Pakistan Muslims: so-called guardians of Islam

Pakistan Muslims: so-called guardians of Islam
September 30th, 2008 by Shakir Lakhani
I come in contact with people of all nationalities and they all think that Pakistani Muslims are more fanatical than Arabs. In fact, one Arab even told me, “You Pakistanis think that the Holy Koran was revealed in Urdu, on 14th August 1947!”
There is a great deal of truth in all this. Consider what happens in Ramadan.

Pakistanis think that they’re doing a great favor to everyone by fasting. All work virtually comes to a standstill, and in the last ten days of the holy month you find people walking around as if they’ve not slept for many days. In such circumstances, you cannot ask clerks and factory workers to work at normal speed. If you do, they look at you as if you’ve said something bad about their sisters or mothers. “Can’t you see I’m fasting!” is their response. You want to tell them that you’re fasting too, but it hasn’t affected the quality or quantity of the work you do, but since the atmosphere is already tense, you decide not to respond.

Another abominable trait among so-called Pakistani scholars of Islam is to utter totally irrelevant Arabic sentences (from the Holy Koran) whenever they want to make a point. While this may impress illiterate people, any educated person can see that they’re trying to show off.

Once I was in a restaurant, when a man started behaving in a crazy manner. One of his companions had cast doubt on his honesty, so he began shouting and asking everyone the direction of Makkah. “I want to pray right here!” he shouted. I pointed out that the time for the afternoon prayer had already elapsed, but if he wanted to pray so fervently, there was a mosque on the other side of the road. But he kept repeating, “I’m a true Muslim, I carry a prayer carpet with me all the time!” He didn’t explain why, if he was a true Muslim, he had missed the afternoon “namaz” (prayer). But then, all hypocrites are alike, and Pakistanis are more hypocritical than others.

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