The Irreverent Hero Islam Forgot

the one time i saw cowasjee, he was supposed to talk profoundly while we ate sandwiches. instead he started complaining of chest pains and i had my sandwich without any intellectual serenade in the background.

hamidm: hate to break this to you - but you are not meeting any ancestors either. islam is not about afterlife social get togethers or afterlife partying. so dont expect there to be miller time. i know this sounds grim, but life is grim when you are a small bubble in an endless ocean.

on the bright side, you wont get reprimended by your ancestors for selling out their religion to urstruly.

to clarify #98 you wont get reprimanded because you wont be meeting ancestors, not because you should not be reprimanded for selling out on their peaceful view of islam..

tahmed32,

Urstruly is the most talented writer of short fiction on Chowk. There's no doubt about that. Religion has never figured in any of his short stories.

And you try to label him? It's disgusting to say the least.

What contribution do you have on Chowk other than 10,000 plus posts pushing your deen-e-akbari and supporting Israel and one article about how wonderful it was to invade Iraq?

I suggest you read Urstruly, and tell me his calibre as a writer, forget about his religious views. That's why he stopped writing, because of this bigotry.

zeemax #100 urstruly has not made any secret of his view that religion is not a choice and that his sympathies are with mullahs. thus - when the suicide bombing took place in lahore, all i saw from him was talk about how the first bombing was ok because it was targetted against pakistan government.

i dont claim to be an intellectual, so it doesnt matter if he has written not just chowk articles but best sellers.

zeemax: but i'll agree that it is not correct to accuse someone of something behind his back. So, replace "urstruly's brand of islam" with "zeemax's brand of islam" - the one where you applaud the fata mullahs. and correct me if i am wrong here.

in any case, the distinction between the peaceful live-and-let-live version of islam of hamidm's parents vs the oppressive version that i made below is still valid.

Re: # 96

zeemax,

okay, you are right - i misread and he wasn't a minister ..... according to wikipedia :"Ardeshir was appointed by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Managing Director of Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) in 1973 but was jailed for 72 days in 1976 by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto for which no explanation has been given to date"

......... so what is the difference ? ....the fact remains that the man has been an outspoken critic of everyone including zia, bhutto and musharraf even though he seems to have a personal vendetta against the bhuttos ...... but it still puts him, nawaz sharif and many others in the same boat as far as zia is concerned ......

.... but i really don't get the point of this discussion ... what are you trying to prove ?

Re: # 100

zeemax,

... urstruly is the epitome of an asshole - the man was right here in michigan and for years i kept on inviting him to meet and discuss this over a couple of shirley temples and whiskies, but he declined .... i wonder why?

.... he ranted and raved against america while living on government handouts and then finally took off to take up residence somewhere in a cave along the pak-afghan border ..... unlike you - who is suffering from the common strain of type-II islam brought on by the onset of old age - the man is a born jihadi ........ you are just trying to save your keester from hell fire like the other type-II patients .....

#104 Posted by hamidm2:

"and then finally took off to take up residence somewhere in a cave along the pak-afghan border"

When??!! Is this true?

Re: # 105

GT,

... it is an educated guess, but where else would he go?

#106 Posted by hamidm2:

No, I mean has he left the US?

Re: # 107

GT,

... that is what he said in one of his posts - but who knows ... you can't trust these people

#108 Posted by hamidm2:

What is your take on this Gilani guy? He said something like - If we can talk to India then why not to our own guys. I kind of like that!

Re: # 109

GT,

... we can talk to india because they are horrible hindoos and not muslims ..... as the great slobodan milosevic of serbia once said about the bosnian mohammedan leader, ibrahim izetbeogovich, "how can you talk to a man who doesn't drink ?"

Re: # 98; tahmed bhai
"i know this sounds grim, but life is grim when you are a small bubble in an endless ocean".

that is a bit nihilistic isn't it? Cheer up man, it might never happen!

Like I said, I live a good life (not meaning financially); If your God is as grand as you make him out to be, just read your own excerpt above; he might reward me for using the brain he gave me than of intellectual cowardice! Surely he must have SOME sense of justice.

I have said before, I began to doubt the religious rubbish in my adolescent years. The thing that made me think for the very first time, and yes you can all laugh, was a qawwali by Aziz Mian (I didn't even like qawwali then!). It was none other than "Aadmi hai benazir"; please do me a favour and listen to the full version carefully once or twice. That got me thinking......

Re: # 77; Hamidm sahib,
"i feel jilted - am i a smaller murtid-muslim than cheema-come-lately?".

that can never happen; so please don't you go getting paranoid as well! there are plenty like here already..I'd be happy to do "bayt" on your hand and pledge allegiance any day sir!