Book launch tonight: "Online"

Would you like a free ebook of 2017: The Battle for Marghdeen as soon as it is published tonight? Some coupons will be made available from this blog for a limited time.

Marghdeen is an ideal city presented by Iqbal in Javid Nama. There is no poverty, crime or injustice. Life is inside-out and people know their destinies. 

In my new book, 2017, I have tried to explain that Marghdeen is a parable about our times. It describes what can be achieved today, if we are willing to understand the principles and bring a change in how we see the world. 

The book is just 80 pages, but has taken me five years to write. I hope that everybody will find it readable and interesting - some kind of "non-fiction thriller". 

It will be released electronically by Libredux, UK, tonight at midnight when Pakistan celebrates its 65th Independence Day. A special post will be uploaded on this blog and sent out in the newsletter at that time. 

2017: The Battle for Marghdeen

Cover from Roo Communication Design

To be published by Libredux, UK
on 14 August 2012,
65th Independence Day of Pakistan

My two new books

اقبال: درمیانی دَور

This Ramazan, I am announcing two new books. The first is Iqbal: Darmiani Daur (Urdu). The other will be a non-fiction thriller, released internationally on the midnight of August 14 (Pakistan Standard Time) - for a reason.

In January 1914, the nations of the East were at their lowest ebb. The Ottoman Empire had been recently humiliated in Tripoli and Balkans. The Muslim states of Northern Africa were being devoured by European powers, one by one. Persia's vulnerability to the expansionist designs of Russia and Britain had been exposed. Afghanistan was hardly independent and South Asia was under the British rule.

Nine years later, by December 1922, East was rejoicing in its awakening and brimming with confidence. Turkey had emerged as a new republic, promising to be more stable than the war-weary nations of Europe. British India was shaking with a full-scale movement for independence, more widespread and better organized than the "mutiny" of 1857. Afghanistan had regained full independence and started to modernize itself. Persia and Egypt were on the verge of regaining their past glories. Morocco had inflicted humiliating defeat on Spanish invaders, using guerilla techniques that were already inspiring a young Mao Tse-tung in China, and would later serve as role model for Che Guevara.

How did this happen? This is the question which I have tried to answer in my new book, Iqbal: Darmiani Daur. It is a biography of Iqbal in the middle years of his life: 1914 to 1922. However, it is much more than a biography. I am trying to tell a true story that has never been told before, and the story is not about the past. It is about the origins of our present.

The book is almost one thousand pages, and the cover price is Rs.1000 (One Thousand Rupees). However, discounts are available since the publisher, Iqbal Academy Pakistan, is dedicated to spreading the message of Iqbal. If you are interested, kindly let me know and I shall see how the book can reach you as conveniently as possible.

More to follow...

Ibne Safi as a social reformer

The following recollection about Ibne Safi has been written by his illustrious son Dr. Ahmad Safi (on my request, may I add with pride) - Khurram Ali Shafique.

My father my guide…

by Ahmad Safi

People have lately been discovering Ibne Safi as a reformer and finding out about his services in this regard through his writings. As a son I witnessed this side of his personality very closely. Abbou [Father] was a reformer indeed.

I remember, during the few months break that I got after my F.Sc. exams, I took to the leftist thought and literature. This was mainly under the peer influence. Like many of my close friends, I started learning more about Communist and Socialist movements. In the late seventies the relevant literature was readily available and to be interested in such things was in vogue.

In our household we were allowed to read any kind of books we wanted. There were no restriction and we never had to hide any books we were reading. One day Abbou saw me setting some books on shelf. Those were by and about Vladimir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. Upon Abbou’s enquiry, I told him I was particularly impressed by Lenin’s policy on dissemination of education and thought this could be adapted for Pakistan. I said this and some more on the topic just to impress him but he cautioned me softly. He told me not to be impressed by any literature or ideology without first checking out what our religion had to offer. According to him this would give me something for comparison – and then I should be free to form any opinions and make decisions accordingly.

I thank Abbou for putting me on the right path. I took the advice and found out that indeed I had a very rich religious tradition and all other isms and ideologies proved to be mere subsets in terms of thought and ideas.

I see this character in his writings all the way as well. He never pushed his ideas on his readers but showed them the path and educated them. That is why his readers could make intelligent decisions and take the ownership of those too.

Plato: Allegory of the Cave

Poor creatures. They have spent all their lives chained inside a cave. Behind them is a raised pathway from which people pass, carrying goods to the marketplace. Further behind is a fire. In front of the bonded cavemen is a wall on which the fire casts shadows of the walkers. The cavemen think that these shadows are the real things, since their painful position does not allow them to turn their heads or look them. Now, suppose, one of them was freed from his chains and got a chance to see the real people, or even to walk outside the cave and catch a glimpse of the world outside?

This is the allegory of the cave, written by the Greek philosopher Plato (423 BC to 347 BC) in the fourth  century BC in his famous book, The Republic. While writing the third, fourth and fifth books of Iqbal's biography, I am becoming increasingly aware that in a manner speaking the entire philosophy of Iqbal is an intellectual revolt against this allegory and its implications. It seems to me that the mission of Iqbal was to rid the literature of the world, especially of the East, from the influence of Plato - strange?

I am trained to be a historian. So, while Plato was a great philosopher, I would leave his philosophy for others and only attempt to highlight its historical context.

Iqbal's basic statement on Plato is that his philosophy was a Greek reaction to the crushing defeat at the hands of Persians. Representing a nation which had given up hope of winning in the battlefield, Plato invented a system of thought that could work like a virus. It could weaken the strength of the conquerors by teaching them that the real world was unreal. So, according to this argument, Plato was a kind of Trojan horse: take his ideas home, and they shall niggle you from the inside (see 'Secrets of the Self' for more details).

Unfortunately the history of ancient Persia is almost lost - it has come to us mainly in the form of fragments written by its adversaries. As such we do not possess enough documentation for deciding whether the Persian contemporaries of Plato ever imported his ideas. However, there are a few interesting connections which may be noted. I shall visit them in the next post. First, let's take a quick look at the philosophy of Plato from the perspective of Iqbal and notice its relevance to the political situation of the day.

Almost a century and a quarter before the birth of Plato, the great Achaemenid Empire came into being in Persia in c.550 BC. It became the largest empire known to history by that time, stretching from Egypt to Pakistan, and from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf. It entered into conflict with the Greek city-states, which eventually resulted in the sacking of Athens by the Persian emperor Xerxes in 480 BC. However, the Persian fleet was subsequently defeated in the Battle of Salamis soon afterwards.

This may have given a breathing space to Greeks, and perhaps also restored their confidence. However, a curious development that took place around this time was that the Persians shifted their focus from conquest to culture. The lasting monuments of the empire were built around this period, and they betray some cultural influence from the Greeks: for instance, one cannot miss an ironic similarity between the surviving pillars in the ruins of Persepolis and the architecture of ancient Athens. Is it possible that at this point in time, which was just before the birth of Plato, Persians had actually become open to cultural influences from the lands which they had conquered or defeated? This is a question which shall be revisited later.

Can we be permitted to place the allegory of the cave against this backdrop? Plato's own interpretation was that the humanity in general was like those captives chained in the cave: the world which appeared "real" to us is not unlike the shadows cast on that wall. The real things are "ideas" of archetypal forms, just like those real people whom the cavemen cannot see walking behind them because their chains do not let them turn their heads. Philosopher is someone who breaks free of this physical world - the shadows - and thereby gets to see the real world - the world of ideas or forms. Therefore, Plato argues, nations should be ruled by "philosopher kings". We should not have democracy because the unthinking masses are not unlike those cavemen who cannot tell the shadows from the real things.

This political implication of the parable itself betrays a sense of inferiority complex on part of Greeks in front of Persians. Greek states at that time were usually democratic, one way or another. They took great pride in being democracies. The Persian Empire was ruled by "the King of all kings" - shahenshah. Perhaps it is not too much to say that in debunking democracy in favour of enlightened monarchy, Plato was revealing a tinge of preference for the Persian way of government over the Greek model. Although I must add quickly that in my opinion Plato failed to understand the basic point about Persian monarchy, and the insight of the great founder of the Achaemenid Empire, as I shall try to show later.

For now, let's conclude this post on this note: while Plato may have invented his allegory in order to illustrate a philosophical point which he had in mind, we know very well that the motifs we pick up for constructing our stories invariably betray the working of our unconscious minds. If we apply the same principles of historicity which is usually applied on any literature of the world, the allegory of the cave can also be interpreted as an allegory about Greeks and Persians. The cavemen chained inside their caves were Greeks living in their rough mountainous terrains while the world outside was the great Persian Empire: the real thing.

The quest for understanding the Persian Empire - and acquiring wisdom about the sources of its astounding political power - had been on the minds of most thinking Greeks ever since the Achaemenid Empire came into being. Just a generation before Plato, Herodotus (c.484 BC to c.425 BC) had practically invented a new subject - "History" - for that purpose.

The first line of the famous work of Herodotus, written seven years before the birth of Plato, could be translated as: "Herodotus of Halicarnassus,, his Researches [Histories] are here set down to preserve the memory of the past by putting on record the astonishing achievements both of our own and of other peoples; and more particularly, to show how they came into conflict." It is quite possible that Plato also shared that purpose but while Herodotus had tried to achieve it by collecting facts, Plato embarked on the more dangerous business of pure speculation and hence came up with the idea of a "philosopher king" which Iqbal considered so important to be debunked.

Is the idea of a "philosopher king" really so bad? Well, to begin with, the Quran also has its own role model of an ideal king. The Quran refers to him as Zulqarnayn. Modern scholarship has identified him almost conclusively as (hold your breath) Cyrus the Great, the founder of the same Achaemenid Persian Empire which was ruling the world in the days of Plato. The chapter of the Quran in which this ideal king is described is called (and please hold your breath again): 'The Cave'.

Next: The Cyrus Mystery

A Personal Request

This is Coventry Transport Museum:
a scene which I see several times
every week, as it is just opposite
the main bus station.
Picture from Coventry Travel Guide

I shifted to UK in October last year and I am likely to remain here for a few more months. This period has been very formative in my life in ways that I had not expected. Being away from my own society provided me an opportunity to sort out my thoughts "in isolation" and without "influences". Hence I am writing this post in a personal voice to share a few conclusions upon which I have arrived in these few months, and some plans which I have made for myself.

I am now convinced that the root of all our problems in Pakistan is that we do not know our history. To some extent this is also the major problem for the whole world. Things happened so fast after the Second World War that the academic world failed to keep pace with the changes that were taking place. Well-known words changed their meanings quickly and the result was that things which meant something else yesterday suddenly came to mean something very different the next day. 

I shall give only one example: democracy. In the days of Iqbal (1877-1938), it had two meanings. In the first instance, democracy meant a government chosen by the people (as it means now). In this sense of the word, Iqbal considered democracy and Islam to be almost the same thing - in practically every prose writing from 1908 onwards, Iqbal praised democracy and went to the extent of saying that the British Empire in 1909 was the greatest Muslim state because it was fulfilling the Islamic ideal of promoting democracy!

However, the other meaning of the same term was a state who follows its territorial interests as its only ideal and defines itself by its territory rather than by any higher ideal. This connotation of democracy was due to the historical evolution of democratic governments in Europe where secularism, territorial nationalism and democracy evolved simultaneously and very often it was difficult to separate one from the other. This was the concept which Iqbal found unacceptable and criticized it unrelentingly. In this criticism, he often used the word "democracy" to mean all these negative things, but this usage was usually restricted to his Urdu poetry (and I think that this was because his Urdu readers were more "aware" of the democratic ideals of Islam than the readers of his English writings).

Consider this example, and then see how in Pakistan and elsewhere Iqbal has come to be seen as someone who was opposed to the idea of democracy! What can we say to such confusion? Has it been created deliberately by people who knew too much, or has it been spread by mediocre scholars who didn't know what they were talking about? I am afraid that the answer lies in those pages of recent history which have never been presented before the public.

So, the first major aim which I have now adopted for myself is to complete my six books of Iqbal's biography in Urdu. Books One and Two have already been published by Iqbal Academy Pakistan. Book Three is now ready and I hope that it is going to be published by Iqbal's death anniversary this year on April 21. I am now working on books Four and Five, and I hope to finish them within a few months.

These books are more than a biography of Iqbal. I hope to make them nothing less than a history of the Pakistani nation - as never told before. I shall be writing more about this subject on this blog.

The second major aim which I have for this year is to expand the outreach of those online courses in Iqbal Studies which started last year. The response from participants of these courses has been so encouraging that I am compelled to believe that this is an area in which we should all combine our efforts: the courses have not only interested Pakistani audience but even so many from abroad. This is also something about which I shall be writing more - but quite possibly on the other blog, Marghdeen Learning Centre, which has been set up for these courses.

These are my two aims for now: to present a comprehensive history of Pakistan through the biography of Iqbal and related works, and to expand the outreach of online courses in Iqbal Studies. 

I request all my friends and well-wishers to support me and join me in this effort.

The World of Quran

The great Muslim reformer
Syed Jamaluddin Afghani.

Lesson 3.4 in the online course 'Self-Development through Iqbal' is about "the World of Quran" as explained by Syed Jamaluddin Afghani in the second chapter of Iqbal's Javid Nama (1932). Quite understandably, participants like it very much: they all seem to like the notion that a world of Quran is coming into being in our times, and so on.

I seriously wonder if they would still like it if they knew what it actually meant. To begin with, the text says that the World of Quran lies in the hearts of Muslims. In our times we have come to presume that "Muslim" in this sense only refers to "practising Muslims" or perhaps only those Muslims which fit our definition of what a good Muslim is, and they would be very few at least by our standards. The rest of the Muslim nation, or at least the majority of Muslims in any case, are not deserving of the label "Muslim" according to us, and therefore the World of Quran does not exist in their hearts.

Quite the contrary. Iqbal's usage of the word "Muslim" in this sense included the sinners and the deluded too. Throughout his life he insisted that the consensus of the Muslim community should be binding on all its individuals - and he did not exclude any Muslim from this as long as they believed in the Unity of God and the finality of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him).

In 1931, when he was leaving for the Round Table Conference, he was asked by a journalist what would he do if all Muslims gave up separate electorates and decided in favour of join electorates. Now, Iqbal believed that giving up separate electorates would mean the end of Islam in India but his answer was that although he is quite sure that Muslims would never give it up, but if they do, then he would happily follow the unanimous decision of his nation.

Can we expect any of our religiously-inclined politicians to say this? Or our liberals and progressives? No, the irony is that the leadership which emerged soon after the birth of Pakistan, whether religiously inclined or secular, has been insisting that its own ideas are the best and whoever doesn't agree with them is either misinformed or dishonest and their opinions should not be regarded.

As long as we take this position, no new ideal can be discovered because we are essentially imposing our pre-discovered ideal on the nation rather than giving it a chance to show us something which we do not already know: a "new world" emerging out of the hearts of those who, whether saints or sinners, are chained together by the love of their Holy Prophet (peace be upon him).

I thought it was important that I highlight this fundamental difference which exists between our perception of things and Iqbal's. To him, the personal opinion of any scholar, whether religious or secular, could not overrule the consensus of the nation - and he was himself ever-ready to change his position if dictated by the consensus of his nation. The interview from which I have quoted above is just an example. Other examples are too numerous to be quoted here, but a detailed exposition of this philosophy occurs in 'Mysteries of Selflessness' (رموزِ بیخودی), the second part of Secrets and Mysteries. The same idea is summed up in countless verses, such as this most famous one where he says that individuals have no existence of their own, just as waves cannot be conceived outside the sea:

فرد قائم ربطِ ملت سے ہے تنہا کچھ نہیں
موج ہے دریا میں اور بیرونِ دریا کچھ نہیں

Young people often ask me how they should start if they want to follow Iqbal. In my humble opinion the first step is to acknowledge this difference which exists between Iqbal's perception and our own. You do not have to change your position at once. Give it a thought and even feel free to reject it. But at least know that this difference exists. That is the first step, or else you would be rowing your boat in a mirage: you were born in a veil and would die without ever having lifted it.

Tips for reading the Reconstruction

There are several ways of reading the Reconstruction. Firstly, it may help to remember that it's a very strange book.

I do not remember how many times I must have read it from cover to cover - and i have got three different copies of the Reconstruction filled with my notes on the margins - but even then, somebody quotes a passage from it and I feel as if I have never heard it. I look it up, and I realize that it now means something entirely different from what it seemed earlier.

So, it is a book which keeps changing its meanings according to our states of mind. I think that is its purpose, too. 

If you find difficulty understanding this book, do not think that this is your problem alone: Iqbal had the same problem too. His student Syed Nazeer Niazi, who started translating the book into Urdu soon after its publication, has written that sometimes he would ask Iqbal about the meaning of a certain passage and Iqbal would look puzzled; and say that he himself cannot fully explain the meanings of certain passages and doesn't remember in what intuitive mode he wrote them.

I have found that there are three best approaches for reading this book. 

1. The first is to read it as if it was a book of quotations. Browse through it, mark anything which you find interesting and consider it the reward for the day. Spend a good deal of time reflecting on it.
2. Another approach could be to quickly determine what is the basic purpose of a lecture - its theme. Then link everything else in the lecture to that theme or purpose.
3. Third approach, well, is to read it as a commentary on Javid Nama. You will see that the seven lectures of the Reconstruction are parallel to the seven chapters of Javid Nama. Try to compare each chapter of Javid Nama with the corresponding lecture in the Reconstruction, and see what you get. 

By the way, go to the last page of the Reconstruction: what are the two last words in that book?

Gaddafi: a Pakistani perspective

Old times: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Gaddafi
in the early 1970s

Growing up in Pakistan in the 1970s, I first heard the name of Gaddafi (called "Qazzafi" in Pakistan) with reference to his impassioned speech at the Islamic Summit Conference held in 1974 in Lahore. It was said that he stole the show with his blunt speech in favor of Pakistan's nuclear programme.

He became a personal friend of our prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who renamed the National Stadium Lahore as "Gaddafi Stadium". Wikipedia describes it as "the largest field cricket stadium in world with the capacity of 60,000 spectators". Ironically now, even if he gets buried in an unmarked grave as announced by the new regime in Libya, Gaddafi may still leave his name on the largest field cricket stadium of the world.

The warmth between "Colonel Qazzafi" and an average Pakistani was probably lost after the execution of Bhutto in 1979. Information about the Libyan leader's involvement in international terrorism and his high-handedness at home, which had apparently been toned down by the media during the Bhutto regime, was now allowed to become more widespread in Pakistan.

Things changed again in 1988 when the Bhutto family returned to power. Benazir's stints as Prime Minister were short (from 1988 to 1990, and from 1993 to 1996), but the kind of intelligentsia which came to rise with her stayed in place for a long time. Some of them were intellectuals who would denounce General Zia as oppressive dictator from one corner of their mouths and hail Colonel "Qazzafi" as liberator of the oppressed and a true friend of the people from the other.

It was usually said that the younger lot in the Bhutto family, such as Benazir and her siblings, affectionately called him "Uncle Qazzafi".

However, Gaddafi's stardom was over at least for the people of Pakistan. He faded out of the headlines once again in the 1990s; and made a comeback only in the 21st Century as the new ally of the West - the reformed warlord who was now eager to play his role in world peace, of course, with assistance from the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The rest, we may say, is not history but current affairs (no pun intended with any reference to the previous sentence). So, no need to go over it here, since this post has been written mainly for the benefit of the younger generation, many of whom may not have known this subjective side of the Pakistani part of the story.

One lesson to be learnt from all the information which is coming our way with regards to the events in Africa and the Middle East is that at least we should give due credit to our history. Since 1947, we have had our share of military rulers and civilian dictators, and some of them may have aspired to stay in power for forty years, or to set up dynastic rule. However, hats off to the people of Pakistan, such a thing has never actually happened here. Let's remember this, so that it doesn't happen here even in the future.

Above: Speech (in English) by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
in honour of Gaddafi and the Libyan delegation
at PM Guest House, Pakistan, on
February 26, 1974;
Below: Gaddafi's speech (in Arabic) in Pakistan,
February 22 (in 3 parts)

Independence Day: August 14 or 15?

On the morning of August 14, the last British Viceroy Mountbatten attended a ceremony at the Constituent Assembly Building (now the Sindh Assembly) in Karachi. There he “transferred the power” to the Governor-General designate Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the elected representatives of the people.

The nation had become independent but technically speaking, Pakistan was not yet born. The Viceroy flew off to New Delhi the same afternoon. The Union Jack was still flying in the Governor-General house when it was suggested to the Quaid that it should be removed now that British had left. He refused, since such discourtesy would have been beneath his dignity. Hence the British flag was brought down at its appointed hour of the sunset and not without due respect.

That sunset also marked the beginning of the 27^th of Ramadan – the “Night of Power”, which according to the Quran was better than a thousand nights, when angels and the Spirit descend on the earth in order to carry out every task under the direct command of the Creator. It was a night which, according to the Quran, is peace till the dawn. The Quran itself had been revealed on this night more than 1300 years ago.

The radio station of Lahore went on announcing itself as “All-India Radio” till shortly before midnight.

The birth of Pakistan was announced at the appointed hour, which was the midnight. The next morning, i.e. August 15 (Ramazan 27^th), the newspapers felicitated the people on the birth of an independent state. Quaid-i-Azam was sworn in as Governor-General. Liaquat Ali Khan took oath as Prime Minister. The flag of Pakistan was hoisted. The Quaid addressed the nation on radio. And, therefore, “the evening and the morning were the first day.”

The question then arose whether the “Independence Day” should be celebrated on August 14^th or 15^th in the future? My friend Aqeel Abbas Jafri tells me that he has seen in the national archives an official circular that was properly circulated the next year stating that although Pakistan came into being on August 15, it would be more appropriate if it celebrates its “Independence Day” on August 14, since the nation had technically become independent with the transfer of power by the last Viceroy.

This practice has been followed since 1948. Unfortunately there is no dearth of sensationalists who distort these facts in order to gain quick attention. They raise objections to the celebration of the Independence Day on August 14.

I almost became a victim to one myself when I read his book The Murder of History in Pakistan in the early 1990s. The author made much of the fact that Pakistan was born on August 15, and therefore it was wrong to celebrate the Independence Day on August 14. This author did not care to address some basic questions which any historian with a shred of self-respect would have tried to answer before raising the alarm: When was the date of the Independence Day changed to August 14? Who changed it, under what authority and was any reason given? Documents are available in the national archives and they leave no room for ambiguity.

The argument presented in The Murder of History in Pakistan has been picked up by countless other sensationalists. Neither of them has the self-respect to even raise these basic questions. We cannot say whether they fail to raise the questions because their real intention is not to set the record straight; they just feel sorry for having become independence, since they have been raised up with a slave mentality and therefore it hurts them when they see everybody else celebrating independence.

On our parts, it is our duty to know the facts. The people of Pakistan became independent on August 14, 1947 AD (Ramazan 26, 1366 AH). As an independent nation they themselves created Pakistan the next day, August 15, 1947 AD (Ramazan 27, 1366 AH). The birthday of Pakistan is August 15 just as the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah mentioned in his inaugural address to the nation that morning. The “Independence Day”, in all fairness, cannot be the same date. It has to be the day when power was transferred to us (at least to those of us who are willing to have it). That was August 14, 1947.

This is just one of the several questions that are shamelessly thrown at the patriotic Pakistanis, very often by some who know neither shame nor self-respect. End of the day, the answer to all such questions boils to down to one counter-question: Are you happy that you are free? Let’s stop at saying that an answer beginning with “Yes, but…” counts as “No.”

Postscript: My answer is “Yes”, and I hope that so is yours. Happy Independence Day, August 14, 2011.

Special announcement: August 14 next year will fall again on Ramazan 26. Once again, the night of the Independence Day will be the “Night of Power”.

The Ideology of Ibne Safi

The following is a review of my book Psycho Mansion by the historian and literary critic Dr. Muhammad Reza Kazimi. It was published in the 'Books & Authors' section of Dawn on Sunday, 8 May 2011.

Khurram Ali Shafique is in search of our zeitgeist. That he is writing a multi-volume biography of Iqbal should come as no surprise; but that his quest has come to focus on Ibne Safi is bound to raise some eyebrows. But however faint, a link is discernible.

When Shafique writes on Iqbal, he is careful to place him in his mileu; Akbar Ilahabadi, Agha Hashr Kashmiri, Zafar Ali Khan and M Aslam cross the stage, so that the aspirations of South Asian Muslims are highlighted. In this framework the fact that Iqbal presented an original philosophy within a system takes second place to the fact that although representing haute culture, Iqbal could touch the cord of a people who hitherto were responsive to the harp of decadence. But why Ibne Safi?

In his introduction to Psycho Mansion, in which Shafique has selected two sets of excerpts from Ibne Safi, dealing with social and humourous scenes, he lists five distinctive features of Ibne Safi:

• One: Ibne Safi has a moral stance towards crime. He argues that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle promoted through Sherlock Holmes a scientific and not a moral approach. As such Ibne Safi is the spiritual successor of Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jauhar.
• Two: That in Ibne Safi’s work we find the largest number of scientific and philosophical allusions.
• Three: Ibne Safi has represented his society as no other contemporary has done. Khurram Ali Shafique contends that the practitioners of classical literature concerned themselves with characters that belonged either to the lower strata of society, or those who were mentally ill.
• Four: Barring Mirza Ghalib and Muhammad Husayn Azad, Ibne Safi writes the finest Urdu prose.
• Five: The ability to foresee, without which no writer can become great.

We pass on these judgments without comment, as this is the first ideological interpretation of detective fiction.

What cannot be disputed is that Ibne Safi was the first popular prose-writer of Urdu. How much was this due to his style and how much to the content needs to be computed. Ibne Safi was a popular writer with conservative ideas. He started writing in India with the aspect of a liberal author, but step by step, he climbed the tower of conservatism, so much so that in the foreword to Doosra Patthar dated November 1979, Ibne Safi clearly proclaims that in Islam there is no room for democracy.

Ultimately Ibne Safi’s ideas seeped through from his forewords to his text. It is not possible now to ascertain whether his conservatism contributed to his popularity, but it is clear that a message seemed to drive his narrative.

The narrative is so fast-paced, the characters so appealing and the fantasy so engrossing, that one can read on without noticing what lies between the lines.

The generation that lived through the times when Ibne Safi’s novels were making their appearance can relate to the milieu. From 1955 to 1980, the time that Ibne Safi lived in Pakistan, more crime could be found in the pages of his novels than the city sections of newspapers. Thus, even the incidence of crime was a fantasy; this is how Ibne Safi was able to outstrip Shaukat Thanvi. Thanvi’s mainstay, barring his few masterpieces, were romantic and racial fantasies; but his refusal to take himself seriously — and I use these words advisedly about a humourist — caused his once popular output to go out of print.

At this point we could mention Shafiqur Rahman, a popular writer who still commands sale, but since he parodied ideologists, he is not likely to attract the attention of Khurram Ali Shafique. Ibne Safi wrote fantasies about what Afzal Ahmad Sherwani on these pages called the futuristic Zeroland. Quite contrary to what Ibne Safi wrote, Tilism-i-Hoshruba did not have a lasting hold on his imagination. Ibne Safi had too strong a moralistic streak for that. Both his heroes, Ahmad Kamal Faridi of the detective stories and Ali Imran of the thrillers, are bachelors, and moreover abstemious bachelors. It is Shafique rather than Ibne Safi who has a shared, but indirect affinity with the dastans.

Muhammad Hasan Askari had culled the non-bewitching scenes from Tilism-i-Hoshruba to depict the social scenes, and Shafique has done the same with Jasoosi Dunya and Imran Series. In this volume, Shafique has eliminated the passages depicting detection or espionage, and has selected the pieces which are social and humourous.

When we pass on to the excerpts themselves, after reading the touching preface of Ahmad Safi, we find them well chosen. As an example of how Ibne Safi’s attitude changed over the years, Shafique focuses on the writer’s comments on Josh Malihabadi. In his 1953 novel Bhyanak Jazeera, Ibne Safi has Faridi recite a verse of Josh with praise bordering on the blasphemous. Ten years later, in Derh Matwale, the villain recites a poem by Josh called “The Stairs of Sound” and comments that Josh has outstripped Wordsworth. The third reference to Josh in Pagalon ki Anjuman, 1970, is really a dig at Saleem Ahmad’s casual style of literary criticism. In Paharon ke Peechhe, Ibne Safi has Imran disparage the philandering Josh describes in his autobiography Yadon ki Barat, 1970. Thus Ibne Safi comes full circle; the hero is openly moralising. Josh, the old, married Casanova, is censured for chasing after women, by the outwardly amusing but inwardly austere bachelor who is chased by women. The similar but side hero, Hameed, chases women, but recoils when the woman makes an advance and the gigantic Qasim with a gargantuan appetite, who is frustrated by a physically incompatible spouse, all point to the fact that a psychological study of the works of Ibne Safi can be as rewarding as a social study.

The humourous half of the excerpts is also dominated by the characters who display humourous traits: Ali Imran who intermittently puts on the mask of idiocy and innocence; Hameed with his escapades; and Qasim whose huge figure is dominated by a skinny wife, all these make for hilarious situations. Promiscuity is left to villains like Sung Hee, a cross between Fu Manchu and the Old Man on the Mountain.

It must be noted, however that there are two types of literary humour. The first, humour as genre, and the second, humour as a trait. As for the first, Ibne Safi attempted it without success. Aab-i-Wafat, a spoof on Aab-i-Hyat, though it contains a few sparkling passages, fails to grip. It is in the latter category that Ibne Safi had a runaway success. Why? The reason is that in his incidental passages of humour, Ibne Safi has Imran dress in a bizarre manner, behave in a bizarre manner and has his characters play pranks.

In the excerpt “Sabiha”, from Bebakon ki Talash, we find a girl writing a love letter to herself to rile up her mother and grandmother. Her prank takes an unexpected turn when, instead of an imaginary suitor, the hero Imran is found. In another scene, Imran takes on a renowned classical singer for singing a thumri. Imran dislikes the heavily mustachioed singer voicing lyrics in which a wife complains of the behaviour of her husband’s sister. According to Shafique, Ibne Safi found this musical convention transsexual.

While it is too much to expect that the dicta of Shafique will find universal acceptance, it shall be conceded all around that he has written a provocative book. In this he resembles the protagonists of Ibne Safi. Let us remember that literary criticism of crime fiction is a difficult undertaking. Charles Osborne’s The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie, barely scratches the surface; Somerset Maugham’s article, “The Decline and Fall of the Detective Novel”, received three rejections. Shafique has acquitted himself far better. There are two more volumes to follow.

The reviewer is a historian and literary critic

Psycho Mansion: Ibne Safi

(LITERARY CRITICISM)

Edited by Khurram Ali Shafique

Fazleesons, Karachi

ISBN 978-969-441-138-5

250pp. Rs295

Film about the life of Allama Iqbal

Sorry about my long absence. I hope, what I am offering today will make up for it to some extent. It is the first made-for-TV feature film about the life of Iqbal, now available on Youtube.

Why did Iqbal suggest the idea of Pakistan (or did he, in the first place)? What was the bigger picture? How can we grasp the overall aim and purpose that our ancestors had in mind when they envisaged Pakistan?

These were the kind of questions we wanted to address in Iqbal: an Approach to Pakistan, the first made-for-TV film about the life of Allama Iqbal. Indeed, when we started making the film in 2006, these questions were more common than they are today. Somehow, it seems that the nation has started coming out of its confusions, and now, it may be found that the answers offered in our film are becoming increasingly more relevant.

Since 2009, when the film was officially aired from PTV and released on DVD, I have been showing it in schools, colleges, universities and teacher-training institutes. I have felt that the general interest is increasing with time: the audience seems lot more enthusiastic about this little known film now than two years ago.

Now that Iqbal Academy Pakistan has put it up on its YouTube channel, I can conveniently share it in this newsletter. I am doing so with much joy because I really like this film much more than some of my other writings. The basic idea was developed by my friend Faisal Rehman, who also directed it (and those of you who remember him as the trendsetting “Armaan” from the 1981 movie Nahin Abhi Nahin will find an extra layer of meaning in the film). I wrote the script and Iqbal Academy Pakistan produced it. Some of the big stars of our film and media appear in the film – Usman Pirzada, Waseem Abbas, Saba Pervez, Shamil Khan, Shujaat Hashmi, among others.

Due to the generous budget of the Academy and their status as a government organization, we were able to shoot some of the scenes on an epic scale – you will see Lahore Fort as it used to be in the days of the British Raj with a Union Jack flying over its main entrance, Iqbal will be found reciting his poems at the Tomb of Jehangir (which was one of his favorite jaunts for partying with his friends), and so on. Scenes of his residence were shot inside the house where he actually lived from 1922 to 1934.

I am specially recommending this film to everyone who is interested in Iqbal, Pakistan or just watching a well-made intelligent movie. Please let me know what you think of it, or post your comments directly at the Youtube page.

Democracy, on a personal note

I could not have thought that “the Father of Hypocrisy” would evoke such strong reaction (and keen interest). From the feedback it seems that the connection between Iqbal, democracy and Pakistan has surprised some and shocked some others. Maybe a few basic points should be outlined here.

The purpose of my recent posts is not to voice my own ideas. They consist mainly of material that explains Iqbal’s point of view on various matters (and eventually it will go under the “Worldview of Iqbal” chapter in the Republic of Rumi Website.

There cannot be any ambiguity regarding Iqbal's opinion about the political ideal of Islam. “Democracy, then, is the most important aspect of Islam regarded as a political ideal,” he said in a lecture in 1909 and never changed his position on this issue. Even in his famous Reconstruction lectures, the final edition of which was published only four years before his death, he referred to a “spiritual democracy” as “the ultimate ideal of Islam”.

For the same reason he was a critic of Western democracy. His famous verses in Urdu and Persian, with which most of us are familiar, are a criticism of Western democracy – for instance, “democracy is a form of government in which heads are counted but not weighed":

جمہوریت اک طرز حکومت ہے کہ جس میں

بندوں کو گنا کرتے ہیں، تولا نہیں کرتے

[To be continued]

27. The Collective Ego

This is the 27th chapter in the revised online version of The Republic of Rumi: a Novel of Reality. The collective ego is formed when a people learns to remember its past. The Garden of Poetry is doing the same and hence it is acting like a collective ego of which the reader has become a part.

The Muslim nation is a real personality, just like an individual. How does a nation become a real collective ego? In the same manner in which an individual acquires a personality, the Poet tells you.

Initially a child recognizes only its mother but then begins to recognize others too. With memory, it achieves a sense of self. Now the child learns to remember and hence yesterday becomes linked with today, which in turn is linked with tomorrow. Without the faculty of remembering, there would be no sense of self and no learning about the world would be possible: if you are sitting in a room with a friend but after leaving the room you cannot remember whether you were the person who remained seated or the one who got up and walked towards the door, how will it be possible for you to know whether gets out of the room automatically by remaining seated or by walking towards the door?

The same is the case with a nation. It becomes a collective ego by preserving its history. An individual may get up and leave the room in just a few moments but in the case of a nation, a process started by one generation can easily require several generations to finish it. If each successive generation keeps forgetting what ideals were adopted by the previous generation, such forgetfulness could mean for the nation the same thing as if a person fails to remember himself or herself from the previous moment. A nation without history is like an individual suffering from amnesia and asking every stranger melodramatically, “Who am I?”

By preserving its collective memory, which is history, a nation achieves a collective ego. The same is true of the Garden: at each step it seems to know the stages you have passed through, since its interaction with you is building up on your previous experiences here. This is one the mysteries of the Garden. It remembers.

The Muslim nation is not just the group of individuals who call themselves Muslim. Those individuals are members of the Muslim nation but the nation itself is an entity, just like the Garden, which remembers what stages have been traversed by each generation. Hence it interacts with each successive generation, offering them what is required at that very step – just as the Garden is doing with you. It is an entity just as mysterious as the Garden. It remembers.

Another way of understanding this entity is to call it “the Human Spirit.” Its existence is based on that incident long ago when all souls were gathered and the Creator asked them, “Am I not Your Lord?”

My appearances on Iqbal Day

I am making several appearances, electronic and live, this Iqbal Day (Monday, November 9, 2009) in Pakistan. Here is the program:

• 8:30 am to 9:00 am: Breakfast with Dawn, on Dawn News Channel – live interview
• 10:00 am to 12:00 am: FM 105, Radio channel in Karachi – live interview
• 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm: Adamjee Institute, Karachi – lecture and presentation
• 7:00 pm: Arts Council, Karachi – Launching Ceremony of my book, Iqbal: Tashkeeli Daur, 1905-1913. Ceremony will be presided over by Dr. Sahar Ansari and several distinguished speakers will include Dr. Ahmad Safi, with whom many of you must already be familiar
• 7:00 pm: Aaj TV - special program on Iqbal Day, hosted by Rahat Kazmi. Other participants include Arshad Mahmood and Zaid Hamid (it was recorded last Wednesday).

You are most welcome to come to the ceremony at Arts Council if you live in Karachi. Just send me an email in advance, so that I may leave your passes at the entrance.

Iqbal, the first telefilm about the life of Allama Iqbal written by me, directed by Faisal Rehman and produced by Iqbal Academy Pakistan, will also be aired that day from PTV at 11 am.

Presidential Award for my book

News: my book Iqbal: an Illustrated Biography (2006) has won the Presidential Iqbal Award. Some details about the book can be found on my website.

Moving on from Partition

I was in Delhi in December 2007, attending a seminar at one of the leading academies of Urdu literature in India. The chief guest was a Muslim socialist leader who found it utterly necessary to look in the direction of Pakistani delegates and proclaim, “We the Muslims of India think that partition was a mistake. South Asia would have been better off without it and therefore Pakistan should not have come into being.”

Of course the right answer to that is, “Go get a life.” Unfortunately getting a life is not always easy, and the book of Jaswant Singh has given cue to the same hypocritical chest-thumping again: “Events of 1947 haunt everyone in South Asia…” In that case I must be an exceptionally lucky guy since they don’t haunt me. Maybe I should give a helping hand to others in moving on too!

In the previous post I presented excerpt from a speech delivered by Nawab Ismail Khan at Aligarh University soon after partition. It may never have been published anywhere before (except possibly in some newspapers in 1947). I got it from Mr. Asad Ismail, the grandson of Nawab Ismail Khan.

The speech is important because it shows us that according to the vision of the creators of Pakistan (one of whom was Nawab Ismail), there was going to be continuity in the history of Muslims in India: Sir Syed Ahmad Khan had shown how they could be loyal to alien rulers and still develop their national identity to the extent where it gave birth to a sovereign state. The same loyalty could be transferred to the independent state of India once it came into being.

This also shows that when Muslims of the Sub-Continent demanded Pakistan they fully realized that many of them would stay behind in India as minority. Since Pakistan was a democratic demand affirmed through fair and free election, they had the right to expect that it shouldn’t be held against them.

• Next: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

Maheen A. Rashdi

Maheen A. Rashdi is renowned journalist whose regular column features in the Sunday Magazine of Dawn. The following was meant for tomorrow, but since religion is not among the subjects covered in that section, it has been passed on to me. I must say that I am very much grateful for some of the things stated about me here - Khurram Ali Shafique

Becoming Holy

By Maheen A. Rashdi

The past three weeks of Ramazan have induced me to take stock of the twists that the holy month brings into the lives of us Muslims each year. While it requires us to show our better sides, it inevitably turns us into short-tempered, work shirking, lethargic individuals. While at the one hand divine proclamation intends to promote abstinence and restraint in all matters of worldly things during Ramazan, we end up fully unleashing our gluttonous desires and zero tolerance for fellow beings.

And for some, it is almost a swapped existence. I have seen confirmed alcoholics kick the bottle for precisely these thirty days, shed their tailored suits for the white, starched, shalwar kameez (not forgetting the topi on top) and frequent the mosque five times a day as opposed to their daily late-night binges in non-Ramazan days. Well, whatever makes people tick, who am I to comment on personal choices.

When a dear friend posted a beautiful commentary on the Surah Yusuf from the Quraan last week on his blogspot to ‘honour the holy month of Ramazan,’ I was surprised that the Ramazan season had had that effect on him too. For I had always stereotyped him – for no logical reason at all -- as someone who was far removed from all things pertaining to religion. And here I pride myself on being non-judgemental.

Anyway, I discovered that Khurram Shafique is not only a historian/scholar/philosopher and the only one I personally know who may be qualified to be called a genius with indefatigable mental energies, but he is also as well-versed in Quranic text and sub text.

In his commentary, Khurram captures the description of the Surah which is about Hazrat Yusuf (Joseph), his dream, his brothers’ deceit and his revelation besides the all too famous story of Zuleikha (wife of Potiphar) and her seductive overtures towards Yusuf. Retelling a tale about one of the most detailed stories from the Quraan, Khurram Shafique has structured his analysis along Aristotle’s six ‘elements of drama’.

When I marveled at his work, he confessed that he would not have expostulated on Quraanic verses as these have a magic of their own which should not be polluted by mere human descriptive, but that he was compelled to do so.

Why? “Because there’s a danger lurking on the ‘intellectual horizons’ which promotes literature that debases the human soul and runs down literature of dignity,” he explained. He feels that an esoteric school of thought now dominates the frontier of Islamic Studies and Comparative Religion which is bent on defiling all credible voices on religion.

I however, do not feel that any such threat has the power of taking over established values or eradicating worthy literature. And as far as the Quraanic words are concerned, these are the most accepted religious writings by scholars of all faiths besides Islam. No amount of loose talk from naysayers has the power to dull or negate its magic.

Allama Yousuf Ali explains in one of his many commentaries that Islam is a non-racial, non-ethnic, non-biased code of life. It simply requires undisputable faith in the Almighty; a determination to live right and to see that justice and truth prevails. It requires us to stay away from wrongdoings, to fight injustice and to stay clear of deceit. And as I see it that is the main code by which all decent humanity abides and all religions have preached just that. So where is the dispute amongst religions? Don’t they all speak the same language?

But alas, being also the most potent tool for power, religion has been twisted to become the cause for every war as well. That is also why it has been complicated and high-jacked by clerics, dogmatic preachers and political players.

It took a lot of will power for me to pick up the Quraan’s translation the first time and find out for myself what exactly are God’s words which have filtered to us in many versions – sometimes even distorted for fearful effect. And because my grade two teacher’s words of how Quraan describes the details of hell had stuck in my mind, my fear was quite tangible. She of course failed to convey the overwhelming kindness of the Almighty contained therein perhaps to maintain a perverse fear factor and her own authority. Before starting, I never knew that I would actually be reading a story book with multiple components – history, jurisprudence, health guidelines, biology, geography and rules for decent civilized living.

Islam is neither complicated, nor terrifying nor unbending and unmindful of human vulnerability, and that is my last word for my believing, practicing, non-practicing and non-believing readers and friends.

Forgive me if I have been too dogmatic, for I too have been swept by the season. Maheenrashdi@yahoo.ca

New discoveries about the 'Reconstruction'

Long ago, when The Republic of Rumi Newsletter did not have many subscribers, I narrated some of my unusual observations about the works of Iqbal in a series of weekly posts:

"It was an October morning in 2006. I was staying at a friend's place in Lahore, and finishing my breakfast before going to the office of Iqbal Academy Pakistan with whom I work as research consultant. Suddenly, an idea flashed across my mind: I don't know how or why. It struck me that there were seven lectures in the Reconstruction, Iqbal's philosophical work in English prose. Incidentally, there were seven stations through which Iqbal passed in his journey across the spiritual universe in Javidnama, his greatest poetical masterpiece. Do the two sets match?"

My findings were recently presented in a paper in Iqbal Review, available on the official website of Iqbal Academy Pakistan and now also included with some illustrations on my homepage. For those who may be interested, here is an excerpt:

The outlook we adopted five years after the birth of Pakistan was not consistent with the collective ego achieved by our ancestors who had created this great country. Some of us misunderstood that the proposition of the Western modernists that “the modern times are permanent but bad but must be rejected” was a confession that the West was evil. As a free nation of the East it should concern us less whether the West is evil or not. What should concern us more is what role can we play in the future of humanity? This is where Iqbal comes in with the fundamental premise of a Romantic: “the modern times are passing but good and must be accepted.”

• Read complete paper: 'New Discoveries about The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam'.

A book I don't like

Mother of the Faithful by Kamran Pasha is a book which I would not read for obvious reasons.

It's a "historical fiction" about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the birth of Islam, written as an "autobiographical novel" in the voice of Bibi Ayesha. Here are the opening lines:

"What is faith? It is a question I have asked myself over the years, dear nephew, and I am no closer to the answer now then I was when my hair was still crimson like the rising dawn, not the pale silver of moonlight as it is today."

In the novel, this is Bibi Ayesha speaking! I didn't read beyond this. You can find out about the book at the website of Pasha, especially the following pages:

• http://kamranpasha.com/index.php
  http://kamranpasha.com/mother_believers_excerpt.php