As far as my memories go, I remember that as a boy in early teens, I had dreams of doing things that the whole world would admire. Then I discovered faith in my late teens, and learnt to worship the Unseen God—the Only One—blindly, dutifully and routinely. This blind faith dawned upon me as a blessing due to an inexplicable incident—an incident which has lived in my memory for over half a century.
Without going into the details of that incident, I want to divide my life in five parts.
Till intermediate I was a science student—Physics and Mathematics being my favourite subjects. I had scored 300 out of 300 in maths in my matriculation examination. Matric in those years in Sindh used to be of 11 years.
Then I moved towards literature. Did my Hons and Masters in English. But when in 1961 I joined Daily Kohistan as an apprentice, I had read most of the masterpieces of French and Russian Literature as well. This hardly qualified me to become the flag-bearer of Allama Iqbal’s thought.
Yet that was where I landed. As a student of literature, as a practitioner of journalism, and then as a professional adman, I could not help going back to Al Quran for guidance on matters of controversial nature.
I remember, I once was giving a presentation of an advertising campaign to a very knowledgeable audience. While explaining my rationale I said:
“If you are a believer, and have complete faith in the Supreme Wisdom of God and in the acknowledged maxim that He has created man in His own image, you are unlikely not to believe that He alone understands human nature completely—and because He Does so, He alone knows how human mind responds to instructions imparted in different ways. Anyone who has studied Quran knows that Allah either rewards (good deeds) or punishes (bad deeds). Also that He is inclined to forgive if the seeker of forgiveness is honest and willing to reform.
“The important thing,” I said, “is to note that Allah’s best instruments of influencing human behavious are Fear and Temptation— Punishment and Reward. In that sense I believe that all great advertising should get inspiration from Allah and Al Quran”.
The readers may wonder why I have picked up this subject for today’s column—The reason is simple. The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the former President, General (r ) Pervez Musharraf to appear in the court to give his explanation on the charges leveled against him.
Meaning thereby that the process of addressing the subject of ‘Crime & Punishment” has technically begun.
Whether this process leads to epoch-making developments is another matter. But at least an effort to recognize God’s Wisdom has been made. We hope the equals and the likes of General ( r ) Musharraf will also soon find themselves in the ‘Witness Box’ in the minimum—–and soon……
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