Daily Times

Nigar Khana

Shanul Haq Haqqeeki Muntakhib Tehriraen

Shanul Haq Haqqee

This is a selection of Shanul Haq Haqqee’s literary essays. Whatever he wrote, whether poetry, translations, criticism, or journalism – had a touch of his linguistic predilections. His chief concern was words and his experimentation in poetry was basically an effort to understand the usage and vocabulary of Urdu. Following in the footsteps of Ameer Khusro, Haqqee composed Pahelisor riddles, and Kehmukarnis, a kind of comic riddle. He even composed Rekhti, a genre of Urdu poetry written in the jargon of women and expressing sentiments peculiar to them.

The Culture and Civilisation of Pakistan

Kishwar Naheed

Translated by Amina Azfar

In this book, prominent poet and author Kishwar Naheed presents a fascinating account of Pakistan’s rich and varied cultural landscape. Being associated with the Pakistan National Council of Arts as a Director General, she had the opportunity to closely observe the field of fine arts and to know the artists in both a personal and a professional capacity. Traversing literature, languages, arts, history, cuisine, rituals, sports, dress, and geography of the different provinces of Pakistan, this book is a commendable attempt at invoking all aspects of Pakistani culture and civilisation.

Jamaat-e-Islami Women in Pakistan

Vanguard of a New Modernity?

By Amina Jamal

This book critically examines the feminisation of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a major movement for Islamic renewal and reform in South Asia. Through an ethnographic and textual study of Jamaat women elected to local, provincial, and national bodies in Pakistan from 2002 to 2008, Jamal draws attention to the cultural-political forces that enabled these women to become influential within the party and in Pakistan’s major urban centres of Karachi and Lahore.

Jamal situates Jamaat women within Islamic modernism without reifying them as either pious agents reacting to state- imposed modernisation or gendered citizens who use Islam for class-based instrumental ends. Jamaat women are represented as subjects who move in many directions by acting against and through the discourses of Islamic tradition, cultural modernity, and modernisation.

Bulleh Shah

A Selection

Rendered into English Verse by TaufiqRafat

This book is a collection of poems by the great Sufi poet of Punjab, Bulleh Shah (1680–1758), translated into English by Taufiq Rafat, one of Pakistan’s premier English language poets. Bulleh Shah belonged to the oral tradition and his poems are primarily in Punjabi as well as in Siraiki. His poetry is in the Kafi style, already established with the Sufis who preceded him, and extensively use the Rubbay (Quatrain) form. Several of his verses are an integral part of the traditional repertoire of Qawwali. Following the tradition of Sufi poetry, the poems in this collection refer to love of or for God, or the mentor, or the desire for absorption in nature, described through symbolic references to local customs pertaining to weddings, funerals, journeys, and harvests.

Women, Healthcare, and

Violence in Pakistan

By Sara Rizvi Jafree

Seeking to explore the plight of female healthcare practitioners in the country, this book is an examination of the South Asian cultural approach towards the traditional and historical working woman – particularly the healthcare professional. It describes the laws that protect or harm such women in the workplace, and the real perils of physical and verbal harassment that they face during their service. Imbued with deep insights into the role of women in Islam, their socialisation and the threats to healthcare professionals like nurses, doctors, and lady health workers, this book presents anecdotes based on ethnographic research and factual knowledge which makes it an impressive resource for understanding this social issue. Exploring the perpetration of brutality through victims’ testimonies, the author successfully paints a panorama on the theme of workplace cruelty.

Published in Daily Times, February  14^th 2018.