25th December – the birthday of the Prophet Eesa (Christ) and Jinnah (Quaid-e-Azam)

The last week of December is a week of celebrations – when the entire Christian World is engrossed in celebrating the birth of Prophet Eesa (May peace be upon him) or the Jesus Christ. Yes I am talking of Christmas – falling on 25th December, the birthday of a prophet. Unlike the Christian world, for whom there is no prophet to revere after the Christ, we the Muslims have same respect as we have for any prophet that came to this world before Prophet Muhammad (May peace be upon him). For us, the birthday of a prophet is as respectful as it is for his followers.

So Happy Christmas to all Christians around the globe. And I wish everyone peace, love, prosperity and all the happiness in life. When I went to market today, I saw lot of rush on shops selling Christmas trees. Although these were made of plastic as original trees are not available, these looked colourful and bright with small tiny bulbs glittering all around the trees. Beside the trees, people were also buying presents and gifts for friends and families. Likewise there was lot of rush on confectionery and sweet stores, and bakeries for purchasing exclusively ordered and baked cakes and sweets. So it is going to be fun and exciting night tonight, specially for the children who will await the Santa Claus for him to come and deliver them the gifts to celebrate the birth of the Christ tomorrow. We join them too on this happy day.

The churches and cathedrals all over Pakistan hold special services to celebrate the day with religious fervor. Parties and family reunions are held to share the joy of the birth of the Christ. I remember one Uncle Persey who was a dear friend of my father. On every Christmas we used to be invited for dinner at his house. His only daughter Shirley was of our age and we would play games and make merry. The turkey at dinner table used to be Mrs Persey’s favourite dish, beside a number sweet dishes and cakes. Later the family went to England and we lost any contact with them. Good days.

For us in Pakistan, the day also assumes special importance as on 25th December in 1876, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born: a man whose relentless efforts despite his illness were to win over Pakistan from the British. Pakistan became a separated homeland for the Muslims of the British India some seven decades later on 14th August 1947. He is therefore revered as the Quiad-e-Azam, the great leader, and the founder and father of Pakistan.

The day is celebrated with the mounting of a special guard of honour by the cadets of the Pakistan Military Academy on the mausoleum of the Quaid in Karachi. The ceremony is witnessed by a large number of people who come to pay homage to the great man who lies buried under the sand he had won over so that Muslims could live in an independent country.

Read more about: Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan (Pakistanpaedia)

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Iqbal Day Today

9th November is celebrated throughout Pakistan as the birthday of Dr Muhammad Iqbal, commonly known as Allama Iqbal. Born in 1877 at Sialkot, studied at the famous Government College Lahore, obtained his PhD from the Munich University, this poet philosopher was the man who dreamt of a separate state to be carved out of the British India to be the homeland of the Muslims. Later in 1934, Rehmat Ali, a student at Oxford coined the word PAKISTAN.

Due to hectic efforts and the driving force of motivation of Dr Iqbal, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, also widely known as the Quaid-e-Azam, led the struggle under the flag of All India Muslim League to realize the dream of Iqbal and win a homeland for the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent on 14 August 1947.

As a poet philosopher, Iqbal’s audience was the Muslim youth of then British India. In his writings, he addressed and exhorted them to stand up and boldly face life's challenges. The central theme and main source of his message was the Qur'an. His poetry and philosophy, written in Urdu and Persian, stress the rebirth of Islamic and spiritual redemption through self-development, moral integrity, and individual freedom. His many works include "The Secrets of the Self"; a long poem; "A Message from the East" and "The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam". His Persian poetry is still being taught in Iran and is known as Iqbal Lahori.

The sufferings of the Muslims, specially in the Balkans, after the World War I, the end of the Ottoman Empire and sufferings of the Muslims of the Indian sub-continent and the unjust attitude towards them from the British and Hindus compelled Iqbal to enter the politics and was elected to the Punjab provincial legislature in 1927. He became the president of the all India Muslim League in 1930. In his historic Allahabad Address the same year, Iqbal visualized an independent and sovereign state for the Muslims of North-Western India. He said, "I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Balochistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India."

To boost the morale of the youth, which he referred to as Uqaab (Eagle), he wrote:

Tundi-e-bad-e-mukhalif say na gabhra ay uqaab

Yeh to chalti hay tujhay ooncha uranay kay liye

(O’ Eagle, don’t be afraid of the opposing winds, these are blown to make you fly higher)

Iqbal set the Pakistan movement in motion and steered it to the path of success, both through his political acumen and meaningful poetry. It was a big blow to the movement when he died in 1938, nine years before his dream of an independent Pakistan could realize.

Much research has been carried out on Iqbal’s poetry. But it would be unjust not to mention the name of famous German scholar Annemarie Schimmel (1922-2003), who is remembered and revered for her lifelong research on the life and poetry of Iqbal. Her book Gabriel’s Wing– A Study into the Religious Ideas of Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1963, rpt. 1989) is still the finest specimen of her insight in Iqbal studies and Islamic thought in general. This is testified by the fact that from among a large number of books written in the major languages of the world, Gabriel’s Wing was declared as the best work on Iqbal studies, in the international languages, for the period 1947-1981. Apart from these works she was the author of hundreds of articles and dozens of books on Iqbal and Islam. She also funded the Annemarie Schimmel scholarship for Women Studies in Pakistan.

Related Reading:Dr Allama Muhammad Iqbal (Pakistanpaedia)

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Landmarks and Parks of Tehran

I stopped short of discussing landmarks and the beautiful parks of Iran in my last post as it was getting out of my hand. I never wanted to prolong it any further, lest the interest of the readers was lost.

At that time, the best landmark of Tehran was the Azadi Square (top right in the photo). Actually its name was Shahyad Tower, when it was built to commemorate the 2,500th anniversary of the once great Persian Empire in the Shah of Iran’s reign. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, its name was changed to Azadi (freedom) Tower. Beautifully lit at night, it can be seen from miles apart. Whenever driving at night, it always served as beacon for direction keeping. Now I hear that another impressive tower by the name of Milad Tower has been added to Tehran’s skyline, which overshadows the Azadi Tower to an extent. But I really cannot comment on it any further as I haven’t seen it except in photographs, in which it looks impressive and pragmatic.

Apart from this, there are many museums and cultural centers. A number of erstwhile royal palaces have now been converted into tourists sites (though expensive items, paintings and furniture has been removed) and are centre of attraction of anyone visiting Tehran, and so for us as well. These palaces included the Golestan Palace, Niavran Palace and Saadabad Palace. The famous Peacock Throne of the kings is placed in the Golestan Palace. We also “roamed” in the vast green lawns of Niavran Palace, where once tourists like us could not even dream of entering. Beside palaces, there are a number of museums that include the Carpet Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Quran Museum and Painting Museum. Carpets are the specialty of Iran and one can see the most expensive, exotic, minutely woven and ultra big carpets displayed in the Carpet Museum, which was closer to the Park-e-Laleh. The Art Museum had some masterpieces from Picasso and Van Gogh, said to have been chosen by Empress Farah Deeba.

Teheran has wide roads and “Utu-baans – a Persian translation of the German Autobahn.” Beside many others, there were two that would interest us Pakistanis. These were the Bozarg Rah-e-Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Muhammad Ali Jinnah Expressway – the founder of Pakistan), and Iqbal Lahori Street in Eastern Tehran (the national poet of Pakistan Dr Allama Muhammad Iqbal had his initial poetic work written in Persian and is still revered as a great poet in Iran and his poetry is taught in schools and colleges. Although born in city of Sialkot, he had his higher education from Government College Lahore, where he was on the faculty later on as well. Perhaps for this association, he is known as Iqbal Lahori in Iran).

If I am allowed to say that Tehran is nothing without its parks, I may not be very wrong. Besides Park-e-Laleh (that I mentioned in my previous post) there are more than 800 small, medium and large scale parks spread all over Tehran, of which Park-e-Millat, Park-e-Niavran and Jamshediah Park are the major ones. I along with my family was a regular visitor of Park-e-Laleh and Park-e-Millat.

Almost on every Sunday, like most of the Tehranites, I would also take my family to either of these two parks to spend the day. And the best thing was that despite being visited by thousands of visitors, there would be no litter left behind by anyone. That’s something unbelievable. There were some fine restaurants in these parks where one could enjoy the traditional Iranian cuisines. Park-e-Millat is the largest of all parks in Tehran. In the imperial times, Park-e-Millat was known as the Shahansahi Park (the Imperial Park). There is a big lake which looks majestic at sun sets, with the reflection of Alborz Mountains. There were boats to enjoy the lake rides. The park has elaborate amusement facilities for the visitors which includes skating lanes, snack bars and coffee shops and a small area with birds in cages. There also is a horseracing club adjacent to the park. I am told that the park has now home to the first musical fountains in Tehran, established in 2008, like that of the Dubai Mall.

Closer to Park-e-Millat is located the Tehran international Fair grounds, where exhibitions of international level are held. I once went with a friend, a geologist from Pakistan who later died in a helicopter crash in Iran, to a book fair and was fascinated to see the interest shown by the Iranians in the books and other AV equipment and aids.

Sandwiched between the Carpet and Contemporary art Museums, Park-e-Laleh (pictured top and bottom left above) was more frequented by us as it was closer to our house. We would walk down to the place in the evenings to enjoy the lush green park with a huge fountain in its centre. There was a Kangaroo at one of its entrances, which is centre of attraction of my sons. No sooner it started to become visible, both of them would leave us and rush towards it and sit in its lap. Chalo Kababs used to be our favourite dinner, followed by delicious coffee ice-cream. On our first snow fall, we rushed to the park and enjoyed the snow fall right there in the open. I would never forget that (though on our way back we found our car to be covered with a heavy sheet of snow and took quite a while to remove it and drive back home).

Well, that’s all for now – but my description of Tehran is far from over. I would write more about people of Tehran in particular and that of Iran in general besides describing the Shehr-e-Baazi (the Sports City) in my next post.

Related Reading:

My memories of Iran - Tehran

Isphahan - Nisf-e-Jehan

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14th August – The Independence Day of Pakistan

14th August warms up the blood of 180 million Pakistanis as on this day in 1947 the Muslims of the British India got rid of the yoke of slavery and of the British rule that was imposed upon the people of Indo-Pak sub continent almost a century earlier.

Pakistan today is an important South East Asian country progressing and making its presence felt. Although this year the independence celebrations have been marred by one of the deadliest and devastating floods of our history, yet the day is a remembrance of the sacrifices given by our forefathers under the guidance and leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, revered as the Quaid-e-Azam. The young and old of Pakistan aspire for a modern, progressive, developing and Islamic Pakistan as was envisioned by the father of the nation, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Pakistan today faces a daunting challenge as it is faced the fall out of the war on terror of another country fought on another land. Being dragged in to this useless war, where mercenaries under the garb of Taliban have been infiltrated into Pakistan to destroy peace and stability of Pakistan. There have been countless terrorist acts, suicides bombings that martyred thousands of innocent Pakistanis. The Armed Forces of Pakistan are firmly and gallantly fighting the miscreants and have in the process lost thousands of its ranks.

The independence day today falls in the sacred month of Ramadan, as it did in 1947 on the eve of its independence. At that time the aspiring people of Indian subcontinent needed an independent Pakistan where they could live freely. Today, faced with many challenges, the war on terror and devastating floods, Pakistan needs its people to stand united to thwart any effort by the enemies of Pakistan to undo its foundations and donate as much as one can for the rehabilitation of some 15 million people affected by the floods across Pakistan.

Pakistan Zindabad (Long live Pakistan).

Related Reading:

Pakistanpaedia - a mini pedia of Pakistan

Muhammad Ali Jinnah - the founding father of Pakistan

Photo: Courtesy unknown photographer as it was received in an e-mail

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