A disco maulvi and liberal fascist go for sheesha

When you stopped talking to girls on campus after Hajj, I knew it was a phase which wouldn’t last long. I knew you were under the influence of the charismatic, new Islamic history professor on campus and I understood his reputation for spiritually transforming lives, but I didn’t think you had it in you for this change to last. I’ve always respected and supported you for making an effort to become a better person but I think people like you — whose level of spirituality swings — are at best confused to the point of being unstable or at worst, emblematic of a larger problem in our society, where religion is used as a ‘cure all’ or ‘quick fix when convenient’, to avoid dealing with deeper, more pressing problems.



You’re right about talking to the girls bit. Perhaps at some level even I knew that it wouldn’t last forever but I wanted to make a genuine effort. We live in a very conformist society which dictates how we should live our lives — from the age we should get married to the level of religiosity we should display publically. But I want to discover spirituality at my own pace, not at any predetermined timeline or linear evolution — from playboy in his teens, to pray boy in his forties. This discovery process — to the extent that it isn’t imposed on others and doesn’t hurt family and friends closest to me — shouldn’t be trivialised as confusion or a quarter-life crisis, but instead encouraged for everyone, to help find meaning in their religion beyond social conformism. I also challenge the idea that religion is used as a ‘quick fix when convenient’ by people who have other problems. In fact, as a broader society, I think we demonise religion into a bogeyman that’s the source of all our social problems today when it isn’t completely true.

Isn’t it true that the Pakistan of our parents was a much better place to live in? The country wasn’t as religious, intolerant or violent at the time. We would all live and play together in harmony. Today, religion is a source of division rather than unity in our country and I feel that it’s because folks use religion as a short cut. You know the cliched joke about people parking cars in the middle of the road to catch Juma prayers, but creating so much inconvenience for others? What sort of religiosity have we normalised in society? Aunties reject rishtas last minute, but instead of being honest about issues, they argue ‘kai istikhara sahi nai aya’. I feel the emphasis on overt displays of religiosity in our society is suffocating. I’m okay with you having a beard or wearing a hijab but don’t make me feel like a lesser person if I don’t conform to your standards. Also, having a beard or wearing a hijab is still not an adequate substitute for being a person of poor character.



I agree that religion is often misused in our society and while this has to be fought against, this is more of a reflection of our society rather than religion. Beards and hijabs may serve as visible proxies of an individual’s religiosity but Pakistani society has taken this to an extreme by transforming these external markers into a religious stock market, where your shares trade up or down based on the length of your beard on a particular day. We have to move away from such abuse of religion but this doesn’t mean that we need to move away from religion itself. If we preach religion as a way to help us become better people by taking care of others and ourselves, we can become a more tolerant and religious society simultaneously. There’s no inherent conflict between the two.

I’m not sure I agree with all your arguments, but let me have a think over it. Meanwhile, let me share a funny story with you since you know how lazy I am about going to the gym. I recently hired a gym instructor for the first time in my life. And within the first 15 minutes, I thought I was about to die in pain. Every single muscle in my body was screaming in pain. I wanted to stop, but he was saying now that you’re uncomfortable, your muscles are finally growing. And just like that workout made me uncomfortable physically, some of the ideas in our conversations might make you uncomfortable mentally, because they challenge the simplified narratives our minds create to understand complex cause-and-effect relationships around us. If these ideas make you uncomfortable, don’t do what I did, which was to fire the gym instructor. Instead, continue with ideas and people with different points of view, because that’s a source of spiritual, intellectual and personal growth for us all.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2016.

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