In Memory of Ahmed Faraz FFS guru ! stop spamming! you messed up the last thread on Faraz with your inane hinoodic BS and now you've started it on this one too.

Ahmed Faraz: The Light Stays I was first introduced to Faraz when my first real love gave me a book of poetry by him...I was ensnared at once!

Ahmed Faraz: The Light Stays inna lillaha wa inna ilayhi raaj'iuun.

Verily in poetry there is magic!
Ignoring guru's spamming (he is trying to make Indian Muslims leave Islam and revert to idolator --la hawla wa la quwwata!) I am really saddened to hear that Faraz sahib has passed away. The greatest Urdu poet of recent times has gone. I enjoy his poetry immensely and his nazm Sunaa Hai Log Usse Aankh bhar kay dekhate haiN is an all-time classic of subtle romance which I paid tribute to earlier on Chowk with my attempt at an (impossible) translation.

Here is Faraz reciting it in his own voice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3qy6hAhbc8

Aaj kin nazron se tum ne dekha
Ke tera dekhna dekha na jaaye!

May Allah forgive him his sins and give him Paradise.
amen!

Chowk Staff:please keep this thread only for Faraz related posts.

School Days when i was at Uni in London I knew someone from St. Patrick's...some fellow called Haroon although I'm no longer in touch....

School Days good write-up but a bit long perhaps?
i loved my own school days in Oxford...

btw what are the best school in pakistan apart from KGS, Aitchison? which pay the best? as a teacher i got an offer from the British School of Karachi last year to work there but i turned it down although the money offered was very good indeed. How much do Iinternational) teachers at Aitchison make?

Remembering the Jallianwala Bagh, Gandhi, Churchill and Jinnah are there any books written about this?
anything by dalrymple? does it get a mention in any of his works on India?

--
for me the most shameful and shocking thing about the whole affair--apart from the slaughter of innocents--was the fact that those who opened fire on behalf of the British on Dyer's orders were all Indians themselves! Why didn't they just refuse to obey orders? What could Dyer have done?!

Is this Amnesia or Dementia? why was the 9 yr old cripple shouting about bums for?
:D

Musharraf and Me i am actually feeling quite sad at his resignation. he was an honourable enough man to resign. now the looteray are going to rob the country dry again. we will rue this just as musharraf will be rueing why he took off his uniform...

Allah help Pakistan (and save it from the talibanisers!)

Fashion Or Lack Thereof a good opening which then rapidly went downhill; repeating the same point ad-nauseum [even if it is tongue in cheek] does not humour make.

And then there was The Impeachment Issue… Actually, and I cannot believe I'm saying this, a real military dictator like Ataturk might be the best bet for Pakistan in the short-to-medium term. I think the mad mullahs of the Taliban are getting too big for their boots and only a military man can de-fang them.

I was shocked to read Behtullah Masud's threats of taking Karachi the other day! Why don't the intelligence agencies/military just smoke him?

And then there was The Impeachment Issue… people want
1. economic wellbeing --roti, kapra, makaan.
2. security -- feeling safe in their own country when they walk the streets.
3.justice --an independent judiciary and a decent police force.
4. intellectual freedom -- to live their lives as they deem fit without anyone telling them how to do that.

I support anyone who will give them all these the best. I don't think it'll be the PPP/Nawaz Sharif since they're just fighting for personal vengeance. A really secular military leader might do a better job... a la Turkey with some tweaks...

And then there was The Impeachment Issue… i think we'll end up with martial law again...

Brick Lane is About Immigrants Making Difficult Choices Good write up Ras though I wasn't particularly impressed either with the book (it played to all the hackneyed stereotypes of Muslims) or with the film although I must say the main actress acted very well and visually the film looked gorgeous.

As usual the book was much better than the film and the book itself wasn't THAT good. I'd give the movie a 3/5.
Worth watching definitely...but not wonderful at all.

Fissures in the Middle OMG!

Post 207 was embarassing to READ let alone to listen to live--which I didn't. I think the advice of a lot of you of speaking in your own language if not fluent in English and using a translator is an excellent one. If anyone has the ears of Gillani sahib can you please let him know. A knowledge of English, per se, has naught to do with good leadership but one must be able to make one's case well and appear well-spoken and so if your English is poor--please stick to Urdu!

Translation of a (Love) Letter by Allama Iqbal to Miss Atiya Faizi tahir,
you obviously haven't READ what I wrote. Ibn Taymiyyah was in the Qadri order of Sufis. I know that's hard for his Wahabi acolytes to swallow.

He was imprisoned for his heresies in aqeedah --may Allah have mercy on him.

His contemporary the great shaykh al-Subki said, 'His knowledge was greater than his wisdom'.

Translation of a (Love) Letter by Allama Iqbal to Miss Atiya Faizi Offering prayers and remaining steadfast in the face of adversity IS the Prophetic way!