The Pakistani Spectator

A Candid Blog


Author Archive

Q & A: A Pakistani Film on Bosnia

By Dil Nawaz • Dec 20th, 2010 • Category: Features

Aki Nawaz (born Haq Nawaz Qureshi) also known as Aki-Stani and Propa-Gandhi, is a British-Pakistani producer and musician.He is the front man of Band Fun-da-mental, a group that fuses left-wing politics, Sufi Islam, anti-racism and hip hop. His works can be  purchased here.
DN: Thank you for taking time out for the interview. Painful Peace is [...]



Clash of Civilizations: Christians & Muslims??

By Dil Nawaz • Dec 2nd, 2010 • Category: Politics

As a student of history of relations between Muslims and Christians, the headlines have made grim readings for me personally, as I genuinely feel that there is a connection between both traditions of the Followers of the Books of Abraham.
56 killed in a Baghdad church and continuous attacks on Christian neighbourhoods of Iraq, Iraq’s Christian [...]



Sufi Hazrat Inayat Khan and International Sufi Movement

By Dil Nawaz • Nov 18th, 2010 • Category: Misc

Champions of orthodoxy might scorn the theological purity (or lack there of) of Sufi Movement but  the original purpose of ‘Sufi Kirk (Church)’ also known as ‘Dutch Sufis’ was to bring different (and often opposing) theological and cultural traditions together through realisation that the basis of all the religions is the ‘common good’ preached by [...]



Lionel Ross of Men of Conviction

By Dil Nawaz • Oct 2nd, 2010 • Category: Features

“Men of Conviction” tells the fascinating tale of three desperate and disparate young men, released from prison on the same day. They are Hussein, the Islamist preacher of Jihad, Wayne the burglar and Dovid the religious Jew and ‘one offence fraudster’. “Men of Conviction” is their story over the ensuing ten years. Hussein, predictably, builds [...]



Irish Muslims Demand Niqab and 2nd Wives?

By Dil Nawaz • Mar 26th, 2010 • Category: Misc, Worth A Second Look

A Muslim man has gone to the High Court in Ireland demanding that he be allowed bring in his second wife to Ireland.The native of Lebanon, where polygamy is allowed, says his polygamous marriage must be recognized.
Liam Egan, a member of the Muslim Public Affairs Congress, told the Irish Sunday Times the man was being [...]



Times of India Interview Mohsin Hamid

By Dil Nawaz • Mar 10th, 2010 • Category: Interviews

With an Ivy League education, a quiet charm, and two acclaimed novels that expertly explore the dissonance of a global world, Mohsin Hamid is the face of a literary flowering in Pakistan. The 38-year-old writer — an alumnus of Princeton and Harvard Law School — chucked a job with consulting firm McKinsey in London to [...]



Tariq Ali:The Assault on Hijab

By Dil Nawaz • Mar 3rd, 2010 • Category: Features

Forgive an outsider and staunch atheist like myself who, on reading the recent French press comments relating to Ilhem Moussaid the hijab-wearing NPA candidate in Avignon, gets the impression that something is rotten in  French political culture. Let’s take the debate at face-value. A young  Muslim woman joins the NPA [New Anti-Capitalist Party]. She obviously [...]



Aman Ki Asha: Mohsin Hamid

By Dil Nawaz • Mar 1st, 2010 • Category: Politics

With an Ivy League education, a quiet charm, and two acclaimed novels that expertly explore the dissonance of a global world, Mohsin Hamid is the face of a literary flowering in Pakistan. The 38-year-old writer — an alumnus of Princeton and Harvard Law School — chucked a job with consulting firm McKinsey in London to [...]



Illegal Pakistanis in Greece

By Dil Nawaz • Feb 26th, 2010 • Category: Features

Most Pakistani immigrants I talked to were honest and forthright. They all admitted that they had entered Greece illegally and are struggling hard. The story of young Waqas Ahmed, who hails from a small village of Gujrat, is typical. He had paid Rs 700,000 to the agent in Gujrat to get to Unaan
Socrates used to [...]



Civil Society, Political Islam and Shariah Law in Pakistan

By Dil Nawaz • Feb 19th, 2010 • Category: Politics, Worth A Second Look

In order to understand the development of Islamic theocracy in Pakistan, we have to understand the different political forces present in pre partition North West India. It is prudent to restrict the analysis to right wing Muslim parties as, regardless of their stance on independent Pakistan; in post partition political spectrum ring wing became the [...]