There was a time when life was a lot easier in our country than it is today and I find myself going through a feeling of deep nostalgia when my imagination takes me two or three decades back in time

Not that there was no corruption or no crimes or no increasing cost of living at that time.  All of these were there, but something happened during the last two or three decades which has made us an entirely different people. Something has made us not only a different nation in the eyes of others but has also made our own life miserable. In the days gone by it was a hard life, with poverty, ignorance and corruption but at least we could sleep in peace. A new trait of our character has now transformed us into a nation who is easy to kill.

There are a variety of ways and motives for killings, the most common among them are target killings and random killings. Target killings are mainly prompted by political rivalry and random killings can be for anything and by any unknown person. Then, there are sectarian killings based on heresy and these are one of the most common killings. As if these killings were not enough that family killings have since started and assumed alarming proportions. If a girl and her parents refuse to marry the girl to the proposer, the girl, and sometimes, the girl with her parents are murdered. Family members are murdered in property disputes and sometimes they are murdered in revenge. Girls are murdered as “honour killings”.   

These heinous and barbaric killings have become a way of our life; so much so that our country has now been rated, and rightly so, as the most dangerous place on earth.  

Fifteen hundred years ago, before the advent of Islam, the Arabs used to kill their female children, and murders in family disputes and tribal enmity were commonplace. God ordained the prophet of Islam who reformed and purged the society of these evils. Now, in this modern and civilized age, are the everyday senseless and barbaric killings in our country not a revival of what was happening in the pre-Islamic ignorant and uncivilized society, fifteen hundred years ago? Is it not the revival of dark ages?

Our prophet Muhammed (PBUH), in his last sermon, at the time of his last Hajj performance, said, among other things: “…….Treat your women well and be kind to them, for they are your partners and committed helpers”. This sermon was not addressed to only muslims but to all human beings of the world and is, in fact, the best and real Charter of Human Rights. This is the advice of our prophet and what we are practicing?  People kill their own wives, their own children and their own family relatives for petty matters. According to a study carried out by Human Rights Watch, an estimated 5,000 women are killed every year in domestic violence in Pakistan.  In order to know how cultured a nation is, you must see the the attitude of its people towards their women.  

Love begets love and hatred begets hatred. It is our misfortune that intolerance, violence and hate are driving us to follow the path that inevitably bound to end up in disaster. Hardly any day goes by when we do not hear the news that women and children in the families have not been slaughtered and innocent people in the streets and market places have not been killed by unknown killers. Unprovoked killing of an innocent human being amounts to killing of the whole humanity. But, in complete disregard of any of the human moral values, this process of dehumanization continues unabated. Why this is happening and what is the solution to this dilemma. The solution to this ordeal lies in the following two lines of the great persian poet Hafiz

Shirazi:

Khalal pazeer bavad har bena ke mee beenee

Bajuz bena-e-muhabbat ke khali az khalal ast

(The foundation of everything you see is shaky except the foundation of love that is free from instability).