The Moral Demise

Jul 12th, 2012 | By | Category: Latest, Pakistan, Social

Daughter  killed her father …..

Shocked when I heard the news that a teenage girl killed her father; reason, he was stopping her from having an illegitimate affair. It was a breaking news on electronic media and reported widely, shocking for the entire country that how she confessed her crime and was actually not feeling any guilt about it.

One thought that continuously struck my mind was what made a daughter so angry that she went to the extent of shooting her father. What was the real cause? Was her ‘teenage love’ for a boy so strong that she didn’t care about her blood relations? Perhaps she was thinking that something magical  would happen as often witnessed in famous Indian movies and she would succeed in getting rid of all obstacles  that hindered her path & she & her lover would live happily ever after.

Similarly, a shocking news came about an elite school managing a debate on gay rights in Islamabad and I was thinking that where are we heading towards? Do these elite schools give a damn about religious and ethical values or they just believe in blindly following the ultra-liberal ideologies. They are having fun with fundamental religious and ethical values while we are sitting as mere spectators.

Few years ago, during my college days, once a friend was sitting on  the stairs, deep in thought. I asked what happened and he said, ‘ Looking at the current trends, I am thinking that If after 20 years my daughter is having an affair, how will I stop her’. It sent shockwaves down my spine at that time, but now we are seeing things actually we never thought about. Lifestyle has entirely changed in our country in past ten years. Just look at the language of our kids these days and it will shock you.

Lets play the blame game. Lets blame media for polluting the mind of the girl who killed her father. Lets blame our educational system for these shallow moral values. Lets blame parents for not teaching the kids properly. Lets blame society for promoting unethical values. Lets blame the government …  Lets simply blame!!

This blame game won’t result in anything positive. We certainly need to identify the ‘root-cause’ of the problem and take corrective measures. In my opinion, the root cause is that we have not defined our own role models. We need to define the real role models. And for that purpose, we need to put a lot of question marks on our real ideology. Who are our heroes? Who are we aspiring to become?

Kids idealize the heroes, and whoever heroes they think, they would try to follow them. We need our own real life heroes.  Or should I say, we need to project our own real life heroes, because we already have them, but our kids don’t know as many of us have also forgotten.  Is our hero Hazrat Khalid Bin Walid, Hazrat Mus’ab Bin Umair or any Bollywood/Hollywood hero. Everyone in Pakistan would certainly respond that Companions of Prophet (SAWW) are our heroes. But then how much we and our kids know about them. How much do we talk about them. How much do we try to follow them?

Our problem is much deeper. We live in a hypocritical society. We have double or triple standards in everything. We have different standards for ourselves and our future generation. We  have confused concepts of right and wrong. We want our kids to be modest, polite, religious, and yet they should be westernized, liberal, and exclusively English-speaking.  We are exactly as Ghalib said

رند کے رند رھے ، ھاتھ سے جنت نہ گئ

To sum it up in a sentence, we are confused on our ideology of ‘successes’. We need to define what does success means for us. Is having a successful love affair a success? In movies it might be true, but in real life what is the end result. A girl killed her father to succeed in her love affair. Did she get what she wanted? Can she be called successful?

Let’s turn to Quran to get the meaning of success and Quran says

And whoever is removed away from the Fire and admitted to Paradise, he indeed is successful. (Ch 2 :v 185)

Unless we redefine the success in our minds and reteach our kids the problems will only increase. Bollywood style affairs would be more important in the lives of our teenagers and issues like LGBT will be talk of the town in ultramodern Pakistan with no values to uphold and be proud of.

Muhammad Saad Khan

About the author

Muhammad Saad Khan is a Biomedical Engineer with a diverse background of engineering and management.

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14 comments
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  1. a magnificent piece by Saad Bhai may Allah give you the wisdom courage and strength to write more like this. MBFC is one of my favourite blogs because at a when their is so much unIslamic and anti Islamic content on the from Pakistani bloggers on social media full of filth poisoning the minds of our youth MBFC is speaking up for our true and original values which come from Islam.

  2. This is exactly a part of all what I wanted to express!!
    U know most of the times I think over the things nd I question myself that where are we going?? [sigh] My heart cries deep inside seeing all this in our culture!! Can our culture get any worse than this?? I guess NO!! :'(

  3. an eye opener article for the whole nation, thanks may Allah reward you for such a great article

  4. very true….our kids can only be what we show them……….what we say is not enough……….what we do is what we will be seeing in the future……….and jazakillah for definning the concept of Falah….True success indeed is the sucess of Akhira!

  5. Hi Saad, a nice effort to bring out a sensitive topic up for discussion. When i compare east with west one thing that constantly seen missing is peer pressure. not comparing western morals with eastern but talking in general. those of us who have studied or worked in west knows what kinda a glare we get if we desi break a line try to bypass something. those looks could kill! and thats exactly what keeps a society in check, the peer pressure. i came to pk after a while in 2011, was surprised to see how the peer pressure, social norms have changed. no one to blame but ourselves, when we see wrong, hear wrong we dont speak against it.

  6. super like for this blog Saad sahib ……….

  7. Your thinking about the drift of moral values is right. However, I still cannot make out that a girl of her age and type would do that. Our society has not only shown westernization in clothing and dating, it also have established certain norms that makes this gender really weak and sometimes disposable in our society. I don’t know the real story behind the scenes, but I have doubts that she might not be speaking the truth. The worst of our problems also include the nosedive of our standards of being honest, truthful, faithful and just. I personally think that we do not reflect any such standard of ethics in our daily lives as our occidental and/or oriental counterparts do in these areas.

  8. Hamara hal ye hogaya hai k نہ خدا ہی ملا نہ وصال صنم نہ ادھر کے رہے نہ ادھر کے رہے

  9. Well written piece by Saad. Definitely there is need to promote our eastern values and more education to our childern how they could cope up with challenges which may arise in future

  10. Yes very good piece. Only one question, why is it always about women? Why are there double moral standards? Are men questioned about anything they do premarital?

    It is not any woman or man’s fault that they don’t want anything mundane.

    Also in the long run “blood relations” are not always perfect right? How many children are simply abused… answer this question to yourself.

    Another thing about love. If you do not succeed in your first love and if you listen to your parents, follow your career, graduate from Iby League so they can be proud of you and it makes you over 30 are you really still so fresh to love for real? One can settle down when he is over 30, get married, have kids, be decent mundane citizen. Become bounded in so-called social norms and roles, but is one happy? I am over 30 and I am afraid I am cold like a stone. I have successful career life ahead of me. Probably biggest emotional attachment had already passed. And yes I will soon settle down, have hubby dog and kids, but do I actually feel anything any longer?

    If a girl has a good guy and even if they are teenagers, don’t stop them. In future there won’t be anything better than this teenage love. If she is not abused and if he sticks to her she in the long run will be much happier than Ivy League educated cold- minded modern professional.

    Why do you blame India so much? I will tell you about something. My Nepali girl friends are watching these movies. But when it comes to real life there are only comments like ” I wish it could be reality”. That’s it. They watch it as fairy tales. They need something to take them from grey mundane realities of their lives for a second. Don’t blame youth for having dreams, don’t blame young hearts for having passion. Try to merge allthese young energies with good goals in life, that’s it.

  11. And men do kill their daughters only for any premarital relations or relations with Christian guys – like it happens in Turkey or Saudi Arabia or anywhere else. This is moral, dah.

  12. Assalamoalykum

    very well said brother saad . one more point that came to my mind about this immorality and unbalance in our society is, the delay in the marriages of the children. islam incourages early marriage and our society has put a barrier in doing so. marriage keeps a society modest. the girl had reached puberty and needed to fulfill her sexual desires.
    the sexual provocation is rampant but the door to fulfill that desire i.e marriage is closed. here is a good message:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=463AUYVAilo&feature=relmfu

  13. Nice piece but solution seems to be the same as it is for all other ills of our society. ” Islah” from within.
    We make a society comprised of truth and trust, than it will defend itself whether it be a daughters respect for her father or elders love for children.
    Debates in school will themselves find a direction for the better.
    We have a flood of preachers but none with actions that support their claims.
    Moral demise it is, of our society, and we fix it by starting at home , no one has the patience to listen to us anymore.

  14. Excellent Points, Sir!

    I think that regardless of who plays the blame game to spoil the angelic youth of our nation, the important people – Parents and teachers should work to help students identify their true self.

    At homes, parents often say sentences like, “beta aap iski tarah kyon nahi ban saktey. Aapko to kuch samajh nahi aata. Humne hamesha apney parents ke saath accha kiya aur tameez se baat ki – appko to woh bhi nahi aata. pata nahi kis gunah ki saza de raha hai Allah hamein” and etc.

    At schools, teachers often say sentences like, “Tumhey to kuch samajh hee nahi aata, parhtey bhi ho ke nahi. Tum to bas fail hotey hee rahoge, taneez to hain nahi tumey” and etc.

    Just look closely at those sentences, where as parents and teachers do we see fault in those sentences. In my opinion, we are hammering the minds of children to be like such and such person without allowing them to explore what they really want to become. Have we ever tried to become friends with our children and students?

    I am not saying we need to be friendly to them and be so lenient that they are allowed to do whatever the want. No, Never.

    We should listen to them and ask what they want to share. Once they share, we can thank them first for sharing us their thoughts/secrets. Then, we can start off by guiding them that beta I think this could be a better option for you, what do you think. Let the children think the positive and negative of your thoughts and share it to parents as to why they think that way. I guess in that manner we can help our children learn respect, how to make good decisions, and so on.
    When we as parents are not able to give time then our innocent ones heads toward peer pressure where they find love and it is then that they pour out their painful sides to those friends. The result – more than 70% of youngster get into falling in love with a wrong person and/or get involve in bad habits.

    Criticizing and down-grading any child would make them bottle-up their feelings and form a cloud of hatred for the ones who really work hard to make their future bright (parents and teachers).

    Well, in my opinion, those could be some of the ways we can use to stop our children from going astray.

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