Column History...Orya Maqbool Jaan

[suave]

[rotomia2002]

As usual Orya Sahib's sense of history is askew. I can't say much about Allama Muhammad Asad's dept. of Islamic Reconstruction, although I do know that shortly after our independence he became our plenipotentiary to the UN, while Prince Ali Khan (father of the present Aga Khan) became our first ambassador. I don't know when he had time to head the aforementioned dept. I do know that the claim he has made with regards to William Dalrymple about his book "The Last Moghul' is totally fallacious. I've read the book and Dalrymple says the exact opposite of what Orya Sahib claims. This "war of independence" or the "mutiny" was thrust upon Bahadur Shah Zafar and till the end he didn't want to go to war knowing his position fully well. It was the Hindus and not the Muslims who started this war.

[suave]

Ada,
I read about Allama Asad a bit before pasting these columns here and apparently Orya is right about him being the director of some Islamic department where Asad was supposed to draft the first constitution of Pakistan.
And he was sent to UN in 1952.
I think its the same Asad who wrote the commonly found English translation of Quran!

[romesa]

it would be an ideal situation if we make it mandatory for all the graduating students to have both religious and secular education....one syllabus for everyone in the country....that will eliminate polarization and the class system in our society.........and i think we should go even one step ahead requiring everyone to learn foreign languages, at least few most common ones like English, Arabic, Chinese...............until we don't fix our education system, we will never be able to progress economically as well as socially!