Father of NEDian Sabahat Asharf (iFaqeer) passed away

[Riaz Haq]

Inna Lilla Wa Inna Ilaihi Raji'oon
Professor Jamal Ashraf Ansari, RIP. 1934-2007

Please remember us in your prayers. My father passed away today. Apparently fell and hit his head at a shop in the neighborhood. His passing was painless and in a state of fasting. (He decided to fast, if his blood sugar would allow--my brother, the doctor was literally calling about twice a day to check on his sugar level since Ramazan started a few days ago.) That's the reassuring part.

He was 73. Had a law degree but never practised. (Said he couldn't have lied enough to be any good in that profession. Which was true.) Brought my brother and I up to be understand politics, law and religion better than most politicians, lawyers, and "clerics" I have ever met. Besides the Kalima, we could rattle off the three branches of government; rule of law; and "innocent till proven guilty" literally before I, at least, could read. All the while living through one empire and almost a dozen military regimes--and one civilian Chief Martial Law Administrator--in India, Pakistan, and Nigeria. Which is why it isn't even novel for me to think of Muslims not being able to live under a constitutional democracy.

[Ali Hasan Cemendtaur]

Mourning the death of Jamal Ashraf Ansari

If every birth reminds us God is still hopeful with humanity, perhaps every death reminds us how little time we have to fulfill that hope.

Jamal Ashraf Ansari died in Karachi today.

Although I had the pleasure of briefly meeting soft-spoken Ansari I did not really know him that well--directly. Indirectly I know a lot about him; the source of my indirect information being Ansari's bright son writer, blogger, activist Sabahat Ashraf, more popularly known by his penname iFaqeer.

1970s were a special time in the history of Pakistan. Middle East ready to exploit vast oil reserves opened its doors to skilled and unskilled labor of the subcontinent. It was around the same time that a lot of teaching positions opened up in Nigeria. Pakistani teachers went to West Africa in hordes. Jamal Ashraf Ansari was one of them. Several years later on returning back from Africa Jamal Ansari started teaching at a Karachi college, and that was when the prefix 'Professor' was added to his name.

Long time ago when as a child I heard the expression of a death leaving a hole I conjured up an image of humanity that is made of various shaped blocks butting each other. Every now and then a hand shows up from nowhere and randomly picks up a block, leaving an empty space. Then the whole humanity jostles and squirms and the movement ends up filling up the absent block's space, but in this process the blocks around the hole change their orientation and the whole frame of humanity does change its shape a bit.
That is exactly what Jamal Ashraf Ansari’s death would do too.