Crying for the moon

This is the Eid-eve today. It is celebration time after the month-long fasting. People are happy and they want to express their feelings. They want to show how happy they are by going out, buying new clothes, new shoes, new toys. Those who have money, buy new cars! Travel to places. It is celebration time! It is Eid!

Nobody is against this. Everybody has a right to be happy. Everybody has a right to celebrations after the holy month of Ramazan in which people have put their bodies and souls to test. They rightfully deserve all these celebrations and happiness. But indeed the happiness does not come free here. To fulfil one’s wish to be happy one needs money. And, a lot of it. The shopping centres and markets are full of all kinds of stuff. Through an extravagant display and a lot of lighting, more glitter is added, making these things irresistible. It is too easy to be happy only if one has enough money.

The fact that there is a wide gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ in our society somehow always dampen these feelings of euphoria and elation one feels on such occasion after a visit to the shopping centres and bazaars.

The gulf between the rich and the poor is so wide that it seems impossible to bridge it, and this feeling of helplessness that many of us face only ends up with one gradually becoming insensitive towards this basic element in our society — the ‘inequality and deprivation’.

There were much better subjects to be captured through the lens of the camera in one of the posh shopping centre of the city. But, somehow, our photographer, Ishaq Chaudhry, found these two young boys, not so very clean, not so well fed and not so appropriately dressed for the cold weather, starring at these pretty dolls, as proper to be photographed when he was asked to bring some Eid shopping snaps.

Nothing unusual really. Any child of their age would not have liked to just walk past this display window without taking a considerable pause in her or his strides. And that is the purpose why these cartoon characters and dolls in all sizes and colours are pilled up in this show-case. To attract the children who will compel their parents or guardians to let them have a pick out of the pile.

But, indeed, all this is not meant for these two boys, who seem to be beyond the age of playing with dolls or cartoon character, but, seemingly, are still nurturing that childhood desire hidden somewhere deep in their mind which surfaces on such a sight, compelling them to take a pause.

The warning — ‘do not touch the glass’ — pasted on the show-case is obviously not for the cute, well dressed and prosperous looking girls and boys who come to the shop, tugging on to their parents’ fingers, but for the ‘loafers’ like these two who are trying to‘’enjoy’ the scene free of cost!

The Eid messages from the president and the prime minister as well as the sermons delivered by leading religious scholars and leaders in Eid prayer congregations all over the country will definitely preach for equality in society and to share the happiness of Eid with less fortunate people around us. Easier said then done!

Happy Eid to everybody!

Accent on collectivism

GLOBAL attention has suddenly turned on the religious beliefs of the adherents of Islam, the world over, and their collective behaviour as a mass of people subscribing to the tenets of this faith. It is a post-9/11 phenomenon.

While Islam is distinct from other religions in so many respects, its one main distinctive feature is that, apart from working for one’s personal salvation, a Muslim is supposed to seek the salvation of the entire community of believers. Salvation, not of the soul alone in the Hereafter but also in the present life.

The very opening surah (or chapter) of the Quran begins with the supplication by the reader to the “Creator/Sustainer of all the worlds to guide us (me included) to the right path.” The Quranic supplication to God, precisely forty in number, that are addressed to “Our Creator (Rabbana),” not my Creator, are prayers to the Almighty, not from an individual, but from a community of believers. One such supplication, which is on the lips of every believer during the ritual five-time prayers every day, can be rendered in English thus:

“Our Lord and Creator! Give us in this world that which is good and also in the Hereafter that which is good and guard us from the doom of Hell” (Surah 2, Verse 200). This prayer, in fact, sums up the whole purpose of the Prophet’s mission on earth — uplifting the ‘believers’ (or those who heed his teachings) to a high moral and spiritual level through prayers, fasting and charity and also alleviating the sufferings of the less fortunate ones, arising from penury, poverty, political subjugation, or any other mundane cause hurting them in this world.

If one agrees with this sequence of argument, one can discover the blending of the moral and the mundane aspects of earthly existence in the performance of all the four basic tenets of Islam: 1) The ritual prayers, or Salat, are to be offered five times a day, preferably in a congregation, though praying individually is permitted. Nothing can better serve the purpose of creating God-consciousness by bending and bowing before Him with such frequency and, at the same time, inculcating the spirit of belonging to one community. The Quran says that “the believers are naught else than brothers” (49:10). But what it says are not just empty words like many sayings of the wise and holy men.

The institution of congregational prayers, five times consecutively from dawn to dusk, has been prescribed to ensure that the dictum of Islamic fraternity and Islamic community is a practical proposition. It is unfortunate that some organizations have been dubbed as subversive outfits, although they owe their origin to the noble and well-meaning doctrine that the believers are brothers among themselves who cooperate with one another in all pious and worthy fields instead of being selfish or jealous and unhelpful.

2) All those acts of charity that are meant for the welfare of the deprived and the depressed sections of the community are sadaqa and zakat. Although giving alms to deserving individuals is permitted, yet collection of zakat, the religiously mandatory poor-tax, is required to be organised by the Islamic state and deposited in the State Treasury, or Baitul Mal, to be spent on poverty alleviation measures and affording financial help to the “poor and the needy, to offer money to those whose hearts are to be won, to free the captives and debtors, and for the cause of Allah, and for the wayfarers.”

These categories of persons who have to be helped from the zakat fund were laid down in the Quran (9:60) keeping in view the conditions prevailing at the time of the revelation. In today’s world, “captives, debtors and wayfarers” have to be re-defined, which is not a formidable task in view of the pervasive poverty in a country like Pakistan which, according to the World Bank’s latest report on “Poverty Assessment”, “allocates 42 per cent lower health spending per capita compared to other countries at its income level... as a result of political choices reflecting the voting blocks prevalent in Pakistani elections.”

Bulk of the zakat, (other than what is deducted by banks and saving centres) is paid individually and mostly to individuals and professional beggars rather than welfare institutions. This thwarts the real purpose of zakat which is to satisfy the requirements of “the poor and needy” sections of the community through collective effort. So, in case of zakat, as in salat, although a believer is permitted to discharge his religious duty individually, the recommended and more rewarding course is praying and paying collectively.

To encourage praying in congregations and paying for the collective good of the society, the Quran announces that “anxiety and irritation, which are inherent in human nature, will not afflict those who are constant in offering prayers and who do not hoard and withhold their wealth but acknowledge that the needy and the destitute have a share in it.” (70:18-25).

3) The denial of food and drink while fasting in the month of Ramazan is a personal inconvenience experienced by each individual who fasts to comply with a religious obligation. But by nominating a particular lunar month for the purpose of fasting by the believers all over the world, it has acquired the status of a collective exercise of self-abnegation, as every one undergoes it in unison with the entire community dispersed all over the planet.

4) Hajj, the fourth pillar of the faith, is again a kind of harmonious blending of the individual believer with his whole global community. Each person, wearing the same kind of unstitched simple robe, performing together all the ritualistic chores, gravitating to a common centre, Kaaba, is a practical demonstration of the collectivism of the world Muslims on an unmatched massive scale.

In this piece an attempt has been made to paraphrase in simple English a portion of the early Meccan surah 90 of the quran to show that it was a manifest Divine intention, right from the inception of Islam, to induce the believers to make concerted efforts for uplifting society by helping “the poor and the needy” and others, as given in Surah 9 (excerpted and reproduced in one of the foregoing paras) which was revealed in the later period of the holy Prophet’s life in Madina.

Zakat was made compulsory in about 8 A.H. and it was institutionalised then and thereafter. But, as we will see, very high priority in the list of virtues was assigned to the eradication of poverty even in the Meccan era of helplessness and adversity. How this priority has been relegated to the back burner and how the faithful consider clinging only to formal worship and outward piety taking it as the be-all and end-all of religion, like any other religious community, is really pathetic.

These are the Almighty’s words, in plain language, for those who think and ponder: “Has man not been assigned two eyes, a tongue and two lips (i.e. the five senses) and shown the gorge where he mountain paths intersect (i.e. where the paths leading to virtue and vice take off). To ascend the summit, one has to free a slave, feed the hungry, look after an orphan, near of kin and help the poor wretch out of his miserable predicament.”

Eternal and abiding success cannot be achieved by devoting oneself tirelessly to personal piety but by playing one’s role in the collective social effort to mitigate human suffering — poverty, disease, ignorance and inequity.

Taking on the butchers!

WHEN the Metropolitan pages on December 1 reported with display that the city government tells meat sellers to cut prices and that there would be “action on non-compliance,” there was an amused response from citizens in most cases. This was another paper warning to butchers, they argued, who have had historically speaking, almost a free hand whether it is matter of meat or prices. Ever tried to get the good meat of your choice, on fair terms, asked one Karachiite who has enough experience of buying meat for his household on a regular basis.

In fact many citizens and readers were taken by surprise when they read this wondering whether the city government knew what it was doing. Whether it had met with such success on the theme of prices in Ramazan that it thought it best now to take on the butchers. And whether the theme of the price of meat was the most pressing problem that the Sindh capital was facing.

What has so far happened on the point of meat prices is something that is well known, and what one is keen to see is what happens after Eid. At the time of writing there has been no change in prices, and there are reports that the butchers argue that their prices did not rise in Ramazan. The butchers are militant, and unyielding.

In fact look at what one report has detailed. The general secretary of the Meat Merchants Association, Iqbal Qureshi, has warned that if their demands were not met they would stop the supply of meat after Eidul Fitr. For those who have weddings and other festivities lined up, this would be bad news.

The general secretary has said that he has taken exception to what the language or rather the description that the city Nazim has for butchers. He is reported to have called the butchers as Munafa khor, that is, profiteers. The butchers want to be referred to with respect, please note, and why not? This reminds one of the milk sellers who have never felt comfortable even if they are asked about the water that the milk may have. Stories of the adulteration of milk are galore, and anecdotes so well known that they appear stale.

But meat sellers here. And the price of meat. Analysts argue that there is no chance that the price of meat is going to decline in the days ahead, because with meals at marriages being allowed there is going to be a shortage of meat. The demand will be higher than what it has been for some years now, and so prices will be higher as well. Besides with Eidul Azha in February, prices will ascend, and not vice versa.

But there were such voices in town that insisted that the city government has proved its mettle in the recent past, and that the butchers will have to give in. They refer to the instance of petrol prices which have been reduced recently, but not appreciate that there is a vast difference between the two contexts. You cannot compare petrol prices with those of meat surely.

Meat prices have interestingly not really affected a section of the population where the case against the regular consumption of meat is very strong. Not just because of prices, but because too much meat is injurious to health. These people stay away from meat as a matter of careful healthy routine. One family, for instance, one knows, did not consume any meat in Ramazan because all eight of them happily had their Sahri and Iftari with other traditional items. But this family is an exception rather than the rule, evidently.

Prices in Ramazan and Eid have been a theme that has been afloat not just in the press but it has been the focus of many conversations that have linked the matter to the ongoing political manipulation and government formation. Little surprise that Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali in an interview with a local television channel said on Wednesday night that he would soon, or rather right away bring down the prices of electricity, edible oil (ghee) and atta. Sounds good, sounds too good to be true, one feels. But let us see.

One citizen was reminded of the fact that where meat is available at lower prices the quality is also proportionately lower. It is value for money: that’s the theory that works. You cannot get the best quality at the government approved rates. How can you have a free market economy and the government controlling prices at the same time?

The same evening there was on a television channel an interview with well- known politician Sardar Sherbaz Khan Mazari, and he was asked whether he was aware of the problem of rising prices of items of daily use. He answered in the affirmative and said that it was his wife who was facing the problem, and was complaining that prices were rising all the time.

Rising prices is something painful that has eroded the domestic budgets of families, and the poorer they be the harder hit they have been. Grim analysts and economists with a sharp sense of realism predict that tough days lie ahead, and that prices will undo most planning.

But the city government seems optimistic on this tricky slippery theme. It is hopeful about taming the tough butchers of a city where the rich buy their mutton, beef or chicken, without any consideration of what they are being charged. Where the poor also don’t bother about prices as they can’t afford the meat mentioned above. If at all they do, they buy the worst quality available.