Youth and the issues they face today

A laudable and much needed service for our communities. For details see Muslim Youth Helpline’s website.

See another noteworthy initiative here: Children’s Islamic Library
Hope other communities can take inspiration from the above two projects. For the library project, I think a further challenge would to be incorporate general educational and recreational material, especially considering the dearth [...]

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Meri Mehboob Kahin Aur Mila Kar Mujh Se

Sahir’s poem on Taj Mahal reminds one of Ali Shariati’s On the Plight of the Oppressed People. Like Ali Shariati, Sahir seeks to set the standards for beauty and love in this poem.
A question that comes to mind: Beauty and Truth, are they two separate things? Could a magnificent monument – whether Taj Mahal, Egyptian [...]

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On Rumors

Here is another interesting article from Psychology Today. This is the first time I have come across with this magazine. The articles in it seem to be of mixed quality. Especially, I have problem with how they essentialize males and females – their desires, attitudes, behavior – without giving consideration to the variations within and [...]

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Consumption as a Lifestyle

While reading the article, Today’s Consumption in Egypt by Mona Abaza, I could not help but notice again and again the parallels between the changes that have already happened in Egypt more than a decade ago and the rapid social changes happening in Pakistan today. Thanks, in part, to the neo-liberal economic reforms and opening [...]

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Umrao Jan Ada’s Pakistan

If you know Urdu and are in touch with Pakistani culture and media, you must know how popular the serialized TV plays are in Pakistan. You might have heard about a recent serialized television play called Umrao Jan Ada, which was aired on Geo TV in 2003. The serial was based on Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s [...]

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