The beauty and diversity of Muslim life

A rambling autobiography of arguably the most important man in Pakistan. Abdul Sattar Edhi is an elusive humanitarian who runs the largest social welfare system in the country without the help of government aide. His organization takes only private donations and has no religious affiliations. This book is a mandatory read for anyone who wants to understand Karachi and the difficult nature of humanitarian work in the developing world.

This is a compilation of short stories written by the controversial writer Saadat Hasan Manto. The stories deal with the devastating Pakistan and India partition. The translator, Khalid Hasan, has done an excellent job in keeping the precision and restraint that Manto was well known for in his Urdu literature. The collection is tragic and damning. Each page drips with empathy and is a window into a Pakistan that many would like to forget. One story in particular shakes me at the core: 'The Return.' This is a story of a father trying to locate his lost daughter as they journey into Pakistan from India. The story is less than two pages long and builds to the last paragraph, which is one of the most difficult but important paragraphs I have ever read in my life.

I give this book to all of my Muslim friends. Never have I heard anyone speak so directly to God with such eloquence and vulnerability in the English language. Though Ms. O’Connor was a devout Catholic, her understanding of God hits a universal yearning that many young believers seem to have. There is a part of me that feels a little bad reading such private thoughts, but it is an unintentional gift that Ms. O’Connor left to the rest of us, those that try hard to believe in something that is greater.

Every word from this Q&A with author Vijay Prashad is just … man, I can’t even. Take this quote:
'I love the word desi. It is so beautiful. I can go around saying it over and over again. I’m of the view that it is the best word to describe ourselves. Phrases like African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic-American, etc., are bureaucratic words that do not hold within them the revolutionary aspirations and histories of a people (categorized but not controlled). I prefer words like black, desi, Latino, Chicano, because these words raise associations of struggles, such as the Black Power movement (Black is Beautiful, etc.), the Chicano struggles of the farm workers, of La Raza, and what not. Desi seems to be a similar word, one filled with so much historical emotion. And again, it is an ironic word because it means 'of the homeland,' but it does not say what that homeland is. We who use it do not harken back to the homeland of the subcontinent, because we are generally not nationalistic in that sense. Our homeland is an imaginary one that stretches from Jackson Heights to the Ghadar Party, from the rallies against Dotbusters to the Komagata Maru, from the 1965 Immigration Act to Devon Street. This is a homeland that we can relate to and it is what makes us feel like we belong in something of a collectivity. Hence desi.'

I love New Yorker critic Hilton Als. I also love the music videos of Kahlil Joseph. When Mr. Als deconstructs Mr. Joseph’s work, you get a great passage like this that inspires you to continue fighting to produce powerful and moving art:

'In Joseph’s pièce de résistance, the utterly extraordinary 'Black Up,' with music by Shabazz Palaces, Joseph records the fragmented, intense world of the kind of place where I grew up: a ghetto world that wouldn’t call itself that without the help of sociologists or social workers — you don’t know what you don’t have until someone points it out and decides to name it. In 'Black Up,' Joseph punctuates the love and beauty he finds under train tracks, in a lover’s soft face and body on hard streets, with images of horses, the sea, and dead black men laying in a field. Nature is relative, while all human experience is natural. Joseph shows us all that, from different angles.'