With reference to the article, Mother and sons (January 25) the writer has highlighted the virtues of his mother. What is expressed is very true of all mothers. Her love for the children is the same, whether a son is dutiful or not. It is the truest form of love with no strings attached to it.
A mother sacrifises all her rest in looking after her children, even if any one of them does not respond to her love. She rarely complains of it. Her hands are always raised to Almighty for the good health of her children, no matter how her own health condition takes a turn.
A mother is put on the highest pedestal. According to our belief Jannat is under her feet. One can get everything in this world, but not a mother, if she is lost. The memory of a mother always haunts whenever the children are caught in grave problems requiring far-reaching dicisions.
M. SHAFIQUE AHMED
Karachi
The land of the Pharaohs
With reference to the article, The land of the Pharaohs (January 25), according to my information, the tomb of Sayeda Zainab, the grand-daughter of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), is not located in the Al-Hussein (Hussaini) Mosque of Cairo, that is situated at the entrance of Khan el-Khalili Bazaar.
The said tomb is believed to be housed in the As-Sayeda Zainab Mosque located in the heart of As-Sayeda Zainab Square, overlooking the bay of River Nile.
There is controversy about the burial place of Sayeda Zainab, the grand-daughter of the Holy Prophet. In fact majority of the Shi’ite sect believe that the remains of As-Sayeda Zainab are enshrined in Damascus. She, along with Bibi Sakainah and Abdullah bin Zain al-Abidin, is buried in Bab Saghir cemetery. A triple-dome mosque embodies the shrine, which is visited by thousands of devotees every year. Iranian President Muhammad Khatami visited the shrine in May 1999.
Similar controversy surrounds the burial place of Hazrat Imam Hussain. Reportedly the remains of Hazrat Imam Hussain are buried in Cairo (Hussaini Mosque) and believed to be in Najaf and in Damascus too. A special enclosure in the Umayyad Mosque, Damascus is said to be the burial place of Hazrat Imam Hussain, which is being looked after by the devotees of Bohra sect.
Religious scholars may like to throw more light on the subject.
HUSSAIN AHMAD SIDDIQUI
Islamabad
Understanding suicide
With reference to the article Understanding suicide (February 1), the article depicted the author’s lack of understanding on ‘the most intriguing phenomenon associated with man’, and man’s failure to ‘grasp the intrinsic message in the act of intentional dying’.
Let me remove this deep-rooted misconception associated with suicide that this courageous act, as I would call it, is not a ‘protest’ against any social evil, rather it is a ‘revelation’ of man’s suppressed and crushed desires. The death of the professor and his wife in Karachi was more of an upright man’s failure to discover a way-out, rather than ‘an upright’s man protest against an incorrigible corrupt society...’. The girls ‘death from the balcony; likewise revealed her inability to vocalize her feelings and her wish to live than to die an ignoble death everyday.
The suicide in the above two cases is not an indication of impossibility of escape. People terminate their lives because they don’t wish to live anymore. Had they wished they would have forged a way for themselves.
Man’s death-wish, reveals his intense desire to live; but on discovering the world unlivable, he therefore finds peace and life in death.
With a few exceptions of political suicide, say of Rajiv Gandhi or the 9/11 terrorists, the rest is not the form of ‘protest’ as protest breeds a life of action and fury, whereas suicide, is a life of rest and silence.
May all of us live as long we wish to live because the moment this wish flies away, our rational mind would cease to instruct and hence begins the cult of silent deaths.
