THAT man has been created to be the servant of Allah is part of a true believer’s faith. This concept is extensively defined in the Quran and finds perfect expression in the conduct of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) who was “the foremost of those who submit wholly to Allah.”

Let us first turn to what the sacred Book, the last Divine revelation, has to say in this regard: “And the servants of (Allah) Most Gracious are those who walk on the earth with humility, and when they are accosted by the ignorant ones their response is peace; who pass the hours of the night in adoration of their Lord prostrate, who entreat the Lord: avert from us the punishment of hell, for it is a heavy torment.

“It is indeed in evil resort and dwelling place; who are neither extravagant nor niggardly in spending and keep a balance between the two; who call not only any god beside Allah, nor destroy a life that Allah has declared sacred, except for just cause, nor commit adultery; for whoever does that shall meet with the punishment of his sin and punishment will be intensified on the Day of Judgment and he will reside therein disgraced except for those who repent, and believe and work righteous deeds.

“Allah will convert their evil deeds into good ones, Allah being most forgiving, ever Merciful (and he who repents and works righteousness indeed turns to Allah with true repentance); who bear not false witness, and when they come upon any thing vain, they pass on with dignity; when they are reminded of the Signs of their Lord (Creator), they droop not down at them as if they were dead and blind; and who implore: our Lord! grant unto us wives and offspring who will be the comfort of our eyes and give us the grace to lead the righteous. These are the ones who will be rewarded with lofty mansions in the Paradise because they were steadfast, and they will be welcome there into with greetings and solutions of peace, abiding therein. Excellent is an abode and place of rest”! (25:63-76).

What does the glorious Quran emphasise with the words steadfastness and determination? It is the spirit of complete devotion and dedication to achieve one’s objectives in the face of all impediments and severe hardships that come in their way and recreate and reawaken incentives to continue the ceaseless efforts, transcending all fear and all worldly glamour. When we believe sincerely that sovereignty vests in Allah, the omnipotent and Omniscient, that he is our Lord and to him only we submit and that his divine book, Al-Quran, is our complete code of life, then it becomes imperative for all Muslims, to act according to the teachings of that Book with full resolve.

It is obvious that as true Muslims we have to work unitedly with selfless motives and actions to meet all challenges of today’s world — social, economic, cultural, political, scientific and technological — with dauntless courage and wisdom within the laws of Allah, the Creator of billions of planets and innumerable species of creations. Without acquiring sources of modern knowledge and dedication to the practical research of the forces of nature as stressed in the Quran, we cannot reach the height of knowledge and rise in the comity of nations. With this spirit of devotion we can carve out a place for ourselves as an ideal nation with our right of political, intellectual and spiritual self-determination as envisaged in the Quran.

When the true believers face extreme privations, they should strive to overcome them as stated in the glorious Quran by being steadfast and determined in their ceaseless efforts: “But if you show fortitude and restrain yourselves, that indeed is a matter of strong determination.” (3:106).

Prophet Muhammad (SAW) has clearly stated that those who accept and believe in tauhid (Monotheism) and the life hereafter must remain resolved and unshaken by any challenges and allurements in their pursuits. They should not succumb to any intimidation or coercion. According to the Quran, a true Muslim possesses honesty, integrity, resolution and boldness. He is not the slave of any one except his Creator, Maintainer and Sustainer who is Omnipotent and Omniscient.He entirely depends on the succour of Allah as promised and expressed with clarity of diction in the Divine Book which says: “Do not slacken, therefore, nor grieve; you will have the upper hand, if you continue firm in the faith.” (3:139).

No one can deny that in today’s complex and diverse world with innumerable problems and perplexities and pernicious attitudes against the Muslim Ummah we should stand united to face all odds with courage, patience, conviction, foresight and wisdom and resist aggression, high-handedness and hegemony. Muslims should be prepared for privations and deprivations with resignation and will power. A true Muslim will never compromise his freedom of thought and action; economic, social, cultural and political independence and will not stoop down to the status of a mercenary slave. We should reawaken and reconstruct the Muslim world with faith, unity and discipline to march forward in all fields of progress and advancement in science, technology and in all areas of knowledge and learning and bless the nation with peace and prosperity.

All the Muslim states should become a symbol of determination and steadfastness and strive hard with complete integrity, selflessness and service to the people to establish the law of Allah as enjoined in the Quran: “He enjoins on them good and forbids them evil, declares lawful for them things wholesome and forbids them things harmful and removes from them their burdens and shackles that bound them. So those who shall believe in him (Messenger) and honour and support him, and help him and follow the light that is sent with him, they shall prosper.” (7:157).

There are some basic and fundamental dimensions in the teachings of the Quran which create and establish conscientiousness, responsibility and moral earnestness that lead to refinement and culture. Selflessness stands foremost, which according to the Quranic philosophy, consists in the absence of evils and stimulates real dignity and self-control to human being and recreates social virtues in the highest measure and endows him with truth, sincerity, veracity, and single-mindedness to behave with efficiency and welfare of the people. Sympathy, compassion, kindness, respect and generosity should be our guiding principle.

Justice occupies a central role and pivotal position in Islam. Justice in respect of others and also in regard to one’s self. Impartial justice in respect of others ensures the prevention of any harm to others and promotes natural and ideal life as enjoined by the glorious Quran and reconstructs purity of conscience and sound moral behaviour and submission to the will of Allah. The Quran enjoins this virtue with great emphasis, “O ye who believe, be steadfast in the cause of Allah, bearing witness in equity, let not a people’s enmity towards you incite you to act contrary to justice, be always just, that is closest to righteousness. Be mindful of your duty to Allah, surely Allah is aware of all that you do.” (5:8).

In Surah Al-Nisa, the Quran stresses the significance of justice (Adl) thus: “O ye who believe, be strict in observing justice and bear witness only for the sake of Allah, even if it be against your own selves or against parents or kindred. Whether the person be rich or poor, in either case, Allah is more regardful of him than you could be. Therefore, follow not vain desires so that you may act equitably. If you conceal the truth or evade it, then remember that Allah is well aware of that which you do.” (4:135).

BY the time Ayub Khan left he had dismantled, brick by brick, all that was fostered by him and his National Reconstruction Bureau during the first intervention in the country’s government by the military establishment. Later military regimes just followed in Ayub Khan’s footsteps, Roedad Khan wrote in Sunday’s Dawn last week.

General Naqvi’s National Reconstruction Bureau has not only been churning out similar blue prints as General Burki’s NRB for cash-strapped local governments but has also started retracting plans in more or less the same manner, at times, a little sooner than its predecessor.

On Jan 4 the NRB chairman, while presiding over a meeting at the Sindh chief secretary’s office in Karachi, decided that the Karachi Building Control Authority, instead of becoming part of the city government under the Sindh Local Government Ordinance 2001, would stay as a department with the government of Sindh. This may be considered major retraction in a sequence of second thoughts concerning the much-trumpeted devolution plan.

Through the 1996 amendments to the Sindh Building Control Ordinance the city’s building control was entrusted to the Karachi Development Authority and its director general was given the authority to decide the matters of the KBCA’s administrative and regulatory functions.

On Jan 1 the KDA, as well as the Karachi Water and Sewage Board, was given to the city government. Yet the most improbable of all the civic functions of the KBCA was retained with by the provincial administration!

It is a widely held view that the decision to retain the KBCA with the provincial administration was, besides other considerations, taken because the city government appeared reluctant to devolve the regulatory of the building control to the eighteen towns of the city.

A unified set of building bylaws for the city, just like one city police for Karachi, covering areas under the administrative control of the city government, the cantonment boards, the Karachi Port Trust and other landowning agencies with an appropriate role in enforcement of these bylaws for the 18 towns and different land owners would have been a better suggestion.

But separating building control functions from the district government is like taking away its soul from the city. Why leave master plan department or fire services with the city government if it is not good for its own building control?

The Sindh Local Government Ordinance 2001 specifies building control as a mandatory function of the city and town governments. If people cannot allow or restrict a particular type or form of construction or regulate any other construction the city has no right to direct the KWSB to develop specific plans, nor it has a right to demand regulatory function over the KESC in future.

Today there are many civic degradations that remain far and elusive from the reach of the city government as ever before. These range from simple authority over allotment of nurseries proliferating illegally all over the green belts, footpaths and service roads across the city in violation of all civic planning norms, regularization of illegal construction, unchecked proliferation of kutchi abadis to simple control over distribution of water.

What needs to be appreciated is the fact that over the years the land use and population densities in various parts of Karachi have drastically changed. The town planners must avoid slogans. It is high time that new zoning regulations were framed to form relevant building bylaws.

Clifton was a sleepy residential area some forty years ago and so were many other neighborhoods. They may have now acquired true commercial colours and therefore the town planning and construction ratios over various roads need to be redefined in such areas if corruption is to be removed from our town and city governance manuals.

The city government more than anyone else has to be sensitive about such issues. If the higher echelons of government in the province and the country have decided to continue to protect the interest of builders and moneyed classes then there is no point in trying to hammer the point across otherwise hardly any sane element would insist upon bad decisions as made on Jan 4.

Many people never took the federal government’s swing at devolution seriously.

The exercise till date appears pretty hollow as it lacks meaningful transfer of authority from the Centre to provinces. The effort to set up provincial finance commissions also appears stalled. The claims that without financial authority there can be no meaningful devolution after all, does not appear to be all that misplaced.

It may be a universally accepted fact that the establishment always prefers to deal and work with the chosen few rather than a those who represent the masses. Yet if some faith of the commoners is still needed in the system then the decision depriving the city government of the KBCA needs to be corrected at the earliest. Karachi urgently needs a set of unified building control bylaws their absence only fills the coffers of the few and gives bad name to many.

SINCE taking over the reins of government in July last year, Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan has been repeatedly passing irksome remarks about journalists. Right on the day of his election as leader of the house, he came down upon them saying they were free to criticize any person but never searched their own hearts.

When asked about what hurts him, he declined to elaborate but said he would soon invite them to the PM house to speak his mind. It was felt he was annoyed over reports saying that he had fewer supporters in the Muslim Conference parliamentary party than had Sardar Qayyum.

Besides, some papers had also made mentioned the reported Ehtesab Bureau investigations into his large fortunes and assets. When a newsman said that whatever they had written was supported by facts, the PM retorted by saying he did not think so and would apologize if proved otherwise.

Since that day the PM has not found time to settle the matter between himself and the newsmen. On the following day, at his swearing-in ceremony, he repeated his remarks, with a slight change in them. This time he targeted what he said were “honorary reporters.” The journalist community felt bad and conveyed its feelings to MC chief Sardar Qayyum and others. Realizing the gravity of the matter, Sardar Sikandar maintained his comments were of a generalized nature and he never meant to hurt anyone’s feeling. He even offered regrets for his remarks.

Following his clarification, the situation calmed down. However, lately, he has been expressing his anger to the newsmen. At the inauguration of the 100-bed block of the CMH, Muzaffarabad, on Jan 29, the PM could not resist repeating what now appears to be his favourite subject. While criticizing the main opposition People’ Party, he said that “like them we are not interested in TV coverage and getting news items published through Zakat money.” This remark was an unequivocal allegation that the press received money from the opposition for running its statements, or, in other words, the stories against the government appeared to be the outcome of illegal gratification.

Whosoever has an eye on the situation in Azad Kashmir does not need extra wisdom to find out why Sardar Sikandar has been so hostile to the media. People from his own party are dissatisfied with the performance of the government. In the beginning, they concealed their feelings, but now they don’t. They allege the prime minister prefers people from his own clan to committed party workers. Their outcries are getting due coverage in the press.

It is an accepted thing that the press in our country is mostly pro-opposition. When Sardar Sikandar was in opposition between 1996-2001, the newsmen did give him coverage, although he rarely spoke to them against then government led by Barrister Sultan Mahmud. And due to this, his faction of the Muslim Conference was branded B-team of the (PP) government. Sultan Mahmud, one must acknowledge, never made pinching remarks against newsmen, although they never spared him from criticism.

Going back to Sardar Sikandar’s oft-repeated allegation against the newsmen, one must admit that the Zakat profit fund has been badly misused in Azad Kashmir by successive governments. Having no separate financial head to assist or favour individuals or institutions, one government after the other here has been making generous spendings from Zakat profit fund, which runs into millions of rupees.

People from almost all sections have benefited from this fund. Journalists are no exception because they too are part of society. But driving all of them with one stick is unfair on the part of the premier to say the least. If he has any solid complaint or proof against any newsman, he should put it forth instead of blaming the whole community at public meetings.

Suppose, if the public gatherings are the only appropriate forum for him, then he should pinpoint the person or persons who are guilty in his eyes. Why torment those who have always tried to keep themselves away from illegal gratification?

NOT a day passes without one coming across Afghan children, youngsters and the elderly selling articles of daily use, eatables or offering services in various skills at your doorstep. Traditionally, skilled Afghans and salesmen have come to be associated with the sale of pop-corn, shoe-shining and honing knives, scissors and razors. But 23 years of strife has badly affected the 24 million people of Afghanistan. Some 10 million of them comprise children ranging between the ages of five and ten.

Afghan turmoil has left behind nothing but a trial of misery, suffering poverty and devastation. With a life expectancy of 43, millions of Afghan babies have been born and bred amidst the din of bombs and bullets. It is only the aged Afghans who might be having an idea of a peaceful childhood. But no less painful is the spectre of thousands of children displaced from their homes, separated from their families and deeply scarred psychologically. A host of these children have been crippled by tens of thousands of landsmines over the whole of the Afghan countryside. Most of them were indoctrinated into bearing arms in support of conflicts they could hardly understand.

We have witnessed thousands of pictures of Afghan women with small children in their arms accompanied by the elderly people roaming within Afghanistan or moving across the border into Pakistan. The majority of Afghan youth seems to have become cannon fodder. The story of Afghan women landing into brothels or even sold in markets is another tragedy of the Afghan strife. Now that the custodians of the world order and civilization are engaged in restoring peace and rebuilding Afghanistan, their first and foremost duty should be to trace missing Afghan children and women wherever they are and restore them to their families.

But what prompted me to write this piece was the dignity, self-respect and unique individuality maintained by Afghan salesmen and small children even under such traumatic situations. I have never seen any Afghan boy or a girl begging in the streets. It must be very rare for an old Afghan asking for help. Afghan girls are seen picking waste paper or rags to eke out a living, while the Afghan children are mostly involved in selling one article or the other of daily use. The tender ones, hardly seven or eight years old, sell roasted pop-corn, grains, sweet bread, sweets of varying varieties, onions, garlic, ginger and dry fruit.

The sale of roasted or unroasted peanuts, almonds, walnuts, dates, etc., has remained their ancestral trade. Some of them can be seen around cars at bus stops or big markets to sell small or big-sized dusters for vehicles or for dusting rooms. There are others who sell cloth or plastic sheets for dining-tables. A little grown-up among them sell spectacles, caps of various designs, especially Swati, wallets, woollen mufflers, jackets, etc.

With the arrival of enterprising Afghan children and youngsters in Lahore mini-Lunda bazaars sprang up at many busy roads and market-places all over the city. They are more visible at the Liberty Roundabout, Wahdat Road, Chowk Yatimkhana, Chauburji, Circular Road, Chowk Yadgar, the Badami Bagh bus stand, the railway station, Shahdara, etc. There is still another category of Afghan children who roam the streets to sell hand-knotted carpets, prayer mats and beads, wrist watches, knives, nail clippers, cosmetics, ear and tooth-cleansing needles, ball-points, diaries, etc. The more innovative and energetic among them carry bundles of cloth, cutlery, crockery sets, electronic appliances for house-to-house sale in city streets.

Street-vending is a highly lucrative pursuit for these children. They make profits ranging from a hundred to a thousand rupees on any sunny day. They told me that their earnings depended on the weather. But more surprising for many is the observation that years of travail, turbulence, hopelessness, starvation and frequent migrations from one place to another has not turned them any rebellious or volatile children.

It shows the inherent versatility and resilience of the Afghan character. Barring a few stray cases, these children are highly courteous and well-mannered. Even when any intemperate customer gets irritated, they keep their composure. It will be relevant here to quote two eye-witness accounts. An Afghan child trying to strike a successful bargain with an irate lady at Chowk Yatimkhana the other day was really inspiring. But even more pleasing was the act of another Afghan boy offering a rose flower to a young woman in a car and getting a tenner at Liberty. How was a nation with such intelligent children plunged into a civil war? And how have these children emerged unscathed from it? These are but a few of the more pertinent questions which crop up in the mind of every Afghan-sympathizer. Instead of punishing them, the world needs to treat them humanely. However, the most notable aspect of this horrible situation is that the Afghans, more so the children should have dignity maintained their in their worst hours of adversity. According to a survey conducted by the social Work department of the Punjab University, there are 10,000 Afghan children engaged in one trade or the other in Lahore alone.