Does 'Magic' have any color?

It was one fine day at our office when one of our less privileged colleague was being condoled by the rest on the death of his sister-in-law. Everyone was expecting to hear some ailment story at the back of the sad demise but I, with few others had to stop at the staircase with our jaws in hands while we heard that "Magic, it was black magic".

Well, helllloooo ... knock knock .... its a decade into 21st century, yet i heard the most unreasonable but the most usual and acceptable justification for a death that took place in our part of the world called "The Indo-Pak". The people who know me can relate that it was not the end of a personal story in fact i was pushed into the diaspora of my thoughts; sliding &  gliding with the myths of magic, how it works, if magic kills people then how does God let it happen to His beings, is it fair at all?? 

To me the whole orientation of magic started as a child when i heard the working class in our houses talking about how things were getting worse in their lives and how their husbands, sons or brothers were jobless as a result of evil activities called "the black magic'. Since then we grew up to hear different myths sourced predominately from Islam and Christianity, two main religions of Pakistan. 'Jadoo barhaq hai', 'Jadoo tou Rasool (s.aw.) par bhee howa tha, tou hamara un kay sath kya moqbala', etc. etc.  But What is Magic and how does it work on humans or as a matter of fact on anything?? Why David Copperfield, the renowned illusionist, is applauded for his skill and called illusionist while the rest practicing are condemned as the magicians or black magicians? Then what is 'Noori Ilam' or White magic ? and how is the practicing of white different from that of the black? 


While writing this i want to remind that as a writer i have no religion, race, gender, classicism or affiliation with any political nuisance. I just believe in humanity, period! But because of the secretive nature of magic, research can sometimes be challenged on the basis of faith and beliefs rather then facts.  


According to the Oxford dictionary, Magic is the 'power of apparently influencing events by using mysterious or supernatural forces' whereas wikipedia explains magic as "performing arts that entertain an audience by creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats, using purely natural means. These feats are called magic tricks, effects or illusions.' 


Now let me narrate an incident that took place with a life sentenced convict in some jail in United States of America. The convict was offered to be a part of an experiment that may give him another chance to live if the results succeeded so he accepted to be a guinea pig for a bunch of scientists. He signed an agreement and gave himself in the hands of the most skilled brain scientists. Consequently, he was taken and laid straight on the lab stretcher in a manner where he couldn't see his both legs. Both his ankles were then clamped and was told that they dripping sound he could hear was actually the droplets of his very own blood as a result of clamping. This man only survived 08-09 days. 


Poor being, died of illusion, a mere mis-perception costed him his life which he could have got back as the experiment was a success already. He must have got the surprise of his life (and death) when his soul have seen and realized that it was not the droplets of 'his blood' in fact it was the water dripping from a 19 liter bottle placed just beside his stretcher!!!!


So my point is simple, Magic; black or whatever color doesn't kill !!! Its the perception and illusion that we humans impose on ourselves so strong that it starts happening for us and that kills. 


Human brain is so powerful that it creates images that we perceive. In case of negative brain energy, brain hallucinates while in case of positive it creates wonders (that i need not to mention here). If you don't believe my words please try to because now I am going to put a spell on all those people who don't agree to my writings and be ready for the wrath from a believer to a non-believer........... 


....... so what do you think, does Magic have any color ???

Sufism under Attack

" In the most radical parts of the Muslim world, Sufi leaders risk their lives for their tolerant beliefs, every bit as bravely as American troops on the ground in Baghdad and Kabul do. Sufism is the most pluralistic incarnation of Islam — accessible to the learned and the ignorant, the faithful and nonbelievers — and is thus a uniquely valuable bridge between East and West. 

The great Sufi saints like the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi held that all existence and all religions were one, all manifestations of the same divine reality. What was important was not the empty ritual of the mosque, church, synagogue or temple, but the striving to understand that divinity can best be reached through the gateway of the human heart: that we all can find paradise within us, if we know where to look. In some ways Sufism, with its emphasis on love rather than judgment, represents the New Testament of Islam. 

While the West remains blind to the divisions and distinctions within Islam, the challenge posed by the Sufi vision of the faith is not lost on the extremists. This was shown most violently on July 2, when the Pakistani Taliban organized a double-suicide bombing of the Data Darbar, the largest Sufi shrine in Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city. The attack took place on a Thursday night, when the shrine was at its busiest; 42 people were killed and 175 were injured. 

This was only the latest in a series of assaults against Pakistan’s Sufis. In May, Peeru’s Cafe in Lahore, a cultural center where I had recently performed with a troupe of Sufi musicians, was bombed in the middle of its annual festival. An important site in a tribal area of the northwest — the tomb of Haji Sahib of Turangzai, a Sufi persecuted under British colonial rule for his social work — has been forcibly turned into a Taliban headquarters. Two shrines near Peshawar, the mausoleum of Bahadar Baba and the shrine of Abu Saeed Baba, have been destroyed by rocket fire. 

Symbolically, however, the most devastating Taliban attack occurred last spring at the shrine of the 17th-century poet-saint Rahman Baba, at the foot of the Khyber Pass in northwest Pakistan. For centuries, the complex has been a place for musicians and poets to gather, and Rahman Baba’s Sufi verses had long made him the national poet of the Pashtuns living on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. “I am a lover, and I deal in love,” wrote the saint. 

“Sow flowers, 

so your surroundings become a garden.

Don’t sow thorns; 

for they will prick your feet.

We are all one body.

Whoever tortures another, wounds himself.” 

THEN, about a decade ago, a Saudi-financed religious school, or madrasa, was built at the end of the path leading to the shrine. Soon its students took it upon themselves to halt what they see as the un-Islamic practices of Rahman Baba’s admirers."

Extract from the article:

The Muslims in the Middle

William Dalrymple August 17, 2010

Tags: 911 , Manhattan , Obama , Sufism , Imam Rauf , Islamic Cultural Center

This article was published in NYT today. It is being reproduced here with the permission of William Dalrymple