Church vs Mosque

#120: Instead of wasting your breath, why do not save yourself from reading the writer`s content. No one is obligated to comment on each and every article, memoir, travelogue, feature, fictional and non-fictional stuff. It seems that interactors waste more bandwidth on Chowk in ridiculing others` points than contributing anything. Well, it certainly takes some creativity, style and content to provoke fellow human beings. The current writer deserves a big applause for that.

Respected author ( A.Shiraz a.k.a. Solitude a.k.a. Emanicipator),

In your fancy of the English, the Protestant ethic, Capitalism and of course westernization, you have unfortunately forgotten your very roots. Your posts portray you as a very confused person and you are confusing others too by sending mixed signals. You are trying to create a perfect race according to your own standards. One does not become white, if they paint their faces white. One does not become protestant by a singular or a few visits to a church. One does not become fashionable in the right sense by wearing the “in” clothes without any real sense of it. One does not even become intellectual by carrying a few classic books in their back pack. A Chinese can not wake up tomorrow and declare himself to be an African. He will still remain a Chinese.

You are what you are, no matter how hard you try to portray yourself as belonging to a different race.

You wrote the following in your interact:

“We will embrace the North Western European ideals, the lessons of the reformation, and the laws of England, the constitution of the US, the French Rights of Man, and the spirit of the Scandinavians, the Saxons and the Anglo Americans. We will rejoice in English and English customs and make it our own as we have begun to do today. We will take the values of the Anglo Protestants uncorrupted by French Catholic decadence and we will embrace the Protestant work ethic and we shall join the ranks of the first world! “

The first question is who exactly are the “We” that you refer to? The, “We” that you refer to, are people who have no personality, heritage, culture, class, religion, standards of their own. The “We”, you refer to has borrowed everything from others and thrown all that it possessed as a nation into the garbage can. The “We” relishes and rejoices customs of another culture and plays a deaf ear to the culture of their very roots.

(I hope that you understood what I tried to explain in my earlier posts, with regards to clean mosques still existing with an educated atmosphere).

The second question is of course what will be the position of these people who have forgotten their very roots and try to incorporate the foreign customs “Fully” into their lives, in the eyes of others? I may be wrong, but such a group of people will never be respected because they could never appreciate their own roots and culture. These are the people who will eventually be termed as “wannabe’s”.

They will not be respected because instead of helping to remove all the negative features in their culture, and wrong interpretations of religion and instead of helping to eradicate the negative customs, they instead decided to take the most easy way out.

For example, If some negative incident happened to them in a mosque, they do not try to remove the problem. They instead run from the problem. They did not stand up and say, “Qari, Saheb, I would like to get all the carpets washed of the “mosque” or “I would like to collect and donate money for the construction of new bathing rooms and employment of a full time sweeper for the mosque.” They do not give the children attending the mosque enough confidence or trust to complain against molesters or try to reach an agreement with the community attending the mosque to pray to come up with a solution to tackle this heinous act. Of course that would require too much time and effort and could also be taxing on the wallet.

But they take the easy way out. They decide to run. They decide to switch religions, or become atheists or eradicate the celebration of certain customs from their life. Isn’t that easier? Then of course they decide a short story about it. They decide to preach that every one should take the easy way out like them.

Well, respected author, not all people are like you. Some us decide to take the difficult way and some us won’t even mind dying fighting than running from our own problems. I really do not mean to be cruel or harsh, but If Pakistani’s are backwards, then it is only because of people like you; people who run from the problems and do not solve it; people who do not try to see the larger picture; people who can only see faults and never the advantages and merits associated.

Some of are already emancipated. It is, infact you who needs to put off the chains you have fastened around your brain.


A Vision

After reading your posts I am becoming increasingly thankful that not all Pakistanis chose to take the path you have taken. Some indeed “have noble hearts and if only your noble hearts will go forth with courage “ and try their best to eradicate the negative aspects and find solutions to the prevalent problems, rather than running away from them, then only the over all state of the Muslims and Pakistani’s will improve.

If some fellow Muslims behave selfish and confused with their own identity and run, then try to help them and make them realize that running away from the problem is not in itself a solution.

We will chose good values and we will befriend all those who are not ashamed of being themselves, and value the “noble folk” who strived to improve the tarnished image of Islam and worked hard to remove all faults prevalent; and those who had the courage to be true to their roots, because respect of one’s own culture and roots is a “virtue”.

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My sincere gratitude and thanks to all those Proud Muslims who appreciated my previous interact.

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Kind regards.

Re ELUSIVE # 87
Wonderful interact, infact, and much to my delight, Solitude has not yet responded. I wonder whats going through his mind now.....

A. Shiraz, you have the nerve to accuse people of attacking you personally, well let me put it to you this way, when people write articles that are one sided, hostile and when you launch a personal attack on people`s faith - then this is what you should expect. People are going to wonder where the hell youre coming from, because quite frankly, if you wanted to have an educated discussion - then you would write like an educated man, not like a psychopath on a mission. I really and truly pity you, because at the end of the day, your writing means little, because you fail to bring across your points to the average reader. The only satisfaction you can get is seeing angry comments and disbelief as to the cowboy like strategy you have off expressing your views. How unfortunate!

If places of worship were clubs-

Churches- Built to intimidate, soothing piano bar ambience, larger-than-life, great music, don`t let your kids into the DJ`s booth.
Mosques- Gaudy, everyone wearing too much perfume, slightly smelly, they should allow more women in there. Loyal clientele, outsiders not welcome.
Mandirs- Too much noise, gulp your drink and run, no chance of having a decent conversation, but if you time it right and have the right company, can be an enjoyable experience.
Fire Temples- Members only. Don`t die in there, they feed you to the birds.
Gurudwaras- Good ambience. Great food. Used to be haunted by shady elements but now clean. Nice chicks.

Also, only learned men and women should be allowed to lead the prayers. The ones who look like a daku or a cave-man ought to be discouraged. Those imams and preachers are a definite risk to Islam. #103 by ZahraJ on September 11, 2004 2:04pm PT

I think this should be put up as ``qoute of the day``. I was laughing hard as I reached the ``daku`` part of the comment.

We have women capable of great wonder and sweetness in our nation. If only we would appreciate them like the Englishman respects, defers and appreciates women.

A VISION

After reading your posts I am becoming increasingly convinced that Pakistanis have noble hearts and if only your noble hearts will go forth with courage and explore what else is out there you will be happier. You don`t have to put up with anything!

If Islam annoys and saddens you and your fellow Muslims behave like Janitors, you don`t have to put up with them. Explore and reach out and find a community that meets your standard. Don`t end up with people simply because they are welcoming but find people whose values coincide with yours.

My dear Pakistanis, I envision a day when we will all collectively be westernized and become upholders of the Protestant ethic and Capitalism. We will join the first world as men and women who will put the Arabs, Muslims, Catholics, Jews and the Hindus to shame.

We will embrace the North Western European ideals, the lessons of the reformation, the laws of England, the constitution of the US, the French Rights Of Man, the spirit of the Scandinanvians, the Saxons and the Anglo Americans. We will rejoice in English and English customs and make it our own as we have begun to do today. We will take the values of the Anglo Protestants uncorrupted by French Catholic decadence and we will embrace the Protestant work ethic and we shall join the ranks of the first world!

We will be steadfast allies of the noble British and the Americans and the Europeans and we will be a city on the hill that the Persians, Afghans, Arabs, Hindus, Chinese and Russians will look up to and envy. And then we will tell them all: we chose good values and we befriended the noble and we had the courage to westernize because westernization is a virtue.

# 108
Please refrain from commenting on my posts .... I am not interested in discussing any point with you on this forum or otherwise ...Thanks!

Urstruly & MQMPower:
any system is subject to abuse. Money, Power, and Fame are blessings from Allah-Ta`lla but when misused or abused render any ``constituition`` a travesty of trust & justice.

Our present-day ``democracy``, the ``pragmatic`` and ``convenient`` methods to avoid govt. enforced Zakat, the stampede to seek refugee status by becoming ad-hoc ahmadis, christians, shias, or ``true-lovers``-post-dultery etc etc renders all this discussion futile. How does one make gobar paak?

Any nation which has no character, deserves the leaders who are drooling-dogs, tails awagging yelping in orgasmic ecstacy: `` O master don`t you see how moderate we are now. Our men & women are dying to get screwed thus & your excuse of being tired is not acceptable. We promise to Vana more muslims maee-baap``

The saudi solution how to keep satan happy & still follow ``islam``

# 112
Kindly refrain from commenting on my posts .... I dont want to interact with you on this forum or otherwise ...

Mulla A Shiraz

Sincere advice: Try to get rid of your present and past hang-ups, insecurities and complexes before you make and write such strong opinions ....

according to our resident jihadi and ijthehadi :

``Holy Prophet (pbuh) has guided us that the only differentiation between human beings in the polity is on the basis of belief. The Constitution of Medina tells us that there can be believers and non-believers in a polity. ``

....... ever wonder, ``who was jim crow (pbuh)?``............ now you know the rest of the story !

#102: You are reading things upside down. This article does not belong in an ilog. Your remarks certainly do!

Absence of Love in contemporary Islam

Shiraz.
You have touched upon a very important ``spiritual`` aspect- unfortunately some people think that it concerns outward cleanliness or orderliness. No, the true brotherhood that we miss is the flow of love and affection that one finds amongst the church goers. That is why most of the churches try not to inhibit the spontaneity and flow of love amongst the faithfuls in the name of tradition.
Where is the love towards fellow brother that one should feel when one meets another faithful inside the mosque during prayers?. So, you are likely to come out of church with a profound emotional experience than hatred for other fellow beings.

And does proliferation of churches in Christian faith dilute the basic tenents of Christianity?
I do not think so, on the other hand it ensures that violent strains are checked and kept under control.

=== Interact Filtered ===
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On Mosques vs. Churches: Another very important item that was not addressed. Christians do not bomb their fellow christians in churches. Jews do not attack their own people in synagogues. Muslims become a target in their own mosques. In fact, that`s the best opportunity to get rid of their fellow muslims. There are defintely other kinds of crimes that take place in other places of worship. Killings/bombings are only acceptable in our mosques!

zahraj - you write ``Unfortunately, when it comes to day to day prayers, there are not that many of them with a fine architecture or a decent ambience. Is there a need for more mosques to calm the muslims down and regain the essense of their faith? Certainly!``

Good point. So how much money have you donated or helped raise to bring ambience to your local mosque? Just wondering. Thanks!

Rozaiba. Actually Lot of Ijtehad is going on even on chowk right now.

For example.

#103

Also, only learned men and women should be allowed to lead the prayers. The ones who look like a daku or a cave-man ought to be discouraged. Those imams and preachers are a definite risk to Islam.