I was going through the 17th February issue of The News Daily when I came across an article, which caught my attention. The topic was “Celebrating Basant amid clerical opposition”. Basant is a festival celebrated in mid February by kite flying and dancing on the rooftops all night long and day as well. After reading it for couple of times I couldn’t resist the urge to write how I felt about the article and the topic. The author, as we can understand from the topic, wants to convince us why we should celebrate Basant and I will try to put forward the reasons why we shouldn’t.
The article starts of with a statement which I will quote, It says “What a beautiful timing of this Basant, a festival of spring, that is timed with the Valentine Day - mixing the two occasions to multiply happiness in a state of prohibition and where Hasba legislation in NWFP awaits to take out the human urge for happiness and love out of our lives.” In this statement the author has clearly categorized Basant and valentine day as events of happiness and love respectively. What the author didn’t mention here is the kind of happiness it brought in the lives of those who lost their loved ones on this day and the kind of love Valentine’s Day represents.
In a saying of our prophet Mohammad (P.B.U.H) it clearly states that one should not follow the ways of the non-believers, so if the author knows the history of Valentine’s Day he will agree with me that it is celebrated in remembrance of Saint Valentine. Thus it clearly means that Valentine’s Day does have Christian roots. Same way Basant does have Hindu roots and therefore Muslims should not celebrate it. The author tried to prove that Basant is a cultural event and has nothing to do with Hindu religion. It is very naive on the behalf of the author if he really believes that. We all know that Hindu culture is totally driven from Hindu religion therefore anything which is part of the Hindu culture is, therefore, part of Hindu religion. No wonder our scholars come out and try to inform us about the complications of celebrating these festivals, like Basant. Secondly, we have two Eids to celebrate and I am pretty confident the author and the like-minded can have enough fun in those festivals and not to mention the other national events we get to celebrate.
The author continues with saying that Basant cannot be banned due to the sole reason of losing life. He continues by comparing those people who died in celebrating Basant with those who lost their lives during performing hajj. I let you be the judge and quote the exact words of the author “You cannot ban a festival because of a smaller deviation or hazard that can be avoided. Can we avoid performing Hajj due to stampede that kills hundreds of pilgrims every year?” The first time when I read this comparison I couldn’t believe I was reading this. The author, I am sorry to say, doesn’t know the status of Muslims who loose their lives in performing one of the pillars of Islam, the very base of a Muslim believe, and as far as Basant goes I am not aware of it having any significance in Islam. Can the author explain this to those who lost their loved ones and are mourning in their remembrance that they died in path of Allah and will be rewarded in hereafter, therefore, this comparison is outrageous in every sense.
A lot more can be said and quoted from the Holy Quran and Sunnah but I don’t see the need. All I want to say is that people like the author of this article tend to forget one thing that Islam is a “Deen” (Complete code of life) not just some religion which only dictates how to worship Almighty and doesn’t guide us in living our daily lives.
I ask Allah (SWT) to enlighten us with the knowledge of Our Deen, Islam, so we could be better judges of what is better for us as an Ummah.

A time comes in every gamer’s life or even just an ordinary computer user when they have to get rid of their old computers and buy the new one. The one which is faster, have more memory, better sound and video cards and the list goes on. For most of us (gamers) or even regular computer users, they have to stick with their old monitors because monitors hardly change much and the one with new technology are too expensive for an average person to change every two years. When I went out to get my new p4 system, which was the year 2002, I came across this new trend in the market. People were buying old used monitors and were very satisfied. There were so many of these old monitors that I wondered where were they coming from?
Today I got the answer to my question and it’s so shameful that I wonder why I bothered in the first place. My friend from Islamabad came all the way to Lahore to buy a used monitor. One of the sellers I came across had a whole warehouse full of monitors. I couldn't help myself but to ask him where was he getting all these monitors. He told me that containers full of used computers and monitors come to Pakistan from west. Basically he meant Europe and North America. At the moment I didn't think much of it. Later in evening my friend mentioned why these monitors were traveling half way across the world. When I listened to his explanation I couldn't help myself but to agree with him.
According to my friend when economy was booming in west all these used computers and monitors were recycled. But when the economy fell to recession companies thought why pay for recycle and also why dump old stuff which is toxic for their environment when it can be put into huge containers and shipped off to poor countries. This way it will be a headache for these poor and developing countries to take care of their toxic waste.
I ask these questions to myself and to my brothers and sisters. Are we that gullible to let ourselves be used as dump sites by the west for their toxic wastes? Doesn't our environment need the same protection from toxic wastes as west? Does our youth have the same right to live in a healthy environment as the west? Do we really know what's good for us as a nation?
I pray that Allah (SWT) put some sense in us so we can know and understand what’s good for us, as a nation, and what’s not. Ameen!

Sometimes in life we learn things from the least expected places. Today, 13th of February, my father asked me to drive him to his friend's village because our family driver wasn't available. I didn't want to go but understanding the situation I had no choice. This guy’s son died few days back. Today was his Qul (two days after the funeral relatives and friends of the deceased get together to offer prayers for the forgiveness of the deceased). This friend of my father, to whom I would refer as Mr. X, is a very well known politician. It was expected that a lot of well known big names of Pakistan would be there.
When we get there, the whole place was crawling with people, people belonging to different circles of life like Politician, Bureaucrats, farmers and some local Villagers. The reason I am mentioning this is because there was no remembrance of Allah or asking for the forgiveness of the deceased, on the contrary everyone was busy in gossiping.
There were over a hundred people in that back yard sitting in groups. Each of these groups was representing a social class of Pakistan. I was sitting next to my father and he was part of the so called elite class and that included Mr. X. The whole time I was there, these people, including my father, were talking about politics and bad naming their rivals in politics. There was this one guy who started discussing the weather in Washington DC with another. Later my father told me that the other guy just came back from a trip of USA. These two were busy arguing if the weather in US was worse then last year. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. No wonder we as a nation are suffering so badly. I felt so bad for MR. X after all he lost his son.
The point I am trying to make is that people in Pakistan have become so insensitive to other's feelings and have totally lost respect of death. It is so disturbing that these people forgotten that every one of us has to face death and there is no guarantee that if we would even get a chance to repent for our sins, so under these circumstances would they then want their relatives and friends to gossip at the time when they would need their prayers.
From this I can only conclude one thing that we need to get back to Islam. Only then we will take death seriously and would work on preparing to face it. We are so lucky to be born as Muslims and to be born in a Muslim country. Just go to a non-Muslim country and ask the Muslims living there. They will tell us that we are so lucky be able to be living in a Muslim country. I ask myself this question all the time, are we really that lucky? Being in a Muslim country we should be able to practice Islam with full freedom but are we able to? And the answer to this is No we are not. This only happens because we make it impossible for our own selves. We teach our children to be successful in their life no matter what the price is. We feel ashamed if any of our kids don’t read English literature but we would never encourage them to read Islamic literature. No wonder they don’t feel proud ness in what they are and so badly want to copy other cultures like west. I ask everyone just one question, what makes Shakespeare writing more important then our prophet’s?
I ask Allah (swt) to guide us to the righteous path and to forgive us for our sins.

I arrived in Lahore on the 22nd of January after staying for five years in US for BS in electrical engineering. Being away from home for that long, I was expecting to get some rest and do the things I had planned for years. But as things are here it will be struggle achieving those. Lahore, my home town, seems a lot different then how I left it and it was quite a shock for me.
I am still looking for work and there is nothing else to do for me then to read books and wait for any interview. So one morning while sitting in front of my computer checking my mail it just struck me that I should write about how I feel and what better way to do it then to start a blog. The idea of blog came after I started reading the blog of a good friend of mine.
After thinking for a long time about what my blog should be about I came across an idea which I have to say is influenced by the very same friend whose blog I was reading at the time. As mentioned earlier about my feelings for this city where I literally spend most of my life, I thought it would be nice to write about how my home town has changed and how I feel about it.
This city has changed a lot since I left in 1998. After all I have been away from this place for so long, now it seems as if I am a total stranger here. During the time I was in United States I always felt that practicing my religion, my way of life wouldn't be that hard once I will move back to Pakistan. I would feel less pressure from my surroundings, but I was naive. That very atmosphere was helping me become firm in my faith. Now I am here in Lahore for over three weeks and I have been forced into trimming my beard. I am expected to behave in certain ways which suppose to suite my family's status in this society. It seems as they only care for what this society of ours will think of us and not what Allah will. At this point I don't know what more sacrifices I have to make. What else I have give up for the sake of my family and this society. It seems I have been pushed back to time jahlia.
I think this should be enough for now but I will definitely be back for more. There is a lot to be said.

May Allah guide us all to the righteous path, Ameen and salaam alaykum.