Can they call Palestine home?
11:oo pm Global Village, Dubai My sisters and I were running wildly to catch a bus. The bus was, apparently, the only cheap way home and it was to leave in the next 15 minutes. 11:15 pm My sister, laden with shopping bags, walked to the bus stand to get some information from two obscure figures seated under a dark shed – two young women wrapped in printed headscarves, wearing identical leather overcoats, bracing themselves against the chill in the air. Hey, do you know about the bus? Where is it headed? We are waiting ourselves. Don’t know. We are not from Dubai. Where are you from ...
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How Pakistan got boxed into religion
The National Database and Registration Authority’s (NADRA) refusal to change MPA Rana Mahmood’s religion from “Islam” to “Christianity” has many boxed in. A plethora of questions have arisen. Is this a human rights violation? Will Mahmood be considered an apostate if his records were to reflect that he left Islam? How can you change someone’s faith with a stroke of a pen? But no one is talking about the real question: Why do we have a “religion box” on our legal documents anyway? Say that and you essentially open Pandora’s Box. After all, in a 97% Muslim majority country, what good can ...
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There is a Muslim in evolution class
Protest is becoming a fanatical obsession within Islamic discourse. In recent news, British Muslim students have been walking out and boycotting biology lectures that focus on the theory of evolution. Before we revert to citing the phenomenon of religious fundamentalism let us remind ourselves these are students that are clearly intelligent enough to study medicine in one of the most competitive universities within the country. Clearly, we must move beyond stereotypical divisions of ‘faith vs. reason’. This is a complex issue because the issue here is clearly not about intelligence, scientific curiosity, hard work or open enquiry. These British Muslim students have enrolled ...
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A few good “F” words for the new year
The year 2011 sped by just like all the years before it. Glorious on many counts, it also had its downsides that come with the package of any given chunk of time. Standing in my balcony, braving the rare chilly Karachi winds against my face, I am taking inventory of the year gone by. Some unresolved resolutions are jumbled up in the knapsack of my mind while some new resolutions have also found their way in. ‘What are going to be my focal points in the year to come?’ I wonder. Somehow, a lot of ‘F’ words spring up in ...
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The spirit of Christmas
Over recent centuries, especially in the west, the season of Christmas has been commercialised and glamourised beyond recognition, and its basic significance has faded into the background, perhaps forgotten. The Santa Claus, the Christmas tree, the exchange of gifts, the shopping, the new clothes, the house decorations, the dancing and singing, the community festivities – these are a far cry from the simplicity of the event that all of us supposedly commemorate: the birth of the messenger of peace and goodwill, in a manger in a stable meant for animals, attended only by his carpenter family parents and poor shepherds ...
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Who would speak up for a dead Shia?
As a nation we are getting sicker – we refuse to accept the existence of our disease. We call ourselves humans; we call ourselves people of faith and many other names. But what we don’t call ourselves is what we have become: soulless. And yesterday’s brazen Nazi style attack on a bus full of pilgrims proves exactly that. Twenty six people were lined up and shot because of their faith. Three people were killed while trying to save the lives of others who were shot during this massacre. That’s enough to send any nation in to a state of absolute shock and ...
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Banks don’t need to prove 2.5% of my faith
“Get your money out of your account before the first of the Ramzan or they’ll deduct zakat,” warned a text message I received from an anonymous well wisher. I have a phobia of banks (along with hospitals and airports) and dread the very thought of finding my checkbook for a trip to bank. Getting smaller chunks of cash from the ATM machine equally abhors me. So when I saw the text I did some mental math to calculate the bucks the bank would cut in the name of zakat, from my hard earned savings. The calculated sum didn’t seem like ...
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Are Pakistanis happier in 2011?
With regular bombings being just one of their constantly growing fears, and their country being ranked 12 on Foreign Policy Magazine’s Failed States Index 2011, Pakistanis hardly have reasons to be a happier nation in 2011. We haven’t stepped into particularly hopeful terrain this year. The CIA World Fact Book estimates that Pakistan’s net emigration rate is 9 per cent higher than in 2011. This is testament to the fact that many things are wrong in the country – the most glaring of which are: 1. Inflation The 15.5 per cent inflation rate in December 2010 was brought down by two ...
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Help! Am I still in love with my ex?
Hi, It has been four months since my ex-fiance and I broke up but I can’t get over her. We had a good relationship and to be honest, the break-up was more from her side than mine. Anyway, it’s been over four months now and I have had no contact with the girl, though I miss her dearly from time to time. There are things that remind me of her. At times, I wonder what she is doing, what she must be thinking, whether she is missing me too. I understand this is normal, and that time is the best healer. There ...
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Gojra slaughter: Keeping the faith
While the reopening of the Bhutto case has the courts frothing and fulminating and the newspaper headlines screaming, perhaps one should give thought to another case, in which, little progress has been made in bringing justice. I speak of the Gojra case of 2009, in which hundreds of people were initially charged with murder and violence in a Christian neighbourhood in the town situated in Toba Tek Singh district. Eight Christians, including four women and a child, were burnt alive when attackers set 40 houses and a church ablaze following allegations that members of a local Christian family had desecrated ...
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