Kabir Helminski

Asad Ali

Civilization of Paradise is both a collection of Qur’an inspired poetry and a fascinating record of intimate dialogs with a Sufi master in Damascus. Poetry, in the case of Asad Ali, is a way of life and prayer. In the state of consciousness from which he speaks, we become the companions of great beings: the Timeless Desert, the Infinitely Compassionate, the Supplicating Earth, the Universal Human. Each of these poems is related to a Surah of the Qur’an, as noted below the title of each poem.

Revelation Poems

Civilization of Paradise

Kamran Asdar Ali

After seventy-five years of independence, the history of Pakistan remains centered on the state, its ideology and the two-nation theory. Towards Peoples' Histories in Pakistan seeks to shift that focus away from histories of an imagined nation, to the history of its peoples. Based on the premise that the historiographical tradition in Pakistan has ignored the existence of people who actually make history, this book brings together historians, anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists to shed light on the diverse histories of the people themselves. Assembling histories of events and peoples missing from grand narratives of national history, the essays in this collection incorporate a diversity of approaches to the past as it opens the possibilities of multiple histories, the archives through which they are registered, and the various temporalities in which they persist. The volume highlights and recuperates the entangled nature of history and memory within Pakistan's social and cultural life. By critically examining both leftist and nationalist thought, Towards People's Histories in Pakistan explores competing visions of what is meant by 'the people', and charts new ground in developing the promise of people's histories both within Pakistan and beyond.

Asad Ali

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