World Affairs And Beyond

I first met Baba Jee in the rugged mountains of Landikotal in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. He was an immigrant from Afghanistan, having fled the turmoil during the USSR war. Over the years, he had been adopted by a wealthy landlord in the tribal belt of Pakistan and had become a Pakistani citizen. Baba Jee, a man of deep wisdom and quiet strength, speaks Pashto and Dari, and I am sharing a translation of our conversation in English. I make it a point to travel to his remote location a few times a year to seek his guidance and get my pressing questions answered. Most of our conversations are recorded, ensuring I can revisit his deep wisdom whenever needed. (Sharing the dialogue I had with Baba Jee today) Sobia (Me): Baba Jee, I have been troubled for the past year. Pakistan is an Islamic Republic, with mosques everywhere, people fasting during Ramzan, and our constitution rooted in Islam. Yet, I see people who lie, cheat, deceive, and steal, while still bowing down in pr...

Do you think the only solution to rid this world of evil is to wipe the evil doers off this planet once and for all ? Sometimes I think that it is the only solution. Identify them first, know that they are evil, and then kick their butts. These are the kind of people who posses black evil hearts. They are upto nothing good in this world.

I was recently approached by some young lad from some organization, trying to convince me that dialogue is no good and that America was bad. He added that I was not a good Muslim because even though he did not know me, yet he saw my photos in the US and concluded that I was not following the message of Mohammad (peace be upon him). It reminded me of a saying of the fourth caliph of Islam, Hazrat Ali (on whom be peace), "A person who finds only faults in others is like a housefly, who leaves the whole beautiful body of a person and just sits on his wounds".