Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Sometimes questions are raised regarding our attitude to mutton consumption and there are advices for revisiting it. I don’t doubt that on occasions and in certain elite families mutton consumption may be excessive but we need to note that we can’t be a vegetarian society. To properly understand modern Kashmir’s obsession for mutton – the need of mutton as a protein source in the normal diet of all Kashmiris,  we may have a brief look at the figures provided by science. Not only do we consume far less than required when we speak in general terms for the whole population, but we are also deprived of quality meat due to absence of slaughter houses and non-availability of quality meat that goes for export to big hotels. If it were not for Eids , prayer food culture and festivals Kashmir's would, generally speaking, qualify as very poor consumers. Middle classes eat mutton mostly on different functions, festivals and marriages or when guests come visiting. The BPL people can enjoy i

Once upon a time we were people, a community. Today we are individuals. Once we were not wasting a grain. Today not wasting food means that you are not a good consumer. Once we ate meat occasionally but were healthy as were our sub-alpine pastures. Today, we are great consumers of protein and calories but are not healthy. Once almost everything used in construction industry was obtained from local materials, waste products or byproducts. Today we are replacing almost every local material with imported one. Once we used to employ local committees to manage most of our local resources, and today we are competing with one another in destroying them. Once it was unacceptable to more conscious Pir families to buy land. Today they have amassed huge land property. Once we didn’t keep repeating an posh’ teli yeli wan posh’ but preserved forests, and today we outcompete fast developing economies in deforestation drives. Once most medicines were locally available and local hakeems effect

Kashmir: Tragedy and Triumph,  the book under review, is an informed and scholarly attempt to wrestle with the confusion we find today all around in every field from education to politics. The author comes up with some brilliant pieces of analyses and provocative suggestions. Aghast at the sight of a lost new generation hooked to virtual reality of cyberspace, his people’s “tel, bel, tchel and puz, apuz carriage and nalam, halam te kalam baggage” “missing Baba Demb, dying Dal and weedy Nigeen; hammered Kral Sanger; forlorn Brane; despondent Ishbur and downhearted Harwun” and similar tragedies the author does history with a hammer exposing “jobbing historians” and other “collaborators.” He argues some-provocative-suggestions-for historicizing them and attempts to search for missing links in the narrative of sovereignty of Kashmiris.   The book opens with a poetically composed prayer that shows that the author belongs to the brand of what Sartre called committed writers. Dr A

The Prophet of Islam (SAW) expressed the ethical prerogative of his mission in his famous utterance that “I have come to perfect ethics.” There is too much debate about religion or theology but little focus on what constitutes the basic prerequisite for a truly religious life: Ethics. Shari’ah is fundamentally ethics. Even rituals or pillar of Islam are ultimately directed for self transformation. We may never resolve theological quarrels but we can resolve to come forward on the common minimum programme of the Quran that emphasizes Iman in God and the Last Day or iman and aml-i-salih. The Last Day implies faith in the permanent significance of our actions or accountability. Sufism is, according to one definition, perfection of morals. In fact our earliest Sufis had little time for speculations on wujudi or shuhudi  Tawhid but simply emphasized sincerity of action or perfection of our ethical self. Ethics unites traditions and in fact the Quran has proposed this as the criterion