Chowrangi

Why do mullahs hate women so much? I know many clerics who’re infuriated when they see women driving or working in offices. For some strange reason, Saudi Arabia doesn’t allow women to drive or go out of their houses without being accompanied by a close male relative (like a son or brother or husband). I can understand this kind of thinking among illiterate men who think women are agents of Satan. But this is the twenty first century and most Muslims don’t believe that allowing women any freedom poses a danger to their religion or culture.

A lot of girls cover their heads during the Azan with a dupatta, but I don’t know if that is a cultural thing or a religious requirement. They only cover a portion of their heads though. It looks like they are only trying to cover the back of their head! Some girls wear the dupatta on their head habitually, but again, they reveal more hair than they conceal. The dupatta looks like it will slide off any second!

I think the dupatta was generally designed to be worn to cover the…ahem, but a lot of girls wear it around their necks. It has turned into a fashion accessory rather than a requirement. For others, it is purely cultural.

As Muslims we should have belief in the Unseen (that which cannot be seen). A part of the Unseen is the Jinn. Not believing in their existence is an opening to the path of disbelief in Islam itself.

*Both the Qur’an and the Sunnah confirm Jinn’s existence and it is one of the traits of the believer to believe in their existence. Complete search shows that the Jinn are mentioned in more than forty verses of the Qur’an, which are spread in ten of its Surahs.

Wednesday 22nd July, 2009 mankind will witness the longest total solar eclipse that will occur in the twenty-first century.

What is Solar Eclipse?

An eclipse of the sun occurs when the moon revolving in its orbit around the earth comes between the sun and the earth. The moon blocks the light of the sun and a shadow of the moon is cast over the earth’s surface.

One of the few differences between humans and apes, despite both having near-identical brains and bodies, is the thirst for entertainment found among humans. Of course, there are people all over the world who believe that anything which gives pleasure to the mind or the body is sinful, and one should refrain from whatever diverts the mind from serious matters. I would say about ten percent of humans are in this category, the kind that go around with mournful expressions and making life miserable for their fellow beings with their warnings about what will happen to them after they’re dead.

Hi readers! Lahore’s latest company, Lotus Client Management & Public Relations (www.lotuspk.com) has teamed up with Chowrangi to update everyone on Pakistan’s social happenings! Our first write up, below, is all about a charity fashion drive Lotus publicized earlier this month.

The Bargain Basement Sale, held on Friday, Oct 5th was once again a phenomenal success, raising over 1.7 million rupees in less than 4 hours!

You can’t walk 20 feet without having to criss cross your way through these tables laid out on the pavements in any major shopping centre in islamabad. Public grounds have been turned into private gardens with massive concrete structures meant to beautify and lay permanent claim to a land which is essentially public property. Even the beautiful winding pathways through forests and streams that make Islamabad such a pleasant place to live in, have been blocked by these ambitious white collared land grabbers, with guards sitting at the entrance to these “private properties”. It is heart wrenching to watch this path leading from the dead end street where I live, which wound through a stream to a football ground at the back of my house and which was a witness to many childhood adventures, blocked by a private parking lot and a scenic concretised garden, all on Public land. Similarly, another track that led to a hockey ground and served as a shortcut for many pedestrians wanting to cross onto the main road from the residential area is blocked by this iron rail stretched in front of it.

“Aaarghthoo!”

Neat grey patch of cemented path, where my eyes was focused, was suddenly splashed with red. I looked up and saw the source of hideous noise and creator of such an artistic pattern on the side of road. He upon seeing a woman staring at him gave me a leery smile, probably thinking that I must be impressed with his creativity. Thankfully, the traffic signal turned green and my car sped away.

After reading many of the western blogs and sites, or the articles in the online newspapers of the West, one gets a feeling that Muslims have just turned into a monster and all of them have gone out of their minds and they all want to just burn this planet.

News of suicide attacks in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, or in the western countries just choked the pages of these sites. One finds plethora of blog posts or articles with the title of, say, “yet another suicide car attack in Baghdad”, “terrorist foiled before they could act”, “terrorist attacks gone awry”, “terrorist convicted”, “terrorists arrested”, “terrorists escaped”, “terrorists this”, “new warnings of terrorism”, “terrorists that” and so on.

Rapid economic growth has spurred progress in eradicating extreme poverty and hunger in Asia, where the proportion of people living on a dollar a day has been cut by half, but inequality is also growing in parts of the region, says a new United Nations report.

According to the report, Eastern Asia where the proportion of people living in extreme poverty fell from 33 per cent in 1990 to 9.9 percent in 2004, saw the greatest gain. In South Eastern Asia, where extreme poverty was already down to 20.8 per cent in 1990, the percentage had dropped to 6.8 per cent by 2004.