Killings, bloodshed across Muslim world: Who are the killers, Who are getting killed?

maiN yah kiske naam likhuuN jo alam guzar rahe haiN
mere shahar jal rahe haiN, mere log mar rahe haiN

koi aur to nahiiN hai pas-e-Khanjar-aazmaaii
hamiiN qatl ho rahe haiN, hamiiN qatl kar rahe haiN

[Translation: To whom shall I name these deaths, the burning of my cities, who is behind the scene responsible for our cries]

These are couplets of renowned Urdu poet Obaidullah Aleem's ghazal, which I've posted in Urdu, Hindi and Roman scripts Here.

The second photograph below is from Qahtaniya village west of Mosul in Iraq inhabited by Yazidis*, where a series of suicide bombings killed 400 persons this week.

Country, region, religion, sect, followers of different spiritual leaders, they are all baying for each other's blood. Is it not Iraqi blood? Today blasts and murders are happening from Syria to Indonesia. This is really mindless violence.

It is in this context that I have quoted the couplets here. The family of Obaidullah Aleem, a poet born in India, had migrated to Pakistan long back. It was the sectarian clashes in Pakistan that may have prompted him to write these lines.

Ironically, Aleem belonged to the Ahmadiyya sect, that believes in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiyani as prophet, though their split branch, Lahoris, believe him as a mujaddid or reviver, but both sects were declared un-Islamic in Pakistan.

I admit that I earlier I was also biased against the sect. 

But the kind of persecution they have braved, is also unparalleled. 

Recently I heard another ghazal of Aleem in his own voice. 

And the melancholy, the intense sadness, in his voice really touched me.

It is saddening how this intolerance has made a mess of so many countries in the entire Muslim world.

It's a long ghazal [read it in any of the three scripts Here] and many of its couplets are not found in the ghazal that starts with the couplet:

kuchh ishq thaa kuchh majbuuri so maiN ne jeevan vaar diyaa
maiN kaisaa zindaa aadmii thaa, ek shaKhs ne mujhko maar diyaa

maiN rota huuN aur aasmaan se taare girte dekhtaa huuN
un logoN par jin logoN ne mere logoN ko aazaar diyaa
When he read the second couplet, the lack of applause form audience was palpable. Unlike other Muslim sects, the beliefs of Ahmadiyyas or Qadiyanis do disturb mainstream Muslims as they don't believe in the finality of prophetood, which is the cornerstone of traditional Islamic belief.

Also, the apparently aggressive campaigns of Ahmadiyyas towards spreading their belief and getting new 'converts', perturb us [though followers of any new movement or sect are generally more zealous]. 

More so, because Ahmadiyyas have come from within Muslims, which make us a little more uncomfortable compared to those belonging to other religions. Beliefs are a personal matter. We have our beliefs, they have theirs. 

Difference in beliefs doesn't give the right to any society to deny the right to a peaceful and dignified existence to any group. Any such society will head towards doom. Iraq, Kurds, Sunnis, Shias, Yazidis, Ahmadiyyas, Deobandis Barelvis... I am flying off tangent!

But what we are witnessing in Iraq is a catastrophe of colossal propotions. I must admit that I always felt that the Ahmadiyya persecution was more a propaganda than reality but recent interaction with some people especially an acquaintance's personal account of the way they are treated, was disgusting.

In a government office where he was transferred and joined after posting, some persons mistook him as a Ahmadiyya though he is a Sunni Muslim. I don't want to reproduce what he told me, at this blog.There is an outstanding post at ATP about the Pakistan's dilemma regarding their only Nobel laureate, Dr Abdus Salam. Click to read.

[*The micro-minuscule Yazidi sect, the followers of whom speak Kurdish, was targeted. This semi-pagan sect has mysterious beliefs and pay obeisance to Sheikh Adi, the supreme creator and Malek Taus. They also show an unusual reverence for Shaitan.]

Photo: The US military helicopter blasts dust as it lands at the site of bombing

Poem on destruction of Iraq, 'Halaku, if you visit Baghdad, again': Marjeena no longer lives in Alif Laila land...

Even  Halaku would be shocked at such destruction!

What would the medieval Halaku Khan feel if he ever came to the shores of Iraq, a country he had plundered centuries ago.

Iraq has been ravaged, destroyed. Post 2/11, the War on Terror, led to the American forces targeting Saddam Hussein.

'Halaku's Second Coming To Baghdad' is an Urdu verse written in this context, and is being published and circulated across Urdu speaking world.

Shattered at the mindless violence in Iraq and the end of a country, a civilization, in this modern era, famed poet Hasan Abidi's wrote this famous Nazm, which you can READ HERE IN URDU, ENGLISH & HINDI.

Now, coming back to the post:

*A lunatic killed over 30 students on the Virginia university campus and I joined millions of Americans in this hour of sadness. But then I heard George Bush saying how his heart was full of sadness at the deaths.

*Later as news of 360 persons dying in a single day in Baghdad in four separate suicide attacks was broadcast, I switched off the television in disgust. The figure was slightly higher even by Iraq's standards.

Hulagu Khan [Halaku]

You curse these mindless Shias and Sunnis, butchering each other. But then we really don't know what is happening there. We only know one thing for sure, who planned this insane war on Iraq and the devastation of this country.

Doesn't he feel remorse? Can he sleep peacefully after this dance of death.

It was during such a mental state that I remembered Hasan Abidi's Urdu verse about Halaku's second coming. The Tatar Holocaust had begun nearly eight centuries ago when the army of Halaku [also writte as Hulagu or Halagu], turned towards the Abbasid empire.

Halaku was the son of Changez [Genghis/Chingiz] Khan. As the cruel war-monger Halaku moved ahead, the tidal wave of devastation led to millions of deaths in Iraq. Baghdad, Nishapur, Samarkand and Herat accounted for over a million deaths each.

Many other cities were completely exterminated. The jewel of Islamic world, Baghdad, was turned into a city of corpses by Halaku's men. Halaku's father practiced Shamanism, they worshipped sky, and his mother was a Nestorian Christian woman but his great grandson Berek had later embraced Islam.


What Halaku would feel if he comes to Baghdad again?

The English translation is here:

Halaku, when you will come to Baghdad this time
'Dajla' would have cleaned her shore with wetness of blood
Here one more army, an army of blaze-n-rock would have camped
For many hundred years this city of angst
which never slept, would have been slept this time

Halaku, when you will come to Baghdad this time
You will find corpses, but without head
A tower of skulls would have been built before your entrance
streets, lanes, inns, sanctuaries, cafes
would have been standing their hands bagging their shadows

Ashes of libraries would have been drifted
Antiques would have been distributed in bags
Valued copies of god's book and divine scrolls
whose sights kept chests lighted
woud have been burned

No more Marjinas, No more land of Alif Laila

Halaku, when you will come to Baghdad this time
Nights of "alif Laila" (Thousand nights) will have escaped from tales
wearing sheet of sunlight, sitting on sand's cliff
would have been waiting for tale-tellers, merchants, travellers, con-mans and princes
(to see when night will fall on city)
But now no dawn will come, or any night will fall


Halaku, when you will come to Baghdad this time
(from) Ali Baba's treasures of gold, (to) tents and field, all would have been looted
Where vougish-n-astucious Marjeena lived, there now lived young warriors of some other world
Here is a magic in soil, earth bears gold
(but now)there is smell of oil

Halaku, when you will come to Baghdad this time
you will come for not to go

[Thanks to Mystic Soul for the translation]

India erupts after Saddam Hussein's execution: Photos of trains stopped in Lucknow, anger in Bhopal & Bangalore

Tens of thousands of Indians came out in scores of Cities and towns across the nation, to protest the hanging of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. 

Mostly Muslims, leftists, Samajwadi Party workers and citizens from various walks of life cutting across religious lines, hit the streets.

Following are some of the photographs to capture the mood from Lucknow, Bangalore, Bhopal and other cities of the country.

Now, read about the protests, demonstrations and the display of public anger in cities of the country.

Though lakhs have already died in the war, Saddam Hussein's hanging on the eve of Eid-ul-Zuha, enraged Muslims.

People from other communities, especially, those with Communist background, were seen participating in the protests.

Slogan against George Bush

In fact, it was Saddam Husain as a symbol of the anti-imperialistic resistance that also brought such a large number of people out on streets. 

Hindus were heard ruing the death of a friend of India. In first photograph Samajwadi party activists are seen atop a train on the outskirts of Lucknow which they stopped. 

Trains were stopped elsewhere also to protest the killing of Saddam Hussein. There were huge rallies taken out.

In other photo, a woman, a surviving victim of Bhopal gas tragedy* holds a placard with message against-George Bush message, written in Urdu. 

In the third photograph, United States of America's president George Bush's effigy set ablaze in Bangalore. 

However, in Lucknow a section of Shias today celebrated. Most of these demonstrations and protests were peaceful.


The protesters were sad but calm and there was no destruction of property or arson reported from anywhere. 

There were huge protests in South India also. Ulema had urged Muslims to exercise restraint. 

The figure of number of protest is yet to come but over a hundred demonstrations were reported. 

Many cities had over a dozen demonstrations each and on Sunday many marches are planned.