Short Essay: The Muslim Mania

It is no less than a surprise that Pakistanis are more Muslim than the Saudis, fearing the international conspiracy of eliminating and/or manipulating ‘their’ Islam in ways well-known to them. They are habitual of seeing the world as a big poisonous spider which is incessantly weaving its web to circumvent them. This schizophrenia leads them to hallucinate in the most absurd manner; from finding Allah inscribed in flip-flops to suspecting frigidity inoculated through polio vaccine, their imagination is clueing them about every cabal.

It was not long ago when I received a “fake” video announcing how Muslims are turning into a majority in West. A collage of news channels that were unknown, anchors who were unheard of, claiming a demographic change in areas that were unnamed with voices that candidly pronounced the ubiquitousness and authority of Islam in West. However, the video ‘assumed’ that the ‘alarming’ increase in Muslim population was due to widespread popularity of Islam rather than the increase in the number of Muslim population due to a higher birth rate. Interestingly, the video reinforcing the fallacious belief of millions that one day Muslims (not Islam) will rule the world took no time in convincing the receiver, who immediately sent it forward, of its validity.

The videos that usually get viral in Pakistan, shared or viewed on facebook, whatsaap and YouTube, along with rumors (unscientific, unsolicited ideas) that stimulate gullible minds with their idiocy, have generated this writing. Somehow Pakistanis have made their religion an excuse for everything that they do or do not do, from their backwardness to their incompetence to their orthodoxy to their superstition. Yes, papacy was once involved in the educational enterprise, but it failed to defend its nescience in front of the quickly developing scientific query. Yes, mudrassah once stood for the glory of Muslim pursuit of knowledge, but minarets could not stand high amidst political quicksand, falling behind soon after Middle Ages and falling back since then.

The world has, in leaps and bounds, made technological progress, and Pakistanis ‘assume’ that starting a chain of “aik lakh Darood sharf ka tohfa” for Holy Prophet (PBUH) is their passport to better ports. Forgetting that the vindictive world thinks thrice before issuing them visas. They expound on the change in the spelling of Makkah to Mecca as a conspiracy to undermine the sacredness of their place of worship. They encouraged the change in the name of “Haleem”, a local delicacy, to Daleem as Allah is Al-Haleem, and this is the “only” way to retain the piety of His name. Long text messages with images of both were shared while Pakistanis, including senders and receivers, kept on devouring Haleem.

The poverty of their soulless life, crushing under material pressure, is shrouded with the excusatory tales of saints, propagated through digital means of communication, with higher morals of saints who were happy in less or through the ‘fake’ images of children standing among a debris, with small hands-raised-in-front-of-the-camera or poor old people with sunken-by-hunger faces-begging-for-sympathy, amidst the American strike, calling the superpower names because it has set bad example by inventing bio weapons, has caused severe poverty. It is a pretext for not achieving the same. Well, people might be suffering, but their suffering is not a justification for anyone’s poverty of ideas and invention.

With every new invention comes afresh the fear of getting marred, of soiling one’s faith. Perhaps it is the guilt of not-doing-enough that pulls Muslims back from carelessly using or benefitting from things they are not capable of conceiving and producing. The cosmetics that Muslim women use contain pig-fat; Fair & Lovely might brighten the face but it blackens the heart with the secret ingredients that it contains; shampoo enters the skull from the scalp to affect the natural ph of a Muslim body; distilled water is tactfully disabling the Muslim community by targeting their knees and joints; iodised salt is an effort to make the Muslim women infertile (perhaps it is the only way to control the frantically multiplying Muslim population!).

Their hallucinations can be traced in the accusatory videos that are usually exchanged on social-media. Every admin is responsible for its group, a video that recently got viral says, and the obscene material shared there: on the day of judgement Prophet (PBUH) will himself question them (the admins) about their doings in the world, etc. The paucity of their resources is evident from the use of climax of an action movie that shows how a car’s wind-shield gets hit by a huge log falling from a speedy truck and comes out from the rear-shield with numerous shards coloured with blood.

A Pakistani filming a video in Germany to show the football printed with flag of Saudi Arabia stocked in a superstore. He wanted to “inform” the world that “THIS” football is being used in FIFA 2018, persuading the volatile (Pakistani) Muslims to stop FIFA and Saudi Arabia from doing so. On a comment to such video on YouTube, the simpleton Indian-and-Pakistani Muslims went far enough to suggest Saudi Arabia to remove shahada from its flag so that ‘nobody’ can hurt Muslims again. (You see hurting them is as easy as exhibiting a souvenir football.) Well, when America, back in 2007, threw from aircrafts footballs to cheer up Afghan children, some balls were inscribed with different flags. The local’s protest generated an apology from their representatives that admitted their ignorance of the whole matter. Well, in present controversy, the empty-headed Muslims received none. However, a Vlogger (of course in Urdu) showed the actual Adidas Telstar18 to pacify the Muslim rage. While the Pakistanis are sharing the video till it reaches the FIFA and Saudi authorities so that they are “forced” to remove the Saudi flag, the football world cup would end!

In another video, a philanthropist Urdu-speaking Muslim, requested his brethren not to attend calls from 777888999 as it would explode their phones along with their heads! (Even saying ridiculous would not state what such ideas make me feel.) Bol TV, a “non-profit” media group, in a video, demonstrated that mobile-phones are silent-killers. Dangerous rays emitting from them are obviously nameless, but they can make one anemic, insomniac or even a heart patient! Using phone at night is blinding more and more people by causing “eye cancer” (God knows where all this is happening!). Of course none of the scripters knew or cared to know that melanoma of the eye is the rarest form of cancer. The video prompts the use of phone from a distance of four feet. (One foot has 12 inches; human arm is almost 25 inches long which is some two feet; keeping phone at an arm’s length is still harmful. Here is how a Muslim can save his faith and health from these dangerous “mobile” rays: a 4-5 feet long person can use his toes to operate the phone, a 5-6 feet tall can use his knees!

A video shows a young boy taking a call, and the next moment a real explosion is heard and a fake fire is seen, followed by the jawless-bloody-mouth of a boy who is twisting his body on the stretcher in operation theatre. (The best thing is the timely, present-minded presence of the videographer on both occasions!) A boy’s back covered with zits is labelled “Side Effects of Panadol”! (Well, Panadol, ask a pharmacist, is amongst the most sold medicines; I myself have consumed many of its leafs, but I was fortunate to escape this “Jewish” conspiracy!) A Russian artist makes a unique painting (with photo-shop skills) in which a woman can be seen smiling with half-closed eyes!

Assumptions that development in the world is made to target (Pakistani) Muslims or the change is brought at the cost of their faith are nonsensical. Even the students of science fail in separating their religious and social biases from their course work. In a live video teaching session at Facebook, when the writer did not put dupatta on her head at the commencement of Azaan, nobodies from every street and corner of Pakistan started bashing her for not doing so, or first doing it then teaching. Whatever her intentions were, students were found more interested in criticising than learning. If suspecting intellectuals, science or West helps a community, for Pakistanis are yet to become a nation, in feeling important then it makes some sense (although such narcissism is only hampering them from becoming productive).

ARY TV issuing a news bulletin that mentions “a” professor’s, from Harvard University, discovery that mobile phones are not only listening to but also watching whatever the users are doing reminds me of the news that warned Pakistanis, a year ago, from leaving their laptops open (their flaps open!) as the front cameras are recording whatever is happening in the room (if that is so why not employers use the laptops and computers given to the employees to monitor their work instead of buying expensive monitoring equipment particularly cameras!) For a moment suppose that these devices are able to monitor and record whatever is happening around them, what makes one think that s/he is important enough to be recorded?

Muslims are increasing in number despite iodised salt, and polio is being controlled with vaccination despite its creating more handicaps! The Muslim dream to conquer the world with “quantity” cannot be realised because it is not 500 BC. Their population is not targeted for its brain activity but for the contractibility of their acerbic ideas. In the presence of politically controlled nuclear weapons, only one thing can wipe off a people, and that is natural disaster.

Those believing in “quantity” though getting less every year still hold better brains and design suppressive policies and excruciating systems. Brains, not hands, rule the world: millions of poverty-stricken Muslims can plan to be the world labour force in years to come while the wealth-stricken can make arrangements for hiring the best brains to maneuver their riches. Pakistanis can choose to be a nation, not a religion, that strives to make its mark with intellectual honesty not academic and administrative adulteration, or they can continue to suffer in the abyss of their untested ideas to console their oozing beliefs.
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/07/09/the-muslim-mania/