Author name: Comment

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is a dreamer of unreal dreams. He believes that he has the ability to resuscitate the comatose economy and transform Pakistan into an Asian tiger. The flaw in this grandiose scheme is that there can be no growth and development in the absence of an enabling environment of peace and security. […]

The first Quranic revelation allowing Muslims to fight came immediately after the Holy Prophet (PBUH) moved to Medina in 622.  However, the permission was conditional and strictly restricted to self-defence.  War was never to be used for the propagation of the faith.  Its purpose was the defence of all religions otherwise “all monasteries and churches

Comment A few days after the Kinari Road carnage of Shias in Quetta on February 16, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, appointed his country’s first Religious Freedom Ambassador. The honour went to a man from the Ahmadiyya community in Maple, Ontario. On this occasion, Harper spoke with passion about the pitiable plight of minorities in

Comment Since the return of the Tehreek-ul-Minhaj-ul-Quran (TMQ) chief, TahhirulQadri to Pakistan, strange things have happened in unexpected ways. Qadri has sworn by all that is sacred that he will set in motion the wheels of irreversible change that will crush the old, corrupt and decrepit order and replace it with the rule of the

Comment The film. The dichotomy prevalent within Pakistani society between liberals and extremists is more than apparent.  Two recent incidents have highlighted this bifurcation: the release of the film, “Innocence of Muslims” on the internet and the attempted assassination of Malala Yousafzai. NakoulaBasseleyNakoula, a naturalized US citizen of Egyptian origin, released the 14 minute trailer

“Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed under thy name,” exclaimed Madame Marie-Jeanne Roland as she mounted the platform to be guillotined during the Reign of Terror at the height of the French Revolution. More than two hundred years later, a similar reign of terror but this time in the name of religion was unleashed, particularly

Comment Pakistan’s 9/11 did not occur in 2001 but in 1948 when the founder of the country, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, passed away. Almost ten years earlier, on 5 February 1938, during an address to the Muslim University Union at the Strachey Hall in Aligarh, Jinnah told his audience: “What the Muslim League has done

comment Despite the imperfections of the 18 February election, the outcome was consequential. Analysts have waxed eloquent about the rout of the so-called king’s party and the religious right as well as the ascendancy of moderates. Yet indecision typified the victors of the election who, for several weeks, procrastinated on government formation.  While politicians dithered

comment As the final 2007 issue of Criterion goes into print, increasing extremist violence and election-year political uncertainties have exposed the state’s inability to enforce its writ and demonstrated that sixty years after its independence, Pakistan has yet to establish a stable constitution-based political system. The Political Process Musharraf’s 6 October re-election as a military president is