A Thousand Year Writer’s Block.. – by Omar Ali: William Burroughs famously remarked that Islam had hit a one thousand year writer’s block. Is this assessment justified? First things first: obviously we are not talking about all writing or all creative work. Thousands of talented writers have churned
Book review: Hazrat Ali and Nahjal Balagha — by Khaled Ahmed: Justice and Remembrance: Introducing the Spirituality of Imam Ali By Reza Shah-Kazemi; IB Tauris 2006 Pp 254; Special price Rs995 Available at bookstores in Pakistan This is a book from The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, and is dedicated
Hindus’ contribution towards making of Pakistan – by Sophia Ajaz: We talk about minorities in India but are strangely unaware of the existence of the same in neighbouring Pakistan. Even before Independence Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Jews and Christians existed in undivided India. There was large scale migration/exodus post partition
Was Jinnah a Shia or a Sunni? – by Khaled Ahmed: Jinnah’s funeral, Karachi (1948) Jinnah, … was wont to describe himself in public as neither a Shia nor a Sunni. His stock answer to a query about his sect was: was Muhammad [pbuh] the Prophet a Shia or a
Lady Zainab bint Ali: Victory of truth over oppression: Related articles: Ameer-ul-Mominin Ali: “The First Fighter against Islamism” – by Shaheryar Ali Horr – by Dr Ali Shariati Allama Iqbal and Ahlul-Bayt Imam Hussain, Karbala and Khilafat – by Maulana Muhammad Ishaq Female leaders in Islam have been
Zikr-e-Shahab: Remembering Qudrat Ullah Shahab: Compiled by: Abdul Nishapuri Qudratullah Shahab Shahab at a UNESCO session in Paris with Sahibzadah Yaqub Ali Khan At a sufi shrine in Canton, China, with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Shahab with General Ayub Khan in a function of Pakistan
Black fell the day – by Nadeem Paracha: This is an aspect of extremism that a lot of its more ‘moderate’ supporters in Pakistan have not comprehended. Educated men and women can be heard and seen concocting outlandish explanations and justifications in a bid to sympathetically define
Pakistan’s first ‘tarana’ by Jagan Nath Azad: Related post: Jagan Nath Azad did not write Pakistan’s first national anthem – by Dr Safdar Mehmood Cross Posted from Beena Sarwar’s Blog Complete version of the tarana by the Lahore-based poet Jagan Nath Azad, who was asked by
Did Jinnah know about the Kashmir War? — by Ishtiaq Ahmed: Those who want us to believe that an obscure colonel forced Pakistan into a war without the knowledge of the top political leadership, especially someone of the stature of Jinnah, are insulting common sense In his comment, ‘Jinnah’s role
Jinnah’s role in the Kashmir War — by Yasser Latif Hamdani: The Supreme Commander of both Indian and Pakistan forces Sir Claude Auchinleck followed Mounbatten’s policy and advised the C in C of Pakistan Army to openly defy orders of the Pakistan Governor General In his article ‘The 1947-48 Kashmir
My life with the Taliban – by Abdul Salam Zaeef: Humanising the monster Dr Mohammad Taqi My life with the Taliban By Abdul Salam Zaeef Translated from Pashto and edited by Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn Hurst/Columbia University Press; Pp 331 In his foreword to Mullah Abdul
Maulana Azad and Partition: Update: Correction: The following article is considered to be fake, hence readers are advised to post no further comments on a fake article. We have decided not to delete this post in order to preserve the comments in this
Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time – by Karen Armstrong: Book Review Title: Muhammad – A Prophet for Our Time By: Karen Armstrong 249 pages. $21.95. HarperCollins/Atlas Books. Reviewed by Laurie Goodstein – in The New York Times (International Herald Tribune) The religion with the most adherents on the
NRO verdict: a murder of history – by Humza Ikram: Recent NRO verdict is an attempt to distort our 64 years of political history. And the thing which makes me sad the most is that how easily Supreme Court picked up Benazir Bhutto’s book (Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the
Authentic, readable biography of Iqbal needed: By Rauf Parekh Monday, 09 Nov, 2009 (Dawn) COMMENTING on the genre of biography, Oscar Wilde said: ‘Formerly we used to canonise our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarise them. Cheap editions of great books may be delightful,
What Bhutto can still teach us – by Sherry Rehman: Mourners gather at Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s grave to pay their respects – AP/File photo. Remembering Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Audiovisual Interactive HISTORY as it is taught in the schoolrooms of Pakistan is very different from our collective, and often contested,
Punjab and the study of Ranjit Singh – by Ayaz Amir: Islamabad diary Friday, January 16, 2009 by Ayaz Amir At this juncture, when the seven tribal agencies along the Afghan frontier are lost to any form of government control, and Swat–once paradise on earth, now very much a picture
The creation of Bangladesh and the role of Pakistani media: On December 16, 1971 the Pakistan army in Bangladesh unconditionally surrendered to the joint Indian and Bangladeshi forces. With the signing of the Instrument of Surrender, Bangladesh came into being and united Pakistan was at an end. However, in
A historical view of terrorism – By Dr. Mubarak Ali: A STUDY of terrorism from a historical perspective would shed light on the origin of this phenomenon and the motivation behind it. It has manifested itself in different hues and colours. Terrorism has emerged in different circumstances with different