Faith, Rationality and Consequences

Faith, for me, is a private matter. What I have in my heart regarding myself and the God, is to remain within confines of my heart and others have no right to judge or base their acts on it. But this assumption gets tested most of the times.

Islam is different in the sense that it involves various issues that relate to society in general, for example, guidelines related to divorce, matters related to orphans, inheritance, marriage so on and so forth. This renders the border between personal faith and public display of religion in form of rites, rituals and behaviors all the more blurred. What constitutes as a matter of my personal faith and how implementation of a certain religious injunction could intrude into that personal space are topics of interest.


Why do we hate the Taliban? Because they make religion (their sect specifically) enforceable by power. Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan are testament to the brutality that Taliban inflict in the name of religion. If I offer my prayers or not, Taliban should not have a problem with that, but unfortunately, it is their problem so I will be dragged to the mosque if I did not say my prayers, will be forced to grow beard and my pants will be above my ankles because according to them its un-islamic. They will not care how good a person you may have been otherwise but if you did not fall to the crtiera they have established, you are not good.


Then there is this little interesting thing. There is an author at Express Tribune who posted in the Blog section of the newspaper titled 'Who says I can’t be a Muslim feminist?' What she was trying to say was that while being a muslim, she held feminine principles too and did not find them contradictory in their implementation. The regular comments followed. I too participated in it. The basic thrust of the arguments was against her telling her that she could not be a muslim and a feminist at the same time because both were contradictory in nature.

The discussion then focused upon a verse of Quran and what implications it might have on the people following it. This will also serve as an example to what I am trying to say in this post. Here is the Quranic verse.


2:232 - Your wives are as a tilth unto you; so approach your tilth when or how ye will; but do some good act for your souls beforehand; and fear Allah. And know that ye are to meet Him (in the Hereafter), and give (these) good tidings to those who believe.  


This is a much debated verse of Quran and antagonistic say that this verse is extremely demeaning to women, that women are to be treated like 'tilth' - they say and provides males all the powers to abuse women. I differed. I said I found the verse telling me to be kind to the women folk. (I will be writing a separate post on that verse later on why I said so, its in the comments of the news website if anyone is interested. My Post 'Verse 2:223 - Women and 'Tilth')


The nice souls on that blog were trying to make me understand what the verses really meant – and they were very mean according to them. They all worried, rightly, that if I were to follow such scripture, I would end up on the wrong front – in this case, will abuse womenfolk. I, on the other hand, the adherent to this scripture, was saying that the scripture was telling me to be nice to womenfolk. These guys were insisting, that since the verses were wrong so I had to be wrong. They said I was just 'sugar coating' the verse by offering explanations. Instead of being worried what I was deriving from the verse they were more interested in what verse really meant. If they thought it would result in my being abusive to women then I was stating the opposite. Is it not this what they wanted?


Take the case of this blog author. She says she is a muslim and considers herself a feminist. She wants to maintain her faith and be a productive member of the society. BUT she is wrong. Why? because Islam and feminism are ‘oxymorons’ to each other. So she could not be a valuable member of the society because she was an adherent of Islam. Not very different from religious bigots who say that only religion provides the moral guidelines. They think that an atheist would not be a good human being, that secular societies would be glaring examples of social evil conveniently forgetting that best law abiding societies are secular. 

In essence, one would not care whether I am a productive member of the society but more interested to know what my faith was and then trashing it. But for what? Does one argue just for the sake of argument or there has to be an outcome preferably positive from it? Whether I am a believer of a certain faith, follower of a particular religion, believer in thousand gods or just single one, whether I am an atheist and rationality is my only god - should one not be concerned with what good I do for the society and/or personally instead of what I believe in?

The only consequence should be - whether you are believer of a particular faith or your religion is only rationality and logic - be human and humane. Peace.

A Case of Religion Promoting Hatred?

*a discussion on culture, role of religion in morphing the culture, how western societies are 'missing' the positive factor of religion - it took an interesting turn*

He: When you separate religion from your life – you are deprived of many humanly attributes which God has bestowed and which one could realize only after losing them – Ultra social and moral less set ups have got nothing for ailing humanity in the longer run however they can further aggravate their plight.

look deep into the western society, they have abandoned their family values for the sake of MY Life and My World, Yes – apparently this has given them some edge over others but despite their much development and progress now they feel that they had made a real bad bargain and now desperately they are trying to turn the wheel in counter direction. So serious is their problem that when it comes to the presidential elections of USA – then candidate’s family setup and family values are also rated as of great importance. The candidate is supposed to project and talk about high family values.

I : Religion is one of the input of social norms - not the only one. What you state suggests that Americans are relinquishing their secular credentials.. which of course is not the case. Laws, regulations, environment, social framework for example - all of these contribute, alongside religion of course, to mould the norms of society. Let me give you an example. In Afghanistan and North Western Pakistan, burqa is very common - not becasue of religion but due to custom. Had it been religion then every muslim women on earth would have worn burqa.

As a law, you can not spit chewing gum in Singapore - this has resulted in Singapore being the cleanest of territories. We, the Islamic nation, are more akin to a toilet as compared to Singapore.

He : Postman- laws, regulations, social frameworks etc etc. these are not constants rather variables and being inferior in their ‘spirit’ and structure they require constant revamping for their validity and acceptability though for a short period. Where as religion – Islam - is an absolute constant in letter and spirit because of its divine nature and perfection. (since God himself has endorsed its perfection). Now the real problem is that humans have made religion as supplement, because by and large it does not entertain their ID.

Yes ‘burqa’ is a religious phenomenon but then why does not rest of the muslim world observe it? This has some thing to do with, how much one believes in his religion. Is he a muslim because accidentally he was born in a muslim family? Or he believes that bearing a muslim name and practicing few commandments of his choice are enough to entitle him for paradise.

I : It is an absolute constant, in letter and spirit due to its divine nature and perfection, only for you and me. Not for anyone else. What we tend to forget is that we are not MUSLIM only nation, they are other religions involved. For us its only Islam and god-damn the rest. And us muslims are further bifurcated in sunnis,shias, hanfi, deobandi, ahmadi etc etc. Islam is NOT an absolute constant if looked fom this perspective. Its a fine thought but reality bites.

He : I believe that ‘originally’ none of the early religions preached anything against the divine law, where as it were followers who try to deviate from divine law under one pretext or the other, they label such deviations as tradition/ custom etc.. an easy scapegoat. Later over the ages when this cunning art got perfected and was acknowledged globally as axiom it was then that people tried to differentiate between customs and religion

At present we are witnessing the worst phase where in, by and large, religion is fast losing its divine spirit and role. Contrary to that traditions and customs are being widely accepted because of globalization, embracing and practicing them do not require any rationale neither passport nor any one needs to change his clothes.

I: Why is it that you would readily accept the culture of using mobile phones but would shy away from basant? Why is Basant 'hindu' and mobile phone 'secular'?

He : Cell phone is a technology nothing to do with religion.Flying kites is Okay for me, love flying them - but since basant has got strings tied to religious sentiments relating to a specific event therefore flying kites during specific days realting to incident is ignorance and lack of knowledge of religious history of our region.

I: why do you have to attach religion with flying kites? Just as there is no link of mobile phones with religion.

He : i told you that i like flying kites rather love flying kites but if flying kites (in specific style and conditions) is associated with religious sentiments of non muslims then i will not fly kite with specific style and period. I will simply avoid that time duration and later enjoy my hobby - simple as that.

I : Why should you be even concerned with what religious association kite flying holds?

He : Kite flying and yellow color celebrations are linked with blasphemy. I being a poor believer still can not tolerate this.

I : Well then I find putting in religion as a blasphemy... had it not been due to religion, you would not have found any problem with it. certainly would not have found it blasphemous. A classic example of religion promoting hatred, I hasten to add.

'I Hate You'

We really hate each other.. when it comes to religion that is. I do not know what is it but when religion is involved, somehow the hatred level just shoots up. Ethnicity and religious factors, I guess, have killed more people than any other thing. In this post, I am more interested in religious hatred. This hatred could be intra-religious or inter-religious. Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus.. it seems no body trusts each other. When it comes to Islam, Shia sunni are at each others throat. Talking of local scenario, it would be Deobandis against Barelvis. But Qadianis and Ahmadis are way on top of the list! Oh we muslims hate them the most I guess?!

What the hell.

Ok lets start with myself. I have a tag of 'sunni' on my forehead. I would like to call myself 'muslim' but.. forget it. When I was in school, the shias were the enemy number one I was told. Not my family but my friends - mosque ones in specific. I was told that I should not eat anything from a shia because they spit in it and then give it to sunnis to eat! No kidding!

Our school text books painted Hindus and Hinduism in a really bad taste. I still remember my history teacher saying "Hindus have a closed mentality which is obvious from their prayer areas whereas muslims are broadminded as you can see from mosques". How lovely. I also had a christian friend in school. He was my best friend. He lived near the school so on more than one occasion I went to his place and ate. Although the prohibition of eating applied on them as well but hey... I was hungry! When I was in class 8th, I told him to convert to Islam! He told me to convert to christianity! and I was like.. 'what the hell..what does one say next?!'. Never asked him again!

When inter-religious conflicts are taken in to consideration, then one can understand that 'fear' of being over powered by another religion does take effect. Crusades can be taken as an example. In todays world, Muslims fear that West in general and America in particular are after everything Islam and muslims. Further, when it comes to ethnic warring, one party is claiming sufferings at the hand of another because either the rights are being subjugated or the land perhaps is being taken. Perhaps the majority ethnic group is in control of financial matters and is not giving due right to other ethnic group. I mean, there is a reason to be feeling opposed. But in this case where various sects of Islam are concerned.. there is nothing! We just hate one another for our respective faiths! Don't we?! Or 'fear' working here as well?

In Pakistan things are really complex. There are so many sects and each does not have a liking for one another. In Northern Pakistan, Chilas and Gilgit are notorious for sectarian clashes. People used to burn down villages of opposing sects. In Parachinar, 100s of people have lost their lives. Shias and sunnis killing each other.. militant political wings of Sunis and Shias outdoing one another. for what?

One thing I fail to understand is that why we hate Ahmadis and Qadiyanis so much! So what if they believe in another person as prophet and do not consider Prophet Muhammad to be the last of all the prophets?! I still have my jewels complete in numbers and with me after hearing this! I mean if they are wrong, God will take care of them on Judgment Day! He will whip them or whatever after the results are in! No? What on earth is being taken from us for their beliefs?! I mean Christians believe in trinity. We muslims don't make fuss of that too much but when it comes to Ahmadis or Qadiyanis.. all hell breaks loose! Why? Dr. Abdul Salam, the only Nobel laureate from Pakistan in Physics, is not given his due share only because he was a Qadiyani.

Its not just within muslim world that hatred exists. I have been part of anti-islamic discussion boards and the hate was unbelievable. You could not hear a sane voice. Whether its publishing of cartoons or anti-islamic video by that dutch politician.. hatred seems to be at work.

Unfortunate.