God cherishes us but we’re thankless

Why common people appear embarrassed when they are asked about welfare of their children?

“My post-graduate son Ahmad is in search of a suitable job; Mahmood is suffering from cough and fever: syrup and medicine prescribed by doctor are costly; dental surgeon fleeces me, I’m worried about future of my schoolboy Akki and daughter Shahida because expenses have risen horribly over years with Europeanization of our education system,” says jittery city old Bholu.

“God will help us,” still heartens Fatima Aapa of Lahore who is in Kohati Bazar of Rawalpindi nowadays. She’s one of living women who chanted ‘Pakistan Zindabaad’ in August 1947.

But Nazir Butt, who saw the first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan being shot dead in Rawalpindi, asserts “God is angry; think why God is angry with us.”

Now an octogenarian, who as All-India Muslim League worker migrated from Amritsar to settle in Rawalpindi-Islamabad after Pakistan was achieved, is right in his comment.

Almighty God can create life out of nothing: He has but to say, “Be”, and it is. He can bring life from non-life and annihilate life. According to the Quran, it’s Allah who causes the seed grain and the date (‘khajur’) stone to split and sprout. It’s Allah who sends down rain from the skies, and with this is produced vegetation of all kinds: From some we produce green crops, out of which we get grain heaped up at harvest; and then there are gardens of grapes and olive.

In these things are signs for people who understand and believe.

There’s no denying that water comes from the clouds in plentiful abundance; the earth is ploughed, and the soil is broken up in fragments, and yields an abundant harvest of cereals (corn), and vegetable food as well as fruits that can be kept for long periods for many uses, like olives and dates. Besides field crops, we’ve more highly cultivated garden crops, both in the way of lofty trees and in the form of carefully tended fruits like the fig (‘anjeer’); and then we’ve grass and all kinds of fodder for cattle.

That’s how Almighty God cherishes us, but we’re very thankless: We forget and don’t practice the teachings of Islam; we’ve set aside the object for which we struggled to achieve Pakistan; we produce fake degrees to reach assemblies for selfish motives; we prefer class system instead of social and economic justice; hence there’s no rule of law---but food price hike, unrest, load-shedding, unemployment, poverty and thefts.

The rulers, whoever they’re, don’t fear Almighty God, nor do they obey him, they prostrate before the International Monetary Fund for loans and the US for help for survival of the nation. “And that’s why God is angry,” say the common people.

— zasarwar@hotmail.com