Ascension of the Prophet PBUH According to Khabrain in the month Rajab, the Holy Prophet PBUH was taken by the angel Jibreel from Makka to Kaaba where he was washed in Zamzam. Then he was taken to Madina on a flying animal called Burraq where he was to migrate two years later. After that he was taken to mount Sinai where Moses had talked with God. After that he was taken to Bethlehem where Christ was born. On the way he heard a voice calling him. He ignored it. Jibreel told him it was the voice of Judaism. Then he heard another voice calling him. He ignored it too. Jibreel told him it was the voice of Christianity. After that a beautiful women called him but he ignored her too. Jibreel said it was the worldly pleasures. After that a man wanted to meet him. He too was ignored because he was Satan himself.
Hindu couple in ‘trubbel’
According to the Nawa-e-Waqt, a Hindu couple in Swabi NWFP had been taken away to an unknown place for investigation of the charge against them of desecrating the Quran, for which there is life imprisonment. Chaman Lal and his wife Krishna were seen by some people throwing the Quran in the fields. After that, a mob attacked their house, beat them up and registered a case of blasphemy against them. The Hindu man was supposed to have converted to Islam and then reconverted to Hinduism on being rebuked by his wife. This angered the Muslims. Although not a law, reconverting from Islam is punishable by death.
Prophet PBUH and the heavens
According to Khabrain, the Prophet PBUH found the first heaven locked. After Jibreel got the door open, the Prophet PBUH was greeted by angels and men, amongst whom was one extremely well-shaped man who was identified as Adam. Adam looked to his right and smiled because on that side were his good progeny; then he looked to his left and cried because on that side were his misguided progeny. Then the Prophet PBUH saw people cutting a crop that would not end: these were people who did jihad. After that there were people with large bellies with snakes inside. They were the usurers. There were people eating rotten meat. They were disloyal spouses. There were women hanging by their breast. They were unfaithful wives with bastard children.
Imran Khan’s political immaturity
According to Khabrain, Imran Khan was a sporting icon who became the beloved of the nation as a social worker and philanthropist, but he then had a revelation and became a born-again Muslim. He formed a party in 1996 and began losing elections and now had only one seat of his own to his Insaf Party. His appeal in the middle class had declined because he voted steadily for the reactionary mullahs in the National Assembly under the influence of a sufi saint who met him at a dinner 17 years ago. He had supported the clergy on South Waziristan’s anti-Al Qaeda operations and the madrassa reform. He opposed mixed marathons, and relied on the infamous Newsweek story, leading the attack on the insult to the Quran, and getting a number of agitating people in Afghanistan killed.
Ghulam Ishaq Khan ordered firing
Speaking to the Nawa-e-Waqt magazine, PPP leader Aitzaz Ahsan said that when he was interior minister, the Salman Rushdie affair arose in the UK. The clerics got out a mob in Islamabad which was advancing towards the embassies and consular sections of the city. He said an agreement was reached between the mob and the police after which he returned to parliament. Meanwhile, hooligans from the mob attacked one embassy and the diplomats rang up the presidency saying that their lives were in danger. President Ghulam Ishaq Khan then took over and it was under his charge that the police started firing on the mob.
SP relies on Sura Yaseen
According to the Nawa-e-Waqt, SP Faisalabad Khalid Abdullah, accused of kidnapping a man and making him disappear and raping his wife, held a special radd-e-bala (exorcism) in his house with the help of a group of clerics who read the Quranic verse Sura Yaseen in the house. After they were done, the SP distributed thousands of rupees among them. The SP had a record of misconduct and frequent suspensions from rank.
What MNAs cost Pakistan
Writing in the Jang, Irshad Haqqani stated that out of the 342 members of the National Assembly in Pakistan, one was a billionaire, 156 crore-patti, and 183 lakh-patti. These people spent from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 2 crore on their elections to win their seats. During the last financial year their allowances were raised by one hundred per cent, from Rs 17,500 to Rs 38,000. In all, the state spent Rs 10 crore annually on them.
Israel not acceptable even in parliament
Quoted in the daily Pakistan, Imran Khan said that he would not accept recognition of Israel even if parliament approved it. It would be against the idea of Jinnah’s Pakistan and that Musharraf had to no right to go against the wishes of the umma. In reply, culture minister Muhammad Ali Durrani told Khabrain that some people didn’t mind marrying Jewish women but protested Pakistan communicating with Israel.
What Palestinian state?
Writing in the Nawa-e-Waqt, Irfan Siddiqi stated that Pakistan’s making of its recognition of Israel conditional upon the creation of a Palestinian state would be tantamount to accepting only 15 per cent of the original territory belonging to the Arabs as a state for the Palestinians. It would be an open-air prison for the featherless birds called Palestinian Arabs. They will flap their useless wings in the grip of savage Israeli soldiers, and Pakistan would be filling colours in the sketch drawn by the accursed (makrooh) Americans.
Fake mystic breaks out in English
According to Khabrain, one fake mystical dabba pir on the bank of Ravi in Lahore was deftly depriving poor people of their cash. He was mostly promising children to barren women. In one case, he had taken Rs 20,000 for getting a woman pregnant with a baby but failed, after which the husband protested. But the mystic told his audience that his father-in-law was an even bigger mystic because he brought down the aircraft of an Englishman with one gesture. When the reporter tried to ask him tricky questions, he broke out in English to get rid of him. Most people rely on English to get out of trouble.
Fair elections don’t suit Pakistan
Writing in the Jang, Syed Anwar Qidwai stated that the local government polls were not found to be fair and transparent in all the centres in Pakistan. But polls were never fair in the past either. In 1951 the Punjab had provincial elections in which Mian Daultana swept a jhurloo through the province capturing ballot boxes to keep his opponent Mamdot out, whom he had already deposed with the help of prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan. In 1954, provincial polls were fair in East Pakistan but that led to the dismissal of the government there. In 1970 the national election was fair but the country was broken up.