Yesterday, I met up with a friend who has a large gold shop in a very famous shopping mall. Upon reaching his shop I was surprised to see so many lights and three air-conditioners running. There were no customers present, so I asked him how he could afford using so much electricity. He is an average person, who fasts regularly, says his namaz and goes for Hajj occasionally. We have known each other for 20 years. He told me that the line man of his area had made a deal with him to charge him only Rs 10,000 every month. This is a common practice in Pakistan and I should not have been surprised. But what astonished me was that I did not expect this from him.
As I went back home, it made me aware of the moral dilemma we all face, how things we would have labeled as theft have now become business transactions. The things we wouldnever have touched, ‘sooth’ (interest)is now infiltrating our lives, whether we want it to or not. We all have to make a distinction and draw lines. We need to make sure that we are not renaming sin and accepting it in its new garb. I hope that we can become better human beings as becoming better Muslims does not seem like much of a reality.
Lala Rukh Paracha,
Lahore, July 24.