THIS ABOVE ALL
Unanswered questions about Islam
Khushwant Singh

The first one is trivial. Is the holy book of the Muslims spelt out as the Koran (with the Urdu Kaaf) or Quran with ‘Q’? I find both spellings in use. The second question was occasioned by my ignorance of the faith. I had assumed that the five daily prayers were taken from the Koran (or the Quran). I wanted to know which passages of the holy book they were taken from?

And, finally, how do thousands of Muslims performing namaaz manage to coordinate their movements from standing erect, bending, going down on the knees and touching the ground with their foreheads with military precision? The performance fascinates me. I put these questions to Sadia Dehlvi. She has been my heart-throb from the day I set my eyes on her at an exhibition of Arabic calligraphy. She has now become a devout believer and last year performed Haj pilgrimage to Mecca and Madina. Sadia put me on the right track. The five namaaz are not taken from the Koran (or the Quran) but from tradition (Sunna). Where can I lay my hands on their translations?

The precision with which Muslims perform their namaaz, she explained, was because of gestures made by the Imam who stands in front to lead the prayers. I am not convinced. At times when there are thousands performing the namaaz, most of them can’t even see the Imam. How can they coordinate their movements with such precision? I hope some knowledgeable Muslim will enlighten me.

A project to put down perverts. It reads: "We saw the man walking suspiciously and weirdly around the station", Police Inspector Bowen Leung yiu-kwong told reporters in Hong Kong, "and thought he might be a bad man, like a terrorist. He was skipping along with his right leg lifted up, so we stopped him, searched him, and found a camera rigged into the sole of his right sneaker, carrying images to a hard drive strapped to his thigh. After some minutes, he confessed that he wasn’t a terrorist, but "a total pervert". He’d been stalking women, getting behind them on the escalator and taking "up-skirt" pictures of them. That’s just one example of the growing "Peeping Tom" problem that is plaguing our city’s Mass Transit Railway system". Railway District Superintendent Abraham Cheng Kwok-hung added that "about 40 per cent of all Peeping Tom arrests happen at MTR stations, and the perpetrators are becoming more ingenuous. They commonly use iPhones built into their shoe, or specially modified cameras hidden in their briefcase, which they activate by hand-operated leads concealed in their pockets. One even used a radio controlled toy mouse, with a miniature camera secreted in its head. Police deploy uniformed officers to deter them, and plainclothes officers to catch them in the act, with 38 arrests during the first half of this year alone. MTR stations attract them because there are many escalators with lots of passengers during the rush hour, and the crowded conditions make it easier for perverts to operate without being observed". (The Standard, Hong Kong).

Most self-effacing like Lal Bahadur Shastri

Our MPs are an overworked lot

So they deserve a loftier slot

Than judges, generals and top bureaucracy

Darling of the people like Nehru, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Gandhi

They think of nothing but serving their country

Voice of the urban poor

Voice of the indebted peasantry

They lead a life of Spartan simplicity

Only occasionally, a three-fold increase in salary

Only occasionally, they are caught looting the country

Only occasionally, they spend crores on the wedding reception

Of their real daughter or a step-son

Why don’t you see the work they have in Parliament done?

Like Sardar Patel, they have won our immense respect and affection

So the nation must rise to the occasion

And allow on the top, front and behind their car

A lal batti, the blazing red beacon.

(Contributed by Kuldip Salil, Delhi)

Santa: "We have so much land in Punjab that my father travels on our land in his car daily but he does not cover half the distance".

(Courtesy J P Singh Kaka, Bhopal)