It’s an evening at the Islamabad Golf Club. Guests at the club house are enjoying the scent of the evening jasmine, emanating from the golf course, as they await the arrival of a ‘special guest’.

The nocturnal jasmine has an interesting story. It was discovered in the 1800’s in the forests of the West Indies and then later brought to the subcontinent. And now after hundreds of years and with an indigenous name – Raat-ki-Raani (Night Queen) – imagining it to be of foreign origin seems absurd.

Everyone at the golf club is waiting for a person, who like the evening jasmine has travelled hundreds of miles with a message as hope driven as the scent that pervades the environment.

The guest’s name is Shaykh Fadlallah Haeri. He is a Sufi Shaykh who resides in South Africa. He is famous for holding yearly congregations at his Sufi retreat in Johannesburg, where Sufis come from all over the world, accompanied with men and women from the western world, who convert to Islam on the occasion.

With such a profile one expected a traditional scholar attired in turban and robes but in walks a man dressed in pants and a blazer, looking like ‘the guy next door’.

The Shaykh’s mode of address is as disarming as his dress: conversational and anecdotal, and people who do not know him, immediately get to know him, in a matter of minutes.

The Shaykh starts off with himself: a brief biography.

He was born in Karbala, Iraq, into a traditional Muslim family. He learnt the standard belief system and rituals that millions of Muslims learn throughout the world, simply through the virtue of being born in a certain geographical location.

Then he travelled to the West where he studied physics and engineering and after graduating, worked in the oil industry. It was during this period, that a ‘change’ occurred in his life.

And the change, the Shaykh ties to his earlier study of physics. He says that in physics one learns that the only certainty in life is uncertainty – basically state of constant change. And embracing oneself for constant change is the very foundation of Islam.

Even if one is to look at it biologically: one is a child, teenager, adult…Life is designed in such a way that change remains constant.

Resistance to change is the mindset or mentality that can lead an individual or society towards fundamentalism or extremism.

According to the Shaykh, the greatest change – a change still in progress – occurred when through the evolutionary process human beings were able to differentiate themselves from the animal kingdom.

The Shaykh defines this change in simple words, stating that when a person “Be it a six-year-old or a sixty-year-old was able to look in the mirror and say ‘I’,” was the turning point in human history.

But, then what about the negativity and violence in present day Pakistan, asks a guest.

The Shaykh laments that one tends to read or look at developments in history negatively. He gives the example of the Crusades.

“We always talk about the Crusades negatively but there were times during the Crusades when Christians, Muslims and Jews lived in harmony.”

He says that he has travelled many times to Pakistan and knows the country well. He sees a lot of hope. A large number of the population is educated and has exposure to international ideas. But one should embrace oneself for change. Things could get worse – because one doesn’t know what will happen tomorrow – but to remember that things never remain the same…change is constant and it will happen for the better.

One comment which guests find funny is when the Shaykh says: “I always tell new converts to Islam to enjoy Islam because it is a gift but don’t confuse Islam with Muslims.”

Audience members can tell that the Shaykh is used to addressing international audience and many of his ideas people in Pakistan might not immediately understand. But there is no reason to lose hope – just like the evening jasmine that has made its way into Pakistani culture from the outside – ideas beneficial for human society, one way or the other, will eventually make their presence felt.