I started my first website in 1999. After changing many addresses, I finally settled with “Marghdeen” in 2014. It means a world free from fear and want. The term was coined by Dr Sir Muhammad Iqbal in 1932. According to him, this is the default state of the world we are now living in. If there is still injustice and poverty in the world, and if peace and justice still evade us, it is manly because the best universities of the world have failed to provide the kind of education required for living in the world that exists now.
The aim of this website is to provide that education, of course non-formally, to anybody who wishes to have it. Until recently, I have been presenting assorted writings and post, most of which are globally relevant and have been appreciated across many countries. Starting in 2020, I want to focus on a special project over the next three years. I am describing it below.
The next three years, 2020-2023
The project may be called “Project Marghdeen”. Its aim is to produce, by 2023, the basic content which every educated citizen of Pakistan must have assimilated by the time he or she passes high school. This content does not exist at present (as I hope to show more convincingly elsewhere on this website).
Rationale
According to Jinnah, the citizens of Pakistan should be able to organize themselves regardless of leaders, or even without a leader. This idea was presented by him in the same session of the All-India Muslim League where the Pakistan Resolution got adopted. Hence, in Pakistan, every citizen should have the same leadership skills which Jinnah had. They were mainly three, and were connected to the three principles that made his famous motto: Faith, Unity and Discipline.
- FAITH: The first leadership skill of Jinnah was that he could foresee the future – not by relying on any supernatural source, but by using his mental faculties. This is the practical demonstration of his conception of faith, which means not only faith in God but also faith in your nation and its destiny.
- UNITY: The second leadership skill of Jinnah was his ability to represent the entire nation rather than representing one part of it against another. By the standards of democracy existing in his times, he could claim to be the unanimously elected leader of his nation. This is unity in its actual form.
- DISCIPLINE: The third leadership skill of Jinnah was that he could recognize the common will of the nation – what everybody wants but which might not be obvious to you if you do not have the ability to see it. If you cannot see it, you try to give your vision to the nation. But if you can see the common will, you follow the vision the nation gives you from time to time, as Jinnah did. That is the highest form of discipline.
These leadership skills of Jinnah were well-known to his followers when Pakistan came into being. Pakistan was conceived as a society where every citizen will have these skills. In other words, you should be able to able to perform your role in this society with (a) an awareness of its destiny, (b) while representing the entire nation rather than a part of it, and (c) by recognizing and pursuing its collective goal.
The main reason why we do not have these skills is that we did not know that even Jinnah or anybody else had them. How they got deleted from the biographies of Jinnah and from the history books we have read is a question to be answered elsewhere on this website (and the associated YouTube channel). But the mistake has now been corrected with a concise but complete biography of Jinnah, i.e. the experimental film, Jinnah: The True Story. available on the YouTube. It shows how he used these skills, and what he truly achieved through them.
Project Marghdeen can help us go even further, and acquire these skills for ourselves. For this, we need to re-educate ourselves. The aim of the project is to produce the syllabus required for this, and to make available the most basic resources for further reading. The syllabus would consist mainly of the same subjects which are compulsory in the colleges. But here, the content of each subject will be developed according to the ideas of Iqbal and in the light of how Jinnah implemented those ideas. The syllabus will be covered initially through a series of short videos uploaded on the YouTube channel, Khurram’s Desk (mostly on a weekly basis). It is hoped that the entire syllabus will be covered in three years, starting from 2020.
Tangible outcomes
The tangible outcomes of Project Marghdeen are going to be five:
- Up to fourteen compact courses for history, art and literature, political science, religious studies, and educational philosophy. These courses will provide that basic education which an average educated citizen of Pakistan must have but does not. They will consists mainly of videos, but printed material might also be produced if the demand arises.
- Soft copies of the speeches and statements of the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and the proceedings of the All-India Muslim League to be digitized and made available online.
List of courses
Perhaps some readers will be interested in knowing the list of courses to be produced as the first tangible outcome listed above. Here is the list:
- Biography of Jinnah (already accomplished through the film, Jinnah: The True Story).
- Jinnah’s Pakistan from 1947 to 2026
- The DNA of History (World history according to Iqbal): Ancient period
- The DNA of History (World history according to Iqbal): Modern period
- Ideas, not Fantasies (an introduction to world literature according to Iqbal)
- The literary ideals of the Muslim Renaissance
- The political science of Jinnah
- Biography of the Holy Prophet according to Iqbal
- The religious legacy of the All-India Muslim League
- Conscious evolution (the goals of education according to Iqbal)
Non-tangible outcomes
Project Marghdeen is not an end in itself. It is a step towards achieving other outcomes that might be called immeasurable and non-tangible at present but can become measurable and tangible after the completion of this project. They are:
- Dissemination of the above-mentioned products to a wider audience in such a systematic manner that it could become the kind of education needed by the citizens of Pakistan in the times to come.
- Higher level of research based on this education (the resources produced in the first three years of the project address only the primary to high school level, but obviously the understanding is to go beyond in the future).
- The achievement of a society free from fear and want, which is possible through such an education as explained in the rationale.
- Replicate this model for producing its equivalents in other societies, because as explained in the rationale, the issue we are addressing is a global one but must be handled by each society according to its own genius.
How you can benefit
Should you choose, you can get registered, you can become a registered participant. Registered participants will get additional learning benefits, including distant teaching directly by the resource person (which is me, Khurram Ali Shafique). At present, registration is only by invitation, and details can be acquired by sending email to khurramsdesk@gmail.com for details.
But there are also other ways you can benefit from the course, its resources and the entire project, and also support it. Some of them are suggested below.
- SUBSCRIBE to the YouTube channel of this project, Khurram’s Desk. Also, watch the videos uploaded there, post your comments on them, reply to the comments posted by others, like the videos and share them. All of these activities can go a long way in helping the project generate its own revenues.
- Follow my page on Facebook.
- Read the posts on this website, leave your comments, or reply to comments posted by others.
- Check the associated websites and engage with them: Marghdeen Urdu, Thank You Jinnah and Waheed Murad.
- Write to me if you have any queries: khurramsdesk@gmail.com
Where to start learning
As mentioned above, the content of this syllabus is being uploaded on the YouTube channel, Khurram’s Desk. On that channel:
- A good starting point is the ABOUT page, which offers you an overview and the roadmap. Any change in plans will also be indicated on that page.
- The page also consists useful links for further details.
- The learning resources can be found on the HOME PAGE. Check the section headings and the playlists in each section. These are being organized so that you can follow the syllabus more easily.
- There are also other tabs, which YouTube may change from time to time. Our aim is to make every tab rich and useful for you, so it might be a good idea to check them too.
- Check the descriptions of the videos. Usually, they explain how the video fits into the syllabus, its learning objectives and useful links for more information on the topic.
- If possible, do post a comment on the video. It will help others benefit from your learning. If you have a question, you can also ask it in the comment.
- SUBSCRIBE. Do not forget to subscribe to this channel. Also press the notification icon for receiving updates.
Acknowledgment
The project has been started with an initial support from Nayyer Sultana, Kanwal Zubair, Raazia Attique, J A Syed Educational Trust and Topline Publishers.