Waiting for Enlightenment

Re: # 8

``I understand your sentiment, but the destruction of the Pakistan Army Mafia will automatically and inevitably lead to the elimination of the Saudi version of Islam from Pakistan.``


How??? how can muslims rise against islam??? its not musharaf who is goading them to follow wahabism, infact these wahabi organizations were MUCH MUCH active during the times of benazir and nawaz sharif. the element within the isi that was responsible for the creation of the taliban is the element that hoodbhoy is warning against, how in the world will their take over ensure that wahabism is eliminated from pakistan??

this enlightened moderation is much better than the islamization route that all political parties are forced to take by their kin in the clergy. atleast he has the balls to uncover the head of pakistani newscasters :P its a huge improvement over zia`s ban on surkhi....

Parvez hoodobhoy is an infidel. He does not know any thing about Islam. In Quran it is clearly mentioned that an infidel has no right to say anything about Islam. He should be tried in sharia court.

All these critics of islam don`t know Islam is religion of peace. It teaches universal brotherhoodl. It lays the foundations of lawful, just nation.

Once Prophet ( SAW-PBUH-POM (Pride of Madina) -KS (KInd soul) ) was walking thru the streets of Mecca. Followers of Prophet ( SAW-PBUH-PO-KS) came out of their houses to greet him.

One of the followers named Zakar-ba-dast cames and kissed the hand of Prophet (SAW-PBUH-KS-PO) and asked him ``O Prophet of peace, O messagnger of Allah, O Whatever Whatever, If a war booty beauty, does not wash herself before being raped first time, is it Halaal or not.``

Prophet (SAW-PBUH-KS-PO) scrached his seal of Prophet hood and then he scrached pride of his loins and said ``Listen you beduine turd, For how l;ong I have to answer these stupid questions. For how long I have to waste my time on these stupid quiestion instead of fondling my wives and concubines. Man cover the face and fire the base.``

Islam is relegion of peace who first time gave equal status to women. There is not much diffrence between kafir woman or muslim woman.

Re: # 9
The ISI is an Army institution manned by Army officers who report to the Army Chief. The ISI and the Army are the same thing. Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif had no control over either.

Pakistani Muslims will not rise against Islam any time soon, but if the pipeline of hate from Saudi Arabia, operated by the Army/ISI is destroyed, there is at least some hope that they might revert to the more tolerant Sufi version of the pre-Zia days.

looks like the ulcer in hoodhboy`s pait is about to get bigger - much bigger in fact:

Pakistan Expanding Nuclear Program, Washington Post Reports
2006-07-24 03:53 (New York)

By Vivek Shankar
July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan is expanding its nuclear
program, building a reactor that could generate enough plutonium
for as many as 50 bombs a year, the Washington Post reported,
citing an Institute of Science and International Security study.
The new plant is next to Pakistan`s only plutonium
production reactor at the Khushab nuclear site, the newspaper
said, citing satellite photos provided by Digital Globe.
The expansion would add to the region`s arms race, the Post
said, adding that Pakistan is believed to have 30 to 50 uranium
warheads, which are typically heavier and more difficult to
mount on missiles than plutonium ones.
An unidentified senior Pakistani official told the
newspaper that the country is indeed expanding its nuclear
program. Pakistan, like neighboring India, has never signed the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Post said.

(Washington Post 7-24)

For the Washington Post`s Web site, see {WPST }.

Islamization chain reaction started by Zia is getting out of control now... And rise in extremism worldwide is fuelling it even further...

I remember Geo`s Zalzala broadcast last time when I visited Pakistan. Geo people pretend to be a liberal channel but the whole time they were playing stuff like: ``Ay allah, teray musulman mushkil main hain, rehm farma``. and in other channels, they were talking of ``Azab e Ilahi``. There were religious songs on sale in earth quake hit areas in which the message was that as muslims have left Sunnah, that`s why they are warned by Allah`s wrath... Nobody mentioned that earth quakes are natural disasters and we are not only muslims but bvefore that we were human beings. Those cuban doctors who were here to help us because they thought us to be humans...I didn`t see anyone saying on any private TV channel (except some PPP senator on Aaj TV) that there should be an end to ``Azaab`` and ``Teray Musulman Banday`` theories.
Then it is Mrs. Musharraf who goes to English department at Punjab university and ask them to take the classic english poetry out from syllabus as it was `vulgar`` and inappropriate for muslims.
And then it is HEC who funds several million rupees to extract scientific knowledge from Quran and hence Quranization of Science.

Problem with this Zia initiated chain reaction is that , one islamist is allowed to spread his islamism to a dozen more and it is considered a social service. While anyone in opposition is not allowed to even exporess his own secularism in front of others, preaching the secularism is impossible.

Prof. Hoodbhoy,

This is EPW-quality, flawless article. Would Pakistan(is) take this kind of outlook?

Best wishes,

VRV.

VRV sahib,

EPW???- As in Economic & Political Weekly- the commie ragmag

Regards

A Saudi Best Seller...


The Would-Be Terrorist`s Explosive Tell-All Tale

Excerpts:

...In ``The 20th Terrorist,`` published in Syria in January, Thabit, a 33-year-old school administrator, chronicles his life among extremists led by a loosely knit group of public school teachers in the southern Asir region of Saudi Arabia who recruited him when he was in the ninth grade...

That the book went on sale in Saudi bookstores last month is an indication of how far the country has come in the five years since the attacks. It was a bestseller for several months on the Arab online bookstore Neelwalfurat...Since his book came out, Thabit has gotten favorable fan mail, and in March Prince Khalid al-Faisal, governor of Asir province, where the majority of the Saudi hijackers came from, bought 50 copies of ``The 20th Terrorist`` in Lebanon. The prince then invited the heads of Asir`s education departments to his weekly salon and distributed it to them as mandatory reading.

...``We were taught that our Islam was correct and everyone else, including our families, was going to hell, a hell that resembled a slaughterhouse. And I wanted to be one of the select few who made it into heaven,`` he says.

... People, especially the young, are always looking for an identity -- they need a sense of who they are, Thabit says. ``If your parents or your community or your country don`t provide you with one, and most Arab countries don`t, you will look for it elsewhere. And these groups provide you with one. Your identity becomes that of a devout Muslim and that then transcends everything else about you.``...

In the book, Thabit says one of his mentors, Yahya, took him on weekly trips to the cemetery, after midnight, where they would lie for hours in freshly dug graves and listen in the dark to a sermon about hell played on the car cassette player. The cleric would describe a hell filled with snakes, leaping fire and sinners stripped naked hanging on hooks, their skins peeled off. Life is temporary and the hereafter is forever, the cleric warned. Thabit often wept from fear. ``When we left from there, I wanted Yahya to tell me anything I could do to be saved from hellfire and from that terror,`` he writes.

He was quickly noticed by teachers in the network of extremists for his excellent grades, and one of the older students was dispatched to invite him to an after-school soccer tournament organized by the group. ..

One of the first things he learned was not to imitate ``infidels.`` That meant not dressing in training pants or clapping and whistling during soccer games -- the way infidels did. He was to show his enthusiasm by shouting ``God is great.`` He was also taught that music, television and cigarettes were sinful. Cheating in English class, however, was okay; it was the language of the infidels.
...

Saudi Arabia and Iran makes billions in oil revenues to support their Islamic infrastructure. They indulge in actions that make their citizens less free and less productive. I am not sure Pakistan can afford this crap. I have never been to Pakistan. But I think a lot of these articles on Islamic militants in Pakistan are scare tactics.

also waiting for enlightenment in michigan ..............

.......... while dr. hoodbhoy is justified in being alarmed by the rise of fundamentalism in pakistan, it might surprise him to hear that the same dark clouds are spreading in michigan, usa ...........

.......... last friday i went to a funeral in troy michigan where the imam, standing over the open grave, began to talk about the epic struggle between kufr and islam and warning the people that if they didn`t shape up they would be destroyed like the people before them ......... as the crowd started getting fidgety he turned on the half a dozen women who had dared to come to the cemetery and started berating them for not wearing the proper headjob (aka hijab) ......... i looked over at the deceased`s daughter and had this sudden urge to grap a shovel and hit the bearded b*$#@rd on the head ............ needless to say, i simply headed straight for the bar to drown my sorrows

.......... we are all in for a very very long wait ..............

#18 by hamidm2
“needless to say, i simply headed straight for the bar to drown my sorrows Here is partial list of site banned by India”

So you are just a 101 Keyboard warrior? Even tho I don’t go to funerals and sht like that but if I were you, I would have objected to the mullah loudly…. while living in the US you can muster this much courage but then again you seem to be just a keyboard warrior.


will comment of this mediocre article later....

HP: Hamidm was merely implementing the adage ``if you get a lemon, make lemonade``. His implementation being: ``if you get a momin, make scotch and soda``.

Between the scoth and the shovel, there is a third option: have a regular muslim, not a maulvi, do the funeral. That is what my father instructed for his funeral a day or two before migrating to the next world, and that is what we did. God bless his soul for sparing us a maulvi that day.

But at the heart of Pakistan’s problems lies a truth – one etched in stone – that when a state proclaims a religious identity and mission, it is bound to privilege those who organize religious life and interpret religious text. Since there are many models and interpretations within every religion, there is bound to be conflict between religious forces over whose model shall prevail. There is also the larger confrontation between religious principles and practices and what we now consider to be ‘modern’ ideas of society, which have emerged over the past several hundred years.

The crux of the matter, the ONLY thing that will help Pakistan is to make religion a personal choice and become a secular country as we were meant to be, Just like India and if the overly Islamified Pakistanis dont like the example of India then tell them Turkey.

A religious state can never succeed, Look at Pakistan when we were secular, before we added Islamic to our name, we were a much more successful country then, with a lot more unity. Pakistaniyat should be our guiding light and principle and not that of any faith, as every faith and every variety of Islam is practised by people who are Pakistani.

Maybe now the time is ripe/right for a secular Pakistani movement to gain ground and start doing something!

Ally
Still saying Khuda Hafiz!

Re: # 20

tahmed,

......... if it was just the the mullah`s it wouldn`t be all that bad - it is the `normal` run of the mill muslim who has rediscovered his/her faith over the last few years ......... over the past 25 years i have been going to picnics and other functions organized by the pakistani organizations like the paa, appna, etc. and every year i have noticed a steady increase in young girls in hijabs, middle aged fat women in abayas, public prayer, geriatric men in topis, pubescent boys in beards and other displays of bedouin religiosity ..........

............ the disease has to run its course and there is nothing you or i can do about it

p.s you are invited to my cremation - that`s my silly and rather futile way of getting back at the idiots who pestered me while i was alive ........ no pulao and halwa for them !

Hamidm,
I also go to the Pakistani functions and you are right that there is a steady increase of crazies from Pakistan/ME in the last ten years or so. But, I have never let an opportunity to challenge them on their nonsense go by.

You see you fail to confront crazies and then complain on internet....

Btw, I see less hijab now. In fact, recently on Detroit airport I noticed a whole bunch of young arab girls with long skirts or jeans and full sleeve shirts but no Hijab... I think that is an improvement over what I saw just a couple of years ago in Detroit.

Re: # 23

HP,

``You see you fail to confront crazies and then complain on internet....``


...... i am in deep trouble as it is - mrs hamidm is convinced that no muslim family is ever ask for our daughter`s hand because of my apostasy ........ personally i am thrilled at the prospect of a jewish son-in-law, but the thought of ending up with a bunch of idlee-eating head-waggers as relatives is rather scary