Great read, second in the series after Alipur ka Ali. Mufti sahib has a certain magical pull and certainly tell a story. I think the strongest effect after reading this book is the quest for truth. Mufti should certainly be given a great amount of credit for cataloging his life story as he saw it, as it gives certain very important details of a lost era. One small incident with Allama Mashriqi's Khaksars in Lahore was very illuminating indeed as his movement has been completely white washed from the Pakistani history very similar to the Badshah Khan's Khudai Khidmatgars. Both these movements were heavily influenced by Ghandi's pacifist ideology in the India of the time. But I digress...
This book can be divided into two sections, one is autobiographical and the other is Sufi oriented experiences which the author had with Qudrat Ullah Shihab, which is sort of portrayed as the author's alter ego. Mufti has great faith into the hallucinatory/revelatory uttering of Qudrat Ullah Shihab who seems to place Pakistan as a special present of the Almighty to the Muslim Ummah. So Pakistan according to the book's definition has a special purpose, a unique role to play in the Muslim revival, and Qudrat is specially placed in close proximity with the president Ayub to deliver. Trouble with this narrative is that Mufti seems to loose the thread when it comes to the constant failure of the Pakistani state to deliver and blames the non-Islamic leanings of the Western influenced government servants for this failing. At the same time there are very romanticized stories of Pakistanis in the Europe and America making a great impression. For me this is the starting of the great love/hate relationship of the Pakistanis with the West, this notion that West is mesmerized with the very righteous and virtuous Islami Pakistani people. Whether Mufti sahib is guilty of starting this trend or recording it I don't know, but this very wrong reading of the relationship has cost the Pakistani nation in my opinion. Instead of following the West and acknowledging their strengths the Pakistanis have instead wasted a lot of time thinking the West is actually enamoured by them!
Maybe I blame him for too much?
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