Uncomfortably Numb

Pakistani millennials are even worse than the rest of the world and this is for a simple reason which is that hatred for others is as normal to them as breathing. The culprit here is the slow indoctrination of the youth from the very start of their lives. The legacy of Zia's infestation of intolerance bears its fruits. The disturbing trends on social media recently shattered the illusion of that illusive silent majority which it was supposed to be there, lurking in the shadows. The truth is that the very fabric of Pakistani society reeks of intolerance and bigotry and there is nothing that can be done to change that now. The instances of people celebrating murderers and openly calling for persecution or oppression disregarding any semblance of understanding basic human rights is not restricted to a few bigots or zealous clergy anymore, the poison has spread to the youth, with no inkling towards researching or even questioning what has been taught to them, they are now the perfect e

How can you go about censuring others when you might be guilty of the same.  How quickly we become the Judge and the executioners. A mystic once said, that nothing ever had him dumbfounded but a woman who had a tray in her hands, it was covered with a cloth. He asked her what was in it and she said, why would I have covered it if I wanted this to be known? That was an epiphany which made the mystic really ashamed. This is not just a saying, its a lesson of a life time, that if something is hidden, or you come to know about a wrong doing, don't try to uncover or spread it to others. Don't try to look under the masks we all wear, even if you are certain that the there is something dreadful. If someone has respected you this much that he has presented his best face to you, the least we can do is to accept it. Everyone has demons in their closets which they hide from even themselves. May Allah keep concealing our sins in this world & the next, for if we knew about each o

I usually stay away from the news and thats by design cause every time there is a new atrocity, my mind starts reeling, I come face to face with the same dilemma again & again, if you speak up no one listens, yet can't stay quiet as well, too much bloodshed all around, the soul slowly becomes numb, while the killing & bloodshed in the name of every possible deity continues, on to the next atrocity & the next. Outrage expressed in the form of words on a computer screen, What does it achieve... Nothing. Murderers keep roaming free. No one can/will stop them, for everyone has vested interests. Those who need to hear those words, never will & those who read them, choose to ignore. Truth. It doesn't phase anyone anymore, We see images of unimaginable human suffering due to the cruelty of other humans, we are content with sharing those images with others on social media, a few comments here and there and on to the next post, all that human suffering reduced

We often cherish some moments, events that happened in our lives, but we rarely take a step back and take a deeper look at the intentions and motivation behind our actions, we never put ourselves through the scrutiny, we put others in. We never take a moment to reflect on our own actions to see if they were right or wrong.  There is always a line that must not be crossed, either it being a line of moral values or edicts by religious dogma, whatever it is, society respects those boundaries for a reason, that these boundaries enable individuals to maintain civility & morality.  For those of us who adhere to religious values, its paramount that we scrutinise our selves, that our actions are in tune with the teachings of Quran & Sunna, that our motivations are guided by the need to please our creator and not by the whims and wishes of the self. Decisions that are solely to appease the self & its petty desires often result in mistakes & misbehaviour, becoming r

ہم بعض واقعات اور لمحات کو سینے سے لگا کر تو رکھتے ہیں مگر یہ نہیں سوچتے کہ آیا وہ فیصلے اور ترجیحات درست بھی تھیں کہ نہیں؟ ۔ کہ کہیں اپنے سکون اور خواہش کی تسکین کے لئے خدا تعالیٰ کی بنائی حدیں پار تو نہیں کیں؟ وہ خواہش یا ارادہ کیسے صحیح ہو سکتا ہے جسکی تکمیل کے لئے خدا کی بنائی حدوں کو توڑنا پڑے۔ وہ فیصلے کیسے درست ہوسکتے ہیں جن کی بنیاد خدا کی رضا کے بجائے نفس کی خواہشات ہوں۔یہاں سوال اس بات کا نہیں کہ ان لمحات کے احساسات کیا تھے بلکہ یہ ہے کہ اعمال درست تھے یا غلط۔ کبھی کبھار واپس مڑ کر دیکھنا بھی اچھا ہوتاہے، تاکہ تزکیہ نفس ہوسکے۔ لیکن اسکے لئے ضروری ہے کہ کم از کم یہ احساس تو ہو کہ غلطی تھی۔ ہم لوگ دوسروں کو اور ترازو سے تولتے ہیں اور اپنے لئے ہمارے معیار کچھ اور ہوتے ہیں ۔ اوروں کو تو شاید ہم ان غلطیوں کے لئے جو ہم نے خود بھی کی، کبھی معاف نہیں کرتے۔ کیوں لوگ اپنے تعلقات سے خوش نظر نہیں آتے۔ کیوں اِدھر ادھر سکون ڈھونڈتے پھرتے ہیں لیکن گھروں میں سکون تلاش نہیں کرتے؟ بنیاد ہے نفس اور اسکی خواہشات۔ جب انسان اپنی زندگی کو خدا کی رضا کے بجائے خواہشات کے طابع کریں گے تو یہی ہوگ

A day before Eid Pakistan gave us a gift, the gift of burning our houses and killing 2 young children, an unborn child and an elderly lady. The gift of celebrating & dancing in the streets on the deaths of our loved ones, the gift of indifference of the Pakistani media & the people, the gift of going to our mosques to pray, under the shadows of guns. This Eid when I woke up to get ready I was in a somber mood, the news of the babies killed by Pakistan last night, the images fresh in my mind, I knew I wasn't going to the Aqsa mosque (the central mosque) where there would be thousands of people and the sweet smell of perfume would make the cool morning air even fresher, all that seems like a distant memory now and a younger generation is already here that hasn't seen an Eid like that ever. No Those days are gone now. When we used to go to our mosques (places of worship) without the shadows of guns. I was going to the mosque just a few houses away from my house due

Image after image trickles down my Facebook and twitter. Images of children in pain, parents mourning, unmeasurable suffering. Images intermingled with the routine triviality. Some lament the atrocities and on the same page post the mundane. The outrage, just like anything else, worthless. The hypocrisy rampant and selective. Some atrocity becomes deserved while an other, genocide. I lay awake at night sleepless, that image of a child with severed limbs stuck in my mind. I see the news, wishing someone of power in the world would stand up for the oppressed, wishing someone with authority would put a stop to genocide, wishing humans would not just ignore the tears of a child who lost both parents and wept himself to sleep, Alas! nothing. Some days pass, outrage fades away, till the next outrage, the next killing, the next child burned to death. No remorse, as if humanity never existed, those who suffered become the executioners. The cycle continues. All of this becaus

Coming to terms with the new realities of life is never easy. For those who need closure and can't get it, this road becomes even more treacherous. For those looking for solace from words it becomes apparent that words can can only at best be a temporary respite. For true peace of mind can only come from within, from the realisation that this life is just a mere illusion of permanence and nothing lasts for ever. The only truth eternal is death. Those who seek meaning find it in the smallest details and those who love the ignorance cannot see even if the truth stands affront. Like most of us I was a believer but had no actual experience of the existence of the almighty and wanted something that would bring everything into focus, that realisation came last year. I have never felt despair like I felt When I was at Sharjah bus terminal where I got the news of the accident of my wife & children back home, for some time I was just numb, didn't know what to do, where

Today as the Jalsa UK 2013 is about to start , the mind is full of memories of moments spent. This time the focus of these memories is the Jalsa Salana that was held in Rabwah. My memories are conflicted between two emotions, one is filled with the beautiful mements of Jalsa Rabwah and the second is the fire of longing that burns in my heart which is reignited when I start to remember, its like a thirst which cannot be replenished & the reason for that is, like so many others I am of that generation which has not witnessed the Jalsa Rabwah in its full glory. There are a few vague memories, which are blurred by the limitations of childhood. Going through the streets of Rabwah when one passes in front of the different Langar Khanas in every Mohallah of Rabwah one cannot help but wonder at the hustle and bustle these places would have seen and what our elders tell us about. 1983. The last ever Jalsa held in Rabwah, the last time a populous of more than 250,000 made Rabwah

No one said a word when the target of persecution were Ahmadis. No one cared because they agreed! They kept quiet or even cheered while mothers mourned their sons and sons buried their fathers. The terrorists went on and started cutting throats and still you kept quiet. The bitter truth is that you and I are to blame for the current situation in Pakistan. The ones doing all this are from within us. Why didn't we stop a molvi [cleric] when he preached hatred in his sermon? Why didn't a crowd stop just a few who were beating a man to death? Once when they caught a vicious murderer and asked him his last wish before death he asked for his mother and when she came he tried to bite her ear off... today these terrorists are biting our ears off. Persecution, discrimination, cruelty and brutality under any guise cannot be justified. Once the dominoes of persecution start falling, every segment of society eventually falls. The sword wielded in the name of Jihad has take

All around, I see marriages breaking up & a general sense of unhappiness in those marriages which do manage to survive, among many old and known reasons some new ones present themselves. One of the reasons is accessibility, accessibility via technology be it internet or mobile phones or any other means of modern communication & its relative concealed nature has made the prospect of promiscuous behavior within reach. But technology is just a means, what really needs to be addressed is what social and emotional tendencies are behind such behavior. In pakistani society the biggest change that has accrued in the last 20 years or so is the so called opening up of the media reaching into our living rooms. With this influx and saturation of media and the desire to get higher revenues the media has silently abandoned any effort to educate or uphold any semblance of moral decency. What this in turn is preaching is an invitation to decadence and glamorizing wanton behavior to a p

How do we believe something? How do we go beyond a shadow of a doubt about something? What are our convictions & beliefs and are they really forever and do we cloud our judgement with our aspirations and distorted view of the world through our limited knowledge and by simply believing what we are told? As terms like Islam Ahmadiyya or #JalsaUK trend at the top positions on Pakistan's twitter page, previously terms like Promised Messiah or Mirza Masroor Ahmad and others also trended. Now assuming that most of the pakistani twitter users check to see what the current trends are, why did they choose to ignore it, or why does it stir so much hatred thats what I am trying to figure out. "Mostly" the literate intellectuals choose twitter as their social network, ones that can see through the uselessness of Facebook and are interested in serious dialog and discussion. It seems logical when a term like The Promised Messiah pops up it should warrant some investigation...