What Is Going On With "The Land of The Pure"?

As the morning sun rose, the archway above the door projected a crescent shape onto the side wall almost in unison to the morning call to prayer that began to echo across the colony in which my aunt lived. It was as if the sound of the call was chasing the image of the crescent, both looking to rise, both delivering reassurance. If the two flights of comfort and luxury muffed by the flu that carried me were not sufficient proof, this was. I was here, I had arrived: I was in Pakistan.

Weddings

The last trip to my parents birthplace was more than five years ago. Then a brief encounter with an old family friend from New Jersey who had come in search of a bride, had fallen in love at first sight, and married her all within a two week period proved that there was something magical about the land. It was then of no coincidence that my return to the country was to share in the joy of a cousin’s wedding.

Culturally differences were apparent from the start. My love of photography meant that along with my other camera snapping cousins – of whom there were many – I managed to catch quite a few good photos of the wedding festivities. However on the second night I asked the bride ‘why she wasn’t smiling’ as she sat, scarf on head, looking down. This all led to a complaint from her side of the family to my side of the family and I had become the ‘annoying westerner’.

My first ‘real’ Pakistani wedding for many years was thus an eye opener to what I found to be an obscure custom. I don’t for a moment imagine Prophet Muhammad’s wife, Khadijah, sitting like that, raised on a pedestal while family and friends gaze at her like an object to be viewed and admired from afar.

But a culture and a tradition are just that, and while alien to me, it was the way they wanted it. So I pray that the couple is blessed with the best of peace and happiness in their lives together, amen.

Travels

As I took to benefit from my short time there I found myself at the Badshahi mosque. The second largest in the country, my cousin and I arrived in time for what we thought was the start of the Friday sermon – it dragged on for two hours. Struggling to decipher the spoken Urdu as the sound echoed through a courtyard large enough to fit the Taj Mehal in neighboring India, my cousin stepped in with a translation.

In terms of structure it seemed as if there were quite a few speakers, each delivering their own message. The first actually captured my attention. He spoke with such beauty so as to encourage interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims. He encouraged engagement, dialogue, he even went so far as to say that we are one people and we must find ways to live together. The second however delivered a nearly contrasting sermon which paraphrased suggested that the world will not be safe until all of the non-Muslims are gone!

Within the space of 5 minutes we went from the type of sermon I would imagine Prophet Muhammad deliver, to the type of hate speech I would expect from any far right group anywhere in the world. If you missed the first sermon and only heard the second, how much you feel unjust! And if you were like me and you had heard both of them, how much it would look utterly confusing to you!

What exactly is the message we should have left with? Disorientated, I had lost interest in what was being said focusing my attention instead on a gathering of young men.

70s USA

Their group dynamics resembled the T-birds from the movie Grease. Dressed in casual outfits of jeans and shirts, they were on a field trip from Peshawar, a city known for its much stauncher adoption of conservative dress and mannerisms.

In many respects they were a reflection of the two sermons I had just heard. Growing up in an environment which shuns the outside world, the UK, the US, Europe, yet, when speaking with them, a number of the smarter, more educated boys asked for advice on which subjects they should study enabling them to live in and travel to these very lands they are told are the root cause to all evil.

This is where I began to struggle. I doubt this was the intention of its founders, after all, the word Pakistan translates as ‘the land of the pure’, but it has certainly become the case that corruption can be found everywhere.

One day for example, I even tested the integrity of the vegetable stand owner outside my uncle’s home. After greeting my nephew in a friendly way I purchased 70 rupees worth of items. I offer him 100. He gives me back 50 and I give him 30. He looks at me, asks me to double check if it’s ok, I do, and he then pockets it. It may have been a genuine mistake but I’m convinced that he chose to keep the extra 10 rupees. Dishonesty is everywhere but I really did find it to be the icing on the corruption cake.

Mob Mentality

This general distrust, this attitude of frustration is no better seen than in mob mentality. On my last night in Lahore, my cousin and I were at a store when we saw coverage on TV of a breaking incident. Less than 500 meters away two Pakistani men tried to rob another. Turns out, that the man they attacked was actually an American ‘diplomat’. Within minutes we were back in the car trying to drive out of the area. Why? A mob had formed. As we reached a junction, men started sitting down on the ground to block the road. TV station camera vans were en route and in sight. I could see tyres being lifted to be burnt. Mob rules!

For my cousin, he wasn’t so concerned. Working for a leading international firm of accountants and auditors whose offices are in the center of the city, he narrowly avoided being injured in three separate bomb blasts. Religious extremists? Probably not. Just some poor impoverished person who is offered a few thousand dollars so his family can eat, drink, survive.

As a direct result of these instances however security across the country has been stepped up so much so that to protect children, especially girls schools - which were once viewed as easy targets - the government legislated that the walls around schools be raised then dressed with barbered wire. So when picking up my nieces one day from their school I felt as if I was outside a prison, how different the needs of the schooling system.

Back to the gathering mob, what troubled me was how quickly this turned into an anti-American rally. It is easier to blame someone else for your ills than to address your own short fallings; a classic case of transference in action.

My Way

The country is struggling. In contrast to the serene introduction with the beautiful call to prayer in Lahore, while staying in the industrial city of Gujranwala, the hours between 4 am and 7 am were nothing short of horrendous. High sounds took over the place as if they competed each others. These sounds, apparently, were the respective morning call to prayer from the numerous nearby mosques coupled with pre and post prayer speeches, songs, naats, etc.

Anything and everything that you could do to gain the affiliation of your neighbor, to show them your religious superiority, that you and your (mosque) community were somehow better, more qualified, more respectable than the one opposite the street was done. I do not for a minute imagine this being the intended outcome when Bilal called out beautifully the first invitation to prayer. Yet it has become a troubling norm. Perhaps the locals have become so accustomed to it so take no notice. For me, it sounded more like hell on earth.

Appearance of Faith

So the country struggles to find its identity, and in no means can piety be matched to anything physical or visual. While etching forward in line at a toll booth on a road, a man tries to jump the entire queue, trying to force his way in front of us. My cousin driving at the time, a professor at the local university, fought back and so ensured that at the very least he didn’t get in front of us. Who was the other driver? Well he had a tasbih (rosary beads) hanging from the rear view mirror and a beard so long it could probably reach his belly button. What was the visual impression, a man of faith, the reality, something very different: just another person who 'knows' faith but doesn't 'understand' faith, in this case, simple manners!

With this in mind, I can thus understand the hesitance of the security guards at two churches in Lahore who wouldn’t let me enter. Of course I have visited churches, synagogues, mosques and temples all over the world and despite my best efforts to explain to them that my interest was in photography, they remained vigilant. Still with such tensions in the air I respect their decision even if I disagreed with it. The result sadly being that I have no visuals or insights of the Christian population of Pakistan – something that I had hoped to capture and share.

Prostitution

The oddest irony for me is that alongside the Badshahi mosque rests the red light district. Almost every city has one but this proximity was for me troubling. Perhaps one should find themselves in that district then head across the street for repentance?!

That day my cousin and I made our way to visit Cooco’s Den, famed for its food and stunning view of the mosque, neither of which disappointed.

Up until that time in my trip however, my jolly disposition gathered fairly negative responses from strangers. One of my nieces, now at medical school reminded me of a lesson I taught her when she was a little girl, that a smile is an act of kindness. She said, when appropriate, she would always smile at people, even if they didn’t smile back. So imagine then, the first smile I received from a stranger on this trip was from a woman sitting in the passenger seat of a car, driving alongside the wall of the mosque, emerging from the red light district.

I want to say that she too like us was just passing by but I cannot help but wonder if she was ‘employed’ locally.

Memories

All is not doom and gloom. My time with my relatives was simply superb. Perhaps I am blessed that all of them are educated, they all speak English very well, and despite the greed and selfishness evidenced throughout my journey; they like me have a good generous disposition.

And in the chaos and corruption, which runs the country, I suspect it is the goodwill and efforts of the few honest people in the country that keep it moving and give us all hope.

Source

How did a 15-year Old American Girl Find Islam?

SOURCE

I the teacher

Islam, God and the Shining Light of Love

"God is love," the New Testament teaches, and Muslim theologians would respond, "But of course." The problem is that we are not God. As Jesus said, "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God " (Mark 10:18). There is no authentic love but one, that is, God. This is tawhid, the assertion of divine unity that is the foundation of Islamic thought.

Religious discussions of love sometimes address how it descends from its divine status and intermingles with human affairs. In any case, everyone recognizes its attractive power, even if they disagree as to what it is and where it comes from. Rumi mentions the two extremes of disagreement in the verse,

For the elect, love is a tremendous eternal light,
for the common people, love is form and appetite. (Divan 18197)

"The elect and the common people" is an expression used in all branches of Islamic learning to distinguish between the experts and the uninformed. For Rumi, the experts are the prophets and saints.

To think that love is "form and appetite" is to imagine that it derives from the realm of sense perception and biological processes. Rumi has nothing against form and appetite, but he sees the distinctiveness of human nature to lie in its openness to the tremendous eternal light.

"Eternal" (qadim) means unchanging. The word is contrasted with "newly arrived" (muhdath), which means dwelling under the sway of time and alteration. God is eternal, and everything other than God -- the universe and all it contains -- fades away. We change, the eternal light stays the same. We have the appearance of reality, but every appearance disappears.

The Quran says that God is "the light of the heavens and the earth" (24:35). The heavens are the high realms of spiritual beings (such as angels and souls), and the earth is the low realm of bodily things. Nothing appears without light. The more intense the light, however, the more difficult it is to see, which explains why the spiritual realm is invisible. No one can imagine the upper limit of physical light, much less that of nonphysical light, which is the consciousness that animates the heavens and the earth.

Spiritual traditions speak of ascending levels of nonphysical illumination, beginning with the obscure sparkles that typify everyday awareness and culminating in the infinite light of the eternal Self. In the Quran's retelling of the story of Moses and the Burning Bush, the light said, "I indeed am God; there is no god but I" (20:14): There is no god but God's very Self, the light of the heavens and the earth.

Rumi's verse, in short, refers to the axiom of tawhid, the fact that there is no true light but the divine light and no true love but the divine love. Everything in heaven and earth is the reverberation of the loving light. Each thing arrives newly and departs just as quickly. In relation to the universe, God is like the moon in relation to flowing water. As Rumi puts it,

The creatures are like water, limpid and pure,
shining therein the attributes of the majestic God...

Ages have passed, and this is a new age.
The moon is the same, but the water is not.
(Mathnawi 6: 3172, 3175)

Our scientific worldview is rooted in the measurable, but love and God are immeasurable. Scientific theories that speak of love naturally tend to agree with Rumi's common people: Love is form and appetite, feeling and emotion, impulses in the brain -- all these can be measured. The Quranic and Biblical worldviews see love as none other than the only reality that truly is. The word "reality," of course, fails to stir the heart, and "love" calls for commitment. Those who answer the call can transform themselves and the world.

Among the many mentions of love in the Quran, the favorite verse of love-theorists is this: "He loves them, and they love Him" (5:54). This verse puts the Islamic worldview in a nutshell: God brought the universe into existence because of his love for human beings. Human beings fulfill their calling by loving God.

The radiance of love's eternal light gives rise to the universe. The goal of love is to overcome separation, to bridge gaps, to bring the two lovers together as one. If love is to do its work, people must recognize the light and love it in return.

"He loves them" brought them into existence. Their recognition of the light feeds "They love Him." Once love intervenes, form and appetite lose their luster.

The final goal of lovers is to join the shining light at its source. The power that works this transformation is love. One of the many Quranic names of God is "friend" (wali), an Arabic word that combines the senses of "lover" and "helper." Both meanings can be seen in the verse, "God is the friend of those who have faith. He brings them out of the darkness into the light" (2:257).

Source: William C. Chittick Ph.D for The Huffington Post. Dr Chittick is Professor of Religious Studies, State University of New York, Stony Brook.

Iran to blind criminal with acid in 'eye for an eye' justice

Comment: The Iranian anthorities are deluded if they think this inhumane sentence will curb attacks on women, such attacks are a result of a patriarchal and unjust society and 'an eye for an eye' will make the world blind.

In a literal application of the sharia law of an eye for an eye, Iran is ready for the first time to blind a man with acid, after he was found guilty of doing the same to a woman who refused to marry him.

Majid Movahedi, 30, is scheduled to be rendered unconscious in Tehran's judiciary hospital at noon on Saturday while Ameneh Bahrami, his victim, drops acid in both his eyes, her lawyer said.

Bahrami who had asked for an eye for an eye retribution in the court, was disfigured and blinded by Movahedi in 2004 when he threw a jar of acid in her face while she was returning home from work. "He was holding a red container in his hand. He looked into my eyes for a second and threw the contents of the red container into my face," she told the court in 2008.

According to Iranian media, Bahrami's lawyer, Ali Sarafi, has said: "A very good sentence has been given and an appropriate method has been adopted so that the convict will be blinded by few drops of acids in eyes after he is rendered unconscious."

In a highly publicised dossier in November 2008, a criminal court in Tehran ordered qisas (retribution) on Movahedi after he admitted throwing acid at Bahrami, and entitled her to blind him with acid. He was also required to pay compensation to the victim. Bahrami refused to accept the "blood money" and told the court: "Inflict the same life on him that he inflicted on me."

Iranian officials have endorsed the the sentence in the hope of halting an increase in the rate of acid attacks. But human rights activists have warned against an "inhumane" sentence.

The British Foreign Office urged Iran to halt the sentence. "The attack on Ameneh Bahrami in 2004 was a horrific crime," a spokesman said. "However, we are deeply concerned by reports that Majid Movahedi's sentence of being blinded by having acid dripped into his eyes may be carried out.

"The FCO calls on the Iranian authorities to commute this inhumane punishment to an appropriate sentence in line with Iran's international obligations and to cease the practice of corporal punishment for crimes."

Iranian media have reported that Movahedi will be blinded in both eyes but Bahrami, in an interview in 2009, said that the man would be blinded only in one eye because "each man is worth two women" under Iranian law.

"The person who did this deserves to go through the same suffering. Only this way will he understand my pain … my intention is to ask for the application of the law not just for revenge but also so that no other woman will have to go through this. It is to set an example," Bahrami was quoted by the Spanish newspaper ABC as saying.

Bahrami, who has an electronics degree and worked in a medical engineering company before the attack, moved to Spain with the help of the Iranian government where she has undergone a series of unsuccessful operations. She briefly recovered half vision in her right eye in 2007 but an infection blinded her again.

Bahrami has recently published a book in Germany, Eye for an Eye, based on her personal life and her suffering since she was blinded.

In recent months, human rights organisations have expressed alarm over the unprecedented increase of capital punishment in Iran, which last year executed more people than any other country apart from China.

source

Worshiping is good but acquiring knowledge is better

The following is excerpted from the book "Reliance of the Traveler." The Classic Manual of Islamic Law 'Umdat al-Salik by Ahmed ibn Naqib al-Misri (d769/1368) English translation by Nuh Ha Mim Keller.

Superiority of Knowledge over Devotions

a2.1 (Nawawi:) Allah Most High says:

(1) "Say, 'Are those who know and those who do not know equal?' " (Koran 39:9).

(2) "Only the knowledgeable of His slaves fear Allah" (Koran35:28).

(3) "Allah raises those of you who believe and those who have been given knowledge whole degrees" (Koran 58:11).

a2.2 The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:

(1) "Whoever Allah wishes well, He gives knowledge of religion."

(2) The superiority of the learned Muslim over the devotee is as my superiority over the least of you." Then the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "Allah and His angels, the inhabitants of the heavens and the earth, the very ant in its anthill and the fish bless those who teach people what is good."

(3) "When a human being dies his work comes to an end except for three things: ongoing charity, knowledge benefitted from, or a pious son who prays for him."

(4) "A single learned Muslim is harder on the Devil than a thousand worshippers."

(5) "Whoever travels a path seeking knowledge Allah makes easy for him a path to paradise.

"Angels lower their wings for the seeker of knowledge out of pleasure in what he seeks.

"Those in the heavens and the earth, and the very fish in the water ask Allah to forgive the person endowed with Sacred Knowledge.

"The superiority of the learned Muslim over the devotee is like the superiority of the moon over all the stars.

"The learned are the heirs of the prophets. The prophets have not bequeathed dinar nor dirham, but have only left Sacred Knowledge, and whoever takes it has taken an enormous share."

(6) "He who calls others to guidance shall receive the like of the reward of those who follow him without this diminishing their own reward in the slightest. And he who calls others to misguidance shall bear the like of the sins of those who follow him without this diminishing their own sins."

(7) "He who goes forth to seek Sacred Knowledge is in the way of Allah [syn. jihad, def: o9] until he returns."

(8) "This world and what is in it are accursed [dis: w5] except for the remembrance of Allah, that which Allah loves, someone with Sacred Knowledge, or someone learning it."

a2.3 'Ali ibn Abi Talib (Allah be well pleased with him) said,

"The religious scholar is greater in reward than the fighter in the way of Allah who fasts the day and prays the night."

a2.4 Abu Darda' (Allah be well pleased with him) said,

"Teaching Sacred Knowledge for a brief time is better than spending a night in prayer."

a2.5 Yahya ibn Abi Kathir said,

"Studying Sacred Knowledge is a prayer."

a2.6 Sufyan al-Thawri and Shafi'i said,

"There is nothing after what is obligatory that is superior to seeking Sacred Knowledge."

a2.7 (Nawawi:) There are similar statements from whole groups of early Muslims I have not mentioned that are like those I have quoted, the upshot of which is that they concur that devoting one's time to Sacred Knowledge is better than devoting it to voluntary fasting or prayer, better than saying "Subhan Allah" (lit. "Exalted is Allah above any limitation"), or other supererogatory devotions. Among the proofs for this, besides the foregoing, is that:

(1) The benefit of Sacred Knowledge affects both its possessor and the Muslims, while the above-mentioned supererogatory works are confined to oneself;

(2) Sacred Knowledge validates, so other acts of worship require it, though not vice versa;

(3) Scholars are the heirs of the prophets, while devotees are not characterized as such;

(4) The devotee follows the scholar, being led by and imitating him in worship and other acts, obeying him being obligatory and not the other way around;

(5) The benefit and effect of Sacred Knowledge remain after its possessor departs, while supererogatory works cease with the death of their doer;

(6) Knowledge is an attribute of Allah Most High;

(7) Sacred Knowledge, meaning the knowledge we are discussing, is a communal obligation (def: c3.2), and it is thus better than the supererogatory. The Imam of the Two Sanctuaries (A: Juwayni) says in his book al-Ghiyathi that "the communal obligation is superior to the personal obligation in that the person performing it fulfills the need of the Islamic Nation (Umma) and lifts the obligation from it, while the obligation of the individual is restricted to himself." And success is through Allah [al- Majmu' (y 108), 1.18-22].

source

Nuh Ha Mim Keller is an American Muslim scholar of Islam. He has translated several Islamic books of Arabic to English. He is a specialist in Islamic law. He currently lives in Amman, Jordan and is considered one of the foremost Muslim theologians.

HADITH OF THE DAY: HONOR THE ELDERLY

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "No youth will honor an old man because of his years, without God appointing one to honor him when he is old." Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1280

Real Change

I am the orphan of Gaza. I am the deformed of Iraq. I am the violated of Afghanistan. I am the bombarded of Pakistan. I am the martyr of Uzbekistan. I am the oppressed of Bahrain. I am the catalyst of Tunisia. I am the hope of Egypt. I am the courage of Syria. I am the determination of Yemen. I am the martyr of Libya. I am the solidarity of the Muslim world. I am the Ummah of Muhammad(pbuh). I am the real change.

'My aunt said I was wicked'

If you ask any Pakistani what holds us together, they will say family and faith, but what they won't tell you is that family and faith can also tear you apart. That's what crossed my mind as I sat, holding a photo of a dark-skinned, dark-eyed little girl. I have the photo turned over; I cannot bear to look in her eyes, even though she's done nothing wrong. It's because if I do, I will see the eyes of her father, my Uncle. The last time I saw Uncle, I was 11 and it was my first visit to Pakistan.

I was small and skinny and had yet to show any signs of turning into a woman, either physically or emotionally. I had little knowledge or interest in adult relationships, and things like that are rarely discussed in Asian families.

Although we knew nothing about sex, we all knew about shame, purity and family honour. We have just one word for it in our language, izzat. While there are dozens of words in English to describe its different facets, there isn't an equivalent. Ultimately, it means the worst sin is for a girl not to be pure – in other words, a virgin – before marriage.

Like most of my friends in the UK, our parents were, ironically, much stricter than those of our cousins in Pakistan. They were paranoid about us becoming too westernised, so they kept us cocooned at home. Culture became our religion, and most of our parents were fundamentalists.

Some days I'd be watching TV, and a romantic scene would come, and it would trigger a lecture from my mum. "It's OK for English people, but in our culture we don't have boyfriends, and you are having an arranged marriage, OK?" Sometimes I felt guilty of something before I had done anything.

One day I came home from school and my mum was talking excitedly on the phone in Punjabi. Her youngest sister's marriage had been arranged, and we would be going.

My parents hadn't been able to afford to return home for years, so my mum was excited about seeing her family, and I was looking forward to seeing the place where she had grown up. I was drawn by her wistful expression as she talked about stealing sugar cane from the fields, and holidays near the mountains. I was a misfit at school, and dreamed that I, too, would find somewhere I could belong. My mum's fantasy had become my fantasy also.

There is no more exciting place for a girl to be than Karachi in the run-up to a wedding. I was excited about wearing traditional wedding clothes for the first time, and my mum glowed with happiness as the sister of the bride.

The first ceremony, the mehndi – or henna party – was what we were most excited about, because that is when everyone dances, and the bride's sisters compete with those of the groom to see who can sing the loudest.

To prepare for the mehndi, we had parties called dholkis – after thedholki drum – which the girls played as the rest of us sang wedding songs from the latest Bollywood films. We used henna paste to decorate our palms, the muddy trails leaving pretty, spider-web patterns on our hands the next day.

A week before the wedding, Uncle arrived. On the death of my grandfather, Uncle had taken responsibility for the family and never married. He worked in the Middle East, successfully educated his brothers, and married off his sisters in respectable homes.

He was a large man, dark skinned, with a small beard. Always in white traditional clothes, with prayer beads in hand, he was able to quote lines from the Qu'ran on any subject.

He often cornered me to talk about religion, and how girls growing up in the west were already halfway down the road to sin.

My family was not particularly religious, and Uncle spoke with such authority that I thought Allah was hanging around waiting for me to mess up and prove what everyone suspected all along.

On the night of the mehndi, I fell ill. My cousins were upset that I wouldn't be able to join in and my mother said she'd take me home, but we could tell she was disappointed. "Don't worry," said Uncle. "Mehndis are for women. I will take her home."

It felt strange being at the house alone with Uncle. It had been so full of people and activity, but now it was silent. Uncle told me to undress for bed and he would check on me later.

I was half asleep and barely noticed him come in. He sat on my bed and placed his hand on my forehead to check my temperature, then began stroking my hair.

As he did so, he talked softly, his voice caring, yet menacing, like honey on a serpent's tongue, and his breath smelled sour, of old cigarettes. I felt scared, but didn't know why. My heart was beating swiftly and I couldn't breathe. He began to caress my back, then his hands slipped under my clothes ...

When the call to prayer echoed from the mosques at dawn, he said it was my fault for tempting him, and I would go to hell. Then he left to perform his morning prayers.

I spent the following day in a daze. I kept thinking I could feel Uncle's touch, like insects crawling over me, and showered over and over again, but no matter how hard I scrubbed, the feeling wouldn't go away.

During the day, he always seemed to be angry with me and I felt like I was walking on eggshells when he was around. Every time I looked up, his eyes were following me. As everyone excitedly dressed up in their sparkly outfits and shared jokes, I was at the edge of the happy picture, not quite a part of it. It was hard to pretend to smile when I knew, as each hour passed, it would be night again and he would return to my room.

Eventually, two days before the final ceremony, I told my cousin Nadia everything. Though I swore her to secrecy, she told her mum. Nadia's mum dragged me downstairs, hissing angrily that I was a wicked girl, and I burst into tears, partly of fear and partly of relief.

My mum couldn't process what had happened and began wailing loudly as her sisters held her. Another aunt asked me if I was a virgin because if not, they would have to marry me off straight away, so I lied and said he had only touched me. Although my aunts were sympathetic, I could tell by their eyes that they were relieved that it wasn't their daughters. I think my mum could tell too.

That night, the elders talked about what to do, but everyone seemed more worried about protecting the family's honour than what was best for me. They worried that any scandal could ruin Nadia's chances for marriage. Everyone decided the best thing would be to pretend it never happened and never to talk about it.

When we returned, my dad hugged us at the airport, thinking we'd had the time of our lives. Looking back, I wonder if he sensed my mum's unhappiness. But I couldn't get the memories out of my head. I couldn't tell anyone because I was ashamed. I stopped writing my diary because the words felt too dirty to be put on the diary's clean pages. My school work suffered and my friends thought I was moody. There was a guy in my class who liked me, but I was horrible to him. Once he touched my shoulder in the canteen and I shouted at him in front of everyone.

At university I became friends with a girl who wore a hijab, who told me she had been abused. I told her what had happened to me and asked how she could stay devoted to her faith after a thing like that. She told me it was her faith that had got her through. I discovered I'd got it all wrong, that in the Qu'ran it says people like Uncle are the sinners, and in Allah's eyes I was as chaste as a virgin. But nobody ever tells you that. All that time, Uncle had used religion against me and I had let him. My mum became less strict too. What had happened to me had unlocked a repressed memory she had of an uncle abusing her too. She also said she believed me from the start, and regretted not confronting her brother.

I heard rumours about Uncle over the years, that he had reluctantly had an arranged marriage to a woman much younger than him. My aunts and cousins all knew what he had done, but they all still danced at his wedding and painted their hands with henna.

After I graduated, my parents also arranged a marriage for me. Though it was a traditional setup, my husband was brought up here, and he's kind and gentle so we get on well. I am certain he suspects, and has for a long time, but he doesn't ask and I will never tell.

Asma Khan is a pseudonym

source

Thoughts on the Death of Osama Bin Laden by Shaykh Yasir Qadhi

Osama bin Laden is dead.

And once again, in this Manichean good-versus-evil, us-versus-them, black-versus-white, world that we are told we live in, we are expected to take ‘sides’, and either jump for jingoistic joy as we thump our chests screaming, ‘USA! USA!’, or else mourn the death of a ‘martyr’.

And once again, many people, myself included, will have to take a deep sigh and wonder whether we can ever successfully explain, to an increasingly polarized world, the complexity of our stances and the nuances of our positions.

The fact of the matter is, contrary to what both bin Laden and his one-time nemesis Bush propagated, we don’t live in a stark black-and-white world. We live in a very colorful, very multi-faceted world. Because I refuse to see everything in black-and-white, my position is neither one of sorrow nor one of elation.

It is not one of sorrow because I never viewed bin Laden as someone worthy of my reverence. He was a reactionary who lacked wisdom and who had no long-term vision. His response to Western imperialism was a visceral rage expressed in the language of a false pseudo-jihad – an understanding of ‘jihad’ that he himself invented, and not one that the trained scholars of our glorious religion shared with him. He helped formulate and propagate ideas that caused more bloodshed in Muslim lands, and more civil war, than any non-Muslim invasion in the last decade. Suicide bombers claiming allegiance to him cheerfully bombed men, women and children inbazaars in Baghdad, in shrines in Karachi, in sky-scrapers in New York, and in markets in Kabul.

Through his rhetoric of takfir, hundreds of people who were deemed ‘co-operating’ with the enemy were considered permissible to slaughter, and if a few thousand innocent bystanders needed to be killed in order to get to those handful, so be it. This was to be a permissible form of ‘collateral damage’ – one that seems to provoke only a fraction of the ire from those who harp on and on about Western collateral damage. (For the record, both are evil, and both need to be condemned; and again for the record, the ‘collateral damage’ of Muslim extremists groups is far more severe than the ‘collateral damage’ caused by Western drone attacks). His death was expected, for his own words and deeds called for action against him from a powerful military and a mighty country.

So I feel no personal grief at his death. After all, he was already largely irrelevant in the Arab and Muslim world. What good did all of his fiery rhetoric ever do for the Palestinians he claimed to have been fighting for? And what impact did he have amongst the Arab masses as they all rallied together (and continue to do so) against their brutal dictators? From the alleyways of Benghazi to the maydans of Cairo, and from the mosques of Damascus to the streets of Sana, not one protestor waved the flag of Osama or chanted slogans of al-Qaeda. It was the peoplewho brought about real change, not Osama with his anti-American rage and calls for violence.

Yet, I cannot cheer his death either. Why?

Firstly, because the intentional taking of another human life is not a cause for cheering. Even if a murderer is legitimately executed (qisas) by the State for his crimes, it is not in our religion to rejoice at such a death; therefore how much more so when the death was caused in this fashion? (By this I mean that I would have preferred a live capture and public trial – but then again, at this stage we do not know the circumstances of his death).

Secondly, those who looked up to bin Laden for inspiration were not motivated to become suicide bombers and radical terrorists because bin Laden managed to brainwash them. The grievances that all such radicals recite are political and social (I have discussed these in other articles at length). Bin Laden was but a figurehead, and his death will actually feed into the whole martyrdom mythology that these movements weave around themselves. AsJeremy F. Walton, professor of Religious Studies at NYU, wrote on his blog today,

“I do not mean to denigrate the persistent grief of the families of 9/11 victims, or, for that matter, the pain that countless Americans continue to experience when they recall or witness the indelible images of that infamous Tuesday morning. But make no mistake: last night’s celebrators, and all those whom they represent, have no comprehension of the political history, quotidian violence, and post-colonial frustration over increasing global inequities—to gesture to but a few factors—that made Osama bin Laden and his network possible. Political theorist Mahmood Mamdani, for one, has vigorously argued that a reckoning of the American role in the creation of jihadist violence during the Cold War is indispensable to understanding al-Qaeda itself. Acknowledgement of this neglected political history is even more crucial in the wake of bin Laden’s death.”

Therefore, the real question for me is not whether we should rejoice or not. The real questions are far more profound and difficult to answer.

Now that we have killed bin Laden, will his death extinguish his ideas and truly make the world a safer place?

Now that we have killed bin Laden, will the anger that millions of people around the world feel towards our foreign policy simply dissipate into thin air?

Now that we have killed bin Laden, will that justify the trillions of dollars that we have spent on our two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the hundreds of thousands of dead since 9/11?

Now that we have killed bin Laden, will our infamous ‘War on Terror’ finally come to an end, and will we discontinue drone attacks in far-away lands and draconian policies back home? (And on that note: can we finally travel with our toothpaste and without having to be sexually assaulted by TSA officials?!)

Now that we have killed bin Laden, will the hysteria being propagated by the Right and the Islamophobia that is rampant across Europe and America subside?

Now that we have killed bin Laden, will we start concentrating on far more important domestic and international issues?

I guess the bottom line is: now that we have killed bin Laden, has status quo really changed all that much?

I don’t have answers to all of these questions, but these are the questions that need to be asked before we rush to celebrate his death or, as some overzealous Muslims are doing, label him a shahid. (And on a theological note, I remind our readers that only Allah assigns Heaven and Hell to anyone, so let us not challenge this right of Allah by proclaiming anything about any individual’s fate in the Hereafter).

It took America – the most powerful and technologically advanced country on earth – a full ten years to find this one man. How great it would have been if we had managed to capture the perpetrators of 9/11 back then! But our own reactions to 9/11 created a whole list of new issues, both domestic and international, that the killing of bin Laden will not solve. And to make matters even worse, in that decade a new generation, a young generation, has come of age – a generation for whom 9/11 evokes barely a memory. For this young generation, the death of bin Laden does little to solve its own problems.

If we have learned anything from the Arab protestors across the Middle East, it is that change has to begin from within, and the best way to fight for the change that you believe in – even if that fight be against powerful regimes – is through nonviolent means. Killing your enemies doesn’t solve problems; working proactively and productively to gain the world’s sympathy when clear injustices have been committed does.

A blogger friend of mine wrote that it is as if America is playing a game of chess with a small group of radical Muslims. We are not playing this game ourselves, for we are spectators. We understand both players very well, and both have made ridiculous moves in the past that have caused many unnecessary pieces to be lost.

America has just made its latest move.

‘Check!’

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Was Osama Bin Laden my neighbour?

Dawud Wharnsby, Canadian born singer songwriter, moved to Abbottabad in Pakistan to be close to his wife’s grandparents. On Monday May 2, 2011 he found that this quiet town was suddenly the centre of an international incident. Osama Bin Laden had apparently been living there until US forces stormed his compound and shot him dead. Dawud reflects on local reaction amidst the poverty that he witnesses all around him.

Gosh, I thought that Chai seller looked familiar! Tisk tisk tisk... friends:
as Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said,
"Believe none of what you read and half of what you see."

*****

Around 1:00 am, while my family and I were sleeping, I awoke to the sound of a helicopter, gun-fire and then an explosion which shook the house. We live near a military academy where we always hear gun-fire, helicopters and explosions - so I didn't think much of all the noise other than, "Gosh, does that academy have to conduct their training manoeuvres at such crazy hours!" (I am against guns and modern warfare and living next to a military academy is the only thing about this otherwise quiet town of Abbottabad that I dislike, but we wish to stay near to my wife's grandparents who have lived here most of their lives.)

The next morning, we received a call from my in-laws in America who had been watching Geo News the night before and heard about a helicopter crash in a residential district of Abbottabad. They wondered if we were alright or had been awakened by any noise. They expressed concern that the news story seemed “odd” and my wife and I agreed. Normally the local Pakistani Military Academy (PMA) would not use helicopters in our mountainous region for “test” manoeuvres, but rather, only for flying in/out military officials or perhaps for occasional air surveillance during academy events - and rarely at night. Thus, we were all somewhat confused.

A few minutes later we received a nervous call from another American friend living in Pakistan who was concerned for our security and urged us to “keep a low profile” - not because of an accidental helicopter crash in our neighbourhood, but because President Obama had just announced that Osama Bin Laden had been captured and killed near Abbottabad.

After breakfast, I went to drive my wife to the school where she works only to find the roads near our home, and the very road the school is on in an area called Bilal Town, were all closed by police and media. It was there we realized that the two stories were indeed being linked together by the media, and where we also realised that all eyes in the world were suddenly on our quiet little mountain town.

What are the only facts I can provide? There was indeed an explosion in the night and roads were indeed closed in the morning in Bilal-town and Kakul village, sub-urban areas of Abbottabad where there are indeed large scale homes, as described by various media reports.

At the end of the day - we only know what others tell us and, given the state of politics in the world today, I am sceptical at the best of times about who’s version of The Truth to believe. The death of anyone, in my opinion, is never something to party in the streets about. It is something that should make us all reflective, humble and cautious about how quickly we judge others, and how easy it is to justify killing with what is perceived as "divine right”.

Whatever happened in the night a few miles away from my home - the news that has spread world-wide today could potentially erupt into more bloodshed if it is not handled with care and humility. We mourn the losses of 9-11, 7-7, all the bloodshed that has since occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan, all the soldiers and civilians worldwide who have been lost over these past many years.... So if Osama Bin Laden was our “Bogey-man”, and if indeed he's now dead... can we all just stop the killing and hate? Or will the world just find another Bogey-man to chase so we can all justify wars that benefit the rich and keep the poor destitute?

Like the sticker on my guitar case says: "It will be a great day when schools have all the resources they need, and the air force will have to hold a bake sale to buy a new bomber."

It might be worthwhile also noting my thoughts on the local people's reactions to the news the US has just released, and to the celebratory reactions of some Americans in large cities like New York and Washington.
People here - my neighbours - are scared of vigilante "reactions" to the news. Parents are worried that schools and public places may become unsafe if impassioned individuals "react" to the "celebrations" they see on TV from parts of the USA. People are also sombre, not because there was public support for OBL or what he or others ideologically aligned with him might think - but because, generally speaking this news - good/bad/however you choose to take it - does not really change the lives of poor people here. 20 years ago people here were poor... now, after all that's happened in the world - the poverty has only increased for the majority of Pakistanis.

I have been asked, “Are local Pakistani people angry with American’s for dancing over the death of OBL?” Firstly, that would suggest that most Pakistani people actually thought highly of him or supported him, and secondly, it would also assume that Pakistani people are so absorbed with US culture that they are just sitting by their TV sets waiting to see how American citizens do things.

So to set the record straight - the citizens of Pakistan that I interact with day in and day out do not support fundamentalist approaches to religion or politics and do not consider OBL a “leader”. I'm a Canadian born musician with very liberal political, social and religious views - yet my opinions, music and lifestyle are embraced more warmly by Muslims here in Northern Pakistan than by most Muslim communities in Canada, the USA or England! Secondly, the people here in the region of Pakistan where I live tend to be very sombre, majestic and dignified. They are not constantly taking cues for their lives from other nations and cultures. If Americans want to dance - Pakistanis won’t get in their way. Pakistani’s love to dance! Here in the villages - weddings are great fun - full of dance and song…. but death? It makes people sombre and introspective, bringing out their humility before God and in respect of justice.

Through the tragedies in America and UK and the wars that followed in Iraq and Afghanistan, few American citizens or British subjects went without bread or milk. Even with rising gas prices highways are bumper to bumper in both countries with single occupant vehicles. Here in Pakistan, people cannot afford vegetables, sugar, wheat or lentils, - much less a tank of gas at US prices - where most people earn about 6-7000 Rupees (approximately $85 US dollars) a month to live on.

Talk of Afghanistan? EVERY morning I watch the Afghani refugees in my neighbourhood - the women and young girls cutting grass by the roadside and carrying sticks on their back to have kindling for the evenings, and the young boys sifting barefoot through garbage piles looking for things to sell for recycling. For them today is just another day looking for food as refugees from a country that has been wiped off the map. A country that once-upon-a-time was a hub of civilization, culture and learning.

So how are local people reacting? Last night we were attending the birthday party of a friend who turned 12 years old. His father died three years ago due to poor medical attention for a heart condition and his mother raises him and his two siblings alone. 75% of her monthly salary as a teacher goes toward rent and she has about $35 left for all other household needs (including food). To make things worse, their family were just evicted from their home by a wealthy landlord (who manages several homes and also has wealthy family over in Dubai) demanding more rent. They have nothing against Americans - or me as a foreigner - and they have no support for a man like OBL. How are they reacting to the news? I don't think they have time to celebrate in the streets - they are too busy trying to survive.

Some of you have asked me, “What can we do for those who are struggling in Pakistan?”

Though an easy answer may be for me to suggest we help by donating money to such-and-such organisation. However, in our world we've become so accustomed to just "buying" things. We see something we want - we buy it cash or credit. We see others in need, feel bad for them and make a financial donation. There is no doubt that money helps and groups like Red Cross/Red Crescent are always in need of our donations (my family and I are pleased to relate that we administrate two charities here in Pakistan: one for education and one for the building of homes lost by families in last year’s flood.) BUT - it is my belief that we are all interconnected by more than just financial paper trails. To help people like my 12 year old friend or the Afghani kids who search garbage pits near my home, I would suggest we all try to:

- Simply be aware of the extreme financial divide between how most of us live and how others live

- Be wise when we make purchases, by understanding and implementing a proper understanding of "needs vs. wants"

- Teach our children well - not just how to read and count, but about social awareness, social justice and social responsibility

- Try to live with humility, gratefulness, graciousness and compassion to others

- Examine our wastefulness. Remember, whatever we bring into the house has to be accounted for somehow. In places like North America and the UK I see much more emphasis on “Recycling” than “reducing” or “re-using”. By and large, we are not encouraged to cut back on the waste we create, we are just conditioned to buy in bulk because when we’ve tossed the plastic away, somebody else will just recycle it! Waste is waste - costs money to process and takes energy to dispose of or recycle.

- Would it not be better if we all just tried to stop being so greedy?

- Volunteer our time with others in our local community who need love, care and hope.

- Give freely and look for no reward or recognition.

- Stop living in fear of what we don't understand and try to grow in understanding.

- Stand up for justice without excuses or concern of "how we might look to others".

The list goes on...

Here in Pakistan, the kids I pass who are shoeless and hungry are all our problem, just as all the kids in foster care or who are homeless in America and the UK are all our responsibility. Practically speaking though, I'm here and many of you folks are abroad, so let me help in my community and please get active in your own communities-always remembering: enough for you, is enough for two, and one life saved is like all mankind.

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