What do you feel when you wake up one fine morning, pick up the newspaper and find a photo on the front page of burqa-clad women picketing in favour of discriminatory, distorted, so-called Islamic laws?
Your first reaction is to bang your head against the wall (in case you’re really worked up on the issue). As you don’t intend to do literally anything of the kind, you let the moment pass.
Two weeks back when I read about the Council of Islamic Ideology’s questionnaire on women’s status I couldn’t but utter ‘Oh God, these people! They speak a dead language and they live in a cocoon.’
And 1 thought: In their fanaticism they have become blind as a bat. But no. Not as a bat. Bats have a remarkable facility of echo location. And these people seem to locate neither objects nor concepts. Least of all, the change, the reality. They sound so oblivious of it all.
Thus CII states in the questionnaire it has sent to elicit people’s opinions: “To satisfy their own lust, westernised individuals in Pakistan want to bring women out of their homes and make them the centre of attraction in society in negation of Islamic instructions. They wish to thrust on the woman, economic responsibilities in addition to her family responsibilities. In your opinion, what weaknesses will result in an Islamic society because of this unnatural approach?”
We have been reciting the Quran without knowing its meaning since our childhood. I don’t remember anybody ever encouraging me to read its Urdu translation. Whenever I said, “Mother, I am reading its translation,” she said “O.K. That’s fine. But read it in Arabic too,” with an implication that reading in Arabic is far more desirable (though you can’t understand a word) than reading the Tarjuma. As a growing child I found it a double task to read it both in Arabic and Urdu. Thus most of the time I ended up just reciting it in Arabic.
When I grew up I was told that reading the Urdu translation is useless unless you read it along with Tafseer. I don’t disagree with this observation. You can’t take the Divine book lightly. If you really want to understand it you’ve got to study it thoroughly, seriously. And it requires an immense effort as well as a genuine desire.
Published in Dawn, Karachi, Pakistan, in its Friday Magazine, 13 December 1996.
The first thing that strikes you when you land in Jakarta is its airport. The glass-covered pavilions and ramp ways are flanked on both sides by lush foliage and tall trees. You feel as if you are walking through a garden. A perfect blend of traditional Javanese structure and modern technology, the simple, graceful building of Sukarno-Hatta International Airport, opened in 1985–the recipient of the Aga Khan Architecture Award–is a window to the rich and unique cultural identity of Indonesian archipelago.
Zeenat Hisam 