iDoc, "Fibromyalgia

 CONDITION not a disease
 When I was studying (in Medical school) I was taught that there is no Muscle disease or fiber disease and pathological abnormalities are not found in this condition.
 But today it being is promoted to be almost like a disease process and now I see even  specific medicine is being advertised as if this is a disease that has a specific medication for it.
 And I am mused even laugh at it as I did when I studied about it.
 It was not often many women come to seek treatment for pain in neck and shoulders (It is known to be more common in women)  They are just tired housewives working hard to keep everybody happy in the home physically day and night cooking and cleaning and washing without anything automatic being available which is quite understandable so give some valium in small doses and painkillers. There is no automatic washing machine or cookers etc. for prescription to lighten the work load of these poor women
 This is like saying headache or bellyache is a disease.
It reminds me of a very interesting note I must report. Long time ago I was working as a registrar in an old psychiatric hospital in England where there were chronic old cases who lived their lives in the hospital for there was no cure of schizophrenics and the like in those olde days. I came across a patient and her chart who was there since 1916. There was a history written in hand which I could read and found a diagnosis about which I had heard it existed in the good olde days
DAH -- Disorderly Action of the Heart And sure there was a heart murmur which I now forget what was my own diagnosis but the patient had lived so long (I am talking about 1967)


Please visit my Urdu blog at خیالات و احساسات

"Banned Parenthood" and Microcephaly

    I recently came across an article with the above caption written in 2015 and it immediately brought to my mind an old Urdu write-up ?Afsana, may have been Minto but  I only remember the abominable and heart-wrenching contents.
 But first a word or two about "Banned". Many years ago USA practiced "Eugenics" almost like Nazi/Hitler's. The 'committee' ordered  Surgical "sterilization of young women (and men) considered to be unfit for parent-hood like:
 Feeblemindedness
 too poor
physically disabled  --  and so on.
 That eugenics committee dissolved in 1977 (Thank God). There may still be other ways of continuing the "selection' process and I will not go further except mentioning that pictures I saw (in that article) were those of African-American  grandmother who looked perfectly normal with her grandson and she was raped at age 13, when she was declared feebleminded (instead of rape investigation) so that when she got married at 19 and found out what surgery had been done it wrecked her marriage but she was thankful they let her have her only son.
  The Urdu afsana or whatever was that of a microcephalic teenager who became a mother (do not remember who made the poor bayzubaan pregnant) causing problems for the "owner" whose "livelihood" got disturbed with her pregnancy. Those of you who do not know  "microcephalics" just a few words for them. Medically this means a child born with a very small head (and therefore brain) who live with extremely poor intelligence,  very very feebleminded. In Panjab they were called "Shah Dawlah's Choohay". The story goes about a mazar of Shah Dawlah in Gujrat (Pb) where some time ago some childless mother made "mannat" that if you give us children I will "donate" the first child for your  service/set-up (lot of Mujawars and buildings). It so happened that the first child born turned out to be a microcephalic. After that many "childless mothers" did the same thing and the first child was given to the service of Shah Dawlah and that child was "made" into microcephalic with iron cap on the newborn so received . It was not uncommon to see people taking such a child to use him/her for asking for alms. These "Shah Dawlah's choohay" were sold from the mazar and the "owners" lived happily ever after, for such a child when he/she approaches you and begs speaking hardly any words with out-stretched had one can imagine  why such hand would always be filled with money. I dont remember the whole afsana but you remember my village Kotla which is located in Gujrat distt. and I remember seeing these children coming to me tapping on my shoulder and making me feel so disturbed and helpless. Later I came to know of the family of Shah Dawlah when they stopped this abominable practice.
 Yes I would vote for such a "feeble-minded" for that operation (call me "flexible") but would be horrified to apply that principle to everybody microcephalic or not.
 Does any Urdu reader recall such afsana?



Please visit my Urdu blog at خیالات و احساسات

Lahore Omnibus

  was writing my diary in 1951 when I lived in New Hostel of the Government College (now University) and that is why I remember.
 It was probably August/September or maybe May June when the double-decker buses were first introduced in this service When did the Omnibus service start I am not sure but it was before the Partition. They were popular and it relieved some of the rush on the ordinary buses of Omni service Yes I did not have a bicycle then and I used this bus service frequently, well as much as I could afford for traveling Usually we would walk and of course the Mall was very near starting with Zamzama, Panjab University buildings on one side with a coffee house and beginning of Anarkali. On the other side of Zamzama was Museum of Lahore and next was the famous Tollinton Market where we would sometimes walk. Beginning or end of Anarkali bazar was important even afterwards as I joined KE Medical College and so there was  still everything in our walking distance and the Pak Tea house in that part of Anarkali (Less expensive than the coffee house of the Mall)

Sacrament in Islam?

SACRAMENT is strictly speaking a Christian term meaning an act that will  make you pure Christian or  in other terms will make you one with Jesus Christ. Usually it means Baptism but  You may also have sacrament of the table or Eucharist or Holy communion. This is something related to New Testament (Paul describes it) but here also Mathew, Luke and Mark mention the Last Supper but John does not.
 I was reading a book of Hans Kung, " Islam, Past , Present, and Future" (intriguing!!)
 A very remarkable book indeed.  He mentions there is no sacrament in Islam and I thought  it is true but then I looked into more details why it is  not and found that actually there is the concept in Islam also but Qur'an mentions it differently  like, not needed. Also Kung says Islam does not have "confession"kind of  custom for sins.  Here he is totally un-informed.
 Briefly  about sacrament/Baptism: (Not meant to be comprehensive)
  There was a "purification (tahara) in Judaism already known called "Mikveh" immersion in water (sort washing away the sins and same in Christianity) in a special pool in the Synagogue or flowing water and all for the same reasons as in Islam one needs a Ghusel (Ritual bath) plus more.
 Christianity also has the same but only once in life because reasons are different. All different denomination starting from Catholicism,Anglican, Lutheran Baptist, United methodist, Jehova's witness, Later day Saints etc. etc. all recognize it as essential  except Quakers and one or two others . You dip in water  (or other methods,)to coincide with "death of Jesus" and come out with "resurrection" and you become one with Jesus. Somewhere in description I read the intention of the person (adult) is necessary that "After this you will lead a life according to God's pleasure and not follow your own will (Remember Lord's prayer) So you become perfect person of God and your sins  are all forgiven. After that are sins are 'removed' by confession and Christians do not need repeat immersion in water. When a person coverts to Islam he makes intention takes a bath (Ghusal) and performs shahada and that is enough cleansing from all previous sins and becoming a Muslim - subjecting his/her will to the Will of Allah (The Christian Baptism)
 Aya 138 of S. II al-Baqara,  (Yusuf Ali)
"(Our religion is) Baptism (Sibghah) of Allah and who can baptize better than Allah? and it is He whom we worship"
 Sibgha means color, dye, hue, pigment, shade air, character baptism, religion etc. among other meanings ((Arabic dictionary). This aya was in fact in response to the ahl kitab saying you have no sibgha. Allah is saying here when you have made a conscious commitment to obey Allah's orders (Following Allah's will) that is by itself the sibghah and thus ritual immersion is not needed to take the "color"  indicating baptism of Christianity (That is why instead of color YusufAli writes baptism in translation.)
 CONFESSION:  Rev. Kung does not understand the process or significance of Tawbah in Islam and that is between God and the person DIRECT, no intervening human or other authority and the first step of tawbah after praying two raka is CONFESSION and accepting that sin and its responsibility and next step is to feel ashamed and sorry and finally,  to make a covenant never to do it again
 Allah forgives you remember Sura Zumer,Aya 53 "Say: O my servants who have transgressed against their souls, despair not of the MERCY of Allah, for Allah forgives all sins: for He is OFT-Forgiving, Most Merciful"
      There you see the difference. On the one hand once baptised you are already one with Jesus Christ and so  Jesus is in with you and yet/why you seek confession with another person a priest who has no authority to forgive at all and he is not representative of Jesus  or God? (that is a question and not criticism)
 For Muslims "God is nearer than your Jugular vein"
 To me after all is said and done, I am only amazed at the similarity of the three "religions"


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Male/Female and Gender in Man

 I had a chance to write about Gender when Bruce Jenner announced he was a woman at heart after the age of 60 and after two marriages and six children.
 I have had a chance to reflect on this process more as the world view of such things has transformed also and a lot of people are "coming out of closet" as it were. From my medical knowledge and training when all these LGBT etc. were considered abnormalities (so I was taught). Mind you I did consider them as such but had no problems considering them any more different than a person with short stature or too tall stature or too fat or too thin  and so were these persons whose brains functioned in the normal way as they would in any human being and I still hold my opinion.
  Medically speaking here is how things develop:
There are these levels one must consider in the development of Man;
1. Genetic make-up. Genes contain all the information about the person each one has its own content of molecules specific for functions/structure etc.
2. Chromosomes are the structures containing the genes. They consists of half (22+ XY) from father and other half (22+ XX) from mother. Out of them one is a pair of XX (female offspring) chromosome contains one X from father and one from mother.
3. Gonads; During development in the womb the fetus begins its sexual structure from group of cells called Gonads -undifferentiated sex at this time
4. Hormones: As "hormones" are secreted from developing structures the gonads start taking shpe of male or female sex organs
5. Anatomy: the full sex characters formed; we have a boy or a girl
6. Boy or girl brought up in surroundings peculiar to their own parents and family and culture giving shape to the minds of these persons who develop their own identity as boy or girl (Gender identity)or whatever else influenced by many factors over and above the ones stated above.
7. Psyche:  How the person forms his/her identity and how he/she behaves growing up as given in #6 above
     So we can see the gender identity is influenced by Nature (Biological anatomy and physiology depending on how it is functioning) as well as "nurture" (social learning+ other factors of the culture and family)
 As we can see there are so many levels where something may go "wrong" or away from norm and result in "disturbance" of one kind or the other.Genes carry info like some inherited disease and Chromosomes have their own problems resulting in all kinds of disorders etc. Then during development things can change in gonads or sex organs. So there are multitudes of abnormalities some minimal some big and some in between
 So the first thing in a child showing signs of "disturbance' we need to see if there is something the matter in these levels and have tests performed to see if some change is causing homosexuality for instance.Of course there will be some where nothing is found abnormal and we end up saying this psychological. if psychological is not considered abnormal then we say all is normal but person is so inclined from cultural or family influences
  I am saying all this because if we dont pay attention to all this detail some 'diseases'will go undiagnosed under the label of LGBT which by itself has no meaning except socially speaking and that all has now happened that socially it is all acceptable which is good




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Final (Official) meeting

Saturday the 18th March was a day of my meeting I handed over chairmanship of BOD of ICR as new elected member joined.
 I had not realized later after Assr prayer there ws a 'celebration' which initially I could not understand until so many of those invited for the supper (Very sumptuous one indeed and Zaitoon had done a great job) started making comments of my contributions etc. to the Islamic center and those of Dr Sarwat . I understood some speakers and other little but the delay in my understanding was due to my poor hearing
 This is more in the form of my Urdu blog as I am expressing my thoughts of this day. Since it was unexpected I was unprepared for all that including the plaques given to both of us. We both of course functioned all our lives for the pleasure of Allah SWT and so I just thanked everybody and said this:
 شکوہء ظلمت شب سے تو کہیں بہتر تھا
 اپنے حصے کی کوئ شمع جلاتے جاتے
 And  of course tried to translate this for everybody
 This gave me an occasion to reflect on how my passion for Islamic center and its need had pushed me into doing things like a leader though I was not exactly cut out for a good leader's job. I had to get involved to make sure my children and grandchildren will have an Islamic atmosphere to breath in and will make friends with Muslims along with non-Muslims, will value Islamic teachings along with Local traditions etc. My involvement had started in mid-seventies as Islamic Society of NC was established on Eid-ul-Fitr (sept.) 1976 where I was elected (even though I lived in fayetteville then) vice chairman and Dr Hasan as chairman. The I became chairman then Dr Mansour
 At the time of writing Dr Hasan is still alive as is Dr. mansour Mohamed and after him Dr. Shamimur-Rehman became chairman when ISNC was dissolved and IAR was born. See my write up of history of ICR for the rest.



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Ms. Le Pen and her bravery

 There has been a lot of media advertisement of feminism and hijab of women (Muslim)with the news of French Presidential Candidate, Ms. Marine Le Pen and her refusal to don the hijab.
 To start with yes, it was within her rights NOT TO wear hijab when asked at the time of meeting the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. She certainly took a brave step in refusal and desereves admiration though not for the reasons the media or commentators seem to imply
 The Mufti called it was "protocol" non-observance. (really?)
 I also read a lot of "comments" as I always do and found what I expected:
 Strong prejudice of writers almost all Christians (They still continue the Crusade Mentality) and Jews, no Muslim commentator (and I can understand why). Nor would I like to  make comments to those people who do not understand anything and only express their prejudice. Lot of filth thrown at Muslims and their religion and their culture etc.
 First, I do not see anything "feminism" in refusing to wear a peace of cloth which is meant for respect. That is just individual attitude/preference to which any man or a woman or an LGBT person is entitled to accept or reject. Some of the comments, however need to be commented upon
 Most commentators express (as you would expect) that wearing hijab is a sign of woman's subjugation and man's superiority so a man of Muslim (older/backward) culture can beat her up and make her behave (as if this does not happen in the Western culture) as a slave and so many examples from the media are available where women in the Muslim countries are subjected to this but then all other things like cutting of hands, beheading and so forth all are cited
 Media teaching is pretty thorough
 There was a minimal mention that Catholic and some Jewish women also wear such head scarf but nobody mentions Nuns and/or going to church etc.. Not too long ago most women here in the West did the same thing while men wore hats nearly always and so if some men in the Muslim countries still wear a Turban why should it be placed with women's hijab. I cannot find the relationship if they consider head wear of men and women to be for similar reasons?
 But then in mentioning "other things" somebody went wild in throwing filth at the Yeroshelam Mufti, a religious head/leader that " the grand Mufti" sided with the Hitler" Amazing! It is true the Grand Mufti during 2nd WW when the English were "governing" Jerusalem they exiled the grand Mufti who along with some other Muslims was angry (rightfully) with the English. However that does not mean he should have sided with Hitler but Hitler's main job of killing 6 million Jews had not yet been completed and the Nazi culture had not been completely exposed. I guess the Turks were also siding with Germany but not for hatred against Jews. The hatred of Jews has throughout history been a purely Christian undertaking.
However that is not the point I wish to make.
 Speaking from Muslim point of view I have some comments for them too
   Why has hijab been given so much importance for female dress (by Muslims and Ulama etc.)and no mention about other things of the Muslim dress (for both men and women). Just look at the tightness of upper and lower body dresses and you know what I am talking about head cover is meant to cover Hair and upper chest as these are attractive parts of the female body But for some reason women in the West have always been increasing gradually the exposure of these parts of the body as well as legs and thighs in everyday dress. This is "fashion" and so when a woman covers such parts of her body she is considered "old-fashioned" but I would not go beyond that much and start saying that is making women slaves.Wife-beating is a world-wide practice, not limited to Muslim countries. Lack of respect for women is likewise world-wide and not limited to  one culture. I may not be able to quote the statistics in each country but there is no n doubt "the weaker sex" is always dominated by the "stronger sex" and will continue in every society till the end of the times.


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