Some ideas for teaching Islamiat Interactively
I have conducted several workshops in Islamiat teaching and the following ideas and suggestions have emerged from my experiences. These have been tried in classes by several school teachers and have been found effective.
Before I begin discussing the classroom ideas, a few tips for the Islamiat teacher are a must:Read More
LIVING LIKE KINGS AND HATING IT: THE DILEMMAS OF LIVING IN PAKISTAN VS ABROAD
The whole issue of migration to a different land is a class issue. We are not talking about the great mass of illiterate and semi-literate people who have dreams: we are talking about those who have made it and are professionals of some sort… those who have as it were the best of both worlds and still choose to live abroad. Whatever their inner compulsions, I for one must share with you my own dilemmas, my own peculiar reasons for staying home.
There is a grave tension in the minds of all the parents who have college age children. So total is the collapse of the College system that one wonders at the thick skinned ness of those who do not know or pretend that they do not know of the utter worthless ness of the two years of what laughingly passes for studies in Classes 11 and 12 in our country.Read More
Invasion and Paula
IF YOU WANT TO READ A MEDICAL THRILLER THIS WEEK TURN TO THE MAESTRO OF MEDICAL THRILLERS — ROBIN COOK’S NEW NOVEL INVASION
BUT IF YOU WANT TO ENTER THE WORLD OF MAGICAL REALISM READ ISABELLE ALLENDE’S PAULARead More
Rooh ul Quran: Foreword
The Qur’an is a map of the geography of the mind. The Qur’an is also a template of the external world; that is to say, it is a microcosm containing the universe. The organization of the Qur’an as a logical or historical document is neither necessary nor useful. Since the pattern it follows is that of nature itself, it has contours of verses, subject matter, allusions, symbols, stories, motifs and cadences forming a vision of the universe externally and the human soul internally. The Qur’an is objective in the true meaning of the word – it objectively delineates the status of the soul on its journey to God as well as a landscape of that journey in inward and outward nature.Read More
The End of Time
Anybody who remembers the mad frenzy which gripped Karachiites (and other Pakistanis) about 18-20 years ago, at the turn of the 14th Islamic century, when broadsheets headlined “Shah Nematullah ki paishingoian” [The predictions of Shah Nematullah] were very popular, will enjoy this book. I remember the way in which an old man read aloud some of the items — “Musulman kay hath main talwar ajaay gi”(Muslims will get the sword again”) and the stars in the eyes of the passengers of the bus as they listened. My aunt burst the bubble for me with a single prick of common sense: “Notice he doesn’t say when!”Read More
Chromosome 6
Having been unflattering about the plot from outer space by Robin Cook (Invasion) I am back full of praise for his latest — Chromosome 6. If you want to understand the latest medical triumph about Dolly and cloning, this novel takes you to the underground I mean the underworld of DNA and mitochondria research and the “short arm” of chromosome six.
Dr. Jack Stapleton finds out that the body he has been doing the post mortem of has had a liver transplant. That in itself was not the issue: but his innocent attempts to find out where the operation had been done and who had performed it ran into a dead end. Why should that happen, and who would want to hide why they had performed the operation, even if the patient was a well known Mafia Boss, makes the story uncoil with a slow but sure footed grace of a master thriller-writer in his best form. Add to that the creation of characters like Kevin, the shy scientist in Africa; the buoyant vibrancy of Candace and Melanie; the menacing presence of soldiers and the hilarious antics of the Mafia bosses trying to maximize their profits from the grisly business of camouflaging missing livers — well, why don’t you turn to the book itself?
By the way, it might be a good idea to start it on a weekend. Once you give it a good 100-page bite, you will then go on to finish it. This might also be a tip to get most of those “wanted-to-read-but-didn’t-find-the-time” books read.
By the River Pedra I sat down and wept
With prose that flows like liquid silver, and the narrator’s emotions like the gossamer threads of a spider’s web waving in the breeze, Paulo Coelho’s new novel is a winner. On almost every page there are observations, dialogues, thoughts about love and loss and finding and yearning and truth and the quest for God so artistically interwoven that the book is one vast fluid look at the beauty of youth and idealism. I can do no better than to let the author take over. Read More
Halliday & Hasan: matters of cohesion
Sometimes it takes either a child or a Galileo to point out the obvious. It is true that to see the ordinary with a fixed unswerving gaze is to see the very inside of things; and then to point it out to mankind, to which they say, ‘Yes of course: that it is the way it must be!’ – is the summary of human achievement.Read More
Why Literature?
There is much turmoil in our hearts as we read the papers; there is much broken and jagged in the world. At home, we have 7 police officers guarding Vaccination Team in Pakistan are shot dead (among others!); abroad, the global war against ISIS and the Syria black hole. Does it make sense then for a group of us to sit together in this room in Karachi and look at the issues of education? My answer is Of course! It is the most important thing we can do.Read More
Healing The Hurt In The Heart Of A Teacher
There is much turmoil in our hearts as we read the papers; there is much broken and jagged in the world. At home, we have 7 police officers guarding Vaccination Team in Pakistan are shot dead (among others!); abroad, the global war against ISIS and the Syria black hole. Does it make sense then for a group of us to sit together in this room in Karachi and look at the issues of education? My answer is Of course! It is the most important thing we can do.Read More