• Ark-e-Gulab,  Social Issues

    The Catastrophe of One Generation: A Cultural Holocaust in the Making

    The generation born in the 1980s and 1990s stands as a fragile bridge between a world lost and a world looming – a generation that did not merely encounter modernity, but was engulfed by it. They are now raising children without being raised themselves by a living tradition. These men and women, now parents, were the first to be shaped not by awraad fatiha, but by Shahrukh Khan, Honey Singh, Enrique Iglesias, and the algorithmic chaos of social media feeds. The names of their childhood are not those of saints or scholars, but of actors, influencers, and unanchored ideologues. Raised in nuclear homes away from the hearths of grandmothers whispering…

  • Counter Narrative,  Debates and Discussions

    Counter Narrative | The Velvet Knife: A Civilizational Critique of the Sentimental Modernist Discourse on Marriage and Parenting in Kashmir

    I A certain article, recently circulated in public discourse, presents itself as a compassionate diagnosis of the ailments afflicting Kashmiri marriages, parenting, and youth. It laments the emotional emptiness within households, the disconnection between generations, the burdens of ritual and custom, and the disillusionment of young men and women adrift in a sea of anxiety, ambition, and virtual overstimulation. Yet beneath its gentle tone and emotionally disarming language lies a devastating philosophical sleight of hand. Its deepest betrayal is not that it critiques the state of our society—indeed, critique is welcome and needed—but that it prescribes as cure the very poison that caused the sickness. It offers the language of…

  • Religion and Philosophy,  Social Issues

    7. Islam at the Crossroads – Conclusion

    The book “Islam at Crossroads” by Muhammad Asad deals with the fall of the Muslim world. It laments the imitation of the West which is in its spirit (materialistic) diametrically opposite to the Islamic spirit (spiritual and harmony between subtle and mundane). It argues that the imitation of the West can only be at the cost of Islam, the two being incompatible. It discusses the attitude the Muslims must adopt towards the West. It further argues that the practical aspect of the spirit of Islam lies in the Sunnah of the Prophet, which has been shunned for the visible impossibility of implementing its seemingly trivial aspects in life, the weakening…

  • Religion and Philosophy,  Social Issues

    Excerpts from Maryam Jameelah’s “Islam Versus the West”

    “From my Jewish textbooks I learned that Abraham was the father of the Arabs as well as the Jews. In these same books I read how centuries later when in medieval Europe, Christian persecution made lives intolerable, the Jews were welcomed in Muslim Spain, and it was this same Arabic-Islamic civilization which stimulated Hebrew culture to reach its highest peak of achievement.” (Islam Versus The West, Page 5) “Sayed Qutb points out that while the teaching of Christianity are confined to individual spiritual salvation and while Communism looks at human needs from a purely economic angle, Islam maintains that the soul cannot be seperated from the body and that spiritual…

  • Social Issues

    Intelligence or Good Looks

    Historically “white”, “male”, “middle class”, “straight men” have been able to use their minds and not their bodies in order to become valuable in western culture and elsewhere – and they were employed as high-paid decision-makers. In contrast, ethnic minority, female, working-class, trans and queer people have generally had to rely on their bodies in their working lives – in manual, domestic, reproductive, or slave labour, or even sex work. Belonging to a social group whose value is defined through the body is generally a sign of your subordination, which explains why women have been long paying a lot of attention to their bodies and why so many young men…