The Scorched Soul Erotica...

Music is generally frowned upon in religious Islamic culture. Singing, dancing and music are considered to harden the heart towards the message of Allah, the Quran. Qawwalis, no doubt, are sung in Dargahs and music was a close part of Sufi culture, but these were innovations which were more cultural than religious. Singing and music was not a part of traditional Islamic culture and was considered a distraction from true religious devotion. Dargahs themselves are doubtful places of worship because Islam has no tradition of visiting graves of learned men and asking them for intercession. Islam advocates asking the Creator directly, and even the graves of the prophets are not places of worship. No matter how we justify it, the instruction in the Quran is straight. Ask any scholar and he will tell you that listening to music is to be avoided. I could never be fully convinced as to why. We had gone for a trek to Vasota fort. It was February. The nights were cold but days were

If you doubt your dependence on God, stop taking pain killers. Just one good headache will remind you how fragile we really are.

We were at a masjid and the ameer sahab said that we should not harbour a criminal mentality. What criminal mentality, we asked? He said, when we try to learn our deen and our religion, when we learn how to improve moral rightousness and honesty, we should not harbour a criminal mentality. We still could not understand. He then asked us, "what is a quickest way to become rich?" "If you want to become rich quickly", he said, "you'd have to rob a bank!" An honest man, on the other hand, would work and then save from his earnings to build his wealth. Unless he squanders away his savings, he too would become rich, but slowly. The shortcut to riches passes through a lot of criminal localities...you may come out unscathed, but you may also get abducted. So be like an honest man. Don't be a criminal, he said. Narrated by Hasan  "Knowledge is of two types. Firstly, knowledge perceived by the heart, and that is useful knowledge; secon

At about 11 p.m. in my colony tonight, Mr.Shankar from the neighborhood heard a squeaking like that of a puppy coming from the direction of the bikes parked in G block. He called other people and made them hear it. Security heard it too. It was an unfamiliar sound and it stopped when the people started talking about it. Mr.Shankar was certain that there was a baby dog locked inside one bike’s side carrier. He had clearly heard it coming from that direction. The puppy needed to be rescued. The bike’s owner was now to be searched for, but no one had any idea who the owner was. Time was running out as the pup slowly suffocated on its own exhalations. Different keys were tried but none could open the carrier. One guy, in his early twenties, when he heard that someone from the neighborhood had locked a puppy in their dicky, got so enraged that he shoved the bike backwards and tried to break the carrier. I asked them to wait a while and maybe the security would find out the owner’s