KHALID Hasan has, in his column in a Lahore magazine, chosen the right moment to refer to a prophetic story written by Ghulam Abbas. In fact, we all should stand up in homage to him for foretelling a situation which started actualizing long after his death, with the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

I need not go into the details of the story as it has already been summarized by Khalid Hasan. I, too, had tried to summarize it in a piece published on November 1, 1998, at a time when we were under threat from Nawaz Sharif’s Shariat Bill.

I vividly remember the historic evening when Ghulam Abbas came from Karachi, took tea with us in the Tea House, and then proceeded to the Halqa-i-Arbab-i-Zauq to read his new story. I am talking of the late 1960s. Those were the days when people in Pakistan were sharply divided between socialists or Islamic socialists and Islam pasands. Ghulam Abbas was neither of the two. In fact, he did not believe that a writer could indulge in politics. His stories will bear testimony to this. So we least expected from him a kind of story that would add fuel to the fire of ideological politics.

The story presented was titled Dhanak — the rainbow. In Khalid Hasan’s English translation, it has been titled, Hotel Moen-Jo-Daro. The hotel in the story is the place where foreign delegates are staying and are waiting for some news to break. They are told that a spaceship launched by Pakistan has landed on the moon. That shows Pakistan’s astounding achievements in the field of scientific research. But a mullah delivering a sermon in a mosque in a little village condemns it as an act of sacrilege, something not in accordance with the Shariat.

The mullah’s protest soon gathers momentum and turns into a movement, leading to the fall of the government. The mullahs come into power. In their zeal for reform, they go to the extreme. All universities, colleges and schools are closed, giving place to madaris. Female education is banned. Women are ordered to sit at home, strictly observing purdah. The banking system grinds to a halt. With foreign countries, all relations, economic, political, cultural, etc, are cut off.

Radio, television, theatre halls and cinema houses are converted into madaris. Literature is condemned, more particularly fiction. And so on and so forth.

But soon sectarian differences crop up. The mullahs find themselves in warring camps known as Sabzposh, Surkhposh, Niliposh. The sharpening of differences leads to bloodshed. The situation provides the enemy with an opportune moment to attack Pakistan.

The story ends with a scene showing a camel caravan crawling through a desert. A guide is seen pointing to some ruins and saying that these are remains of a sky-high building once known as Hotel Moen-Jo-Daro, the historic place from where the landing of Pakistan’s first spaceship on the moon was announced.

The recital of the story was to be followed by a discussion. However, the discussion could not be conducted. As the story ended, there were loud protestations from the audience. Islam-pasand intellectuals were in a state of fury. They were challenged by the socialist intellectuals. That led to a riotous scene. Ghulam Abbas sat bewildered, not knowing what to do. Seeing the protesters in a threatening mood, a few old Halqa wallahs took positions around him and with much difficulty, led him out.

The story was long enough to fill a volume, which was published in 1969 with a short foreword from the author in which he said a few words just in an attempt to clarify his position. He tells us that while writing the story, he could hardly imagine that within the next two years man would be able to land on the moon. He also thought it fit to explain that being an Iqbalian, he never aligned himself with any sect. “I regard myself just one from among the Millat-i-Islamia. Only in this capacity I have felt some apprehensions with regard to the future of the Millat, which have been expressed here in the form of a story.”

Ghulam Abbas confessed his ignorance only to the extent of landing on the moon. But there were so many things he did not know at the time he was writing his story. He could hardly have foreseen the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan or of the sectarian attacks on mosques in Pakistan. Even Ziaul Haq’s Islamization came late in his life. The story was written in 1967 and he died in November, 1982. Fundamentalism was not yet in sight. Only his foresight could help him to see what was to come in later years. His portrayal of the mullahs’ regime reads like a realistic account of what happened in Afghanistan under the Taliban. And how graphically he depicts terrorist attacks inspired by sectarianism, as if he were seeing all that was destined to happen in the days to come.

Under the present circumstances, the story demands to be read once again, read and re-read. Beware of what the storyteller tells you.