Sabr

Sabr (صْبِرْ) [SunniSisters]

Function: Noun used to describe a virtue

Etymology: From the root ṣ-b-r, meaning to bind or restrain

Date: Eternal

1. Resignation of the ego to the will of God in times of calamity
2. Steadfastness in the face of challenges

Yes we Muslims do sabr quite well, in fact its pretty much all we do. I think the Big Tyrants are lucky that we do so much of it because if you look at the facts, any other such spiritually contiguous social group would be going totally ape under the same unjust predicaments. So here is to sabr. Doing sabr doesn't mean you go into stasis though. Humility and submission to Him suggest improvement, leaving what is wrong and moving to what is better.

Imagine that you have settled in your job as the Agriculture minister in a not yet fully blossoming country, where the lions share of the people are pretty reliant on their soily toil. You are doing quite well, nobody messes with you in your department, because although a large amount of them have been fashioned to hate your guts, they know you mean business and there can be no hanky panky. Your prestige in your party, and outside to an extent, is enhanced because you are where you are not because of your family, nor because of the redrawing of national borders. You understand that masses of people have an irreconcilable view of you, yet you laboured on. You say you do not seek to lead your party, but they keep electing you to do so. Some might suggest that is quite a weird situation.

You are from a minor party and are part of a coalition government. Even though your raw numbers are low, your organizational fealty and social technique are of such a level that they are easily distinguishable from the froth. However they are not all textbook Islamic workers, you know that. When their blood boils over you are the only one who can cool them down. You also have the problem of a lot of nutter lefties are drifting in your ideological direction. Its a mixed bag of fish really, some say that 'they have read interesting books', others say they are damaged goods.

Though your peeps have many good qualities and I love a few of them to bits, they are not world class in the same way that some of your fellow traveller's are in Indonesia, Turkey and Malaysia... even Iran... and even in the maghreb. Your country has been through hard times and shot itself in the head more than a few. However you still run on a 1930s vintage engine from an All India context. An engine that a lot of bona fide Ulama became exasperated with and decided to sack at the earliest of stages. That newer models haven't emerged... well I think some of that responsibility lies in your hands. Some of it doesn't of course, we saw how when some people had had enough and wanted to do their own thing, their groups became splinters of splinters or splinters. And there were no mutant ninja turtles to gel things together. The turtles tend to get stuck and neutered in Tabligh, bless.

A lot of the people in your party were wary of the compromises you high ups made in being part of a government where many of the characters are questionable. To be honest, there are a lot of questions about you, but that is another conversation altogether. However, for the youngies, one of the justifications was that there would be fewer dead bodies. That was true temporarily at least from the years 2001-2006. The years 2009 to 2019 however are yet to be written legibly for us. It will certainly be a time for sabr, self correction and self purification. I for one see that here will a lot of trial (fitna), unfairness and naudhubillah ... bodies. They will be of young men who wanted to serve Islam and the coroners will judge them to have suffered Death By Democracy. You see the people of your country will vote for your most avowed political enemy, the ones who score the highest value points by being that way. They will unleash their dogs with little restraint. In every institution and at every scale and in every sector. You saw how they danced on the bodies of young men in the anarchy before January 11th 2008 and we know the pattern. Whether these future casualties find themselves in the hearts of green birds near His Throne we cannot know. So let's not assume it right?

In those years when you had a little power, your political enemies went around the world accusing you of being a terrorist party in an international regime where such accusation has the connotation that it does. However I reckon that more than a few of the international observers and fiddlers held you in greater esteem, and took you more seriously than the other party heads, who are caught in a multi-decadal catfight that is really really shameful. Many of your people have adopted all the worst qualities of human democracies around the world, the bitchiness, the dog-in-the-mangery and what not. Suffice to say that it is a trait that has to be planned for if you play The Game.

I digress. So you are sitting their with your job in Agriculture winning the confidence of those subordinate to you, possibly showing them the qualities of a real minister, a post now filled by the amazing CS Karim, and along comes a reshuffle. You are moved to INDUSTRY. Some suggest this is because you were doing too well at your job, others suggest that your qualities were needed elsewhere. I have less interest in industry, sorry, its just that every time I hear of a Bangladeshi Industrialist, usually through meeting his son, I feel mournful. The new portfolio was guaranteed to place a whole new caboodle of difficulties in the way, plenty of vested interests in a sector riddled with the worst people in the world. Full of people whose understanding of fair trade and industry has been nurtured nepotistic, and sadistic.

So there is a political change of wind and you are now arrested under the GATCO case. You were on the purchase committee or something, which isn't a crime in of itself. But maybe if you had done a Musa vs Firaun performance at the time... just for fun this particular dirt would never have got to you. Many rejoice your incarceration because of their view and their experience of what happened in 1971. Fewer people wonder what you are going to do. You see, so devoid of any political imagination they are, and so accustomed to copying, replicating and never using their own 'upstairs' that they actually look to you for inspiration. You remember don't you? the same people who would stab you all over would come to you for counsel, for blessings, for advice on what to do, for religious wisdom. Messed up.


Whats slightly more messed up is your press release on the 14th of this month, before your arrest tonight. Out of 13 recommendations why was the first one the release of the Two Begums? I mean come oooon. At the first round of talks with the election commission, before the Shahriar Kabir Liberation/Civil war episode 360, your high ups had something interesting to say about electoral reform.


but "There is a conspiracy to make the country a dominion."


What did you mean? Whats new? Bangladesh is already a multi-vassal state with as many hands up its arses as there are NGOs in its thriving development industry, consultants in its planning industry, academics in its budhijibbilessness industry and stupid schools in its educational industry. How could it really get any worse, or any more amorphous than the quaternary sediments in my tea would suggest? I think I'm going to go check my working out again.


Finally, the declaration of a four day Nafil Fast is a refreshing change from the mayhem than the less religiously inclined parties always promise as they throw their toys out of their pram. It is a little naff though, not sure why, i have the feeling its something fundamental.


A dignified and dynamic sabr to us all, more than a little fikr and a monsoon deluge full of rahma.