The Bombing

Assad_K #19

Thanks for you words of appreciation. My dream world is poetry. This is a departure from the norm. Science fiction was never my forte.

What is fiction? The dictionart informs:

----That which is feigned, invented, or imagined; especially, a feigned or invented story, whether oral or written.
----An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.
----A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact.
----The category of literature comprising works of this kind, including novels and short stories.

The story under discussion is based in future, hence perhaps we can label it futuristic. But even then it cannot be sci/fi.

regards

temporal

aikrindd #18:

Style is a matter of influences that mark the gali-kouchays, the lanes and byways of the subconscious in strange ways. Shakespeare to Eliot to Desani to mention just a few----- there are many more. One can never be certain.

It is a very pleasant feeling when the nuances that a writer imagines and adds, subtly or not too subtly, are noticed by the reader.

You say, “.. and the flicker of hope/light inevitably extinguished. And life continues on. What? No qiamet? No end of all and everything? Kufr lives on? Did you forget something? :)”

In the earlier version that I posted on my home page the Mujaddid gets assassinated. Feedback and rethinking contributed towards the present vagueness. He is shot at. We don’t know how fatally. May be some introspection is called for? What could I have forgotten?

regards,

temporal

temporal:

Do you really believe this stuff requires some comments from me.Just for the sake of those who may have missed the `borrowings` from midnights children by Rushdie (laanat-ul-lah illahe)....a feeble attempt at `parody`.

Now why this S&M fetish is a little difficult for me to understand.Maybe it is that syndrome which is now prevalent in our non-literary age everywhere.The desire to get noticed whatever the price--performing strip shows of minds & bodies.

Seeking attention through sensationalism may be a good method to look like an object of ridicule but you can be called a writer only by those who enjoy seeing you flogging youself.

Rushdie(lua) never even was a nobody when he wrote Grimus.What he mentioned about the treatment he was subjected to by the farangies during his study years should have been enough subject material for a good novel,but then the Booker!.Please remember! Man does not live by the written word alone!

You asked for it!

Sameer #17:

Thank you for sparing the fatwa. Your thoughtful response will elicit another one.

ArchDuke Ferdinand’s assassination catapulted into the beginning of the first great war of last century. Iconoclast Gore Vidal, Sam Huntington et all were not the only ones. Common interest has always proven to be a more formidable bond. Theories come later. CARS -- Confederation of American and Russian States was manufactured on this PC.

Referring to the West and the world of Islam you say, “They all want to have a certain segment of the population more illiterate, unruly, poor, dumb, stupid and highly religious as a source of cheap labor, markets for below standard (B category) goods and people ready to lay down their lives as in the case of slaves, flocks or a horde, for their western masters (obviously in the name of God, as in Afghanistan).”


I was struck down by the irony of your thoughts. Read this and tell me---------

A majority of Muslim clerics throughout the world seem to be saying, “They all want to have a certain segment of the population more illiterate, unruly, poor, dumb, stupid and highly religious as a source of cheap labor, markets for below standard (B category) goods and people ready to lay down their lives as in the case of slaves, flocks or a horde, for their western masters (obviously in the name of God, as in Afghanistan).”

er, I was saying tell me why Israel and the West would say or do anything when the Muslim clerics are consciously or unconsciously doing their bidding?

Status quo has to go. Dynamism has to arrive. On hope we live.

regards

temporal

Friend #16:

Dost, humaiN yeh batlaiyay kay agar is kahani ka sir-pair nahiN hay tou naawal bhala kiyouN likha ja’aye?

khair-andesh

temporal

hamidm #15:

“Maybe I am simply getting stupid and senile in my old age ........ I just don`t get the point.”

----Nah! For those who have recently read your vituperation all’s well and there is glow in them cinders. Perhaps the fictional foray deserves a second look? A hint for the movie buff: ignore the Mcguffin.

rgds

t

...temporal--i`ll ignore the second half of your comment about shooting the messenger...

Can I ask you WHY? Why did you write this?

temporal(with small t),

let me first congratulate you on an excellent article. let me also salute you for your courage.

actually your story is not all that imaginary.

i for one was genuinely planning bombing mecca and medina.

i am a hindu indian and am anguished by the misery that islam is causing all over the world. first, inspired by islam , arabs invaded india and destroyed many temples and forcibly converted(circumcised the nation, figuratively) many Hindus to vile and vicious religion of Islam, thus ruining the cultural fabric of beloved india. as if this was not enough my beloved india was partitioned and millions of Hindus were killed. Of course we hindus are cowards(or civilised) and have allowed 140 million Muslims to thrive and muliply in India.

Of course it is not only india which has to bear tbe brunt of islam. wherever there is islam , misery and violence are not far behind. Albania, Algeria, Chechnya, Kashmir, XiangJiang, Bosnia, Libya, Iraq , Iran, Sudan , Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan(Jinnahabad), Indonesia, Nation of Islam in USA. Islam is a curse upon humanity.

I have always wanted to destroy Islam and I personally was planning to do what the Israeli major did in your article.

I am a chairman of indian software company - dot com the world ltd - . I am planning to be a billionaire and use the money to buy nuclear weapons from Russian Mafia and engage best pilots to drop nuclear bombs on Mecca and Medina during Haj period - to cause the maximum damage.

Of course my conscience bites me - why kill innocent people - but then as Shakespeare said, ``I am being cruel to be kind``. Killing 2 million people is small price to pay to destroy Islam.

So in summary 3 things :

1. Your story may prove prophetic.

2. A certain Mr Pritam Dharap will arrange for Nuclear Bombs to be dropped, Major Uri can rest and treat his temporary impotence.

3. The bombs will be dropped in 2005 , we do not have to wait till 2020 to breathe free.

Once again congratulating temporal for an excellent article. Once again saluting temporal for great courage.

saidamalik #9

You say, “And all this time I thought Temporal was a sane, intelligent, Muslim.”

Now let us see. Uttered ‘sane’ and looked at my alter ego. A definite horizontal movement of the head, indicating an emphatic ‘No’. ‘Intelligent’ brought the same response. Two down, one to go. Muslim, well?

That is the 64 million dollar question. When I was innocent, I used to say anybody who recited the Kalima, beginning with the negation --- There is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet ---- is a Muslim. But I was not only innocent, but naive as well. I may think of myself as a Muslim. But that is not relevant. To be a Muslim I have to conform to Zaid’s definition of Muslim. Or Bakr’s. Or Saad’s...or.....or. And short of calling other believers heretics, these pious men with their holy grails -- kashkols and tasbeehs--worry beads freely call anyone but themselves not the real Muslims.

Hence, Saida,, I’m down and out on all counts. Sadly, I agree with you, and share your disappointment.

regards

temporal
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Asif Naqshbandi #5:


Thanks for your heartening comments...”but complete rubbish!” Coming from you, Asif, I will wear it as a badge of honour.

By the way in your ‘silsila’ or ‘tariqat’ how many lashes are awarded before shooting the messenger?

regards

temporal

carl-bill #4:


Interesting to note you want to know why ``multan is in jinnahabad??``

Nice to note your priorities are where your heart is. Forget Ka’aba and the Mosque. Where is Pakistan?

regards

temporal

F-K #2

Tch tch tch! You could have done better. I was expecting your usual cleverly venomous, hotair diatribes against real and perceived enemies of the living legend of F--K in your mind. But this? Chi chi chi.!

Please say something about the story in your usual prickishly hateful way. Pick it apart, comment on poor English usage, blow the plot apart or pick a line from it and let it go through your distorted mind-prism. I would neither mind nor comment.

And your farcial pseudo attempts to meander through my mind, reflecting on my mentors, do not belong here. Please go to my dargah page and do it there.

KaheeN aisa tou naheeN hai, b’qaul Chuchaa.......”mood’dua anqaa hay apnay aalam-e-taqrir ka”?

regards

temporal

Amit: #1

Thanks. Hopefully, I am hopeful.

Now what it this sahib bit? Small ‘t’ temporal is fine.

regards

t



CHOWK STAFF:

Kindly change the T to a t. Was, am and hopefully, will remain a small t temoporal.

Temporal Sahib,

Good Lord !! You have some imagination. I am still trying to fathom if your article reflects a sense of fatalism about Islam vs. the rest of the world, or is it a hope for a different kind of Islam ? I hope it is not the former because, in spite of all the sound and fury, the Islamic world is actually changing quite rapidly. The middle east is moving towards a peace accord. The focus in these countries is on education and economics. Look at Iran. There has been a revolution there with the people wanting an open, free society. Central asian nations are also focussed on their development. The only bad apples are Aghanistan and certain sections of Pakistan, in the sense that they want to travel backwards in time. Otherwise, the situation is not that bad.

A very interesting piece, interesting and thought provoking.

It is a dark thought .. rituals will always win against the spirit of Islam ... but from wot we see about us, i suppose that is wot we can expect?

Next submission: Isaac Asimov`s SF & Fantasy magazine? :-) Certainly a more topical version of Heinlein`s future history.. or is the Gibsonesque near-future more your role? I`d recommend expansion and publication - we need more Muslims (heck, Pakistanis - why not?) writing SF/Fantasy, and if there`s social commentary, so much the better.