Friends, Pakistanis, countrymen1, lend me your ears; I come to praise Hafiz Khalid Chishti, not to bury him. The evil2 that Rimsha Masih did will live after her;Chishti’s good deed3 should not be interred with his bones; So let it be with Chishti. The ignoble police Hath told you Chishti was ambitious4: If it were so, it was not a grievous fault5, And grievously Chishti should not answer it. Here, under leave of the liberals6 and the pro-west –For the liberals are all honourable men7 - Come I to speak for Chishti being well.But yesterday the word of the Mullah might Have stood against the world; now lies he there. And none so poor to do him reverence. O masters, if I were disposed to stir Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, I should do the pro-West liberals wrong Who, you all know, are honourable men: I will not do them wrong; I rather choose To merely defend the deed, to wrong myself and you, Than I will wrong such honourable men. Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it8; It is not meet you know how the Imam loves you. You are not wood, you are not stones, but men; And, being men, knowing the act of the Imam, It will inflame you, it will make you mad:You will compel me, then, to read the report? If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. Look, in this place ran Hafiz Zubair’s9 accusation through: See what a rent the envious deputy made: Through this the well-beloved Zubair stabb’d; And as he pluck’d his cursed accusation away, Mark how the ink of the Quran10 follow’d it,

O, now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel The dint of pity: these are gracious drops. Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold Our brave Chishti handcuffed? Look you here, Here is himself, marr’d, as you see, with traitors. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up To such a sudden flood of mutiny. Chishti has done this deed11 that is honourable: What private griefs ... err, wait!

He tore up pages from the Quran!??! But that means ... but ... wait ... let me think ... this might take a while ... err ... I’ll have to get back to you.

Footnotes:

1. But not Christians, Hindus, Parsis or Sikhs – we know that they are not Pakistanis or our countrymen or our friends, don’t we?

2. Of being a Christian in the Land of the Pure

3. Of tearing up pages from the Holy Quran and planting them in Rimsha Masih’s bag containing some burnt pages.

4. Harbouring ambitions of clearing his neighbourhood of the evil presence of Christians.

5. Getting rid of Christians from Pakistan is not wrong, is it? Chishti is a proper soldier of Islam.

6. That is: those in the pay of RAW and the CIA – all liberals are in the pay of RAW and the CIA, as we all know.

7. For the women do not count or they count only half as much at best

8. The newspaper accounts of how the Imam was so intent on defending Islam for our sake and getting rid of the chooras that he went so far as to tear pages from the Quran and plant them in Rimsha Masih’s bag.

9. Hafiz Muhammad Zubair being one of Khalid Chishti’s three deputies who had the temerity to testify against this brave soldier of Islam.

10. The Quran that was torn up in the defence of Islam.

11. He tore up pages from the Quran for the defence of Islam. Islam, as we all know, is in danger – particularly in the Land of the Pure.

The writer is a banker and freelance writer Email: khusro_m@yahoo. co.uk