Pakistan Is an Enigma: When Religion Becomes the Weltanschauung of a Nation, Freedom of Intellectuals Are Bound To Be Compromised

By Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander, New Age Islam 29 May 2023 A Person of Pakistani Origins Author: Ziauddin Sardar Publisher: Hurst & Company, London Year of Publication: 2018 Pages: 229 ISBN: 9781849049870 ------ Pakistan is an enigma. The partition of the Indian continent and birth of Pakistan, created innumerable problems and challenges for migrants and those who found themselves in Pakistan. Every new nation, has to explain its origins, so a grand narrative is prepared to situate a nation in a certain context. Then, a history needs to be invented to justify the grand narrative. All these tragedies have happened with Pakistan. It still continues to baffle with numerous challenges, some of which even threaten its very existence. The role of an intellectual and historian is very central in such a new nation, but when religion becomes the Weltanschauung of any nation, then freedom of intellectuals and facts of history are bound to be compromised. Ziauddin Sardar, is a person of Pakistani origin settled in United Kingdom. He is a prolific writer and polymath, as this work informs the reader. But he is in dilemma, about his original pure land, “Here is my dilemma. When I want nothing to do with Pakistan, it clings on to me. When I want to get close to Pakistan, it repels me; just as often, I am repelled by it. So there is a perpetual tug of war constantly pulling in opposite directions. I have been trying to resolve this quandary for decades, with little success.” (P-8) He was treated badly in Pakistan and many times he pledged never to return, but then there is a magnetic attraction that draws Sardar time and again towards it. Pakistanis are demonized in the West, the image that is reinforced through blasphemy laws. On the one hand, Pakistani masses hate West, particularly Uncle Sam, but then the ruling clique and masses expect it to save them from crisis. This crisis mostly is economic in nature, so expectation of Aid from U.S is always welcomed. This Love/Hate relationship between US and Pakistan can explain some roots of the contemporary crisis faced by this young nation. To add insult to injury the spread of puritanical Islam in Pakistan has its background, context and repercussions too. Add to it corruption, nepotism, red tapism, lack of institutionalization and little hope of improvement in the course of things, and we are glaring at a deadly mix religion and politics. This lethal combination has resulted in the religious fanaticism, terrorism and violence that Pakistan finds itself mired with today. Then we find Sardar as youth growing up in Pakistan, with the craze for detective novels written by Ibn e Safi. A whole generation of youth devoured his novels, whose popularity can be understood from the fact that many writers faked, plagiarized and copied his style, plot and characters of his novels. Then he mentions a study of religious books written by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi, one of the founding ideologues of Deobandi school of thought and novels written by Deputy Nazir Ahmad. But he wrongly attributes Bahishti Zewar (Ornaments of Heaven) to Hafiz Muhammad Ali Sahibi (P-72), although it is a famous work of Thanwi. These essays have an autobiographical streak too, coupled with academic tinge and engaging social commentary on life around him. There is a mention of a certain auntie who created havoc as Sardar brought a lady friend home, his mother was aghast and the auntie thought he has committed Zina (adultery). Thus, the contrast of life between Pakistan and London is manifested in variegated aspects of Sardar’s life. However, the Muslim South Asian families carried the cultural baggage with them. So, they always existed in a different world of their own making that they safeguarded vigilantly against the Firangis (English). The reader also gets to understand the dual lives and lies of South Asians in Britain. The environment at his home, is quite lovely, lively and happy with poetry and he had his share of movie outings. Then he is too much influenced by the character of Dilip Kumar (Yousuf Khan) and his movies. He reviews his movies and they certainly played a role in shaping the South Asian Diaspora in Britain. Dilip Kumar was a man of principles, socially engaged and involved with community issues and always had an ear to the ground. Cinema, radio and movies influenced people and how they depicted the issues reflected and represented what was going on in the society. Sardar implores the same in these words, “I grew up not just immersed in the metaphors of these texts, but thinking with them; they were part of my vocabulary, they were embedded in my imagination. My love of tradition, of poetry and language; my distaste for social inequalities and concern for social justice; my devotion to unconditional, selfless love; my quest to rescue traditional idealism from ossified traditional societies; my determination to act against the helplessness and impotence generated by westernized modernity-can all be traced back to the impact that Dilip Kumar and Guru Dutt had on my imagination.” (P-122-123) Then we are made aware about Ehsan Danish, his poetry, Ghazal and its nuances, as well as about the deaths of legendary poets like Mahir ul Qadri and Hafeez Jalandhari. The death of these poets ended a great era of Urdu poetry and now the state of vernacular Urdu language in India is dismal. With each passing day Urdu is dying a slow death in India. An exciting essay is dedicated to his maternal uncle, Waheed Maamu, his exploits as a mystic and social worker. Quite late Sardar, discovers how his Maamu is a reverend Sufi mystic who enjoys an elevated status in the eyes of his disciples and now a mausoleum constructed on his grave speaks volumes about his spiritual majesty. This book although a collection of essays is an engrossing read, and offers insights about what it meant to be growing up in altogether different worlds. Sardar navigates quite nicely in both these worlds and helps the reader understand different influences that went into making an intellectual and writer out of Sardar. This book offers a deep complex kaleidoscopic view that contributed to the making of Ziauddin Sardar as a prominent Muslim intellectual. -------- M.H.A. Sikander is Writer-Activist based in Srinagar, Kashmir. URL: https://newageislam.com/books-documents/pakistan-enigma-religion-weltanschauung-freedom-/d/129873 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism