Gallivanting with Ghalib, Islamic Culture, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Culture

Gallivanting with Ghalib

By Saif Shahin

A new translation introduces the master of Urdu romantic poetry to 21st century readers

Mirza Ghalib. A century-and-a-half has passed since he passed away, yet the mention of his name is sufficient to breathe life into hazy impressions of the idyllic age in which he lived. The shabby bylanes of the Walled City suddenly become suffused with the smell of hukkah and kebab, shalwar-clad girls start selling noisy bangles in teeming streets, and gilded courtrooms begin to echo with bursts of peerless poetry.

It was an era that people of the subcontinent remain as deeply as ever in love with. This is evident in the difficulty you have in finding a dinner table at Old Delhi’s Dastarkhan-e-Karim restaurant, despite its falling standards, even today; in the popularity of the ‘sound and light’ show on Mughal history at the Red Fort; in the success that books like ‘White Mughals’ and movies like ‘Jodhaa-Akbar’ and a restored and colourised ‘Mughal-e-Azam’ enjoy across the borders of India and Pakistan.

Most tellingly, it comes through in the lingering interest in the ghazals of Ghalib. Even as Urdu twists and turns on its deathbed, with few takers for a language in which no call centre is ever expected to operate, Ghalib’s romantic verses are globetrotting with the subcontinental diaspora. ‘Ghalib nites’ are held from Delhi to Dubai to Detroit. Ghalib is studied in universities around the world. And new translations, new insights into his works continue to emerge.

The latest entrant is ‘Wine of Passion: The Urdu Ghazals of Ghalib’, a compilation of his love poems translated into English by US-based Pakistani professor Sarfaraz K. Niazi. The book seeks to open “a window to the mind and heart of Ghalib for English readers” by making him available in their language.

http://newageislam.com/gallivanting-with-ghalib/islamic-culture/d/2297

Intellectuals have failed to understand terrorism: Modernism versus Fundamentalism, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Intellectuals have failed to understand terrorism: Modernism versus Fundamentalism

By Saif Shahin

11 Nov, 2009

Violence does not necessarily stem from poverty or conservative orthodoxy

THE APPROACHING anniversary of 26/ 11 brings with it a terror of its own: the bald and bespectacled babble of homespun ‘terrorism experts’. Our cuttlefish commentariat spews inexorable amounts of ink on the subject all times of the year; the news peg is sure to send them into overdrive.

Apart from roasting Pakistan, their well- meaning offerings generally revolve around three central tenets: terrorism springs from the well of poverty into which Indian Muslims have been pushed, the bulk of Indian Muslims are not terrorists, and ‘ modernised’ Muslims will have to stand up against the Deobandi ulema if we are to defeat the scourge.

Unfortunately, not only is much of this not backed by empirical data, but it is also replete with some obvious contradictions. If terrorism springs from poverty, and most Indian Muslims are poor, then why aren’t more and more of them answering the call to arms? And if modernisation is the antithesis of terrorism, then why is it the Deobandis who repeatedly denounce such violence as unIslamic while modernised Muslims — engineers, doctors, scientists — sit on their haunches or, worse, join the terrorist ranks themselves? Mansoor Asghar Peerbhoy went to the best English schools, graduating to a top job with a Yahoo! India subsidiary and a salary running into lakhs. One of his brothers is an architect, another is a chest specialist in the UK. His wife is a homoeopathic doctor. He could have been the perfect example of a modern, sociallyintegrated Muslim — only he went on to head the media cell of the Indian Mujahideen ( IM), the only known home- grown Muslim terror outfit. He was the guy who used to send diabolical emails to media houses before terror attacks.

http://newageislam.com/intellectuals-have-failed-to-understand-terrorism--modernism-versus-fundamentalism/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/2081

The Priest, the President and the Persian Peugeot, Books and Documents, NewAgeIslam.com

Books and Documents

The Priest, the President and the Persian Peugeot

By Saif Shahin

The Ayatollah Begs to Differ

By Hooman Majd

Penguin, pp 272

3.5 stars

“If you want to know us, become a Shia first.” That is what Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, an ayatollah and a former president, told a foreign visitor to Tehran. But if the picture of Iran that emerges from ‘The Ayatollah Begs To Differ’ – journalist Hooman Majd’s travelogue-cum-reflections about his homeland – is to be believed, you could do a pretty good job of that by simply being an Indian.

Majd lives in New York, and he attempts to offer an affectionate glimpse of Iranian life to people who have for three decades viewed Iran as a mortal enemy. On every other page, he reminds his American readers just how vast is the cultural gulf between them and his compatriots, how difficult it is for them to sometimes even tolerate, let alone comprehend, Iranian social customs and practices. (Hence the need to be patient when dealing with Iranians – like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.)

But to an Indian reader, many of these civilisational concepts – the good, the bad and the ugly – will appear eerily familiar. Take, for instance, the laat. He is the Iranian neighbourhood tough, not quite the Sicilian mafioso shooting his way around Chicago streets, but very similar to the dada who commands respect at knifepoint in the bylanes of many an Indian town and city. The laat can also be easily recognised in the formulaic hooligan-with-a-soft-heart roles played by countless Bollywood actors ranging from Amitabh Bachchan to Sanjay Dutt in the 1970s and 80s.

http://newageislam.com/the-priest,-the-president-and-the-persian-peugeot/books-and-documents/d/1783

From Fatwa to Jihad by Kenan Malik, Books and Documents, NewAgeIslam.com

Books and Documents

From Fatwa to Jihad by Kenan Malik

Book Review

THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE

By Saif Shahin

Atlantic Books, London

Pp 266, Rs 399/

VALENTINE’S Day is usually an occasion to write mellifluous letters of love. But 20 years ago, a letter penned that day was so vile in its content and so bilious in temperament that, almost like some talisman out of magic realist literature, it tore apart relations between communities and changed the course of history in its wake.

That letter was the fatwa issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the head of Salman Rushdie, a little less than five months after the publication of ‘The Satanic Verses’. And yes, it was that succinct four-paragraph letter – and not the literary tome itself – that stirred up the maelstrom which continues to (mis)shape life and death for many across the world.

This is one of the central thrusts of scientist, writer and broadcaster Kenan Malik’s scalpel-sharp ‘From Fatwa To Jihad: The Rushdie Affair And Its Legacy’. The book documents how the fatwa became a clarion call for a motley mass of radical Muslims – until then divided not just by geography but also by their understanding of Islam and radicalism – to meld into what is now seen as a jihadist force threatening the global order. Malik also rises above the ambit of political history to assess the subtler effects of the fatwa, on Muslims and on the Enlightened Western civilisation itself.

http://newageislam.com/from-fatwa-to-jihad-by-kenan-malik/books-and-documents/d/1545

Falling Muslim Fertility Rates Raise Grave Concerns, Islamic Society, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Society

Falling Muslim Fertility Rates Raise Grave Concerns

By Saif Shahin, New Age Islam

How would you imagine a typical Muslim family? A god-fearing husband, an uneducated wife (or wives), and lots and lots of children breaking out the door and spilling onto the streets? That, however, is not what a typical Muslim family does or is going to look like in the years ahead.

New research shows a historically unprecedented decline in fertility rates or the number of births, among Muslim women worldwide. In Muslim-majority countries, such as in the Middle East, the decline has already brought them on par with the ageing West. Chances are that fertility rates would fall further.

The trend has grave implications. One, the working age population in Muslim societies is going to shrink as fewer children are born, leaving them with a problem similar to that faced by the West. Two, while the West has already achieved high levels of education, development and family income, most Muslim countries in Asia and Africa face demographic stagnation even as they remain largely uneducated, underdeveloped and with extremely low family incomes.

http://newageislam.com/islamic-society/saif-shahin,-new-age-islam/falling-muslim-fertility-rates-raise-grave-concerns/d/7659

Behind Palace Doors: The Shadowy World of Saudi Politics, Islam and Politics, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Politics

Behind Palace Doors: The Shadowy World of Saudi Politics

By Saif Shahin, New Age Islam

20 June 2012

Last week, Saudi Arabia lost an heir to the throne―for the second time in nine months. Prince Naif, 78, became the crown prince in October last year when his brother Prince Sultan, 82, passed away. After Naif himself succumbed to ill health on Saturday, King Abdullah, 88, named Naif’s younger brother Salman, 76, as the new heir apparent.

Remarkable as it sounds, they are all the sons of King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, who founded the Saudi state more than a century ago. No one knows exactly how many sons the king had, although estimates range from 37 to 43 (in addition to innumerable daughters). He married around 20 women, mostly from powerful tribal families around the peninsula, to buttress his support.

Among his wives was Hassa al Sudairi, daughter of the influential Sudairi clan in Nejd, the arid central part of the peninsula. While the western Hejaz region, lapped by the Red Sea, has historically been more liberal and cosmopolitan and the eastern Hasa region is dominated by Shias, Nejd is the heartland of Saudi Arabia’s hardline Wahabi Islam. The al Saud family, as well as the ruling families of Qatar and Bahrain, also hail from this region.

Abdul Aziz and Hassa al Sudairi had seven sons, including crown princes Sultan, Naif, Salman and the late king Fahd. For half a century now, the ‘Sudairi Seven’ have been the most powerful bloc of al Saud’s children in the murky world of monarchical politics. But their clout now seems to be on the wane.

http://newageislam.com/islam-and-politics/saif-shahin,-new-age-islam/behind-palace-doors--the-shadowy-world-of-saudi-politics/d/7670