A Battle Worth Waging

Written by:
Raza Abbas
Batch of 2013

10th of Muharram, I reached the procession at Numaish, found that 3 prime worship places are full of people so I found a place at a Sunni Mosque, prayed and listened to the sermon. It talked about the reasons of the sacrifice at Karballa.

There at Rawalpindi, the same sermon, insults Imam Hussain, and to my utter astonishment the people who were there to mourn the sacrifice of Karballa were seen battling the members of a certain Madrassa with stones/bullets being hurled at either side.

Hours later, the cloth market was torched, the Madrassa became a victim of fire too, 3 Imam Bargah's at different places in RWP were torched. Now, I have been coming across pictures of brutal assassinations that the media never showed, but thanks to the Google Image search, the pictures were of Syria, Libya and Palestine.

Having grown up in an environment that has taught me to respect others' beliefs and rituals, I fail to understand why exactly we have stooped so low. I won't support any side, at the end of the day soon funds will be collected to build the Madrassa up again, the Imam Bargahs and to fund the families who suffered any loss. But sadly, we would not collect funds for intellectual upbringing and sacrifice.

Welcome to Pakistan. A country that finds it pretty easy to blame every downfall on some American or Israeli agency but forgets to practice the same religion it loves to die upon.

Dear God, teach our people the message of Hussain, teach our people the message of Sahaba, teach our people the message of none but yours. And if we fail to learn, make the west or any country we blame attack us, kill us, cut us into pieces. This way, at least the historians will call our nation killed by foreigners rather than the ones who killed each other, burned each other and blamed the west.

In the end, I request you all to save a minute out of scrolling, pray for the people who died, think about how we can be better a Muslim, a better Pakistani. Let's stop sharing pictures of burnt prayer places. Lets extinguish the fire in our hearts.

“Peace is the only battle worth waging” - Albert Camus
May God guide us all.