Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Bed time story - II

Once upon a time there was a small village where lived a couple in their sweet little home. The man belonged to a very honorable and royal family, his father was the King of the village in his time and then his elder brother was nominated to be the next king but there were many evil and cruel people in village who after the death of King, illegally occupied the kingdom and started harassing the noble family and troubled them in different ways, at last poisoned his elder brother and completely under-taken the kingdom. The leader of that cruel assembly will be regarded as the most disgraceful animal in the history of mankind.

The noble man was a pious and virtuous person and had no greed of kingdom; for the sake of peace he began to lead a life of seclusion. He remained busy peacefully teaching and propagating the precepts of good deeds and of worship and devotion to Allah. His wife was also from very noble tribe and was daughter of the chief of that tribe. Both of them were living happily and were waiting for the gift of Allah, the man use to pray a lot in his night prayers as he wanted a baby girl. One fine day they were blessed with a lovely, beautiful, charming little angel, the baby girl was such an innocent & adorable that entire family celebrated her birth and especially her uncle (father’s brother) was more than happy on her birth.

Since her birth she was sweetheart of all family members, her uncle use to love her more than his children and used to take very good care of her and would not rest until he satisfied all her requests. There was definitely a special bond between them. Similarly her father could not live without seeing her and often heard to say, "A house without her would not be worth living in!” Daily when she went to bed at night she wanted to spend some time with her father. Her father use to tell her stories of her ancestors specially battles fought by her grand-father, she would rest her head on her father's chest and her father would not move from her until she fell asleep.

As the sweet baby grew up she was different from other girls of her age, she was a very religious girl and enjoyed reading the Holy Quran since her childhood and never missed her prayers. From the age of two she took great care to make sure that her head and face were properly covered when in public.


Life was wonderful and days were passing with happiness and joy. Like all other children, she was also enjoying her childhood and was spreading happiness in entire family with her sweet and innocent smiles.

One day when her father returned home he asked all family members to get ready for a journey as the evil people of the village had started teasing and demanded for unlawful things. As a noble man he cannot admit cruel wishes and decided to relocate from the village. Along with all family members including women and children, a group was formed under leadership of the noble man and his brother and they started their journey to an unknown place. The sweet little girl was relaxed and enjoying the journey with her parents, uncle and other family members.

On other end those wicked people of the village were not happy with noble man’s decision as he did not obey to their unlawful wishes so they decided to trap the entire family and torture them; they prepared an army of thousands and sent them to catch the noble family. After several months the army found them in a remote area of a different country and blocked their way to proceed further. The noble man tried a lot to explain them the right path but all the animals in that army were faithless and did not understood the preaching of noble man. At last when noble man did not accepted their evil wishes they decided to show their wickedness and then the universe witnessed the most dreadful humiliation in history.

The sweet little girl, unaware of all those happenings, one day came to know that there is no water and food left in their belongings and all other sources of water were cut down by the evil army, the little angel along with other children remained hungry and thirsty for several days but did not panic, at night she must have gone to her father to sleep on his chest and his father must have told her to remain patient and leave everything to Allah, but that was just the beginning, after couple of days the evil army started a battle and in single day they killed all the healthy males of that group, the poor little girl witnessed the martyrdom of her beloved father, uncles, brothers and other family members and then came the most horrified evening where the little angel was all alone between the sinful people of evil army. Instead of comforting words the little girl was slapped and her dress was put on fire by the tyrannical forces. At this age when children are free from all worldly issues, the innocent girl was tortured on highest level which is beyond imagination of a normal person.

With tied rope around her neck, she was then forced to travel to a different country for many days and then imprisoned in a dark, unclean room. The little princess remained there for several months in hope to return home some day; she was very frightened with darkness in that underground cell. Daily at night she remembered her father’s chest before sleeping and her aunt use to console her that one day she’ll meet with her father.

After so many trials and humiliations one day while the little princess was asleep she saw that her father had come to take her with him, with a smile on her face after several months, she happily held her father’s hand and went away from this disgusting world. She was greeted very warmly by all family members, ancestors and all the angels. After facing all difficulties and sufferings at last the little princess met her father again and now resting on her father’s chest peacefully.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

KPSIAJ Data Analysis

In today’s world data analysis and data modeling holds an enormous significance, lot of work is been done on data collection, globally, through various techniques and is used in different research and analysis projects. We all are aware with the importance of “Quality Data” and the rule of GIGB (garbage in, garbage out), someone can ask the difference between data and quality data, the data is called a quality data “if they are fit for their intended uses in operations, decision making and planning".

In light of this definition of quality data, we will discuss the importance of data management and analysis inside khoja jamaat and khoja community. In my opinion, khoja jamaat has worked a lot on “Data collection” during past few years but after data collection I found some lacking in making this data a quality data (read the definition again). Before proceeding further I want to discuss types of information in context to our Khoja Jamaat.

1. One time information which will not change ever


a. Membership Number
b. Name, Father Name, Surname (Mostly not changed)
c. Date of Birth

2. Information which are updated on certain time and is mandatory to provide it to KPSIAJ and remains unchanged afterwards.

a. Date of Nikah
b. Bride and her family details
c. Date of death

3. Information which are updated regularly and there is no good way today KPSIAJ can collect these details unless a person provides it by own or any special arrangements are made to collect it.

a. Qualification
b. Occupation
c. Country of residence
d. Children
e. Additional Qualities
f. Etc.

With a membership database of just (+ -) 10,000 people of Khoja (Pirhai) Shia Isna Asheri Jamaat we haven’t seen any statistical data management by our jamaat ever. In my opinion jamaat should at least start data analysis on macro level and with maturity in process they can go in micro details.

What if our jamaat had details of all khoja family members of Karachi, let’s look at some good and practical examples in that case. Currently when jamaat announces any activity program like summer camp, picnic, seminar, workshop etc. the decision is on basis of wild guess, a broad range of audience is focused without any prior analysis, what if they had something like following printout in their hands.

Example 1:

Age 2yrs - 5yrs (Total Male: xxx Total Female yyy)
Age 5yrs - 10yrs (Total Male: xxx Total Female yyy)
Age 10yrs - 20yrs (Total Male: xxx Total Female yyy)
Age 20yrs - 35yrs (Total Male: xxx Total Female yyy)
Age 35yrs - 50yrs (Total Male: xxx Total Female yyy)
Age greater than 50yrs (Total Male: xxx Total Female yyy)

Wasn’t it been easy for them to decide which audience or age group to focus for which kind of activity? If you think out of the box, from this one matrix many different results can be extracted like possible matriculates this year, expected marriages this year or gender ratio in khoja community etc.

If any of you have ever seen different forms of khoja jamaat which you have to fill for membership, nikah, divorce, death etc. it has the sufficient information for different statistical analysis, we can go through few more examples.

Example 2:

I am a member of KPSIAJ with a membership ID xxx, my daughter is married to Mr. ABC with a membership ID yyy, both information is mentioned in different forms, will it not be good if they have relation between xxx and yyy. As every nikah has to be registered in KPSIAJ, imagine with this one relation what can be achieved.

Example 3:

If today jamaat is asked to provide the information of doctors, engineers, accountants etc. in our community, they will not be able to provide it. Isn’t this information useful in many aspects?

Example 4:

Ratio of registered member of KPSIAJ Karachi, living in different countries can be helpful for international campaigns.

Example 5:

Some educational matrix can grab attention of local and international organizations for betterment of khoja youth. See the below matrix, will it not be useful information of education trend in khoja community.

Under Matriculate (Total Male: xxx Total Female yyy)
Matriculate (Total Male: xxx Total Female yyy)
Intermediate (Total Male: xxx Total Female yyy)
Graduate (Total Male: xxx Total Female yyy)
Masters (Total Male: xxx Total Female yyy)
Phd (Total Male: xxx Total Female yyy)

There can be many examples of such kind. Thus what I want to prove is although we are from same community; we lack the concept of social networking on official platform. May be there are some independent organization/group who are working for it but it would be very good if we have some initial level statistics of our community people.

The most difficult part in implementing this process is the data collection phase. From types of information, category 1 and 2 is already achieved by khoja jamaat, in these categories they have to work on the quality and management of data but the category 3 is still far away from their reach. Another issue in category 3 is that this information is not static and is changed frequently so one time collection of data will not work in long term, there should be some ongoing process so the outdated data can be purged continuously.

There can be several possible solutions for this exercise.

1. Online Updates

Although ratio of internet users are growing day by day but still there are majority of people in khoja community who do not have access to internet, for those people we can sort out some different data collection technique but for people having internet facility, there can be a web based portal where people can update their information. Imagine the strength of this database as this can be accessed by local and international community members.

2. For people without internet access, there are several manual ways.

a. Every 3 years at the time of election, there can be separate desks where information can be gathered.

b. Many community students are studying under Fatimiyah network that can cover certain percentage.

c. Women wings arranges different programs like summer camp, yearly picnic, seminars etc. around 150-200 families can be accessible by this means.

d. Stalls can be placed in different Ramzan and Muharram programs.

Last but not least, when Khoja Jamaat have sufficient information about different families, they can work on many projects for betterment of community, today if some donation is sent for “MUSTAHIQ” people of khoja community, I don’t think jamaat has some pre-defined or pre-collected data which can justify the word “MUSTAHIQ”, decisions are made on “as and when needed” basic and people who are real “MUSTAHIQ” for that aid are not identified as they are “Out of site and thus out of mind”.

Once the concept is introduced it can expand a lot and can be helpful in many ways.

What you think?

Friday, July 3, 2009

Big time confusion

This time I will not be discussing any of my view point on a specific issue, instead I’ll share my confusion and raise few questions for which I am not able to get any satisfactory answer yet.

"Thy Lord hath decreed that ye worship none but Him, and that ye be kind to parents. Whether one or both of them attain old age in thy life, say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them, but address them in terms of honor. And out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility, and say: ‘My Lord! bestow on them Thy Mercy even as they cherished me in childhood' "(Al-Quran: 17:23-24)

Each of us are in no doubt that Islam has emphasized a lot about rights and duties towards our parents and specially mother is the most respectable and divine relation Allah has created for his creatures. There are several verses of Quran and ahadess from Masoomeen(a.s.) in honor of parents and enlightens our responsibilities towards them. If someone has to describe the word “mother” and the relation of a mother and a child, I don’t think it will be an easy task as there aren't enough words in the dictionary to describe what my mother is. “For the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world” Surely whatever we are today is just because of our parents.

But today’s mother was a newly wedded wife someday, as soon as a person gets married with a girl there can be two possibilities, in some cases specially in subcontinent the girl is brought to the house which is of the groom’s parents and they live with parents and siblings, this is what we call Joint Family System. Second option is they will start their life in a new house hoping to turn that into a home someday.

Let’s now discuss some ideal cases where there are no special excuses like small house or relocation to different city/country, financial problems etc. Now my question, actually it is more than a question and can be called a big time confusion.

Should a person start his life in a Joint Family System or Individualistic Family System?

Option 1:

The person leaves his parent’s place and starts a new life at a new place? Ofcourse he will be visiting them regularly and will take good care of them, remotely, as much as possible by helping them financially, morally and by supporting in household work etc. If that’s the case then:

1. Will it be considered as disgracing parents and dishonoring them or not giving them proper love which they deserve from their child?

2. Will it be considered as not fulfilling ones duties and rights towards his parents by leaving them alone at old age when they will be needing him as he needed them when he was a child?

3. Is this act against any of the Islamic laws or instructions or expectations, will this act be a hurdle in gaining Allah’s blessing?

4. Is it something the person has to justify in his society or it should be taken normal by society as a general practice?

5. By living separately there is a distance between grandchild and grandparents as compare to living jointly with them, will it be considered injustice to both of them?

6. Finally if any one of the parent is left alone after others death, what should be the line of action? Hire a maid for him/her? Ask him/her to live with all the sons turn by turn for a decided period? Admit him/her to old house? OR go for any point in option 2.

Option 2:

A newly wedded wife in most of the cases prefers to have her own home and does not like to stay in a Joint family. Maybe in some cases she shows her willingness but mostly witnessed in my surrounding, girls usually prefer to be independent of joint family. In subcontinent still there are many families where individualistic family system is considered very negative and girl is titled as cunning, clever and selfish if she demands for a separate home.

1. Whatever the case maybe, restrict her to live in Joint family?

2. When two – three women are living in same house there is a high chance of collusion, so should a person start balancing his rights towards parents, siblings and wife and try to keep all of them happy in case of any argument? Is it possible? How?

3. Be ignorant and let the things go on its own way and do not interfere until the big blast from either side?

4. Be partially separate in same house? (You know what that means)

5. Change his role as a son and as a husband and be mediator for life time.

Today in our society when a person gets married the first and biggest question infront of him is, should he enter into joint family system or start a separate and independent life, maybe initially this question does not crop up but after some time this issue comes along him, whether in form of demand from his partner or due to circumstances, the decision at that time is not so easy and I am still in search of the answer that what is the best possible solution to this confusion.

As you can see both options have some advantages and disadvantages, I am not listing those here as we all are aware of virtues and pitfalls of both systems but ultimately person has to go with any one of the them, of course selection of any option entirely depends on individual’s circumstances and no universal law can be defined as a selection criteria but still in a broad view there has to be some reasoning to justify the selection, whether it be from religious point of view or social or ethical view but there has to be some logical reasoning.

Last but not least, what is the best time for making this decision, should it be a preplanned decision and with mutual understanding of all the stakeholders or should a person go with the flow in beginning ,wait and watch for the situation and then make any decision?

These are few unanswered questions waiting for some justifiable replies other than “Depends on situation” kind of answers as macro view of situation is already defined.