Daily Times

Sir: Imran Khan vision’s to establish Riayast-e-Madina is highly noble and inspiring. However, the changed realities of the two eras require some careful consideration before superimposing a 622 AD model on 2018 nation state.

Madina was blessed by the presence of Prophet of Islam (PBUH) himself along with his many distinguished companions. The state was not under a loan of 90 billion dollars, did not have burgeoning population, there were no power shortage, circular debts or compelling issues of joblessness, urban development, housing transport, water, sanitation, money laundering or health and education that we face today.

In today’s Pakistan most individuals and certainly no two clerics agree with the details of how the city was run in 622 AD. The recent example of government nominating a minority member in an advisory group was explained as a fine example of the Medina State.

However, only four days later the ouster of the same member was justified by yet another version of an argument from the same era. With extremist clerics constantly pushing their archaic point of view, this subject has become so emotionally loaded; that It may be best to limit our vision only to the basic concept of the Medina state ie justice, equality, tolerance and brotherhood. To develop as a modern progressive state, Pakistan must find its place on the globe as it exists today.

We need to study how Germany has used alternate energy to solve its problem, how Turkey has developed sewage treatment plants to treat 100 percent of its sewage, how Finland provides the finest education to its children, how Holland promotes cycles to everyone its environmental problem, how UK government uses only 83 pools cars for all its ministries as against 20,000 cars used by the Sindh Government alone, how the Canadian government provides pro-active access to information, how Japan can teach us about running our railway and how civilized countries provide protection, ease and equal treatment to all their citizens. These models exist in real life and can be seen, studied, modified and adopted to the needs and conditions of Pakistan.

NAVEED ABBAS MAITLO

Islamabad

Published in Daily Times, December 14^th 2018.