What Is Pakistan Reading: An Alternative Tour of the Karachi International Book Fair

Posted on December 30, 2010
Filed Under >Daroon-e-Khanna, Books, Society
41 Comments
Total Views: 94490

Daroon-e-Khanna

The 6th Karachi International Book Fair was held in Karachi this week. More than 300 publishers/ booksellers, more than a quarter million visitors over five days. You might have read about the importance of such events, you might have heard about the achievements of the fair and you might have been told about the diversity on offer.

But since more than 70 percent of the stalls were trying to make money by making the readers better Muslims, we concentrated on the free goodies on offer. Here is our alternative tour of the 6th Karachi International Book Fair.

Things We Got For Free

A DVD of the first-ever documentary about Maulana Maududi’s life, produced by Al Khidmat, Jamaat Islami’s charity wing.

A CD of the Jamaat’s current Ameer Maulana Munawar Hassan’s speeches. We accepted it under extreme duress.

Four pamphlets:

  1. Sins of the Tongue (the Urdu version is called Zaban ka Gunah)
    Not what you think. It’s all about Islamic punishments for gossiping and backbiting.
  2. Music: Quran aur Sunnat Mein [Music According to the Quran and Sunnat]
    More haraam than you ever thought. It leads to road accidents and zina.
  3. Quaid-e-Azam Speaks
    … And it seems he couldn’t utter a sentence without quoting from the Quran or invoking Islam.
  4. How Good is Your Child’s School?
    They perform Shakespeare’s plays? They celebrate Halloween? They have sleepovers at their friends’ house? You need to find a more Islamic school.

We were also given a newsletter by the Pakistan Librarians’ Association. Their favourite word seems to be ‘decline.’

One Thing We Thought Was For Free But Wasn’t

A DVD on goras converting to Islam.

We assumed it was for free because we were promised that everything on this particular stall was for free. But then we were told that this DVD was an exception. 80 rupees.

Things We Admired But Found To Be Way Out Of Our Budget

Kaaba Fun Game
Masjid Fun Game
Salat Fun Game

Things We Could Have Got For Free But Didn’t

Complete Quran audio download to our mobile phone. Takes only five minutes to download, we were assured.

Books We Wanted To Buy But Then Looked At The Last Chapter

Two new biographies of Mohammad Bin Qasim, both with happy endings. Dude marries Raja Dahar’s daughter and lives happily ever after. And we thought he was called back, tortured and executed by being sewn alive into a hide and drowned by the then khalifa.

Books We Didn’t Even Know Existed

Collected works of Dale Carnegie (of How to Make Friends and Influence People fame) in Urdu. This was definitely the heftiest volume we have ever seen in the Urdu language.

A new translation of The Brothers Karamazov by a gentleman called Shahid Siddiqi.

One Thing We Did Buy

A funky looking mug which reads ‘Smile, it’s Sunnah.’

Editors Note: Daroon-e-Khanna blogs at Cafe Pyala, where this post first appeared.

41 responses to “What Is Pakistan Reading: An Alternative Tour of the Karachi International Book Fair”

  1. Some comments from the ATP Facebook Page:

    – “At times it is surprising what kind of books are available in PK- just came across Muhammad Asad’s (=Leopold Weiss) book on islamic consitution making (we heard abt this book in the documentry film)! He is so freshly blunt to the core and speaks up against all this dusted and blinded following of some ‘ulema. He provokes to think- irrespective if you are secular or inquisitive to learn abt Islam. It is refreshing and delightful to read him!”
    – “Good post. Very funny. Glad that people read. Sad at what they seem to be reading.”
    – “lol…I don’t think you’ll be finding a copy of “Lolita” there any time soon…but I am kinda sad i wasn’t in Karachi for this. sounds like there might’ve been something worth finding.”
    – “A funky looking mug which reads ‘Smile, it’s Sunnah.’”

  2. Adnan says:

    Aslam Bhaaai..

    I often get “FREE” CDs of Linux Distro and trust me it’s not “Junk” at all. :-)

  3. YASIN says:

    Would love to get my hands on the Farman-e-Maulana Jinnah. Interesting that all who are angry have nothing to say about the lies in that or the lies about Mohammad Bin Qasim that were being distributed. I guess if it is a lie in the cause of religion it must not be a lie at all!

  4. Adnan says:

    Mustafa Kamaal, though I was not interested to feed your lame rant but your comment about Adam really would have brought smiles on faces of many.

    My friend, don’t go to Adam, I think you better need to find out the history of “1st MAN” in your ancestors first. Once you find out then we will discuss whether Adam(AS) was the real man or not.

    BTW, How do I believe you exist as well? Because as they say,”On Internet, no body knows you are a dog” :-)

    p.s: BTW Adam is not a Muslim figure only. Jews and Christians also believe in both Adam and Gabriel so ironically you are taking Panga with 3 nations ;)

    Naan Haleem: Adil might be repenting for publishing the article? He was just interested to publish leftists alternative point of view. *grin*

  5. Aslam Arain says:

    @Naan Haleem. Please hold your jamaati indignation to yourself. The junk that was being distributed and is talked about was exactly that – JUNK. This was no Islamic “literature” it was propaganda in Maudodiat, that great enemy of Pakistan and Jinnah. You get what you pay for, which is why this junk was being dumped for free. I wonder which enemies of Pakistan have been paying for its printing and distribution.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*