By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
TALKING to a Dawn panel several years ago, Asghar Ali Engineer, head of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai, had commented that every communal riot in India that he had investigated was found to be rooted in economic factors.
Continue reading Gojra and education
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
IN her latest book, The Case for God, Karen Armstrong describes music as `the limit of reason`. She finds it inseparable from religious expression when religion is at `its best`.
We do not get the best demonstration of this connection in the Taliban brand of Islam. The faith practised by the Sufis, however, shows an intrinsic link between the two.
Continue reading The Taliban and music
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
ONE positive result of the Lal Masjid operation is that it has brought into the open the ambiguities and contradictions in our social values and political attitudes. Hopefully, the tragic events of last week will shock people into confronting the truth.
The crisis began in January when the radicals of the Lal Masjid took matters into their own hands by getting the female students of Jamia Hafsa to occupy a government-owned children’s library. The action was in retaliation to the demolition of the illegally built mosques on encroached land in the capital city.
Continue reading Using religion as a tool of power
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
ACCORDING to a report, 20 suicide bombings have occurred in Pakistan since last year in which 213 lives have been lost. Since all of these have been carried out by people emerging from madressahs run by religious extremists, it is plain that they have been indoctrinated and trained by their mentors.
One wonders what makes a person commit such a heinous crime and that too in such a way that he gives up his own life in the process. It is now common knowledge that people committing suicide are mentally ill – it is depression and an intense sense of hopelessness and despair that drives them to resort to the extreme measure of taking their own life. But psychiatrists and psychologists are unanimous in their view that suicide bombers are not suffering from depression.
Continue reading The making of a suicide bomber
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
IN ITS latest issue, the Time magazine titles its cover story as “The truth about Talibanistan” which it claims is gathering strength in Pakistan’s “wild borderlands”. Last week events took a new turn.
The show of force by the Lal Masjid strongmen and the Hafsa madressah’s female guardians of morality in Islamabad was an indication that the tentacles of the Taliban are spreading rapidly to the heart of the federal capital.
Continue reading Female militants’ show of force