Akbar Ahmed
Daily Times
Washington, DC, United States
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Past articles by Akbar:
Ali, the Lion of God
“I am the City of Knowledge and Ali is its Gate.” This saying is attributed to the Prophet of Islam (peace and blessings upon him). It not only immortalizes Ali but also captures his defining characteristic. Ali —called Hazrat Ali as a mark of respect–was the quintessential scholar. But he was also a warrior, the […] → Read More
Babur and his Beloved Pathan Empress (Part 2)
There is that heart-reading and mysterious episode at the end of Babur’s life. Humayun is fatally ill and is on what appeared to be his death bed, and all medicines and doctors have failed. Babur is aware that he has just won India, but he will not have an heir to pass it on to […] → Read More
Babur and his Beloved Pathan Empress
By writing his epic poem Bibi Mubarika and Babur, Sahibzada Riaz Noor has not only done a favour to literature but also history. He has given us not only a poem rich in imagery, colour, and emotion but a history lesson full of insights. (For the sake of transparency, I must state that I wrote […] → Read More
Golden Age of Islam and lessons for today — II
The important lesson of this Golden Age is the reminder that using reasoning and empirical findings to arrive at logical conclusions represents the most fundamental of human activities. This belief has its roots in Greek philosophy, especially that of Aristotle. Such a rational approach allowed people to ponder philosophical questions as much as their relations […] → Read More
Golden Age of Islam and lessons for today — I
The great philosopher Ibn Rushd (known in the West as Averroes) almost single-handedly restored Greek philosophy, especially that of Plato and Aristotle. Thereby filling in the black hole of knowledge that surrounded Ancient Greece in Europe. St Thomas Aquinas, the famous Italian Dominican friar, offered a philosophic maxim influenced by Ibn Rushd: “God would never […] → Read More
The Old Chinar Tree
There is a holy hush And stillness at sunrise On Dal lake And at this time of the year A sharp sting of cold at dawn. As the sun emerges A million shimmering leaves Of soft-gold, red and mauve Set the valley ablaze. Here, I have heard countless stories Moody young men reciting their love … → Read More
Since
I have not slept blackness and slipped the nightly nocturnal sublimation I dangle, comes the suffocating successions of dark, a silver coin on a silver string revolving in sentience over and over the same, set orbit. Last night I dreamt: I, a female-ant smug on an endless beach of brown sugar; I knew the joy … → Read More
Haiku Effects
Alone on my way– friendless and foreign in the sunset of my day. Solitude of the fight stretched over years and always—fading light. A fever parted—and all the dawns break in the autumn of my fall. → Read More
Haiku Effects
Alone on my way– friendless and foreign in the sunset of my day. Solitude of the fight stretched over years and always—fading light. A fever parted—and all the dawns break in the autumn of my fall. → Read More
The kingdom of Heaven
Alone in my condition neither friends nor Fridays the city of shades exists in me and gazing through metal shafts of view I rest confused wherever I peer I see a giant eye-ball scrutinizing me. I drop my eyes like ‘Pindi maidens to run up against concrete and clay that bakes me in. Can spiders … → Read More
The purpose of life?
What is the purpose of life? why are we here? the answers are all around us the Greeks aimed for happiness Aristotle even listed eleven virtues that would help achieve happiness he pointed to the Golden Mean the Abrahamic faiths Jews, Christians and Muslims believe it is to worship the Abrahamic God to be good … → Read More
Prospects
Suffering from the Siddharta syndrome modern urban man confronts his prospects: secure with wife, child, house and car. Serenity is what we strive for; survival what we settle on suspended somewhere between the two with a confusing backdrop of various cultural influences we invariably, ultimately settle for survival: perhaps because it is physically comfortable perhaps … → Read More
Save the Deputies of God
When Jesus Peace and blessings be upon him Announced The commandment to “Love one another” He never meant Only love Black or white or brown people Or Jews only The prophet of Islam Peace and blessings be upon him Was called “a mercy unto mankind” He was a mercy not for one Or other Race … → Read More
You, my father
This poem was written for my father shortly before he left us forever. While dedicated to my father who I respected and loved immensely his generation becomes a metaphor for the older generation that lived and worked in the British Raj. My father was the generation that had transitioned from being subjects of the Raj … → Read More
At the Khaibar Pass
There is nothing spectacular or even dramatic in the climb or the mountains but the air is almost tense in its silence so insolently indifferent to me and my times here: all is awe and hush far beyond the Pass : Kabuls and Samarkands, all that the urban imagination conjures in nostalgia, the mainsprings of … → Read More
Birmal and the Great Game- Part I
President Donald Trump recently made headlines when he claimed that the Soviets were justified in invading Afghanistan. It appears that Trump does not want America to be involved in the Great Game, and the implications of this have not been thought out, especially with thousands of American troops still in Afghanistan. The Great Game, the … → Read More
Ibn Khaldun and Max Weber Part I
The ideas of Weber, a German sociologist living in the university towns of Bismarckian Germany, and Ibn Khaldun, a sociologist of tribal societies born almost half a millennium earlier on the edge of the Sahara desert in North Africa but with experience of working in Europe, have interesting similarities and differences that are reflected in … → Read More
Administering Waziristan — II
As so often happens on the frontier, I was thrown into a risky situation not of my choosing in which failure or success would determine my reputation. The question was how to proceed when the effectiveness of a political officer was defined by factors outside his control. I decided to send messages to Safar Khan … → Read More
Administering Waziristan Part I
In my 2013 book The Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam, I examined Muslim tribal societies living on the periphery of modern states such as the Pukhtun, Yeminis, Somalis, and Kurds and the ways in which they have been drawn into the war on terror … → Read More
Invisible Martyrs
Farhana Qazi, an American Pakistani working for the CIA, is the nearest equivalent to a female Muslim James Bond or Felix Leiter, forever battling the bad guys in a penumbral world. But as her writing sillustrate, it is sometimes difficult to differentiate the good guys from the bad guys and pin-point where the truth ends … → Read More