Shazia Aapa

Ah.......! I am still unable to digest the fact that she is not in this world now. This makes me think how she would be feeling. Or is there no feeling after death? Which I think is not right since I take the position that the religion does. I know that my worldly mind cannot capture the essence of life up there still I just cannot stop myself thinking again and again. How people 'live' after they have died, after they have left for a completely different system of galaxies. Where there is only love, only beauty, only milky-white beings, only sweetness, only LIFE, only true knowledge, only sacredness, only honey-and-milk rivers and above all only ALLAH!

Wo jahan kesa ho ga jahan Allah ka Arsh maujood hai! (How sacred will be the place where Allah's Arsh is!)

It is so strange that one moment someone is here, in flesh and blood, throbbing with life and zest, laughing, crying, speaking... and the next moment that same person has gone. Gone forever! Disappeared into the distance that is trillions of light years from us earthlings. O God! And there is a time when we have to stand answerable to Him. Thinking of this shatters my being!

Kash k me na hota ya koi janwar hota, ya paharr hota ya jheel hota, ya roshni hota, ya phool hota, ya chahay andhera ya kanta he hota. Kam az kam hisab to na dena parrta! Mujh main quwwat hoti to me apnay aap ko rate k karorron zarron main tabdeel kr k na janay kahan kahan urra deta. Lkn afsos k us gharri se phir bhi bacha nahin ja sakta. (Would that I was nothing, or an animal or a mountain or a lake or light or a flower or at most darkness or a thorn. This way I would not be held answerable to Him. If I could do it I would decompose myself in billions of granules and scatter them all over the universe. But even that cannot help me escape Judgement!)

Coming back to the dear aapa, I chatted with her only once. She was here in the UK in a certain hospital in Manchester. I think she said she was better. Then we could not chat again for well over a month. And then I found some of her messages on my profile at FK. I replied to them and AM STILL WAITING FOR A REPLY BACK! It does not seem to be coming for years on end.

My heart prays for her!

Waves (Lehren)

Waves or ‘lehren’ as they are called in Urdu stand high in imaginative poetry and are like a friend or foe to us (Though poetry is not the subject of discussion here).

The rise and fall of waves takes us up and down with them emotionally and create such a divine surge of thoughts that one goes running in fondness chasing these wave-thoughts and building on them. We flow with the waves thus created and are ecstatic in the delight or sorrow they bring. Thoughts in their very nature are just like waves; they come around, they rise, they fall, they take us up and down with them and create a bulge - be it of extreme ecstatic divineness or chilling sadness. Both of them serve to exalt us.

The waves that rise and fall in our minds are just like the waves that rise and fall in the sea. At times these waves bring with them roaring winds and heavy rains that flood the nearby areas and leave them in need of repair and care. Similarly there are waves that rise in our hearts and make us remember the pain, the trials of the past and how we got separated from the people we love or we thought we loved. The excruciating pain that such waves inflict tears through our bodies rendering us fragile and at times dead to the world. At yet other times there are waves bless us with divine sensations and fill us with such happiness as we had never experienced before. Waves of this kind take with them whatever ‘dirty’ or painful resides on the shores of our hearts just as sometimes waves in the physical sea do.

Yet there is another aspect to the concept of waves which we generally, being humans, ignore or make light of. It is this concept of waves that I personally hold dear, very close to my heart.

I like to think of man as a freely floating object on the colossal mass of the waters of this world; and Allah the shore. Man floats on and on in his pursue of worldly comforts and works hard to achieve goals that will make him rise in this world. He is constantly running notching up one milestone after the other. Man does all this in search of perfect poise where he can live his life smoothly and in extreme comfort. In this search for equilibrium he usually comes across hurdles, pain, troubles and seldom true success. In these trials and tribulations sometimes he feels so weary that he decides to stop running. After a few moments someone else comes by and he looking at this ‘amazing’, ‘awesome’ person decides again to take up the race to better his chances in the wide world.

But if he makes some space for this third aspect of waves; the one that tells him that he will only ‘float’ like lifeless objects until he believes Allah to be the shore towards which he must be striving to go; then and only then he achieves the true satisfaction and comfort and happiness. When one truly believes that whatever he is doing in the life has to be for Allah and Allah must be his top priority in all the struggles of his life. Here I do mean the ‘worldly’ struggles. Then when there is pain he shows patience and when there is success and happiness he does take into account his God, Allah and believes that this success came only because Allah wanted it this way; he achieves true happiness and satisfaction surges through his body until it ‘completely’ encapsulates him. Living life like this the true believer in the end reaches his ultimate goal – Allah. That’s why we see many people while dying have smile on their faces. This is the smile of meeting with Allah and ultimate destination of all the lovers.

Note:  I decided to write this post after reading a post about 'lehren aur yaden' at www.friendskorner.com.

Siachen and our leaders

It is a week since Pakistan army suffered a dramatic loss when a huge avalanche swept over a base camp at Gayari sector in Siachen. Since then every body has been praying for a miracle that saves the 139 people, including 128 soldiers, who lay under the gargantuan mass of ice God knows in what condition. As yet no progress has been made in retrieving the precious bodies that are sacred enough to be cried for.

This giant tragedy has brought cries from all sides of demilitarizing Siachen which has engulfed billions of dollars and hundreds of precious lives since this seemingly useless standoff began with the Indian army in April 1984. This is ironically sinister since it is in April 28 years later when our brave soldiers lie there under giant body of cruel ice that can take life out of anything that is roaring with energy and activity only moments earlier.

The good thing is that many of these voices belong to the people who matter. The most prominent ones are Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan. Nawaz Sharif has said without any hesitation that our government should not look towards Indian government waiting for what they do. He believes that we should do it on our own if the Indians are not willing to go ahead with the demilitarizing. This is good since he enjoys a lot of clout in Pakistan. This statement of his echoes 1997 talks between Pakistan and India as well as reminds one of nuclear tests that he carried in response to those made by India. It can be safely projected that if he wins the next elections in Pakistan he will be making a lot more effort than before to engage India in talks on various levels. This might include the eight-point agenda agreed with the Indian government in 1997 before he was ousted by Musharraf.

Imran Khan is of the view that this should not be a unilateral step. He must be seeing through the eyes of a captain and weighing the pros and cons of this 'move'. He seems eager for Pakistan army to pull out of this lethal adventure that is doing no good to our 'jawans' but only if the other side reciprocates our move. At the moment he is thinking as a strategist though the burden of this loss clearly weighs heavy on him like on every other Pakistani who thinks highly of our brave forces.

Another voice that I will call more important than the preceding two is of the General Ashfaq Pervez kayani who said that he is highly in favour of talks with India and a decrease in defense budget. He thinks that development and defense should go hand in hand. Defense as well as development along with spending on the people of a country is important for the strength at the national level.

Last but not the least the President's visit to India hold a lot of importance in its own right as well as in the context of what is happening now. It seems that the Nature also agreed with him and a sort of aided him on his tour to India by bringing about the fatal incident, enlarging the futility of Siachen to a proprotion that it can no longer be ignored by any of us.

This brings us to the conclusion that the leaders of Pakistan are heading towards a maturer look on different issues affecting Pakistan. It seems they have learnt from the past especially the most recent incident owing to which many issues have burst themselves onto the scene. A new era appears to be in brewing when the Pakistani masses will be the main focus of the policies our government make in the near future.

The Brutality Of Siachen

Pakistan Army suffered the heaviest calamity at Siachen in around 30 years on 7th April, 2012 when 135 soldiers and civilians from our brave army were buried by a huge avalanche in Gayari sector.

The rescue efforts are still ongoing with 452 men taking part but without any success as yet. Up until the mid-day 40 feet of snow had been removed nearly half more staring the rescuers in the face who work unrelentingly and untiringly to pull their colleagues out of the clutches of death of which there is lesser hope with every minute passing.

 

Every eye mourns the tragedy, every heart cries at the disaster as this incident sits atop in our minds inviting discussions at what happened and detailed review of the frigid arctic conditions in which our soldiers are destined to work at the height of 20000 feet.

Both Pakistan and India spend around $500 million annually and also bear the loss of life which is mainly due to the brutalities of Siachen. Its frigid conditions take a heavy toll of life on both sides. Though India unofficially celebrated what they called "zero casualty" in 2007. That year they suffered only three casualties two of which happened in a copter crash. Whereas on our side the destiny writes a different story. Pakistan has not been able to make such claims as yet. 

Though there must be enough facilities for the brave soldiers of our army still a lot needs to be done for their well being. I am sure the administration of our Army will leave no stone unturned in providing for the brave army personnel who serve there away from their homes and loving family.

Our prayers are with the army and the families of those affected by this tragic incident. We do have hope that Allah save them and deliver them of the catastrophe.

Kazhak Mulims Angry

Since the post I published today about the blasphemy to the name of Allah I have been looking online and I happened on this story.

The Muslims of Kazakistan - a dominantly Muslim country are angry at a company that produces vodka at the inclusion of word "Allah" on its bottles.

The Muslims in the dominantly Muslim society are up in arms against the Baiterek vodka which has been selling alcohol with the inscription "The Power of Allah Suffices for All". There is a huge uproar at this. According to the Radia Free Europe Radio Liberty religious leaders in the country have been asking their congregation members to keep calm and "not to succumb to their emotions over the inscription on the bottle".

Among the news websites that carried the story are:

Times Live

Associated Press

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

abc News

Newsday

Related post:

Desecration of Allah and Islam

Desecration Of Allah and Islam

Today I have watched a video that has shaken me to the core, it has my soul in turmoil and in agony at what I in person can do to stop this. The problem is no one on their own can do so. This has to be tackled by us all. Please watch the video first. 

If the video does not work, please click here.

 

This is shocking and tragic such things are being sold in our bazars and peopel who are fond of these abstarct designs buy these things happily without taking notice that they actually desecrate our religion and defile the basic tenets of Islam that has been the saviour of billions of people.

Now the question is what we can do.

Firstly, we have to be conscientious that Islam is our religion and we are the followers. Being followers of Islam requires us to know what is right or wrong and what we can do to stay the followers and the believers in the eyes of Allah. Since how He looks upon us is what matters most. Now-a-days we indulge in too many sham things only for the sake of the 'people' and the 'world'. Remember it is not the "world" and the "people" who will give us 'Ajr' (the reward) for being a good Muslim. It is Allah who will do so.

Secondly, we can simply stop thinking that if we will do something real religious, people will say that we are trying to be 'maulvi' (prayer leader/ religious leader) or that we are 'putting on this show' to be wali (Allah's friend). If we think for a while it will dawn on us that all this thinking is actually the result of our week faith. Again we must be doing these things for the will of Allah and to gain His happiness and belssings.

Thirdly, we must go through all such things at our homes to see if they contain any image that actually purport and prove that we are not Muslims. And if we do find things like this we must stop using them. If we cannot buy something to replace it we should not. Just wait for the time when there is enough money earned and saved and then go and fulfil our 'craving' or 'taste'.

Fourthly - last but not the least: we must jump to our feet and spring into action and jump-start to spread the word all over the web and by word of mouth to our near and dear ones. Please do not forget to let know those who we 'just follow' on social media platforms. For example if someone else has shared it in the main stream on Facebook or Google or Twitter which you follow please do not think that it is done. No it is NOT done. You have not done your part. Please do not think for one moment about someone that they might have learned about it anyway or what somebody else will think about you doing 'all this stuff'. We are not here to prove anything to others. We HAVE swore allegiance to Allah and we are here to prove to Him that we are His and we are on His side and we are craving for His happiness.

Related Post:

Kazhak Muslims Angry

A Rupee (Aik Rupaya)

A few days ago I saw a photo of a Pakistani Rupee. This was it:

Looking at this, memories of old days came streaming into my mind. I remembered how we utilized one Rupee or five Rupees or (if we were lucky enough to have it) a 10 Rupee note.


The problem was (now I do not believe it should be a problem for children but you never know since the days of childhood are mad days and characterized with 'not-understanding' ) that my parents did not believe in giving us notes (like many other parents of that time or even of today for that matter). They packed us lunch and advised us to eat all of it.

When our parents did provide us with a few rupees that was only for two reasons. Firstly, This money was given so that we might bye some snacks as to have something extra to eat with the lunch. Secondly it was to prevent us from ogling at what other children bought and stop us from thinking that while other class fellows bought form canteen why WE did not?


I do remember what I used to bye. Mainly it were a few 'pet' things that I used to bye (I do not remember what my younger brother used to spend his money on). I was very keen on Nice biscuits, Butter Scotch (a 'toffee') and of the drinks I loved to have a Mirinda. Another thing that I was always thinking of 'eating' was  a bubble gum. Do not remember the name but it used to come in colourful wrappers and inside it also had a sticker with the pictures of cars, toys and birds etc.


One thing that stands in marked contrast with those days of old (well, come back, not SO old by the way) is the quality of the things that the children of today eat. These days bubble gums, toffees and biscuits are not good enough to be consumed by children yet their consumption by this innocent creature has increased many fold. It is the responsibility of parents and of teachers to keep children away form such 'garbage' and bring them up on healthy things and make them take healthy eating habits into their grown-up years. This will be one of the worthiest things that we can give them.