Adieu Mahmoud Darwaish
Courtesy AHRC I come from there I come from there and I have memories Born as mortals are, I have a mother And a…
Sir Salman Rushdie’s fatwa against freedom of expression
Khaleej Times – 11/08/2008 BY SHAJAHAN MADAMPAT SIR Salman Rushdie, that beloved symbol of freedom of expression, has now turned Khomeini, so to speak,…
Visit to Sindh, Udero Lal (the story of the Dalits in Pakistan)
Yoginder Sikand writing at DNA South-central Sindh isn’t quite a favourite holiday destination, but I spent a fortnight there while on a vacation in…
The pursuit of the Southasian past
Moving beyond the colonial-era understanding of the history of the Subcontinent gives us a whole new way of looking at the Subcontinent’s past. This…
Delhi by the book
Published in The News What motivates me to write? Lacking an appropriate label, a catchy boxed tag such as a historian or a sociologist,…
A modern Ottoman – the Turk Gulen wins the intellectuals’ poll
The Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, winner of the intellectuals poll undertaken by Prospect, has been hailed as “the modern face of the Sufi Ottoman…
Kabir, Bulleh and Lalon – Petals of a mystic lotus
The subcontinent during the 15th century witnessed the coming of age of a process that started brewing with the arrival of Central Asian Sufis,…
O my Lord, if I worship you
Today I was directed to this excellent blogsite devoted to Rabia Basri’s poems – found this bold poem by Rabia, an early Sufi from…
A ‘counter-view’ of suicide-bombing
The victims are not exclusively Americans and Jews but in countries like Iraq and Pakistan, Muslims themselves. What is even more traumatising "which arouses…
A brush with the new – Asim Butt’s Art
What distinguishes Asim Butt from his generation and perhaps the preceding generations of artists is the sheer originality of his vision and an iconoclasm…
Unimagined by Imran Ahmad
BOOK REVIEW Vinod Joseph Unimagined is the growing-up story of Imran Ahmad, whose parents migrated from Pakistan to England in the early 1960s when…
A Wild Lover Of God – Rumi
Source: A Wild Lover Of God – Bureau Report, “Rumi’s a bridge between east & west” – The Times of India – India The…
An affair with Sufiana art in Ajmer
My dear friend Salman Chishty is holding an exhibition at the death anniversary (Urs=Union) celebrations of Khawaja Muinuddin Chishty. This is such an innovative…
Choose A Suffering
Choose A Suffering Yesterday in the assembly I saw my soul inside the jar of the one who pours. “Don’t forget your job,” I…
Muslims feel like Jews of Europe – UK Minister
What an alamring statement coming from a Minister in the UK. Britain’s first Muslim minister has attacked the growing culture of hostility against Muslims…
Pakistan’s ruling coalition must not splinter
My op-ed piece that was published in the NEWS, Pakistan On these erudite pages, and elsewhere, there has been much ado about the fact…
Watermelon = Natural Viagra?
Watermelon = Natural Viagra? By Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD, PREVENTION Confession: I’m hooked on Al Roker’s new Celebrity Family Feud. Last night one of…
The invisibility of the Mughal princesses
Painting by A.R Chughtai | Chughtai Museum My piece published by the Himal Magazine The limitations of Southasia’s historical record can be seen in…
SURVEY: South Asian countries not too happy, survey finds
SAJA Forum has this interesting post: Bangladesh, India and Pakistan ranked 64th, 68th and 81st in the latest World Values Survey published by the…
Civil Service is no longer an alluring career for Pakistan’s youth
The captioned article of mine appeared in News on Sunday a week ago. I was quite glad to note that the NEWS wrote an…