Hollow Walls

The cricket festival is still on. Thousands of guests came from across the border to attend this festival. Every guest, even non-believers, has their rights. And these were VIP guests………so we went to incredible lengths, not even expected by them, to fulfill these rights.

But those young, full blooded Uzbeks and Tajiks were also our guests who, twenty years ago, came at our invitation to save us from the red bear. Some of them were traders, some engineers, some were university professors, or office workers, others were farmers or laborers. They ate what they earned. When they had left their countries for our land they had known that all roads back to their homelands were now closed. Their own governments were after their selfless blood with warrants in their hands. When these mujahideen would have left the contentment of their homes, tears would have dampened many cheeks and hearts would have rented with sadness. These were the true heirs to Tariq bin Ziyad who had burnt all their boats with their own hands. They came and jumped fearlessly in Nero's fires. Uncountable were those for whom the licking flames turned to robes of martyrdom and they entered Jannah sporting them. Those who were spared were either imprisoned, to augment the history of patience and steadfastness, and the rest found niches in Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Those who were rescued by the honor loving Pathans were not only given a safe haven but bound in a pact of brotherhood bringing to life memories of the Ansaar Madinah. The one who had a large home divided it in two, giving one side to his muhaajir brother; the one who had a small home pitched a tent outside and made it the men's quarters while the house was the women's quarters. The lands were divided and so were the sheep and cattle; love and everyday needs were mutually shared. A new era came to being and new history was written. What should have been was to call people from all over this avaricious and materialistic world to come and witness this selfless sacrifice and share in this brotherhood. But what happened? Some bright and clever people got the inspiration that these homeless, exiled, goat driving people were planning to terrorize America……..bullets whizzed, bombs exploded, bodies fell, blood spattered, and so the rights of the guests were dispensed.

We were talking about our VIP guests whose hearts we have won with our hospitality. Rumor has it that not only the stadium and hotel, but also the Red Fort hosted evening and all-night programs for the entertainment of the honored guests where the daughters of the nation presented themselves in such uncovered states that the audience was moved to declare that they failed to detect any difference between India and Pakistan……. The same mornings, the same evenings, the same streets, the same food, the same amusements, the same traditions, the same culture, the same movies, the same songs, the same dresses, the same style of living, the same defilement of the daughters of Eve, the same untethered storms of vulgarity.

Indeed, the daughter of the founder of Pakistan is here in Lahore for the first time and thinks there to be not much difference between Lahore and Mumbai, her hometown. She had thought that Pakistan would be a backwater with stifling environs. The women would be imprisoned behind four walls, thoroughly veiled when going out. Those were the thoughts that prevented her from living in her father's land. According to her, her children used to ask her about their grandfather's country but she used to hush them up…..but when she landed with her non-Muslim family in a special flight at Lahore airport and saw the ways of the Lahoriites, she felt she had landed at her own home. She did not call it her home out of love of Pakistan……if that had been the case she would not have deprived us of her presence for half a century……but the real reason was the similarities and parallels she saw between the "two homes".

To those who cannot locate any differences between the culture of India and Pakistan, we call to their attention the minarets of mosques, the adhan called out five times a day, we tell them the number of madaris we have, we show off the domestic and international students, point out the hundreds of groups radiating from the tablighi center of Raiwind; we show them the prostration marks on innumerable foreheads and the beards on chins, we put forward for their inspection the constitution of Pakistan that declares Islam the official religion of Pakistan. But even laying all this before them fails to convince them that there is much difference between Pakistan and Hindustan. They tell us they have no dearth of mosques or madaris in India either, the call to prayer can be hear there too; the mosques are filled to capacity, the prayer mats adorn the roads for Jum'ah, not only Deoband and Saharanpur but the whole country boasts large madaris where the roll calls goes up not in hundreds but in thousands; the madaris are more independent than the one's in Pakistan. Here the international students are considered members of the Al-Qaeda, there they are only considered what they are……...students. There is a tablighi center in Nizamuddin from where invitee groups go out for tabligh day and night, which not only the Muslims but also the Hindus consider sacred. There are groups of Muslims that have the courage to face the government for their rights; the Muslim of India is more conscious about his religion, he cannot bear any revelry concerning his faith………..yes, the official religion there is Secularism and here it is Islam, but this Islam is limited to just the constitutional documents. From trade to traditions, from economy to society, not a shadow of Islam can be seen. Business on interest is here as it is there; song, dance, and drink are here as they are there. Now the special religious celebrations like Basant and Holi are being observed here too. It feels as if our aims, objectives, our problems and resources, our traditions and culture are one and the same. The barriers of hatred that had been erected between us were all made up. But……our players and actors will soon demolish these hollow walls.

These "hollow walls" that are the target of our own intellectuals……would be that they realized that these walls were erected on the blood of a million freedom lovers who were the target of the nation whose history is based on the motto of "a dagger in the back". Those poor people who were thrown into wells, streams, fields, or rivers; whose bodies were torn to bits by wild animals and eaten by dogs and vultures, are at the foundation of this wall.

Sir! These are not barriers of hate but the barriers of the "Two Nation Ideology". We did not raise this barrier so we could have the freedom of adhan, because this freedom we had at the other side of the wall too, but we wished to create a new world on this side, build a new state, a state founded on "La ilaaha illal laah", a state run on the laws of Quran and Sunnah only, a state that would revive memories of the State of Madinah.

Doubtless we are a loving people; our religion teaches us to love not hate mankind…………but these walls and borders are a matter of life and death for us which cannot be sacrificed over a few fours and sixes or a few dance steps………the fall of these walls would be the fall of a hundred years of history.
And Allah willing………………..we will never let our history fall!