The History – Aatish Taseer is sent a challenge from his estranged father from Pakistan, he decides to go on a journey across the globe of Islam to find of his own islamic roots as well as find out how the other young people from Middle East felt regarding their own within a post-911 world. Aatish is confronted with his own identity and his relationship to the secular and religious realms when he arrives, as one of many kids in crisis living at the crossroads of modernity and Islam.
He investigates questions of identity, and the self-discovery that religion brings through a remarkable array of transvestites wearing full hijab in Istanbul, and people from Norway considering making a change in damascus to the hare krishnas of Tehran while traveling in the post-911 world.
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The History – Aatish tells the story of his family’s history through the last fifty years. it’s a fascinating and thought-provoking read that ends with a heartfelt reunion between Aatish and his father in lahore, a day that reveals the brutal reality of efforts to reconcile the old beliefs and liberal reforms in a divided region in which east and west meet
Aatish Taseer was born an unplanned week of love between the Sikh Indian mother and a Pakistani Muslim father. Her mother had a job as a reporter, the father was a politician.
The week of love was to be all that was needed despite further attempts to hide the pregnancy and pretending to be married until an official break was taken when the baby was around one year old. Oh, but these breaks are never clean are they? There’s always a bit of meddling on the sidelines as well as a child’s desire to find out who he really is and where he’s from.
This is likely to be even more true If the father you had was a popular political activist, whom you now consider a successful businessman while your grandfather’s father was a renowned writer… How can you not believe that? What is the reason you shouldn’t desire that these people admire you?
That’s the real flaw of Taseer at all times, he would like his father to feel proud of his son. It was never likely to be the case. While they are in completely different universes, but they’re quite similar in different ways. In the event that Taseer senior had kept his Indian love, got married to her, and had a son, I have a thinking that they’d remain the same way.
In the context in Islam, Taseer is Muslim due to his father being Muslim. In spite of his own opinions – or as is the case with his father’s beliefs. It’s just the way it is. He’s identified as such through his early circumcision which , if he had known it, could easily label him as an Jew however it certainly distinguished him against those of his Sikh and Hindu counterparts. It was his first experience of being an Muslim. He describes it as states, a very small sensation.
It wasn’t a big deal. The family life in Delhi was filled with friends from every faith, Muslims included. He knew their holiday and customs, as well as any other person’s (i.e. not particularly). If he believes that he is Muslim in any way then he is an ‘cultural Muslim instead of an ‘ethical one’. This was an open and diverse education that produced an intelligent and curious young man.
He was practically bred to be a journalist. So he is in the train heading to Leeds in 2005, after an armed group of British young men who were of Pakistani origin, and claiming to be of the Muslim faith, been killed in London. Although we weren’t as shocked by that the Americans were by the terrorist attacks of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Terrorism is nothing new on our shores. Horrified, yes. Saddened, obviously. However… this is the next episode of violence.
If anything was close to shock the British citizens, it was the realization that the terrorist act could be hidden in the clothes of what we have come to consider to be the Eastern religion, as well as an international political ideology However, the perpetrators were entirely made by us. These were British. That’s something we couldn’t fully comprehend. British yet fighting for something that we thought was foreign to us.
So, Taseer travels towards Leeds in the UK and Bradford to meet local Pakistanis and local Muslims to discover the meaning behind it all. He gets to know the typical people who are happy to live there perform the job they were brought there to do, and clung to their clothes and their language, as well as their faith, yet were friendly and jovial and understood or at the very least were able to accept the country they ended into.
He also gets to meet the clergy, who are who are full of anger over an unjust war which is not theirs until they decide to create it (and they are). He also meets young generation Pakistani Brits (or the Pakistani Brits) with a extreme faith and patriotism in an imaginary country and full of anger. Perhaps the elder was right , who stated”they were boring. They didn’t need to fight therefore they looked for the possibility of a fight, or even invented one, and then discarded it.
Taseer’s introduction into radical Islam and from it came a magazine story that became front-page news. With pride, The man sent a copy for his dad. He reacted with a scathing critique.
In the wake of this critique and assuming that he knew the Pakistani culture, but did not comprehend Islam and thus cannot be trusted to write what he’s written He decides to rectify the situation. The father decides that he should visit however, he decides to go the long route. The long and difficult way.
The idea is between seven and eight months of travel through Muslim countries starting from Istanbul to Mecca and then to Iran and Pakistan until finally arriving in the home of his father.
The trip that Taseer took is the subject of the novel “Stranger to History”. The”stranger” of his title Taseer himself. He is aware of his indifference to the history of what is it to be a Muslim and is not aware of the impact that people who are more closely connected to the religion have affected their history and the nations they have been able to rule. It’s mostly about whether or not you are able to be called a “cultural Muslim in the future, and should you choose to be one, and where you will choose to define himself.
He travels at a slow pace, shamelessly making use of any contacts he has or has made during his travels, avoiding hotels in favor of borrowing apartments and staying with a scattered extended family members. He speaks to everyone who’s willing to listen including hotel workers, drivers as well as people he meets on the streets or in trains students, politicians, businessmen, fixers, bureaucrats, and fixers. He talks about politics and economics however, he mostly talks about religion.
What’s it like that he would like to know how to not be just Muslim and not just Muslim in an Muslim country? What percentage of what happens in the streets and inside people’s minds is true faith? And how much is political ideology, and how many of it is just accepted principles from the past without any thought or favor and how much really matters? Why is that?
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The History – The Spectator’s reviewer suggested that the book must be examined by politicians so that they could be able to gain “insights into the thinking of angry young Muslim men”. I’m not convinced that there was any new information in this book. They want to be dominant. It’s as simple as that. It’s all about power plays that harks back to the glory days of the past. There isn’t any room in their thinking about how we can be able to adapt to the current world without compromising our beliefs at the core or (sacrilege in fact) can we adapt these beliefs in a world which is not the way it was. It’s a very limited view of the world.
It is surprising that it’s not just angry young males. The older generation is also affected with less anger, and more settled, but in the same frame of mind. Islam must prevail, not because of any logic or other reason, simply because. That’s perhaps the most important aspect of faith. It leaves very only a small amount of space for human life to be played out in it.
It’s the human life Taseer attempts to share with us, passing by. Forbidden parties, spontaneous revolts. Rules that are absurd of course , she is allowed to wear nail polish as that she takes it off to wash it before prayer, during each prayer at least five times per day. Recent tortures. Present corruption. Most importantly, the lack of humourand, often, of humanity.
It’s a one-sided story. He is looking for specific answers which is why his questions are specific. He is a man traveling on his own, which means that the majority of his fellow travelers are males. There isn’t much of female perspective in the book and what’s there lies on the extreme side of the spectrum for rebels.
It’s an interesting to read however, and the impression it makes is one of a massive people from across the world fighting to defend their belief. It is unclear if this is due to the type of contact Taseer had or whether it is an actual reflection of the nations he traveled through, I am not sure the latter. But defensiveness is what you get in the most negative sense.
In one instance, his mother and father discuss “the holocaust” and downplay the statistics, and the truth of it. While this isn’t a perfect example, it highlights a feeling that is echoed elsewhere, that a lot of people he interacts with are dissatisfied with those who are Jews for being allowed to claim “victim status’.
There are my own thoughts regarding this issue, but it’s interesting to note that only a few of the people in the book speak of what is beautiful about Islam and the peace that comes with it, or what it might be, and what it could mean in the absence of the necessity to spend all its time fighting for its voice. If it didn’t have to take over everything else. There’s a type of that you don’t know! petulance about many of the responses he gets.
The story is also a look at Taseer’s relationship to his father. There are flashbacks of earlier conversations and phone calls from school. My opinion is that he shouldn’t have taken the advice. The father has nothing to offer him, and honestly the best thing for him is to do it in this way. He’s a more compassionate and curious, as well as an than a person who is more open.
He’s also an excellent word-smatterer. Engaging and descriptive throughout. The book isn’t going that will make people want to take his footsteps, but definitely one that will make you consider the places he’s been and where he is headed.
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- Publisher :Pan MacMillan Indian Edition
- Language : English
- ISBN-10 : 0330511157
- ISBN-13 : 978-0330511155
- Weight : 1.1 pounds
- Dimensions :0.04 inches x 0.04 inches 0.04
Aatish Taseer
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