to all and sundry!
what's the fuss? over the moon? why exactly? please remind me which century we'r living in????
it's so utterly tiresome! the tirade about when we should celebrate and where and how the moon is to be sighted, why and by whom, and the ultimate-the chand in pakistan is the best one??? is there another one somewhere eles? how many moons does the earth have? the pakistanis, being the brilliant astronomers that they are, have discovered other moon or moons. Trust them! may they come up with something equally amazing next eid? and then we all complain of maulvis being stuck in the middle ages!
And what of the mad mufti who wants to make the nation keep a qaza roza after eid??? talk about controversy? I mean its understandable, wanting your 15 minutes of fame and all that, but this?? its streching it a bit too far! half of frontier had eid today while the other half fasted, lahoris had roza but a few went for eid namaz? there were discussions ad infinitum on tv over when it would be eid in the rest of the country. Why cant we agree on something as basic and as simple as the sighting of the moon? in this age of high technology and computers and sattelites and what have you, we, in this land of the pure, are debating whether we have seen the moon or not, and not only whether any one has seen it but if and its a big if the momin amongst us has witnessed it or not. why? and who decides about the credibilty of the momin? the muftis? and do tell why? who has given them the authority to pick and choose, is it their 'superior faith' or their 'better lifesyle' or what? beats me.
And what does that mean? I mean a 'qaza roza'? this is a new one a new kind of spin doctoring if you will, we'v all heard of qaza namaz but qaza roza and that too after eid? its weird all these keepers of islam and yet not a true muslim around to look upto? What is this mystery? why this enigma? every other person, in this country of ours, is a proffessed proffessor of faith, quranic injunctions and custodian of all holy secrets and the beacon of true path, the path to salvation and heaven and yet we hardly come across a handful of people who consider it wrong (in practice) or find it conveinent at all times to not lie and ufff!!! tell the truth. We can barely pick a half a dozen people in this bastion of islam who think it wrong to earn by cheating or who think it sinful, or even morally dubious to deceive, cheat and misinterpret. We as a nation love the grey areas (just like the blue area and the red light area, and the green area) we lovehalf-truths. That delicious word that absolves us of all sins and misdeeds! we always tell the truth,but, hey! only half of it, SOOOO? what's the problem? We live by this maxim of dangling in the middle or what is it, in sophisticated words, errrr.... the middle path, the balance the veering between extremes isnt that what islam is all about? Well, islam is one abused religion, one heavily maligned way of thinking and one mishaped way of life in the hands of a pakistani muslim. So beware of all kinds of fundos (fundamentalists -from the bomb totting to the bearded ex-musicians, to the desi clad retired ex cricketer playboys or the greasy badly-in-need of a bath/haircut taliban spokes person) and the liberal muslims (included here are all the scared- to-death moneyed educated people who are aware of all the sins they have commited and will commit in future so they take on the protective garb of the enlightened muslim, a person who truly and actually understands the message of allah and has it all figured out. Not to forget are the ultra-modern globe trotting ex-alcoholic abused and used wives of our rich and empty headed pakistani men, who have suddenly awakened to their calling, they have discovered some lady or the other who grace their palatial and air-conditioned houses giving lectures from god himself. These 'dars' delivering women have their living neatly worked out what with countless back to back lecture bookings, they also have audio and video cds and dvds to spread the peaceful message of islam. People!!! please wizen up! being a muslim (in appearance) is a very viable business move a: your trustworthiness and reliabilty is suddenly confirmed if you support a beard or a hijab! wonderful business tactic, i must say!! how dare we suspect them of any business malpractice? they are honest and good muslims after all! and b: doing business with holy people is always more of a charity than business??? or atleast seem like it- so very beneficial for our souls!
You know why we have let these people or rather these floozies hijack islam and become the self-appointed gaurdian of everyone's faith? because we are simply lathargic, lazy and want to be spoon fed all the time. Why should we bother opening the quran for ourselves and read it with meaning (sounds like a contradiction if iv ever heard one) when we can have a dim-witted bearded guy on tv tell us the meaning? We, who wouldnt trust our clothes to the next person unless he/she is a designer of some repute let others tell us what is written in the quran literally and how we should understand it, apply it and shape our lives and thoughts to it? isnt that preposterous??? simply unbelievable to say the least! why do we just relinquish the charge when it comes to our religious and moral beliefs? we know what we should eat or what we like in food, whats good for our health, we are very vocal about our politics and our friends, we know exactly how to spend our evenings and nights and we know what we want for ourselves and our children, we also know a lot about our needs in the future as well, as who we would like to marry, who we'd like our kids to marry and so forth, but when it comes to morality and religion we are dumbfounded, we suddenly feel at a loss as what would be the right thing to say as if there ever is. Why dont we study islam for ourselves and apply it according to our understanding of it however muddled and incomplete because to me that is always a lot better than some one's else's rehashed and half baked theories errrr..... dont u agree? why do we lack the courage to say and believe what we do of islam on the basis of first hand knowledge and not on the interpreatitions of an intermediary simply because after the last prophet ( the emphasis being on the last) there is no interpreter of islam, here we must fend for ourselves, just like we must and will have to fend for ourselves on the day of judgement. Why are we scared to voice our opinions on islam and its various injunctions and tenets, why are we so afraid of questioning? why has questioning, inquiring become a taboo in our religion and its philosphy? why dont we approach islam as a study a philosphy and take it from there? why not indeed????
what's the fuss? over the moon? why exactly? please remind me which century we'r living in????
it's so utterly tiresome! the tirade about when we should celebrate and where and how the moon is to be sighted, why and by whom, and the ultimate-the chand in pakistan is the best one??? is there another one somewhere eles? how many moons does the earth have? the pakistanis, being the brilliant astronomers that they are, have discovered other moon or moons. Trust them! may they come up with something equally amazing next eid? and then we all complain of maulvis being stuck in the middle ages!
And what of the mad mufti who wants to make the nation keep a qaza roza after eid??? talk about controversy? I mean its understandable, wanting your 15 minutes of fame and all that, but this?? its streching it a bit too far! half of frontier had eid today while the other half fasted, lahoris had roza but a few went for eid namaz? there were discussions ad infinitum on tv over when it would be eid in the rest of the country. Why cant we agree on something as basic and as simple as the sighting of the moon? in this age of high technology and computers and sattelites and what have you, we, in this land of the pure, are debating whether we have seen the moon or not, and not only whether any one has seen it but if and its a big if the momin amongst us has witnessed it or not. why? and who decides about the credibilty of the momin? the muftis? and do tell why? who has given them the authority to pick and choose, is it their 'superior faith' or their 'better lifesyle' or what? beats me.
And what does that mean? I mean a 'qaza roza'? this is a new one a new kind of spin doctoring if you will, we'v all heard of qaza namaz but qaza roza and that too after eid? its weird all these keepers of islam and yet not a true muslim around to look upto? What is this mystery? why this enigma? every other person, in this country of ours, is a proffessed proffessor of faith, quranic injunctions and custodian of all holy secrets and the beacon of true path, the path to salvation and heaven and yet we hardly come across a handful of people who consider it wrong (in practice) or find it conveinent at all times to not lie and ufff!!! tell the truth. We can barely pick a half a dozen people in this bastion of islam who think it wrong to earn by cheating or who think it sinful, or even morally dubious to deceive, cheat and misinterpret. We as a nation love the grey areas (just like the blue area and the red light area, and the green area) we lovehalf-truths. That delicious word that absolves us of all sins and misdeeds! we always tell the truth,but, hey! only half of it, SOOOO? what's the problem? We live by this maxim of dangling in the middle or what is it, in sophisticated words, errrr.... the middle path, the balance the veering between extremes isnt that what islam is all about? Well, islam is one abused religion, one heavily maligned way of thinking and one mishaped way of life in the hands of a pakistani muslim. So beware of all kinds of fundos (fundamentalists -from the bomb totting to the bearded ex-musicians, to the desi clad retired ex cricketer playboys or the greasy badly-in-need of a bath/haircut taliban spokes person) and the liberal muslims (included here are all the scared- to-death moneyed educated people who are aware of all the sins they have commited and will commit in future so they take on the protective garb of the enlightened muslim, a person who truly and actually understands the message of allah and has it all figured out. Not to forget are the ultra-modern globe trotting ex-alcoholic abused and used wives of our rich and empty headed pakistani men, who have suddenly awakened to their calling, they have discovered some lady or the other who grace their palatial and air-conditioned houses giving lectures from god himself. These 'dars' delivering women have their living neatly worked out what with countless back to back lecture bookings, they also have audio and video cds and dvds to spread the peaceful message of islam. People!!! please wizen up! being a muslim (in appearance) is a very viable business move a: your trustworthiness and reliabilty is suddenly confirmed if you support a beard or a hijab! wonderful business tactic, i must say!! how dare we suspect them of any business malpractice? they are honest and good muslims after all! and b: doing business with holy people is always more of a charity than business??? or atleast seem like it- so very beneficial for our souls!
You know why we have let these people or rather these floozies hijack islam and become the self-appointed gaurdian of everyone's faith? because we are simply lathargic, lazy and want to be spoon fed all the time. Why should we bother opening the quran for ourselves and read it with meaning (sounds like a contradiction if iv ever heard one) when we can have a dim-witted bearded guy on tv tell us the meaning? We, who wouldnt trust our clothes to the next person unless he/she is a designer of some repute let others tell us what is written in the quran literally and how we should understand it, apply it and shape our lives and thoughts to it? isnt that preposterous??? simply unbelievable to say the least! why do we just relinquish the charge when it comes to our religious and moral beliefs? we know what we should eat or what we like in food, whats good for our health, we are very vocal about our politics and our friends, we know exactly how to spend our evenings and nights and we know what we want for ourselves and our children, we also know a lot about our needs in the future as well, as who we would like to marry, who we'd like our kids to marry and so forth, but when it comes to morality and religion we are dumbfounded, we suddenly feel at a loss as what would be the right thing to say as if there ever is. Why dont we study islam for ourselves and apply it according to our understanding of it however muddled and incomplete because to me that is always a lot better than some one's else's rehashed and half baked theories errrr..... dont u agree? why do we lack the courage to say and believe what we do of islam on the basis of first hand knowledge and not on the interpreatitions of an intermediary simply because after the last prophet ( the emphasis being on the last) there is no interpreter of islam, here we must fend for ourselves, just like we must and will have to fend for ourselves on the day of judgement. Why are we scared to voice our opinions on islam and its various injunctions and tenets, why are we so afraid of questioning? why has questioning, inquiring become a taboo in our religion and its philosphy? why dont we approach islam as a study a philosphy and take it from there? why not indeed????
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