Author: imadahmed

Pakistan, Published Features, Published Work, The Friday TimesLeave a comment

Eid Mubarak, Balakot

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The Friday Times | Oct 6, 2006 Imaduddin Ahmed On my second visit to Balakot – the first was made three weeks before the October 8th earthquake – I found the city levelled. The shop where my father had bought his cigarettes, on the left side of the bridge across the bank, was gone. If I could have imagined the horror of Dresden and Coventry after British and German bombers had had their way, the sights, sounds and smells of Balakot would not have been that different. An estimated 7,000 of the 30,000 inhabitants died according to the Red Cross. I was here … Continue reading Eid Mubarak, Balakot

Books read, Published Features, The Friday TimesLeave a comment

Showdown in Anatolia

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The Friday Times | Sep 1, 2006 Snow By Orhan Pamuk; Translated by Maureen Freely; Faber and Faber (2004); Rs 395 Our guide, “Orhan the novelist,” is the narrator of his own novel. Culturally and politically Western, Pamuk remains critical of the force the Turkish state applies to enforce its vision of democratic secularism, established by Mustafa Kemal in the 1920s, on its Islamist population. Fictional character Turgut Bey, an honest and humane man who has suffered hardship for his beliefs (he is also the father of the beautiful Ipek) asks a question not too dissimilar from what Pamuk himself … Continue reading Showdown in Anatolia

Lahore, Published Features, Published Work, The Friday TimesLeave a comment

Alcoholics Anonymous

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Imaduddin Ahmed | The Friday Times Sadaqat clinics fill a neglected niche in the medical world “Why are you running ads on curing alcoholism when alcohol is banned in the Land of the Pure,” wrote in one inquisitive reader. Why indeed? I decide to set up an appointment with Dr Sadaqat Ali, project director of the Sadaqat Clinic, to find out. I am invited to the flagship institution of Sadaqat Clinic, Willing Ways, in Gulberg, Lahore. Formally dressed and sitting in an upright manner, Dr Sadaqat looks every bit the sober professional. And it appears that the impression has truth … Continue reading Alcoholics Anonymous

Pakistan, Published Features, The Friday Times, Women's rights1 Comment

What is a Pakistani man?

imadahmed

Imaduddin Ahmed’s week | The Friday Times Another Independence Day and we’re still here! Yes, we lost our more democratic half and there’s a bit of turmoil here and there, but we’re here and we can say “Up Yours India!” and that’s what counts, right? Well, besides being here, what do we Pakistanis have to show for ourselves? Two things that spring to mind are a few sporting achievements (a confidence booster for Pakistani male virility) and the “Muslim” nuclear bomb coupled with a few missiles – which means we’re good at erecting phallic tools that cause massive explosions (testimony … Continue reading What is a Pakistani man?

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Salahuddin Ahmed

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Maulana Salahuddin Ahmed of Adabi Duniya fame, Lahore, 1964 Excerpt from Lahore: Portrait of a Lost City by Som Anand, Chapter 7 ‘Those who grieved’: (This account directly contradicts Nano’s first-hand account of the house burning, which was not empty, and which was apparently burnt down by a Hindu mob, not a Muslim one. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see how Som Anand describes par nana.) ‘Communal riots became more intense after March ’47 and it seemed that the Muslim leadership was out to clear the city of its non-Muslim inhabitants. That is not to say that every Muslim in Lahore liked … Continue reading Salahuddin Ahmed

Books read, IslamLeave a comment

Notable Muslim thinkers

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With thanks to Reza Aslan and Ziauddin Sardar. Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111) wrote many works, including Revival of the Religious Sciences in which he argues that God is movement itself. Another work is The Alchemy of Happiness. He criticised al-Hallaj for publicly disclosing that he had reached a level of spiritual unification with God. Ibn Sina, aka Avicenna (980-1037) considered God’s attributes to be nothing more than ‘guideposts’ that merely reflected the human mind’s understanding of the Divine and not the Divine itself. In the 1990s Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, a professor at Cairo University, argued that while the Quran … Continue reading Notable Muslim thinkers

Lahore, Pakistan, Published Features, Published Work, The Friday TimesLeave a comment

Degrees of mediocrity

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Imaduddin Ahmed | The Friday Times Pakistan’s newest university has a campus in cyber space Mention ‘online university’ and conjure up images of illiterate Pakistani politicians with degrees worth as much as their rhetoric, earned by exercising a MasterCard. This is an image that Universitas21Global will fast overcome. New marketing challenges, however, await the online graduate university, entering the “ripe and promising” Pakistani market (words Dr Murkesh Aghi, “CEO” of Universitas21Global). A stream of examinations can ease readers’ minds that paying one’s way won’t be enough to earn a certificate with this university, whose flagship courses are its MBA and … Continue reading Degrees of mediocrity