I have read this artilce and it’s worth reading it provided if you like the topic 
Thanks
Salman
Where reason and religion clash
By Muhammad Ali Siddiqi
AN American raised an interesting question in Dawn’s letters column (Oct
11). Hurt by remarks from “Muslims worldwide†who saw a relationship
between the Katrina disaster and America’s war on Iraq, Steve Elisha, from
Colorado Springs, Co., asked whether “the same reasoning is being applied
to the devastating earthquake in Pakistan?â€
One does not know who those Muslims were who saw Katrina as God’s
punishment for America’s sins in Iraq and Afghanistan. The people of New
Orleans hurt by Katrina were mostly blacks and the underprivileged.
America might have committed sins in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine or
elsewhere, but most certainly New Orleans’ blacks were no part of it.
Those who plotted the war against Iraq — the manipulation of intelligence,
the hoax about the WMDs, the uranium trail to Niger and the 300 billion
dollars earmarked for the Iraqi war — are as safe and rich today and
enjoying life as they were before Katrina struck. If at all a relationship
is to be established between the disaster wrought by Katrina and America’s
sins abroad, then the victims should have been the energy tycoons in
Bush’s cabinet, the Congressmen and Senators ever so eager to hurt Arabs
for Israel’s sake because they have to re-win the election, and the media
moguls in Washington and New York but most certainly not the black people
of New Orleans.
If some Muslims did actually utter the kind of nonsense claimed by Mr
Elisha then their understanding of the cosmic phenomenon is indeed very
poor — poor in the sense that they try to see reason where reason does not
exist, at least not in the sense we humans understand it.
What reason and logic can one find in the chaos of daily life, in births
and deaths, in peace and war? Why is a soldier killed in the opening few
minutes of a war that lasts six years, while the man next to him is maimed
half way through the war and passes all his life in a wheelchair? Why was
he not killed during the first few moments when the enemy artillery opened
up? Lots of others returned home as victors and lived fuller lives. Why?
What was so special about them? They believed no less in the “kill or get
killed†principle, shot and wounded enemy civilians, burnt homes and
hospitals, sowed their wild oats and did not take prisoners.
Remember, Paul Baumer, the hero through whose eyes the reader sees the
horrors of trench warfare in Erich Maria Remarques’s masterpiece All Quiet
on the Western Front? He was killed on the last day of the war when the
headquarters issued the laconic communique, “All quiet on the western
frontâ€.
A Japanese chooses to come to Pakistan to keep away from his country’s
frequent earthquakes but is killed by that very phenomenon in Pakistan. An
Israeli woman leaves her country because she fears she would get killed in
a suicide bombing but is injured in the London blasts on July 7. Is there
a logic? Or perhaps there is.
Why was a tyrant and mass murderer like Saddam Hussein overthrown and now
must wait for that noose which one day will inevitably be tightened round
his neck, and the trap door will open, and why must a mass murderer like
Ariel Sharon enjoy the goodies of life and in all probability die a
natural death? What is the difference? Is there a relationship between
Saddam’s deeds and fate and that between Sharon’s diabolical crimes and
the “normal†end he is likely to have?
One English king had to abdicate because he wouldn’t like to give up the
woman he loved, while a prince who lived in adultery with a married woman
for 30 years now waits to be crowned king one day. What’s up?
If Katrina’s victims were mostly Christians, and October 8’s victims
mostly Muslims and Pakistanis, the tsunami made no religious
discrimination when it crashed on shores from Indonesia to Kenya. The
250,000 devoured by tsunami in December 2004 were Muslims, Christians,
Hindus and Buddhists, and there must have been some Jewish tourists, too.
It is amazing how in times of mass misery and devastation, while the milk
of human kindness oozes, sadism too seems to lurk just beneath the
surface. Often people wish the death toll to go higher for no obvious
reason other than that this creates an exciting drama to watch on TV and
read about in newspapers.
If 80,000 Kashmiris have lost lives fighting for their freedom in occupied
Kashmir, must Kashmiris too suffer 30,000 deaths at the hands of nature?
This is mind boggling.
The Guardian’s Peter Preston (Dawn, Oct 11), whose country has fought
“ritual wars†with Germany, dwells on Pakistan’s population figures — one
wonders why — tries to construct a theory but does not fail to note that
militants too must be among the thousands of Azad Kashmiri civilians,
including school children, buried in the rubble. His idiom is Indian in
Pakistan’s hour of grief.
The truth is that this is a law beyond human comprehension. If we consider
the universe to be a mechanism run according to the laws of science, then
we must have a new definition of science. The universe does not have a
scientific basis, it did not originate scientifically and its end is not
going to be scientific. Science may try to explain the universe in
scientific terms, but science itself is unscientific.
Is there a thing called a straight line? You may draw a straight line on
paper but can you draw a straight line on planet earth or in the universe,
both of which are spherical? Parallel lines we are told never meet. But
the longitudes drawn in the shape of parallel lines on maps in our school
atlases meet at the two Poles. The nearest distance between two places,
science tells us, is a straight line. But when a plane flies from Russia
to Canada over the North Pole, it makes a curve and not a straight line,
because a straight line does not exist in the universe.
The universe is not a mechanical contraption. The more science studies it
the more it appears to be one big gel where its components behave
irrationally. But irrationality here is subjective, because what appears
irrational to us may not really be so.
Ultimately, one tends to fall back on religion. There must be the Biblical
equivalent of Moses’ story contained in the Quran’s chapter Al-Kahf (The
Cave). Moses is astonished by the behaviour of his pious companion who
sinks a boat, kills a young man and repairs free of charge a dilapidated
wall in a village whose people were unkind to them. The pious man later
explains how he did all that on God’s commands and the good that was to
come out of it all.
Mr Elisha’s comment is in sharp contrast to a letter by a lady from his
own country. Wrote Patricia Fitzwater of Lafayette, In., to Dawn (Oct 12):
“As an American watching the disaster in Pakistan, I send my prayer to the
people of Pakistan. May God be with you!â€