meethapani

  Fearless Gazelles of Islam Nusaybah bint Ka`b, seeing the Prophet ( PBUH) unprotected during the Battle of Uhud, ran to shield him with her sword alongside her husband and son. She received many wounds, and the Prophet himself (PBUH) said, wherever he turned, whether to the right or to the left, he saw her defending him. She was present at a number of battles, and at the age of 60 fought at Al-Yamamah, receiving 11 wounds, also losing her hand. When Khawla bint al-Azwar’s brother was taken captive by the Byzantines, she put on armour and charged into the Byzantine troops to rescue him. Taken captive at the Battle of Marj al Saffar, she fended off the Byzantines with a tentpole, killing seven. Muslim women were an important part of every battle rallying their men, or tending to the wounded, sometimes taking up arms or composing taunting poetry. Ghazala al-Haruriyya called out to the fleeing Umayyad General “You are a lion against me but were made into an ostrich which spread...

    Tending the Garden Religions would have us believe humans started their existence in a garden and a garden awaits them at the end of their life. Earth itself is cherished amongst all the planets of our solar system for its lush plant life, which is home to an estimated 8.7 million plant and animal species. The degradation of the earth’s environment is also gauged by its shrinking or damaged forests. For urban dwellers, liveability is determined to a large extent by public parks, trees and domestic gardens, as nature is pushed out by tarmac and concrete. As Singapore has shown, well maintained green spaces are a factor in attracting increased financial investment and the promise of prosperity. The garden is also a metaphor, a philosophical concept, and a spiritual, poetic and artistic symbol. Landscape painting and references to gardens in poetry are time-honoured traditions. The British philosopher John Wisdom called God the “Invisible Gardener”, who maintains all ...

  How will we be remembered?   A few weeks ago, a phrase in an obituary in Dawn stood out - “Life Long Fighter for Rule of LAW”. There was something moving about the prominence given to this achievement amongst all the other posts held by the jurist Syed Sami Ahmed.   Recently there has been much talk in Pakistan of how people will be remembered – jurists, armed forces, police, legislators, politicians, protestors, journalists – as the country twists uncomfortably like a tied down animal struggling to break free. Before autobiographies and history books came into existence, the achievements of people were written on their gravestones as epitaphs, often by the deceased themselves during their lifetime.     The ancient Egyptians inscribed their achievements for the hereafter. The Greeks and Romans wished to be immortalized as heroes for future generations. Some epitaphs honoured entire armies: “Here four thousand from the Peloponnese once fought again...

  Social Distance The recent Covid 19 pandemic became synonymous with the term, social distance. However, social distancing has been practiced in a variety of ways probably since human societies formed. Social distance is the cultivation of physical, psychological and cultural differences between different groups of people on the basis of class, race, gender, political thought, religion and their many subsets. In Pakistan social distance has been institutionalized for thousands of years.   While the ruins of Moen jo Daro and Harappa reveal no visible signs of class hierarchy, with the Aryan invasion, caste and class became entrenched. Each subsequent invader further consolidated hierarchies of power and privilege. Power and privilege remain a hallmark of Pakistani society.   The Waderas of Sindh, the Zamindars of Punjab, the Nawabs of Baluchistan, the Maliks of Khyber Pakhtunkwa, the higher echelons of the business community, and the top positions of the Civil Ser...

  Negotiating Revolution When we think of revolutions, most people visualise the cataclysmic events of the 1789 French revolution, the barbarism of which has been sanitized as “Liberte Egalite Fraternite” - Liberty Equality and Brotherhood. The French Reign of Terror inspired Russia’s 1918 Red Terror, which sought to eliminate political dissent, opposition, and any other threat to Bolshevik power. These revolutions, with the reprisals and counter revolutionary actions that followed, came to seen as a threat to progress. Market Democracy was proposed as an alternative to people power, but quickly morphed into a Market Economy, building up wealth in the hands of a few.      George Lawson disagrees that revolutions should be consigned to history. Instead, he proposes the idea of a negotiated revolution. Instead of “a fight to the finish, comes a process in which the old regime and revolutionaries together negotiate the destruction of the old order and the bir...