musaafir-e dasht

1. It was the spring of 1993 and the Balkan war was sending waves upon waves of refugees to the coastal villages where tourist traffic had died down. The Croatian Government had put up these refugees in tourist resorts whose owners were being compensated by international relief agencies. Bashka Voda was 25 miles from Krilo, a village where Abbas and I had our warehouse from where we took supplies to the Bosnian besieged town of Mostar. The war had opened the eyes of the refugees to their Islamic identity, sadly repressed through decades of Communism in Yugoslavia. They were eager to learn about Islam and relief workers like ourselves were struggling to do whatever we could. Bosnian refugees who lived around our warehouse often came to us for assistance. On one such visit a little girl approached me with a magazine picture showing a person making Salat1. “Can you teach me this?” she said in broken English pointing to the picture, “I love Allah, I love Islam but my father Communist, n...

Ramadan 14, 1433 AH Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish, How could I seek the empty world again? - Emily Bronte I set out for the university at around 7.30 am this morning. One of the most pleasant morns in this Ramadan. Alhamdulillah. When I got on to the bus, I was reminded of the book on which I had spent around twenty minutes last night in order to convert and clean up its format to suit my kindle - The Embattled Innocence: Recollections of a Muslim Relief Worker by Suleman Ahmer. After paying my fare to the conductor, I pulled out my kindle from my handbag and started reading the preface and went on to read the first chapter, at the end of which, I was so moved to tears, that I had to shut my reading device off and give myself some time to think, and rethink. By this time, I saw the huge gates of the NED University passing by on my left hand side. I prepared myself to get off at the next stop - my university. In a dazed state of mind, I alighted the bus...

Just came across this excerpt from a book A Sense of Seige: The Geopolitics of Islam and the West   here , about the pseudo intellectuals, which sadly Pakistan is rife with: This is a real tragedy. These intellectuals are unable to question their positions and their assumed mission because they have no intellectual, academic or informative resource other than the West to rely on. Western sources are their only assets; and once their link to these sources is lost, they will be abandoned in the middle of a desert. Sadly, these intellectuals are unable to find the spiritual energy and intellectual courage necessary to save themselves and their countries, to preserve their roots, because that would mean denial of what has become their identity. In this case, “the decisive hour,” as defined by Marx -- a concept that evolved into “class suicide” -- takes place, when a part of the ruling class separates itself and joins the revolutionary class. These intellectuals ultimately expect th...

 Source “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books,” Neil Postman wrote: What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they a...

'It's a lonely thing,' he said, 'you can't avoid it.' 'What?' 'The spiritual path. Everyone is on his own in this.' - The Translator , Leila Aboulela

An inspiring account of Mawlana's daily management of his routine tasks. Excerpted from suhbate ba awliya - malfuzat e hazrat Shaykh ul Hadith Mawlana Zakariyya Kandhelvi (rahimahullah)  

Found this book review at At-Tahawi on a book that serves the need of the hour. I don't know where to get it from. If anyone knows where to buy this one in Pakistan, please let me know. Jazaakumullah! Review by Dr. Mahmood Ghazi Title: Slippery Stone: An Inquiry into Islam’s Stance on Music Author: Khalid Baig Publisher: Open Mind Press Year: 2008 384 pages. Slippery Stone: Cultural Colonialism and the Music Question The dawn of the colonization of Afro-Asian world in general and the Muslim world in particular brought in its wake efforts by the western academia to justify colonization in a variety of ways. The so-called “white man’s burden” to educate and civilize the barbaric, primitive and illiterate masses of Asia and Africa was based on the presumption of the total absence of all culture, civilization, religious beliefs and knowledge in the countries occupied by the colonial powers, initially for commercial purposes under purely economic motives. The colonial ...

Today Salwa and I visited the Bedil Library. It was my second visit, but for Salwa it was the first time. It is so ironic that we did not even know this amazing place existed on the face of the earth. It was only when we were doing our reserach projects last year that we came to know about it. Asma was working on Iqbal and she was referred to this place by our teachers. All of us were so busy with our respective researches that none of us bothered going to the Bedil Library. Two weeks ago, however, I promised myself that it was high time I visited the place. So I went. I just familiarised myself with their reference section and man, what a place it was! The best part was that the reference section housed Hasan Askari Sahab's entire collection of books. Four huge cupborads labelled as zakheera-e kutub, Muhammad Hasan Askari . And indeed what a treasure it was. I could not believe I was looking at the books that Askari Sahab must have read. Then I saw various books with his name writ...

Roughly, a prosaic translation would read as follows: Since I am a slave of the Sun, so I will, of course, speak about it only. I am neither night nor its patron that I may speak of dreaming! From: Rumi (RA) ka payaam-e ishq by Professor Lateefullah