In my book 2017: The Battle for Marghdeen, published five years ago, I wrote that a major turning point would occur in the history of Pakistan in 2017. I wish to thank those friends and readers who have been recalling it in the light of the recent developments in the country. On the suggestion of […]
“2017” – revisiting my five-year-old book about the present year Read More »
With so much talk about seeking greater harmony between Islam and the West in our times, perhaps we need to think again about a very strong bridge that has already been existing between the two cultures for the last three hundred years. Three hundred years ago, Europe was witnessing the great intellectual revolution that was
The common worldview of Islam and the modern West Read More »
Recently, I have been trying to show that the resolution adopted unanimously by the elected legislators of the All-India Muslim League on April 9, 1946, in Delhi, was the foundational document for Pakistan (and perhaps also the true basis of the political reality of South Asia as it exists today). There are two questions I
Two implications of the Delhi Resolution of 1946 Read More »
The philosophy of Iqbal can be explained in nine simple points. They can all be extracted from three research papers he presented respectively in 1908, 1909 and 1911. His later work, including the more well-known Reconstruction is further development on these nine points. The points are as following. Universal Islam and the modern West share
The philosophy of Iqbal in nine points Read More »
Going through the book English History 1914-1945 by A. J. P. Taylor a few years ago, I was happily surprised to see that according to him, the years immediately following the First World War were happy times. This is contrary to the general belief today. “To judge from all leading writers, the barbarians were breaking
A. J. P. Taylor: someone we should know Read More »
On the morning of September 6, 1965, the people of Pakistan (including the present-day Bangladesh) learnt that their country was under attack because the Indian forces had crossed the international boundary near Lahore. For the next seventeen days, the media kept informing the nation that heavy losses were being inflicted on the enemy. When the
A parallel between the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965 and the defeat of the Spanish Armada Read More »
In sync with the current of Iqbal’s thought was also the idea of ‘new democracy’, highlighted by such political thinkers as the American pioneer of management sciences, Mary Parker Follett and the great Bengali visionary Chittaranjan Das (C. R. Das). Follett denounced Western democracy as ‘old democracy’, which sustained itself through a dichotomy between the
Iqbal, Mary Parker Follett and C. R. Das Read More »
It seems that both the liberals and the conservatives in Pakistan have been missing the main point of the Quaid’s famous speech. You are free; you are free to go to your temples; you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may
What the Quaid said on August 11, 1947, and how it has been distorted Read More »
Pakistan was created by a political organization but the organization was unlike any other. It was a new type, the technical term for which was ‘group organization’ (although the term was never used by Iqbal or the Quaid, but both were familiar with it). It was believed that the country could only be maintained through
Political Organization Read More »
The first constituent assembly of Pakistan (then including the present-day Bangladesh) was inaugurated on 10 August 1947, and remained in existence till October 1954. The setting up of this assembly had been demanded by the Indian Muslims in the Delhi Resolution of April 1946, as an embodiment of the new state. Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Those who defied the sovereignty of Pakistan Read More »