Theory and the Facts of Life

I graduated in Civil Engineering in 1956. I worked at Warsak Dam from 1956 to 1960. During those four years, I experienced quite a few facts of life. The social milieu in Pakistan held engineers in great respect not only as professionals and for their ability to build public works such as roads, railways, bridges, dams, and buildings, etc., but also for their standard of living which was disproportionately higher than the other people. Many of them owned cars and lived in high-priced bungalows and “kothees.” Gradually, I came to understand also that with the salary I was making there (which was significantly higher than what the other engineers of comparable position were making in the government departments such as Buildings and Roads and Irrigation), I would never be able to buy a car what to say of building a reasonably respectable kothee for my residence.

In 1960, I got a chance to work in Northern Nigeria. My salary there was four to five times higher than what I earned in Pakistan. After reporting for work in Kaduna (our head quarter was in that provincial capital city), my first priority business was buying a car – not that I had the resources upfront for such a delightful undertaking – but with the procedure that had already been established, I really could buy a car without even a penny in my bank account (which I had yet to open). My department arranged a loan for me to buy the car. I didn’t do a thing except signing the loan papers and choosing the car that I wanted to buy. The Chief Accountant was advised by my Chief Engineer to get the necessary paper work done. By the end of the week, I had a new Opel Caravan even though I didn’t have the money to buy the gas for it. One month’s salary advance was given to me to take care of such small things. I never thought even momentarily of the interest that I was due to pay on the car loan. The monthly installment was some forty pounds which I could easily afford with a monthly salary of one hundred and thirty pounds.

I had never thought of buying a car so soon. One of my colleagues at the Warsak Dam, who had been selected as Assistant Engineer (Sub-Divisional Officer or SDO in the popular parlance) in Irrigation Department, had bought an old car soon after joining the department. When he bought the car, he had not yet even started receiving his salary due to the usual “red tape” involved in sorting out his paper work. The car was a kind of gift to him from one of his contractors, but that is another story for another day.

In the light of the prevalent religious doctrines, both of these situations appeared to be wrong for different reasons but both of them were facts of life. Paying ‘interest’ on the loan money used for purchasing the car, arguably contravened the Islamic theory of riba (usury) and the existing way of life in Pakistan was absolutely corrupt. But there they were.

The essence of Islam has been reduced to mere “theory” in the Muslim world; it is seldom practiced apart from the routine ritualistic “namaz” and “roza”. According to this theory, the Islamic way of life is the best in the world. Unfortunately, it doesn’t actually exist in practice. What exists is the Muslim way of life – the way the Muslims live. The example of corruption that I have given above is by and large the way the Muslims live. Honesty is an Islamic value but is seldom practiced in the Muslim world.

The western way of life is close to the theoretical Islamic way of life although we rush to condemn it. We (who live in the west) enjoy the benefits that the western system confers on us as citizens of the west but we routinely condemn the west by virtue of our ingrained habit and inborn hostility toward the west. I am neither justifying the western politics nor its hostile stance toward the Muslim world; I am speaking of the western system which provides education, health, living standard, retirement benefits, etc. to its citizens. This system is the best in the world and only an entrenched hater of the west will deny this fact. This is the system which the Muslim world and the world at large should try to follow within the means of their financial resources rather than an illusive and idealistic theoretical system which seems to be unpractical.

We should Islamize the western system of governance and root out the corruption.

Corruption exists in the western countries also but it has not become the way of life; it has not sapped the vitality of social life. Speaking from personal experience, almost every thing in Pakistan gets done by personal influence or by bribery. I have lived in the U.S. for nearly twenty three years and there was not a single occasion for me to offer bribe to get the things done. Infrequently, there were some bottlenecks but they were overcome without bribe.

When I came to the U.S., I had some $45,000 in the bank and I could buy a reasonable house in cash. But I wouldn’t have been left with enough money to meet my (we are a family of six) daily expenses without a regular and salaried job. I got my first regular job after about two years and most of my saving in the bank had vanished by then. If I wanted to buy a house, I had to take a loan. There was not even a momentary doubt in my mind for taking a loan because my family had endured more than enough stress during the period of my unemployment. I didn’t want them to undergo further mental and physical distress. So I took a loan and bought a three bedroom house with partly finished basement which provided me with another bedroom there. The house was adequate for our needs.

It is true that I ended up paying more than double the price of the house to clear my loan but when I sold it to buy a bigger house, I recouped it. I was able to sell the house at more than double the price at which I had bought it. So, the bargain was not quite oppressive; it was quite profitable in a sense.

According to the Islamic theory, taking a loan to buy the house was wrong but from practical viewpoint, it was a godsend. With my own available resources, I could never buy a quarter million dollar house (the cost of my new house) and 2-3 cars for family use. In theory, the western banking and financial system may be wrong but it works.

I lived in London, UK, as a foreign student for some two and a half years (1968-70); most of the fundamental social amenities were available to me more or less the same way as to the British citizens. Although some racial prejudices were evident, by and large, life was smooth and free of mental strife. One of my friends (a medical doctor) stated in a matter of fact way that he was able to clear his debt that he had incurred in Pakistan with the “dole” money he received in England during his unemployment.

I have noticed on several social occasions when the Pakistanis and Indian Muslims indulge in social conversation and offer their views about America, its social and economic conditions, and international politics, many of them invariably say somewhat gleefully that the American economy is fast deteriorating. The ‘welfare conditions’ existing here will soon disappear. The intent of their conversation, leit motif, so to say, is to see America reduced to the condition of their ethnic countries or even worse. They seldom suggest that their ethnic countries should work hard to improve their economies and rise to the level of the western countries (apocalyptically, they believe that they can’t rise to the level of the western countries). In essence, they are reluctant to rise to a higher standard; instead they wish hopelessly to undermine the American standard of well-being. In the process, they forget they themselves are American citizens. They resonate with the poet who wrote, “Hum tau doobay hain sanam tum ko bhee lay doobai’n gay.”

However, this is the mentality of the first generation immigrants. The succeeding generations do not seem to carry the “intellectual baggage” of their parents and grand parents; many of them seem to be thinking out of the box. They try to live an Islamic way of life in a new Islamic way; their model is the so called American Islam, which allows them to rationalize and redefine basic principles to make a transition to the American ambience in which they find themselves living. In the American Islam, it is okay to talk about “Halal, Haram, and Sex and the City,” “Islam Sings,” “Yes, There is Such a Thing as Islamic Humor,” etc. These are the titles of some of the chapters in the book “Taking Islam Back,” edited by Michael Wolfe who is a convert from Jewish-Christian parentage. Different chapters have been contributed by different authors. For instance, Karen Armstrong contributed “Has Islam been Hijacked?” Is Islam Violent?” and “Can Religious States be Democratic?” Her stance is quite positive. Aasma Khan, a practicing attorney and the spokesperson for Muslims Against Terrorism, contributed “How Muslims can Combat Terror and Violence?”

In the chapter “Have Quran, Will Travel,” Michael Wolfe wrote, “Glancing around the room at thirty or more Muslims, I saw a cross section of American Islam in the new millennium: professors, doctors, business executives, teachers, housewives, therapists, factory owners, and computer engineers. Some had been born in Egypt, others in Lebanon, Palestine, Pakistan, and India… The men wore business suits, the women dresses; their children sported baseball caps and Nikes; and everyone spoke English.” This is the picture of the emerging American Islam, which is dynamic, amenable to continual redefinition and change and is fast becoming a fact of life.

Khol kar a’ankhain meray a’ainah-e-guftar mein
Aanay walay daur ki dhundli see ikk tasweer dekh
(Iqbal)