We rightly decry female genital mutilation. Why, then, are so many happy to condone the male equivalent? Queen chose to have HRH the Prince of Wales and his brothers, Andrew and Edward, circumcised. But perhaps that is to be expected: the rabbi said their circumcisions were common knowledge....

Brishkay Ahmed‘s unusual documentary film The Story of Burqa: Case of a Confused Afghan, sold out its first screening at the Doxa Film Festival in May.  While the film explored how the burqa came to Afghanistan, and why it was so extensively used, it was not her first artistic venture into her native country....

One word it traces to its origin is ‘damri’, a coin that once existed but today survives in an Urdu idiom indicating something worthless. It has given rise to the English swear-word damn and appears in the expression ‘I don’t give a damn’.‘Damri’ is turned into ‘dam’ and is written ‘damn’. Since swearing is involved, ‘damnation’ is pressed into service. If you anglicise the word, it would be, ‘I don’t give a farthing’. It would mean, ‘I don’t think it is worth anything’….

Like a mother who wants her children to live well, like a teacher who wants his students to do well, and like a chef who wants his patrons to enjoy his food…. God wants every one of his creation to live in harmony and do well. No one is deprived of God’s love; he has reached every human through a peace maker, messenger, prophet, reformer or simply a wise man or a good friend that brings sense to living....

Kashmir’s shrines, mosques and Khanqahs are the milestones of the Valley’s spiritual environment, transcending the barriers of time. Their influence and resilience in the face of the hostility, and of natural and political upheavals lends the Firdause-e-Bareen, or the Paradise on Earth, its other enduring sobriquet of reshi waar — “the garden of saints.” For Kashmiris, these also serve as a reminder of the inspiration, creative genius and building technologies of their ancestors who relied on local materials and skills and created these marvels of wood, brick and stone. ...

The Saudi and American efforts to educate Pakistanis are substantively different. The Americans are pushing a curriculum that ostensibly promotes democracy and pluralism, imagines the child as a budding scholar and not a soldier, the world as holding opportunity and not only temptation. The Saudi curriculum banks on other truths — of salvation gained in another life, of a world of ascetic self-sacrifice, of the necessity of domination and the inevitability of destruction…..

“I want to return with a message of love, I want to return to pour light into your veins. And cry out: ‘O those whose baskets are full of sleep, I brought you an apple, red like the sun,” wrote poet Sohrab Sepehri. “I want to bring flowers for the beggar, gift earrings to the pretty leper woman of my old neighbourhood. I want to share the beauty of the garden with the blind.” “I want to be a peddler, peddling through streets, shouting: ‘Dew, I brought dew for you.”...

This week’s column may appear to be a little premature, but with the way things are going, who knows if we will be able to afford traditional Eid celebrations in the months to come. So dear readers buckle up and accompany me on a journey through time to Lahore in the 1950s, when life was uncomplicated, relationships sincere and celebrations affordable. An excited shout of nazar agayaa, initiated a rush around the keen-eyed individual, who would guide others to the desired point on the horizon.

Knowledge, what does it stand for? And what does it stand for in Islam? Anyone who knows Islam cannot say that Islam means ‘knowledge of religion’ by exhortation to acquire knowledge. This thought is the result of those Muslims who have limited the boundaries of their knowledge to the minimum possible during the last several centuries.  Otherwise the idea of limiting knowledge to religious knowledge has no meaning for a religion in which the Ameer-ul-Momeneen says, “Wisdom is Muslims’ lost property; even if it is found with the Mushriks (polytheists), and they must take it in their possession.”....

A hi-tech makeover is sweeping across the 14,000-odd religious teaching centres attached to mosques in the state thanks to the Centre-sponsored madarsa modernization scheme. Over Rs 23 crore have been disbursed to 547 madrasas in 2011-12 that helped the 'Oothupallis' which were limited to rote teaching of Holy Quran to adopt modern pedagogical ways of teaching science and mathematics and offer computer classes. Some even teach students English and Hindi....

Calligraphy is a difficult art that is best learnt in childhood. Under the guidance of an ustad, …  Aware of the limitations of the Urdu ligature and fonts created by Pakistan's Mirza Ahmed Jameel Noori, Kiratpuri, with the help of his student Rehan Ansari and software engineer Syed Manzar, created 40, 000 Urdu fonts and saved them in a software called faiz nastaleeq (style) as a tribute to his ustad, Faiz Lahori…..

I was reminded of the conversation in the editor-in-chief’s office while reading some comments on Aiman Reyaz’s article ‘Does Islam Allow Wife-Beating’, which highlight how Arab culture is being propagated worldwide in the name of Islam, how Muslims in non-Arab nations are being told to pray in Arab-style mosques and, indeed, wear Arab dresses.

…you have exercised a bit of moderation? As if having a prostitute as your main character wasn’t enough, you had to make her drink alcohol, and as if her drinking wasn’t bad enough you had to make her go to sleep with a flea-ridden dog. And I am not even mentioning the uncalled for description of her blouse where she stuffs her Haram-earned money. Why did you have to do all that when you could have written about banana peels?...

Different subjects are addressed in different locations, like individual teaching units. The aim is for non-Muslims to overcome their reservations in dealing with Muslims. For the Muslims whose voices are the piece, education is an important element of their faith: they themselves once had to read about what it means to be a Muslim and form their own opinion on the subject. …

Even in the shadows of the stage their white robes appear luminous. It's said that Rumi first started whirling in one of Konya's bazaars. Walking past a line of goldbeaters, he became so moved by the music of their rhythmic hammering accompanied by their gentle chanting of Allah's name that he raised his arm towards the sky and started to revolve in a state of awe, spinning and spinning until he reached oneness with his God….