Development 2.0--by Nadeem Ul Haque

I thought a part of “enlightened moderation” was regulating the moulvi’s use of the loudspeaker. But he seems to be increasingly empowered to abuse the loudspeaker. Contrary to the teachings of Islam, there is now not one time for Azan or prayer. Each moulvi is waiting for the other to finish before saying his Azan. The result is that each morning our neighbourhood has Azans for 45 minutes. Is this not sacrilege? Should there not be one call for a prayer? Not every moulvi is a good muezzin, yet each chooses to yell into a mike that is full volume. I thought that the tradition was for the person with the best voice to call for prayer. An Azan by a moulvi who has no talent for it and into a distorted loud amplifier really takes away from the beauty of the Azan. And to keep on hearing it being repeated over and over again for 45 minutes cannot be in keeping the teachings of our beloved religion. In many Muslim countries that I have been to the rule is that in each neighbourhood...

Why did Britain dominate the world for so long? Why does Anglo Saxon culture still dominate the world? These are important questions that have long interested serious scholarship. Many people (eg Landes) point to early development of property rights, rule of law, limitations on sovereign power, development of an individualistic yeoman culture and the early acceptance of learning and innovation as important answers to these questions. But most of these ideas can be traced back to the seeds sown in the legend of King Arthur. Review the legend and you see a king preoccupied with good and efficient government even to the point of developing constraints on himself. He had an advisor in the form of the most learned man of the time. Merlin was not a magician but a wizard who was steeped in knowledge of the times and was known for his wisdom. Thus very early on, England had accepted the role of knowledge, research and wisdom as guides to policy. Indeed policy was subservient to resea...

I took around my friend Miskeen Shah around Lahore and to my surprise he kept saying “what a rich country this is?” Let me remind readers of Miskeen Shah who is not well known in Pakistan at all since he does not belong to the late night crowd that meets every night at shadis, parties etc. However, Miskeen Shah is a well known in economic circles overseas because of his expertise and publication record. Finally I asked Miskeen to explain his remark reminding him that he is in a country that is classified as poor by all international agencies. Here is his explanation. “It is a rich country in the sense that it can support such a large amount of waste. If the waste could be eliminated, all the people would experience a serious increase in the standard of living. Currently the system seems to support the waste of a small elite. Indeed the elite is invisibly subsidized in many ways.” To support his argument, he made three points. First he pointed to how our city centre was or...

JAI HO Many of us watched the Oscars with a lump in our throats when A. Rehman was given a standing ovation by the American movie establishment. Rehman, a Muslim from a country not considered by us to be friendly to Muslims being eulogized by Hollywood traditionally controlled by those of the Jewish persuasion. But Rehman’s obvious talent overwhelmed them all. Jai ho! There he stood saying simple but powerful words “I had a choice between love and hate. I chose love!” A simple Muslim of simple origins made us all proud with his talent. Jai ho! What would he have been had he been in Pakistan? First he is a convert from Hinduism to Islam in 1989. Here probably he would have been in grave danger. Quite possibly, some zealot might even have snuffed out his talent. Yet in his Oscar win at one point he said Allah o Akbar! Jai A. R. Rehman! For many years we have comforted ourselves by saying that Muslims have no opportunities in India and that Pakistan was made to give Muslims op...