, heights, cats, and many other things and people. My natural reaction to fear was to avoid all such things that I was afraid of. Therefore a certain gap was created between me and Allah Mian and it remained so until I happened to read Mufti Saab who was of the view that we are supposed to love Allah Mian instead of being afraid of him.

Thank You 

ALLAH MIAN........................................................................................ for sending in people like Mufti Saab.

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Deprived!!!!!

It was amazing to realize that the sort of history we are spoon-fed with, from the early stages of our schooling is mostly fabricated. For instance how many of us are aware of the fact that the current national anthem of our beloved country is not the one approved by the Quaid,  The national anthem of Pakistan was actually written by Professor Jagannath Azad, on the personal request of the Quaid.  The Quaid deliberately chose a Hindu poet to write the national anthem as  he had clearly mentioned in his speech that Hindus will be Hindus no more and  the Muslims wont be Muslims anymore (not  in the religous sense of course) i,e they will all become Pakistanis.

It is a shame that soon after the death of the Quaid, not only was the national anthem of the country changed but people like professor Jagannath were forced to leave the country.

It is a notable fact that the very people who opposed the creation of Pakistan tried to prevent the Quaid from declaring the poem by professor Jagannath as the national anthem of Pakistan and soon after the death of the Quaid they exercised their influence to change the national anthem. These religious freaks did not stop here they went on to further damage the secular bases of the country and after having passed the objectives resolution they changed the countries name as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TtMn5Kc0rg&feature=player_embedded#!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-X9SvZ9_rg&feature=player_embedded

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lets act !!!!!!!

Between knowledge and action comes realization,

Being muslim children we are taught that praying five times a day is obligatory.

This fact about Islam comes to our knowledge at a very early age but despite this knowledge we fail to do so.

There comes a time in our lives that we start realizing that this piece of knowledge is actually true and we start feeling guilty if we dont pray five times a day.

This phase comes in the lives of more or less all muslims, the lucky ones amongst us are confronted with it earlier than others.

Even after this realization there are few who happen to act on what they believe.

This goes true for all types of practical knowledge.

We know that overeating is a bad habbit, we realize it when we start gaining those xtra pounds, but still our actions take a lot longer if not eternity to synchronize to our knowledge.

Once we find a way to go around  this gap between knowledge ,realization and action we can, not just be better human beings but we can also do a lot of good to the world around us.

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Am I your worst nightmare???

Guess what!

The threat of the semester has finally arrived. At least that was what all the chatter was about in the past few days. Not much has changed for most of the class but it was refreshing to know that finally we would have a 'professor' type of professor to teach us. Though Khan g has all the knowledge and professionalism one would like but, apart from the last one week or so, he has been a bit too understanding/caring/accommodating whatever you want to call it. hey hey hey don't take it the wrong way; obviously He's still the most love-able person around but we definitely required someone like Sir Amir.

As far as the first class is concerned; Firstly, it was a lot shorter than expected. Secondly, it was good to know that Amir saab knows punjabi as well. Thirdly, one was compelled to think that what sort of a reaction would the writing exercise stir up and would that reaction have the same result as in Sir Asim Manzoor's case, hopefully not. I mean what's the deal in having a masters degree and that too in mass communication if we cant even express our views in a language that is the language of the world.

Although very few of us will enjoy this class but Hats off sir g! .................................................................

..................................... for telling us about blogger.

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