The Virgin Bride

This is a very well put story..and its the case wiht most of the ppl..mostly the men who marry late are the ones with a "colorful" past and thn thy expect to have a virgin bride...but usualy they dont get one..How ironic! They forget that life goes in circles.

a fictional story about selfcentered and mindless sex-craving animals.
This is the story of 0.1% people in karachi. The ones who`ve never been taught morals or religion.

What goes around comes around.

very well written

excellent article!! The ending was great. I really truly believe that is what happens these days with men who feel they can do anything before marriage and then will settle and be happy with the ``virgin bride``.

uve never been to america have you ?

it shows from the poor quality of ur article

i can bet u its the summer and uve been watching back to back soap operas

so u still think all opera talks about is sex and relationship ..?

well dont justify by saying that u live in the states cause u sure dont

Awesome arcticle.

better start looking for mrs vandalay

Tahmed

Where are you? have you had a chance to read some of this stuff?

Zafar

If you say so, yes :-)

Zafar, Gohwardan, Upman

Once you are at the website - (www.seraj.org) go to ``what`s new`` section and you will find the article. There are a lot of articles in English, Farsi and Turkish.

``Reason, truth, Salvation`` is the name of the article and I think once you guys have had a chance to read it we can discuss it.

Reply Hobbyty #225

Professor - I can only find one English language text in full on the Soroush website, which is about 6 pages long. Baqi sab kahan?

I note, however, that some articles on him have been published in Kayhan - a progressive Iranian magazine (?) which has been closed down (several times, and I think now finally) by the conservatives in the clergy there - so I am predisposed to be impressed.

Zafar

Reply Gowardhan

I am going to do the Muslim/Non-Muslim thing, but give the bloke a second chance boss. Play nicely, no?

Zafar

Reply Upman #222, Gowardhan #223

Upman

Uff Upman, you`re so coherent it leaves very little for the rest of us secular types to say. Unfair!

But, I suspect that:

``Jamaat-e-islami which vehemently denies that Jinnah ever held secular beliefs on their website...``

will reignite that evergreen source of fun and innocent merriment (yes, the Gandhi-Jinnah, who was secular/communal diatribe/oration). Stand by for more cut and pastes (or take the pledge like I have).

Btw - what did you think of the India Today story on Indira Gandhi?

Zafar

Gowardhan

Will do, once I get to the site. Hey - fifty pages is a lot to read twice. Would it be OK if I just did it for the first two pages, or for the conclusions?

Zafar

Dear Zafar

Read that article and see the shear thickness of the way he is presenting his positions, then tell me how I reduce all of that to a page article, without it not sounding superficial or unengaging - but ofcourse you have a point that it`s something that must be done - can I count on for some assist? Actually we can`t do everything the man is talking about - but if you read the article I mentioned, you will see that should be considered as a possible choice - I have not been through everything there, and really I think what will be most helpful would be distill some of his ideas on the original Ijtehad, Ijma and Shura - although the paper on religious pluralism really needs to presented to everybody on Chowk, becaue it handles really a good number of questions that come in our discussion and suggests that we can have but one option, instead of examing the positions and displaying that we do not necessarily need to have only that option.

Gohwardan

You stop that right now, Mister! before you call it snake oil, at least investigate - actually you have a responsibility to investigate it. These ideas are effecting your lives and will continue to for quite some time. You may be able to clarify others thinking on these issues as well.

Upman

You have changed the premise, ``Anti Islamic ideas are taking hold in Indian society`` (which is a polemic) to ``India hold secularism as public value greater than all others``. OK, fine. I take your point. i wonder if you will take my point that even if ``obvious``, had a good number Indian interlocutors simply said yes that is so - and then went on to point that that is not the whole story - I think it would have made for a more open discussion.

Have you had a chance to get to the www.seraj.org site yet, have you read the articles? What is your thinking? I`m genuinely interested in your persepective.

Reply Hobbyty #221

Dear Professor Hobbyty

I shall delve into seraj.org and report back (with more question). Many thanks for the reference.

Zafar

PS A possible suggestion for your article – a discussion of Mr Soroush’s works? (No, now you can’t escape writing the article. I strongly feel that yeh aap ke kismet me likkha hai.)

hobbyty 221

If there are real alternatives to progressive secular ways of treating everyone equally, people should be able to explain them in two pages or less.

The quality of the seraj.com, what personally happened to the person this site projects, compared to the number and quality of other sites purporting to be Islamic (hundreds thousands of them) doesnt support the idea that this person can be truthfully taken as a posterboy of Islamists.

If one claims to be an Islamist one should project websites run by a majority of Islamists. Just like Hindutva vadis cant claim the website run by Mulayam Singh can be taken as an authority of Hindutva philosophy.

I would call that snake oil selling.

Zafar if you read those 50 pages, do an experiment. Switch the words Muslims and non-Muslims for each other. If you reach the exact same conclusion, then the ideas may be something to consider. If you do not, you are looking at whitewashed bigotry all over again. That is the kind of bigotry sold under different names for a thousand years. That is the only fair way of viewing ideas.

hobbyty # 218:

``now that after 3 weeks on banging my head to promote a debate on Hindutva ideas and being called bigot, hypocrite and shamelesse - and after youse guys not engaging in this - now you decide it`s time to talk``

...my and several others difference with what you were saying was obvious all along- that though hindutva (and hence `ideas hostile to islam`) has increased its influence in the past several years, it is nowhere near defining indian polity, and it will never be...the only change that can happen as a result of this conflict b/w the indian state and hindutva is that the latter changes, moderates or is abandoned...the upswing in that ideology`s appeal had a variety of causes, and not all were intellectual/religious, as is true in most such cases...the essence of what i am saying is said by this Dawn columnist:

`It also goes to their credit that they did not try to withdraw into a narrow Hindu shell but restated their abiding commitment to the concept of a modern

republic. Yes, they have had their problems along the way, say, for instance, in Ayodhya as well as in the resurgence of Hindu revivalism in the Hindi belt in the north. But India`s institutions have proved more than a match for elements seeking Hinduization of its state apparatus. Even the BJP

which used to be considered at one time a Hindu revivalist party has had to modify its stance to make itself acceptable to a polyglot national electorate.And what it could not achieve at the hustings it has substantially gained by pursuing a policy of moderation and coalition politics in the parliament as well as in the states of India.`

http://www.dawn.com/2001/08/19/op.htm#3

...what i objected to was an attempt on your part to present what most reasonable indians are fighting against as a fait accompli..all your cutouts were clearly part of a vigorous debate on, and you would present such as the final proof of your assertions....the idea of secularism is so well entrenched in Indian public life that even the RSS/BJP claim that they are fighting for `true` secularism, however dishonest that claim be....this is unlike, say, Jamaat-e-islami which vehemently denies that Jinnah ever held secular beliefs on their website...point being the fact that secularism is the way public life and state affairs should be conducted is beyond dispute in india...

..i remb you asked somewhere `how many people in India understand what secularism is?`...this is a v. significant point..the q is also applicable to democracy, and through my fascination with indian politics i have realized a few things:

a/ though many people in india may not be aware of the english word secular (though you`ll be surprised how many, even illiterate, people are), it is the default human response in a multi-religious scenario...that one respects what another person holds sacred...one may not agree with the object of veneration, but it is the person`s reverence that is respected....it requires much active pedagogy to remove this instinct of people which is what extremist versions of religions seek to do...

b/ even democracy -participative, elected running of a community`s affairs- is something that comes almost naturally...though i must say that it did require the energy of the pre-47 movement to articulate this desire among indian masses...

...in both the above, gandhi`s pre-eminence as the leader of independence helped india tremendously...his absolute insistence on respect for all religions and Hindu-muslim unity as also his conversion of the Congress from an elitist debating club to a truly democratic mass movement helped independent india define its nationhood as a secular democracy, inspite of its birth being accompanied by tremendous religious ill-will and bitterness..and the excuses for autocracy such occasions provide..

btw, though i could be wrong, i`m not aware any well-known musician by name of V Sub...is it L. Subramaniam the violinist you are referring to?