She is 'nothing without you'

This is something I wrote somewhere else , sometime last year:

There has been much criticism , criticism of criticism and a general consensus has been reached that we are failing as a nation. I have and I am sure most of everyone else has heard the discussion where the decadence of the society has been assessed over to the conclusion that we as humans have failed ourselves. We have nothing and no one to blame but ourselves.

Rilke wrote almost a century ago - for one human being to love another: is perhaps the most important of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. Scarier than  frustration take over other sensory impulses, is the realization of the loss of empathy.

I can just stop writing there. But my mind writhes to write more on this topic( the mind does other exercises to make me write on other materials too but that is irrelevant here). My writing was directed towards a particular route by someone very knowledgeable and my gratitude remains with him.

It is notice worthy that our value system is based very much on religion. There is also no denying the existence of religion is to put constraints on human behavior. That incest is wrong or that being tolerant to difference is humane - are all religious values. Let us not get into the debate of where, how or who started it but agree that religion has moulded society for ages.

Despite being followers of the fastest growing religion ( following-wise) how did our society then become so inhuman that we can just sip tea and say ,”Well then what were those six boys doing in that area anyway? May be they deserved what happened to them anyway.” Be them robbers, drug addicts or something worse , no one has the right to kill another human being at any cost and even less right to be indifferent to such an occurrence.

Over the last 34 years the enrollment in Madrasas has increased 13 times as opposed to primary schools which has merely tripled. Number of primary schools have doubled over the same period but Madrasas has increased by 8 times (Barkat 2003) . If we look at numbers we will see we have in fact increased ways and means of religious education by many-folds over the years in all income groups.

So then can we conclude that  Islam has failed us after all?


The protestants (those who protested) in the 16th century objected the ritualistic observation of Christianity by the Catholic Church. They believed in grace through faith and Bible as their holy Scripture but also highlighted that rituals would not adhere people to values emanated through religion in the face of all the socio-economic change thet time was bringing in.

Religion is where you will feel your Creator , said one of my professors. Religion is feeling the presence of a supreme being who is only slightly explained through Einstein’s E= mc^2 or Beethoven’s Piano Sonata no.8. Religion is what one will make of one’s abilities.

May be it is high time there was a re-reading of Islam.