I love you ammi

Today, one week has passed since you are not (physically) around me anymore. Never really thought I will be writing something like that. But if I had to bid you goodbye forever, it would have been the most difficult task of my life. I know I have handed you over to someone Who loves you more than I do, who is "Rahman" and "Raheem". I know that this is only a temporary separation and I will meet you soon inshaAllah. I know whatever I could have done for you would not even tantamount to  one night that you spent taking care of me. I know I had not been the way I should have been. I know how I wasted my time in other stuff rather than valuing those moments by spending them with you, I know I have disobeyed you so many times. But I know you still love me a lot. You love and care is still surrounding me. 

The dilemma is, I lost you just after becoming a mother myself. Motherhood makes you realize so many things that you have been taking for granted throughout your life. I am not an ideal mother like you, that's why I really wished you could take care of my baby. The day when you had to leave this world, I was making this prayer in the morning: "May you get health and may you get all my life and energies and you be taking care of my child because you are much better than me". Then in few hours, I came to know that you met your ultimate destination and you left this world even without kissing my child. 

I know how you had to kill yourself after our father and absorbed all the tears inside your heart and never really showed us your sad face. Did I ever see you crying? No! You dedicated your life for your kids and your plants. And that makes me remind something funny about you. When you had to explain our house address to somebody, you used to refer to your plants; "the place where you see so many plants" :) You learnt me to be strong and look forward to mercy of Allah SWT because in the end, He remains and everything else perishes. 

Mom, do you know Allah SWT had talked to me at the time you were going through the most severe brain stroke in all the strokes that you suffered and when I was reciting Surah Rehman on you, and then I reached this ayah:

"Everyone upon the earth will perish, And there will remain the Face of your Lord, Owner of Majesty and Honor." (Quran 55: 26-27)

I got the message from Allah SWT that your days in this (fake) world are numbered. Yet, I kept praying for you, kept hoping for you because we all needed energies. We all needed strength to make your remaining days as much comfortable for you as possible. Yet, the mercy of Allah SWT is so much that you lived with us for 294 more days, got rid of the most life threatening thing that you had- 'your bedsore' of 4th degree, kept praying for us, getting to see my baby, striving your best to survive. There was even a time when your paralysis was partially gone and I saw you eating with your own hands. You were taken care by your daughters who were breathing with every breath you were taking and so much emotionally motivated by your beloved son. 

Ammi, I didn't really lose you, I lost the praying hands of yours. How can one imagine a person having so many brain strokes would be perfectly reciting the prayers from Quran  (word-by-word from heart) for her daughter who is miles away. That is why you have such an important status in front of Allah: 

"Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you be kind to parents. Whether one or more attain old age in thy life, say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them, but address them in terms of honor. And out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility, and say, "my Lord! bestow on them Thy Mercy, even as they cherished me in childhood." (Quran: 17:23-24)

Who can imagine a person who, according to the doctor, had all the diseases except cancer would see my sad face on Skype and ask me about it, "Why is Sadaf having a sad face". This reminded me of: 

"We have enjoined on man kindness to his parents; in pain did his mother bear him, and in pain did she give him birth." (Quran 46:15)

You know what was the most demotivating thing for me when you were in serious condition in the Special Care Unit, this narration:

After the death of his mother, Prophet Musa A.S. went again to Koh-e-Toor where he finds Koh-e-toor and its surrounding much more forbidding than they had even been. He arrived at the designated place in a state of fright. Musa A.S. entreated Allah to enlighten him why he was haunted by such nameless fears. He heard this reply: 'In the past whenever you visited Koh-e-toor, your mother started praying for you. She begged that I show My Mercy to you and she invoked My Grace upon you, and she implored that I overlook your oversights and forgive your errors. I do listen to the prayers of a mother for her child. But now she is dead, and her prayers have gone with her. You are therefore no longer being shielded by the prayers of your mother. Therefore take heed and warning lest your err. And this is the reason for your terror'. 

I cried a lot there but later in another difficult moment facing my personal troubles, I prayed to Almighty that I have almost lost the praying hands of my mother. You be my parent and You be by my side. For a parent can die but You never die. That is how I got back my strength and I got back my motivation. 

I know now when I say you "I love you mama", I won't hear this back "I love you too (with a big cute smile)". You even used to reply this when you were really very sick. This all would have killed me if I did not have faith in Almighty that you are in His merciful arms. I know I have to do sabr to get Hasanaat and become your Sadqa Jaria. 

"And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient, 

Who, when disaster strikes them, say, "Indeed we belong to Allah , and indeed to Him we will return.

Those are the ones upon whom are blessings from their Lord and mercy. And it is those who are the [rightly] guided." (Quran 2: 155-157)

I am grateful to Almighty for blessing me with such a great mom for so many years of my life. I am proud of you my ammi. 

"Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest." (Qur'an 13:28) 

And seek help through patience and prayer, and indeed, it is difficult except for the humbly submissive [to Allah ] (Quran 2:45)

That is why I am not at unrest like I used to be when I lost my father and uncle. And when I smile around, its not that I have forgotten you. I know how hard it was for you to see me crying and since now you cannot stop me crying anymore, my tears would be a big burden on you. I want to seek patience from Allah SWT and make as much prayers for you as possible and fulfill all the dreams you wished for me. Bringing up my child according to Quran and Sunnah and instill upon him your love so that even after I am dead, the prayers for you may not discontinue. And my little one will keep calling you "Bari Mama" the word that always brought smile on your face. 

Mama, I need to tell you that I am carrying forward all the good messages I have received from you so that your soul may benefit from it. I will try to continue the good deeds which you were routinely doing. People think that my mother has passed away, but I believe that mothers never die- good mothers never die and no mother is a bad mother. 

I love you mama and I would keep saying it despite the fact that I will never get "I love you too" reply from you :) May Allah SWT keep you in His mercy..... Amen. May you together be with your parents, husband, kids, sibglings, friends and all who you loved in Jannah. Amen

Your youngest child,

Sadaf

Why Information Technology often termed as Information and Communication Technology?

IT and ICT are often used interchangeably but using these terms together have a solid context and implications. This could be regarded as a chicken and egg problem as which one of them comes first: the information or the communication? When searched over internet, there are various nice differences between IT and ICT. In this writing, I am not interested in the differences because of the same reason as these terms can be used interchangeably but why? What had happened during the evolutionary process of both Information and Communication that make these two distinct entities inseparable? It is important to note that prior to 1950’s, the two terms were largely distinctive from each other and fortunately the economics of these two sectors were also separate from one another. 

The exponential increase of well-known specie of planet earth namely “Man” gave rise to mass of information and man became incapable of handling, storing, generating, retrieving that loads of information. This information was growing rapidly. Thankfully, we live in an imperfect world full of capitalists, utilitarian, who have a never-ending desire to bring about out-of-box solutions to maximize their utility. Computer was an invention that later became innovation to tackle with the problem of data and information handling. The restless capitalists were not satiated with the excellent computer architecture of any time and their desire to have more brought them to a dynamic world where Gordon E. Moore, cofounder of Inter was to say 1965 that “the number of transistors that can be placed on a silicon chip doubles every 12-18 months”. 

During the time when information was progressing with a transient phase, communication was already taking giant leaps towards more and more innovative solutions. With the advent of telegraph and telephones, and subsequent network externalities making it more beneficial for the users to join the networks giving rise to further investments and henceforth innovation. 

One way or the other, these communication solutions were fostering the information deep inside. This means that the innovations taking place in the mother “communication” were soon to transform the daughter “information”. The devices in the switches and transmissions equipment of telephone networks could also revamp the computers. From relays to vacuum tubes to transistors, computer started its journey from mainframes to supercomputers to desktops to laptops to iPhone and what not? It was the magical transistors that were originally invented by Bell Laboratories and AT&T; for Telephone Company that transformed the information part completely. Hence, from 1960’s, the segregated terms, Information and Communication were used along. Later, with the advent and adoption of Internet from 1990’s, the two terms becomes further integrated. 

Interest-free Microfinance Project in Pakistan

After starting my career as a Credit Analyst in one of the largest banks of Pakistan and targeting mainly commercial loans (SME), I experienced both bears and bulls in the market and regulatory requirements from very relaxed to very strict. I could love my job if had I seen any value we were contributing towards the society! Financing our clients on as liquid security as possible (meaning financing them against their own money) and charging them heavy sum of interest could only pull the water towards the deeper side was just our case as we were grabbing whatever we could from our clients. And that's what we called "We are doing business with you" and there I learnt the wrong interpretation of business - Give us and only us policy. In the end, while reporting the nasty cases to loan recovery department, more than 95% of irrecoverable loans were coming from our corporate clients and peanuts from the small enterprises while these small and medium size enterprises are the largest contributor to the economy. 

I read and listen a lot bad about Pakistan and which is sometimes also reflected in my writings. This is failure of our society in particular and the world in general to conceive and recongnize the highest value projects from our country. Until recently we were unaware of a giant leap towards the betterment of our micro businesses. Today I read a news about Harvard University inviting Dr. Amjad Saqib today to address students at Harvard for his Microfinancing (Qarz-e-Hasana) Programme. When I read this news, I immediately opened wikipedia to see his name in the prominent contributors towards microfinancing and to my surprise, I couldn't get anything about him or Pakistan while the page says a lot about Grameen Bank's Muhammad Yunus and of course, the western legends. I therefore thought to put a brief account on his project and how he gained such a fame to be invited at Cambridge, Harvard and several other well-reputed institutes and awarded Presidential Award of Pakistan "Sitar-e-Imtiaz" in 2010. 

Ironically, everybody in Pakistan defends the constitution of Pakistan 1973 but its implementation even after 3 decades has never been seriously done or thought. For example, Article 38(f) requires the state to "Eliminate Riba (Interest) as early as possible" and the article 31(2)c requires to secure the proper organization of zakah and ushr (charity obligated on richer to be given to the needy)" so that a truly Islamic State could be established in Pakistan. While our whole banking systems is corrupted with and plunged into all forms of interest and nobody really bothers even to start the elimination of Riba. I don't know what they mean by "As Soon as Possible" may be I misinterpret its meaning.  

In this context and to target the funds to reach masses who actually deserve them, a well-educated development professional initiated a project in 2003. His name is Dr. Muhammad Amjad Saqib. Despite being a graduate from King Edward Medical College Lahore, Pakistan, a Graduate in Public Administration, Hurbert Humphrey Fellowship from American University, DC, and Civil Services DMG, he became prominent by founding Akhuwat Foundation, first ever Interest Free Microfinancing. In order to reach the target audience, the foundation operates from churches and mosques to targeted to poverty alleviation, micro-finance, social mobilization and education management. 

The distinguishing features marked by this foundation are as follows:

1) Giving Interest free loans upto PKR 10,000 and this loan amount is repayable in 10-12 installments

2) Financed and benefited 130,000 families with total amount of PKR 2 Billion

3) No security or loan guarantee required for financing

4) Recorded highest rate of loan recovery in the whole world marking the rate 99,85%

5) Largest foundation of interest-free loan in the whole world

6) The other preeminent microfinancing foundation like Grameen Bank requires up to 40% of interest while Akhuwat is based on zero interest rate. 
7) Transforming borrowers into Donors whereby those who are able to successfully start their business/ project have the opportunity to donate to spread the virtues. 

8) The highest loan recovery rate also establishes the fact that our nation is not a bunch of dishonest and corrupt people - when trust is invested in us, we can mark records for integrity and probity


The link to the official website of Akhuwat is: http://www.akhuwat.org.pk

Today on Pakistan day, March 23, 2012, Dr. Saqib will be addressing the Harvard students the merits of interest-free loans given to the deserving people but I wonder if such people can also earn any "Material" acknowledgement from western society like our Shermeen Obaid Chinoy from Karachi, Pakistan who  received that recognition by getting an Oscar for her movie "Saving Face". She has been making documentaries on the negative faces of our society sometimes a bit exaggerated and in return receives a lot of applause from the world. I hope that they will treat Dr. Saqib equally though he is presenting the other side of the coin showing we Pakistanis to be honest, loyal, honorable, intellectual and  intelligent nation. Let us see if the world can remove the tag from us regarding our nation as Rabble (as shown by Ms. Chinoy) to a Nation (by Dr. Saqib) - Fingers Crossed :)

Five Forms of Government Explained

The video below gives an account on five basic forms of Government which are:

1) Monarchy (Rule by one person)

2) Oligarchy (Rule by a small handful of people)

3) Democracy (Rule by majority of the citizens)

4) Republic (Rule by law)

5) Anarchy (No government)

Please watch this to get a quick overview of these forms of governments. 

Five Basic Forms of Goverment

After watching this video, I have the following opinions or confusions:

My views in context of Pakistan:

When Pakistan was founded, the name given to it was "Islamic Republic of Pakistan". The Pakistani passport I am holding shows the same name. I studied in my high school that the system of Pakistan is based on "Sovereignty of God". This makes it a Republic State means ruling on the basis of Shariah. Now I am in utter confusion. We call Pakistan a democratic country and our leaders bluntly raise the slogans "Sovereignty of People". 

My questions from our leader is "Are you telling me something I am never taught"? Why our syllabus is conflicting with practical aspects of leading the country? 

My views in context of India:

Being the biggest democracy of the world (as they say it), is it not your duty to prove to the world that "Democracy is the best". How can you show that? Just with the recent economic growth? Is there any reduction in the crimes per capita owing to this super form of leadership? When other big nations ruling on Democracy are failing, how are you going to defend this best form of government? How can you show the fruits and merits of Democracy? Is there anything to learn from the failing governments of say Greece, Portugal, Italy, USA etc. 

All insightful views are welcome! 

Mijn eerste blog in nederlands

Dit is mijn eerste blog in nederlands. Ik had beloofd om een blog in nederlands schrijven na het passeren mijn nederlands tentamen. Zo, een goede nieuws is dat ik voor mijn nederlands examen geslaagd ben. De tentamen was niet zo moelijk maar heb ik altijd een bang voor examen. Bovendien, in vergelijken met "Dutch for Beginners", "Dutch Intermediate" is veel verschillend en moelijker. Het niveau van biede boeken is heel verschillend met elkaar. In het begin van Dutch Intermediate, ik vind het heel moelijk. Maar God maakte het makkelijker voor mij. Hij gaf me vrienden die me geholpen veel. Één van mijn vrienden is Boukje. Ze hielp mij met mijn huiswerk, mijn tentamen, en moedigde me aan nederlands te leren. Op mijn verjaardag, gaf ze mij cadeaus die me kon helpen in nederlands te leren. De tijd voor een kopje thee het beste was voor ons te oefenen. Met dank aan haar. Ze is een goede vriend voor mijn en mijn collega. Mijn ander collega Marloes helpt me ook met mijn huiswerk en oefenen. Terwijl het doen een moelijke taak, moet je heel wat aanmoedinging. Ik heb het veel van mijn collega's. Voor meer nederlands te leren, moet ik oefenen meer en meer "doodling". Ik ben doodling veel deze dagen. Terwijl ik naar mijn kantoor, ik doodle altijd. Mischien de mannen onderweg denken dat ik gek ben. Ik geniet van doodling! omdat het helpt bij het leren.

Ik heb een grap te tellen. Toen we nederlands leren, waren we maken veel fouten. Hadden we een veel intelligente dame in onze groep. Een dag, kom ze laat. De leraar vraagt hoe gaat het ermee. Ze zeg dat ik mooie ben. Ze bedoelde te zeggen  "Ik ben Moe (tired)" maar ze zegt "Ik ben Mooie" (Beautiful). De leraar zei dat ja, je mooi bent maar het is raar om te zeggen het zelf. we lachen veel. Dergelijke fouten komen veel in taalcurssen.

Ik weet dat ik veel fouten in mijn blog gemaakt. Ik laat het aan mijn nederlandse lezen om mijn te corrigeren. Dus ik houdt het bewerken van dit blog.

Een mooie dag verder voor jullie allemaal en Tot ziens,

Food for thought!

Did you ever encounter a situation when you meet somebody and you want to run away from them? I read a book during my childhood about spiritual knowledge and the author explained how our bodies disseminate rays and how people meeting us are affected by those rays. The author explained how you can analyze the rays that your body is disseminating by standing in front of a mirror for few minutes. I would partially disagree because such a process will have external influences as you have a tendency to misjudge yourself. 

When two persons meet and they both encounter with the rays that the other person is discharging, each one of them takes a decision to withhold the relationship or to carry it on. We, as we see, are not made up of a body with complex compound chemicals rather we are made up of rays. When this ray or light gets into a dead piece of mass, people see us. They see us as if we are beautiful or have some defect in the body. To prove this, ask some mother who will find her daughter the most beautiful girl in the world. Why this happens, because a mother is unable to see your outer self. You belong to her and she knows you from the time you were not existing. Therefore, we are all the time under a mass of lights and rays and we never recognize this truth nature has entrusted in us. This is a complex phenomenon. I am not a psychologist, or psychiatrist, or physiologist. I don't need to be one to understand this process. Science says that your retina gets more than half time of its original size when you see something that you like. This is something physical that can be measured, I just know what I feel from inside when I see my loved ones. I cannot forget the smile my 6 months old niece was giving me when I was facing a very difficult time of my life. Based on this, we love each other or we hate and we develop a strong telepathy with people who are closed to us. For example, we siblings constitute the similar chemical material while our chemistry is so different from each other that we have a strong tendency to hate their spouses while our siblings are deeply in love with them. Other than that, we rarely share the group of friends among our siblings. This clarifies that belonging to the same chemical composition does not mean belonging to the same set of rays or light. We love our siblings emotionally, deeply and whatever because nature is playing its role here. Its one of the miracles of Allah that he forms strong affinity among people who are otherwise so much different in the true me. As Allah explains in Al-Quran: 

30:21 And among His Signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquillity with them, and He has put love and mercy between your [hearts]: Verily in that are Signs for those who reflect.

And therefore it is amongst His greatest blessings that despite sharing nothing in common, you live with someone really strange to you, sharing no habit no part of nature yet  you spend the whole life with them. I always wonder how we chose from a number of classmates only one Best Friend, and that remains our friend for decades and sometimes Till Death Do Us Part. 

This phenomenon enhances the polarization of people towards a particular group and creates tendency to pull the like-minded people towards them. This is the beginning of an end. This mutual grouping is part of nature but does not appreciate creating hatred and hostility. We do not accept others thoughts, ideas, language, color, caste, countries, religion, schools, thoughts, likes, dislikes, nature, style, and we ought to IMPOSE our nature on to the others. And WHHOOOOOOO everything ends. Why? Just imagine how world would have been if Almighty had created everything in White? Secondly, in the absence of all heterogeneity, the tendency for human to grow becomes limited as opposing views come from "within group". 

This is not an abrupt end, this is an open question, a food for thought for my readers! and I leave it up to them to give the end a shape! 

Need of an Economic Reform

For the last couple of months, I was thinking to work on a project - creating awareness on the weaknesses of current economic system and need for economic reformation. In the previous months, I saw some well-known lawyers and writers in Pakistan are working on similar projects but their goals are more quantitative while I am working only on the awareness side. This was a great motivation for me to kick start my work. Of course, European and American Economies which are suffering a lot from Economic turmoil are also working hard but I would like to make a bold argument here. Despite being a student of economics, I see serious loopholes and weaknesses on the grounds they have been working on. Anyone can see it whether knowing economics or not. For that reason, I posted some earlier blogs to set a ground for my discussion. In this blog, I would like to summarize the issues covering global economic crisis, their basis and how an efficient economic system can be developed to address them. My later blogs inshAllah would cover the important issues in detail. I don't intend to bring up a theory of my own, I am not John Maynard Keynes or Adam Smith or any of the fathers, mothers, or uncles of economics (I don't intend to be one) and I would again like to bring a bold statement here, I am not convinced with the models they presented. If Keynes economic model was so stable and value enhancing, our current economies which are based on his theories would not have such a steep downfall. I know much better economists - those who are surely not in your knowledge. The economies developed on their models resulted 100% employment, 100% sponsors but no one requiring assistance or any financing needs. Its a pity that world is totally unaware of such economic systems even those who know, give a deaf ear to them. 

We have to reckon upon the fact that today, bigger economies are falling down. Who would have expected American Economy to have such a great fallback or Italian Economy taking its last sighs. How euro is surviving the austerity is a big question mark but we cannot say how long Germany and France would be able to carry the dead weight loss of dying economies of Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. These are not small countries or economies. Anyways, I do not want to spend too much time here on European Crisis as there will be more posts carrying the needed stuff.

I presume most of my readers are not economists therefore I would not go technical :) I don't understand forces of supply and demand therefore I saw the simplest definition of economics on wiki (surprisingly) "Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Goods and Services in the Economy". Now I put my wiki on one side and try to put my own concepts here. How the Production, Distribution and Consumption is taking place? What is the basis on which everything is circulating. Its a Piece of Paper, its a darling of all of us and we all know it. Its name is "Currency". In my definition, "Money is a miraculous piece of paper which forms the basis of all the valuable things in the world (except morals)". When I say piece of paper, please try to hear the sarcasm in my words. Is it not astonishing that Queen Elizabeth's biggest palace worth so and so much dollars which are some pieces of papers, Sultan Brunei's gold aircraft worth a couple of pieces of paper - everything valuable on this earth worth some pieces of papers. The ups and downs of these currencies take place through a very vague process and in an unexpected event, you can fall down from hero to zero. Your Net Worth can be your Net Liabilities. What is behind such dramatic events? A "Paper currency". So my first target would be the reformation of system in which we value things. 

A paper currency is a non-trivial issue, paving way for such economic models that have ruined us from the roots. We assume everything is going to be alright once we are back on track and once countries start to grow in real terms. It is not possible now. We have opened a box of evils and the only key to close it back is to reform:

1) The mode of Exchange

2) The mode of Financing

3) The mode of Taxation

Only these three. I am not a scholar therefore, I would be taking some or more of the stuff from scholars based on my comprehensions. Just a request, if you would like to add something to my small scale project, please feel free to do that. Also, please motivate me to keep up my very small level work by criticizing, adding and communicating with me. I want to give my share to the world, my motive is to make it a better place to live in. Please let me know if you have different ideas about it. Let us contribute even the smallest thing we can! to make our world a better place to live in! I thank you very much in advance and Wishing you all a very happy 2012.