Book Review: The Soul of a Butterfly by Muhammad Ali

 

One of the finest boxers of human history- Muhammad Ali, in conversation with his daughter Hana Yasmeen Ali reflects on his life journey. Muhammad Ali was a legend who had an unwavering conviction, and this book presents his personal recollections. His daughter’s memories, his own stories and poems that touched his heart are also recorded in this book.

Muhammad Ali says: “I see that many people build big beautiful houses but live in broken homes.” Ali says that religion and spirituality are two different things. Discussing his personal life Ali says that his father was a painter who worked hard for his children’s upbringing. Ali himself did odd jobs early in life. Prejudice was common in America at that time as racialism was at its peak. The blacks were considered as second class citizens. Ali says: “But everything was considered bad, and undesirable.”

Writing on the purpose of life Ali views that one person with knowledge of his life’s purpose is more powerful than ten thousand working without that knowledge. In addition, he says: “The greatest victory in life is to rise above the material things that we once valued most.” The author says that self-discovery is the most liberating choice of all. When Muhammad Ali won the Olympic gold he thought that everything would open up to him, but that did not happen. He and his friend Ronnie were not served food in a restaurant as the waitress replied that they did not serve Negroes. Ali later threw his medal into Ohio river as he thought that material things really did not matter in life.

Ali was a great supporter of freedom and equality for the black population. He describes how he met Elijah Muhamad and adopted Islam as his new religion. He met Malcolm X for the first time in Detroit in 1962. At age 22 Muhammad Ali beat Sonny Liston in 1964 to become the heavyweight champion of the world. Ali says that Elijah Muhammad had forced Ali to break with Malcolm. He remembers turning his back on Malcolm as one of the mistakes that he regrets most. Ali considered Malcolm as a great thinker and a great friend.

Discussing the heart of a man Ali stresses that regardless of how wealthy a man may be, if his heart his not pure, he cannot be great. Ali returned to boxing in 1971 after three and a half years.  The Supreme court overturned Ali’s conviction for violation of the Selective Service Act. Ali says that of all the men that he fought Liston was the scariest, Foreman was the most powerful, Patterson was the most skillful, and Joe Frazier the most toughest.

On success Muhammad Ali says: “True success is reaching our potential without compromising our values.” Ali further adds that honesty, integrity, kindness, and friendship are the true treasures we should be seeking. Ali married four times and had nine children. His love for his children in shown in this book. He feels lucky because of them. On unity Ali is of the view that when people lend a helping hand without having to receive something in return, we will see humanity. Ali also writes about his meeting with Nelson Mandela and Dalai Lama. His visit to Afghanistan and his efforts for peace building are also included in this book.

The Soul of a Butterfly is a book that covers numerous themes ranging from belief in God to personal development. It is an insight to the life of Ali Muhammad who was a boxing genius and a great human being.

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Book Review: The Procession By Kahlil Gibran

 

This unique work of Gibran is unique in the sense that it is his first major work in verse. It was originally written in Arabic and translated into English by Dr. George Kheirallah. A biographical introduction has also been added by Kheirallah. This introduction puts light on the poet’s life and his perception in his native land. His mystical drawings have also been added in the book.

Gibran arrived in the United states with his mother and siblings. They went to Boston where other people of their town had settled. Gibran’s father was a shepherd. After some education in the U.S Gibran’s half-brother Peter now wanted Gibran to go back to Beyrut and learn his native language Arabic. He also wanted him to learn French. Gibran returned to America after four years of study. Upon his return to Boston he discovered that Sultana had died on April 4, 1902. Peter and Gibran’s mother passed away. Gibran and his sister Mariana left the plague-ridden house. Mariana sewed and Gibran wrote. By early 1904 Gibran had twenty drawings to offer. No gallery would receive his imaginative and mystical drawings. Mary Haskell became a close friend of Gibran who assisted him in writing English. She also prevailed upon him to accept her aid and to go abroad for study.

From 1908 to 1910 Gibran worked at his art in Paris under the guidance of older artists. After that he returned to Boston, but in 1912 he moved to New York where he lived for the rest of his life. A fatal ailment was gnawing in his body, but he kept his work going. On April 9, 1931, a friend came to see him and found him in pain and illness. He did not wish to be removed to a hospital. Next morning, he was taken to the hospital where he died on 10 April 1931, at the age of forty-eight. Mariana brought back her brother body to his native land. People flocked in large numbers to pay their respect to Gibran.

In this book Gibran addresses the themes of religion, justice, science, knowledge, freedom, happiness, hope, love youth, death, will and capitulation of the sage. I quote Gibran below:

• Life is but a sleep disturbed.
• As though religion were a phase of commerce in their daily trade; should they neglect it they would lose- or preserving would be paid.
• Yea, death and prison we mete out to small offenders of the laws, while honor, wealth, and full respect on greater pirates we bestow.
• To steal a flower, we call mean, to rob a field is chivalry; who kills the body he must die, who kills the spirit he goes free.
• For man is happy only in his aspiration to the heights; when he attains his goal, he calls and longs for other distant flights.
• For in nature we the children hold the sane as strange.
• Have you taken to the forest, shunned the palace for adobe?
• Have you ever bathed in fragrance, dried yourself in sheets of light? Ever quaff the wine of dawning, From ethereal goblets bright?
• Ever bedded in the herbage, quilted by a heavenly vast, unconcerned about the future, and forgetful of your past?

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Book Review: Between Morn and Night By Kahlil Gibran

 

The magnetism of Kahlil Gibran is seen in this work where he brings different themes under his microscope. The Tempest, slavery, satan, the mermaids, the poet, and we and you are some of the chapters in the book. Gibran shifts between poetry and prose bringing out the deep meanings of topics which remain close to his heart. I personally found his writings on slavery very amazing. His definition of blind, mute, deaf, lame, ugly, subtle, twisted, bent and black slavery are really worth reading for anyone. 

Under the chapter We and you he says:

When you ridicule us your taunts mingle

With the crushing of the skulls and the

Rattling of the shackles and the wailing of the

Abyss. When we cry, our tears fall into the

Heart of life, as we dew drops fall from the

Eyes of Night into the heart of Dawn; and

When you laugh, your mocking laughter pours

Down like the viper’s venom into the wound.

We cry, and sympathize with the miserable

Wanderer and distressed widow; but you rejoice

And smile at the sight of resplendent gold.

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Book Review: High Road to Hunza by Barbara Mons

 

This book is a travelogue of a couple who travel from United Kingdom whom visit Hunza in the spring of 1956. Peter Mons, the author’s husband is accompanying her on this exciting journey. The couple had written to the ruler of Hunza in 1955 about their desire to visit Hunza. The ruler Muhammad Jamal Khan said that if we could get permission from the Government of Pakistan to enter Azad Kashmir, he would be delighted to welcome us in his territory. The couple started from London in a Land-Rover. They passed through Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran and then entered Pakistan. Almost half of the book is about the journey from London to Pakistan. During this section of the journey the author describes the various cities they passed through. On 4^th of April 1956, exactly four weeks after leaving Istanbul, the couple reached Lahore where they were hosted by their friend Manzar Bashir.

On 10^th April 1956 the couple arrived in Rawalpindi. The author says that ‘To reach Hunza you must fly from Rawalpindi to Gilgit; there is no other way, except the jeep-track over the Babusar Pass that is open only for a short time in the height of summer.’ Meanwhile the couple was waiting for their permit from Karachi, they went to Peshawar and over the Khyber Pass to the Afghan frontier and back again. After telegrams were exchanged with the Mir of Hunza, the permit arrived. Now the only wait was for good weather. After ‘several unnerving false starts’ the couple finally landed in Gilgit on May 2^nd. The time spent waiting was instead invested in two trips. One to Swat and one to India for a week via the Grand Trunk Road.

The author had got special permission from the Director of Civil Aviation in Karachi to photograph Nanga Parbat. They were in a Dakota plane. Humayun Beg, the Secretary of the Political Agent General Kiani received the guests at Gilgit airstrip. They were driven to the Agency house. The guests brought a letter of introduction from General Shahid Hamid, Master-General of the Ordnance in Rawalpindi. They were driven to Kargah Nullah where Colonel Cobb, the then British Political Agent had planted trout in 1918. The author discovered Gilgit under the wing of Rhabar Hassan. The General lent his jeep to the guests along with a driver. Rhabar Hassan was also accompanying them, sitting on the top of their rucksacks. The jeep drive started from Gilgit and ended in Sikanderabad.

After waving goodbye to the jeep they set on foot. Mayun, the village opposite Nilt was the halting-place for the night. The guests reached the Mir’s rest house at five. After supper the Mir talked with the guests on the telephone. The next morning at six, the travel party was again on track. The author describes the twenty miles between Mayun and Baltit as ‘torturous track’. The author gives reference to previous writers on the area. This includes Knight, Durand and Lorimer- all having military backgrounds.

Mons says that the ruler of Hunza wore European clothes and his eldest son Ghazanfar also wore a tweed suit. The author says that the guest-house was built in 1925 by the present ruler’s father, Muhammad Nazim Khan. Before dinner there was ‘Black and White Whisky and a cut-glass decanter of Hunza pani.’ The photographs in the ruler’s house included that of Aga Khan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Shah of Persia’s brother. The schoolmaster Sultan Ali was introduced by Jamal Khan to the guests. He ‘spoke some English and was to be our friend and guide and constant companion.’  Chapter twelve ‘Looking back’ reflects on the past of Hunza through the lens of foreign writers. This includes E.F. Knight, Younghusband and Colonel Durand. The battle of Nilt is also covered.

The author is of the view that in the comparatively new settlement of Aliabad, where the cultivable shelf is much wider and less steep than elsewhere, there are many quite large flat sites, and here most of the houses are of the new, so-called Wakhi, pattern. Sixteen to twenty poplar tress go to the making of a house, says the author. In addition, she says that a Hunza house rivals any Swiss home for order and cleanliness; there is a total absence of unpleasant smells. The author mentions: “Hunza has been aptly called nicknamed ‘The Land of the Just-Enough’. They have just enough for their own essential needs, but not enough to make anybody else want to take it away from them.” The author quotes Muhammad Nazim Khan. Nazim states: ‘Marriage is not allowed between near relations, and whenever possible people marry into a clan different from their own.’ The author adds that child marriages do not take place now and unhappy marriages are said to be rare. Small girls and boys have the center of their heads shaved. In addition to that, the author views the Hunzakuts as ‘empiricist’.

Mons continues that Hunza has one doctor named Safdar Mahmood, a Pakistani. The little hospital in Aliabad is maintained by the Pakistan Army Medical Corps in Aliabad. The author adds that the mysterious immunity to disease in Hunza is not true. Dr. Safdar Mahmmod sent the authors husband analysis of all the cases of illness during the past year. It contained 348 cases of dysentery, 1 of typhoid, 734 of intestinal disease, 290 of malaria, 113 of rheumatic fever, 426 of goitre.

The chapter on ‘Custom, Faith and Language’ revolves around the ruling family. According to the author Jamal Khan’s milk father was Inayatullah Beg, the present Wazir of Hunza. Mentioning the ruling family, the author views it as forming a ‘class or tribal division by itself, called the Thamo, sub-divided into the Kareli, the royally-born on both sides, and the Arghundaro, of common origin on the female side.’ Mons observed that the school in Baltit had three other masters besides Sultan Ali. This included Haji Qudrat Ullag Beg, Thara Beg and Sangi Khan. The school in Baltit had 60 pupils under four masters. Urdu, Persian and English were taught there.

On Festival, the author says that only the ‘royal family’ kept the fast. Wazir Inayatullah Beg’s age was given to the author as ninety-four. The author disagrees and says: ‘with his virile looks it seemed impossible that he could be over seventy.’ Ayub was Ghazanfar’s milk-father. He played in the team of the ruling family whereas Ayash Khan kept the score during a polo match.

Every man possesses enough land to grow the necessary grain for himself and his family, says the author.Moreover she adds that this land is ‘generally owned outright, passing from generation to generation, but can be on lease from the Mir, in which case a small rent is paid in kind once the ground is producing.’ The author of this book states that there is no police or soldiers in the state. And persistent evil-doer can be banished for a few years to higher less hospitable valley. Jamal Khan goes on hunting trips to the north of his state following his grandfather’s footsteps. In Hunza fuel is so scare that fuel in winter is a serious problem, stresses the author. Furthermore, not many animals can be spared for meat, so the regime is mainly vegetarian. Fresh butter is unknown. The author seems to have based his claim by observing things in Central Hunza and did not visit the upper parts of the state where the situation was quite different. Barbara Mons writes that ‘the Mir of Hunza gets fairly clear drinking water for his guests, but he himself, like everyone else in Hunza, drinks pale-grey silty water with no ill effect, and in fact prefers it.’

Master Sultan Ali was also the Postmaster. He guided the couple to Altit fort. The author says that the fort is said to have been in existence for seven hundred years. The Mir comes into residence at Altit every February for the initiation of the spring festival ceremony. In the chapter on Hunza crafts, the author discusses the Bericho people of Hunza. These are the people who are blacksmiths and musicians. The Mir Jamal Khan told the guests that ‘he had recently had to put a stop to the Bericho sending their boys to the school, not from snobbery or race bar, but because it had been observed that when they started being ‘educated’ they ceased to want to be blacksmiths and musicians: and upon the first of these two professions the very life of the community depends.’ There are around half a dozen flour-mills around Baltit.

On her stay in Hunza the author remembers the deputations from villages who brought presents in honour of the forthcoming marriage of Princess Durri Shahwar to the Prince of Yasin. The Mir invited the author to sit next to him. The gifts included coffee-pots, sheep, ponies, hats, plates, rolls of materials, teapots, goats, rifles, tiny bags of gold-dust from the river, and hundreds of rupee notes which were counted by one of the retainers helped by the Crown Prince, while Ayash Khan, Court Scribe, worked very hard entering it all in a large red book. Mons says further in the book that there is a refreshing absence of superstition in Hunza, which I do believe is a doubtful claim. Mons says that Gilgit Scouts was enlisted in 1913 to replace the inadequate and half-trained fighting levies that existed up to that time. The new plan was suggested to the Mir of Hunza Muhammad Nazim Khan by Major Macpherson, the Political Agent back then. This was formally sanctioned by the Government of India.

At the farewell party for the guests many presents were exchanged between the guests and the hosts. The couple set out at dawn to ride the easy four-mile stage to Sikanderabad to meet the jeep. The jeep was not there. It arrived after three and a half hours. The couple reached Gilgit agency house. There they met another guest- an American the advance guard of a team who were contemplating a Cinerama film of Hunza, to be entitled In Search of Paradise. The book ends with the grand reception and dinner given by United States Military Assistance Advisory Group to the traveling couple at the Officers’ Mess at Chaklala.

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Book Review: The Broken Wings by Kahlil Gibran

 

The Broken Wings is one of the famous works of Gibran. Through his inspirational writing Gibran recounts the story of his own first love. He writes about the taboos of traditions. Equally well known and read among the eastern and western population of the world, to many Gibran was a poet, philosopher and artist. With great craft Kahlil Gibran brings to the reader his adoration and passion for Selma Karamy, the girl of Beirut. Selma, due to societal pressure marries another man. This story is about happiness, sorrow, tragedy and to a large extent about complexity of human relations in the oriental world.

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Book Review: Mirror of History by Mubarak Ali

Mirror of history by Dr. Mubarak Ali is a collection of one hundred and ten articles. The themes discussed in this book include politics, religion, society, language, culture, sports, science and architecture.  All these themes are discussed from a common man’s perspective. He does not fall in line with those authors who present the perspective of the political elite. Instead, he encourages the reader to understand the ignored segments of society in history. Social history is what he emphasizes upon. His writings are simple yet encouraging for the reader. Moreover, his approach of understanding history in the context of South Asia is also very different from the popular writers of the time.

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