Our botched up priorities

Chitral — It had to happen again. During the pre Juma prayer sermon, the prayer leader counted the possible reasons why God was angry with us and thus the floods. The main reasons the religious leader quoted were: 1. Someone selling alcohol during Ramazan, 2. Some person committing adultery during Ramazan, 3. Women going out for shopping in the markets and  4. Young students carrying mobile phones.

For any person with some common sense, it is very painful to see the priority list of do’s and don’ts of the moulana. Looking at each point analytically we would realize that if a person was selling wine during Ramazan, he would be one person or a few persons. 99 percent of Chitralis are teetotalers. Like wise an act of fornication would be an individual act and does not represent the norm of the society. Shopping by women is not prohibited in the holy cities of Mecca and Madina, how come it becomes so grave a sin in Chitral and Dir. Lastly about students carrying cell phones as a major sin, the lesser said the better.

What is agonizing is, when mentioning sins, the sin of telling lies, cheating, hypocrisy, bribery,, injustice, adulteration of foodstuff and medicines are conveniently overlooked and the moulana sahib straight away jumps to mention drinking, dancing, using cell phones and shopping by women etc as major sins which annoy God. The result is that people are scared of committing the latter sins which are relatively minor in nature, but do not hesitate to commit the major sins which are not emphasized as sins by the religious person.

Actually the reason why God is unhappy with us because we have botched up our priorities. Bribery which is strictly prohibited in our holy Quran is now accepted as a norm. People give false testimony in sensitive legal cases and then proudly mention it to others. Telling lies has become a regular affair and being truthful and righteous is considered a weakness. This is the reason why God is unhappy with us and keeps warning us to sort out our priorities.

عمر  بھر  ہم   یونہی  غلطی   کرتے   رہے  غالب
دھول چہرے پہ تھا اور ہم آئینہ صاف کرتے رہے

 

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