Afia Siddiqui - Why so sure?

Dr. Afia Siddiqui - a renowned personality, a neuroscientist and an entrepreneur - about whom we all know. Many of the Pakistani Muslim citizens and Islamic organizations are supporting her release and her being innocent of all the charges that the United States and the Pakistani Intelligence have imposed on her. There is no evidence that she is guilty and, in fact, the American government has not been able to try her for any terrorist activity. However, there are some doubts about her, with me, that must be considered, as there are no evidences of her being not guilty. Lets remember, there is not an Islamic judicial system all over the world.

Afia was married to anesthesiologist Amjad Mohammed Khan from Karachi. The couple was first detained by the FBI for interrogating the purchase of $10,000 worth of night sight gadgets and other manuals including “How to make C4”. Afia also had tried to convince her husband to move to Afghanistan to work for the “mujahideen”. Amjad also belonged to a rich family and graduated from Aga Khan University, Karachi. In the interrogation, Amjad and Afia said that the purchase was for hunting and camping expeditions.

Food for thought:

Q1. Why MAKE the C4 bomb? Purchase dynamite instead.

Q2. Who uses a bloody “C4” on a camping expedition or hunting?

Q3. As her husband was relieved as innocent by the FBI, isn’t this possible that only Afia purchased the equipment discretely and the couple was interrogated because they were together?

After Amjad was convinced that after 9/11 U.S was no longer a safe place for Muslims, they moved to Karachi. After that Amjad said that her views were extremist and she had a violent personality because of which he doubted her of being involved in Jihadi activities. The couple got divorced in October 2002. After her divorce, Afia got married again, to the Al-Qaeda member, Ammar Al-Baloch (Ali Abdul Aziz Ali), who aided hijackers in the 9/11 attacks. He is currently on death penalty in Guantanamo Bay.

Food for thought:

Q1. Were all the other eligible bachelors of Pakistan dead? Why this particular person?

Q2. Why did she marry this guy? Was she so inspired by his “heroic” activities?

The family of Ammar confirmed her Nikah. But she was the only person to deny it. So all of the points above are still not confirmed and this entire information is the one released for open public. We still don’t know many facts that may play as evidence here. All of these “food for thought” can be justified or answered in her favor. So her innocence and her being guilty, both are in doubt. So why Pakistani citizens and Islamic organizations are SOOOOOOO sure of her being innocent? Just because she is a Muslim? Because she is a PhD? Because she used to distribute copies of the Holy Quran? All of the reasons are not even substantial to blindly support her. Whatever the media is telling us, nothing is substantial to either support her or accuse her.

A final food for thought: Why so sure?

Maat: The Other Side

Note: I have used lesser pronouns in this article of mine because of the fact that pronouns were creating a lot of ambiguity in the sentences. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Airing on Hum TV, Maat has become one of the top-watched shows on the channel. The introduction of the TV Serial on www.hum.tv is as follows:

“Maat is the story of two poor sisters with opposite personalities – Saman, who is overambitious and has no scruples when it comes to making it big in life, and Aiman, who believes in the fundamentals of contentment, sacrifice and compassion and always upholds them as her guiding force.

Despite loving her sister Saman never loses an opportunity to snatch away from her whatever her sister loves the most, including her fiancé. Saman believes she can give maat (defeat) to anyone and everyone anytime.

The wheels of time keep spinning till finally, Aiman decides to put her foot down and fight for her rights. Will Saman’s selfishness and greed overpower Aiman’s patience and inherent goodness once again, or will Aiman be able to stand her ground? Who faces the final maat in life?”

Hmmm… Inherent goodness? Patience? If you (reader) are watching the serial, you might agree that these words are very underestimating to what Aiman has been doing in the drama. There is also a normal conviction that Aiman is a very ethical person, which is not very true as ethics is not a term understood by all.

First, lets take the case of Aiman being very “inherently good”, well I think Aiman is not inherently good, either she is very ignorant of the negativities of what her sister is doing or she is unaware of what is happening around her. I could even use the word “stupid” for her.

I say this because she loves her sister too much. Now taking Aiman out of the serial and into real life, her “inherent goodness” may cost herself her life. Who knows whom will she be able to marry? Who knows what will he be like? And still she does not see what jealousies have developed in her sister’s heart. I don’t respect either character. Saman has no morality and Aiman has no perception of ethics.

Personally, I also termed Aiman as very patient and inherently good. But after the episode that aired on the 7^th of January 2011, I do not want to do that anymore. Even after so many losses, she is still motivated to gift her only set of gold earrings to Saman. Is she that dumb? Ok the first “sacrificing her fiancé” was really good of her, no doubt about that. What about everything that happened afterwards? Aiman still fails to see all that? That is just pure stupidity.

After that, Aiman is believed to be a very ethical person, hmmm. Is she really? What about her responsibilities to her own life? Is she ethical to herself? And plus, if she is like this right now towards Saman, you can imagine how much she would have spoilt Saman when she was a teenager or even an adolescent. Now Saman does not hesitate to snatch things away because, may be, when she was little, Aiman must have sacrificed what was hers just to make Saman happy; now Saman has forgotten the feelings of Aiman. As you sow, so shall you reap – fits perfectly with what Aiman is going through. Aiman is not at all an ethical person because of the absence of self-interest. I strongly believe that a bit of self-interest should be present with an ethical person. Complete self-sacrificing behaviors are not at all ethical only if the sacrifice is done for one’s own satisfaction. So now a question arises, what if Saman is doing these things to satisfy herself? Yes that may be the case. But then her self-satisfaction will prove to be an evidence of the absence of the “inherent good”.

I am certainly NOT supporting Saman’s character (Irony: She actually does not have a character), instead I am saying that if Saman is a very immoral person than even Aiman is not at all an ethical person. And I believe that the people who are not ethical and authentic to one’s own self cannot be ethical to anyone around.

Feminism - A Myth

For many years we have beenhearing this word, for many years we have been hearing this argument, by ‘we’ Imean men. That man is oppressing woman, that the basic human nature is sexist!So does this really exist? Or are females just insecure about their position inthe society?

There has been a theory putforward by Plato in which he clearly states that there is a soul and body thatconstitutes the human nature. Out of which, he says, the soul is related to thedivinity and the body related to mundane affairs. By divinity he means reasonand power of rational thinking and by body he means appetite, emotion, angerand etc.

And so Aristotle makes it morecontroversial by relating the male to reason and female to the emotion andother mundane affairs, which, according to Plato, are superior and inferiorrespectively. So the feminists have argued onthis presumption, of Plato, of reason and emotion being superior and inferiorrespectively. So my question is, isreason not superior? Or is appetite and emotion not inferior? Certainly,appetite and other related mundane characters are inferior. If we suppose for amoment that these characters are not inferior to reason then why today thereare theories like EQ? Which is the level a person can intelligently controlhis/her emotion. Why not controlling your reason and logics? Why make reasonand logic a criterion for intelligence and aptitude? Why not make appetite acriterion for intelligence? Certainly we, as a world and not as women and men,have accepted that these mundane feelings need to be curbed. We cannot letthese foster upon our minds. Certainly reason is to rule!

So why associate men with reason?And why associate women with mundane characters? We already have seen around usthat women are emotional! Its not what I am saying, its what we all have experienced!Lets take an example of a family. The father/mother is the judge of a civiliancourt of law and the son is the murderer.

CASE 1:

The son is bought to the court oflaw, and the father is the judge.

CASE 2:

The son is bought to the court oflaw, and the mother is the judge.

In which case do you think thereis a higher probability of justice being served? I think now we all know theanswer; in case 1 the chances are more because the male is usually dominated byreason rather than emotions. And the female is usually dominated by emotionrather than reason. Obviously justice will be served in both the cases, but Iam talking about the probability.

Of course there are exceptionalwomen in the world! But again you would agree that they are exceptional becausethey are decision makers and rational thinkers rather than being emotional andwhimsical. Emotion would get everybody nowhere.

So feminism, the movement, isjust either a fact as an inevitable reality or a myth as an argument. The womenand men who are falling in the domination of mundane characters are supposed tobe ruled! It’s not anyone’s fault that there are more women than men in thiscategory! It’s just a fact…