excerpts r also in urdu too attached below as images along with title. the book is available at readings, Lahore and other famous book stores. Pakistani price 995
Excerpts
1. Though Iqbal lived in a historical context that was different from ours in several ways, what he said remains profoundly relevant to us and to our times. In fact, Iqbal’s message is more relevant and important today than that of any other Muslim thinker of the past and present… (Page 319)
2. While some famous verses from Iqbal’s poems are often cited in isolation, the core message of his poetry, reflecting his revolutionary spirit, his intrepid imagination and his passionate commitment to justice and the dignity of selfhood, has been excluded from public discourse. (Page 320).
3. The decay and decline in Islamic intellectual thought, according to Iqbal, set in five hundred years ago when the doors to ijtihad, a scholarly debate on our religion and its tradition, were closed. (Page 326)
4. The third and probably most decisive factor was the Mongols’ destruction in 1258 of Baghdad – the centre of Muslim intellectual life. Had the Mongol hordes not taken over swathes of the Muslim world, our history might have been very different. (Page 327)
5. The Quran asks Muslims to follow the ‘Middle Way’, the narrow path that lies between all possible extremes. (Page 335)
6. The best weapon against fundamentalism is enlightened Islam. (Page 323)
7. According to WikiLeaks, our former finance minister, Shaukat Tarin, asked the US ambassador Anne Patterson how much aid was being given to the Pakistan army. Never again should such a situation be allowed to arise. Neither should our army chief ever be allowed to talk directly to the US or any other government. (Page 363)
8. Although I had heard tales about the IJT, I had not fully realized the kind of people they were. Everyone on the campus of the university is scared of them. Once known for their ideological views and great discipline, they known for their ideological views and great discipline, they appear to have degenerated into a kind of mafia or fascist group operating inside the university, bearing guns and beating people up. They stifle debate in an educational establishment that has in its time produced two Noble Laureates… (Page 2)
9. For me, the high point of US moral authority was after the Second World War, when the Nazis, who were responsible for the deaths of over 30 million, were given a fair trial. Churchill wanted them summarily executed but Roosevelt insisted on a trial. In the words of Justice Robert Jackson, the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials: ‘If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we could not be willing to have invoked against us.’ This was a show of clemency and moral universalism not accorded Muslims since 9/11. (Page 237)
10. My mother always knew that one of the things I hated most was being forced to do something. The more somebody tried to make me a better Muslim through fear or pressure, the more I would resist. (Page 105)
11. Most of the struggles against colonialism in the twentieth century were led by people who had studied in the West. Jinnah, Gandhi and Nehru all had the opportunity to see Western democratic societies in action and were inspired to campaign for the same rights for their countrymen. My own awareness of democracy, the rule of law and the welfare state was a awakened when I first went to England to study. (Page 314)
12. Even in the nine-tenth century during the twilight days of India’s Mughal Empire, when Syed Ahmed Barelvi founded a revolutionary Islamic movement it failed to take hold. Barelvi preached jihad against non-Muslims influences and tried to rally the Pashtun tribes to his cause but they disliked his rigid brand of Islam and abandoned him, leaving him to be slain by the Sikhs who had at that time conquered the settled Pashtun areas. (Page 296/97)
13. There is a strong Sufi influences in Pakistan, which will always be at odds with the strict literal islam of Wahhabi ideology that influences many militant groups. This tension is represented by the two main schools of thought for Sunni Muslims in Pakistan. Barelvis typically lean towards South Asia’s traditional brand of Sufi Silam with its saints and shrines and message of tolerance. Deobandis, on the other hand, are more ideologically aligned with the Wahhabis and are therefore more sympathetic to the Taliban’s version of Islam. (Page 297)
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