A little more than four hundred years after telescope was invented, a bespectacled, slim and vastly cantankerous mullah in Pakistan is seen on the television screen across the country peeping through the device to announce the sighting, or otherwise of the moon. He is the chief mullah of the country assigned with the task of announcing the commencement of the lunar months and accordingly is surrounded by a coterie of government officials.

As it happens, more than often it is the non sighting that the mullah and his associates concur on meaning thereby the delay of the much awaited Eid celebrations by another day and thus leading to wide dissent and acrimony in the country.

The chief mullah claims to be relying heavily on the forecast of the experts of the meteorological department; the same agency that could not forecast the Great Flood of 2010, and predicted another one to hit the country in the peak summers in 2012 that never occurred. While thus trusting the met office, the mullah would, however, stubbornly cling on to his position with all its attached pomp and show, not ceding it to science and reason.

At another place in the same country at the same time, a mullah with marked central Asian features, and appearing to be less severe and more jovial, is sitting on the floor of his popular mosque. He lacks official patronage, but is surrounded by a much bigger crowd. He is receiving evidences from common people who in the footsteps of their forefathers have been steadfastly following the moon for eons. At the end of the brief session, the round-faced mullah with a goatee beard cheerfully announces the sighting of the moon sending a wave of jubilation in the milling crowds assembled outside the mosque.

Religiosity and adherence to the performance of rituals is on the increase among Muslims. The advancement in the field of technology has contributed in no less measure to the spread and performance of rituals. The popularity of dedicated religious television channels and the appearance of fashionable televangelists on the scene are some of the modern trends in evidence these days. Religion, man’s private liaison with God, is now official with a fully fledged religious ministry and the concomitant pretensions, noise, controversies and scandals. However, luckily, in howsoever small measure, the scene where a small time mullah is seen deciding on the celebration of a religious festival in his private capacity demonstrates that some people still believe in the strict privacy of their relationship with God. The non official mullah then quietly disappears to be seen only the following year. The mullah on the official payroll keeps haggling all year round on at least one dozen television channels on the most trivial issues where he argues his fiat must prevail. The beauty of Religious practices lie in their being tranquil, which stem from their being modest and personal, and not from their being exaggerated and ostentatious. Whenever and wherever religious strife rears its head one is unfailingly reminded of an inspiring scene witnessed in the tribal land of Darra Adam Khel, which these days is one of the battlegrounds chosen by the zealots in their campaign to silence the voice of reason. It was in June in 2006. One unexpectedly pleasant evening one had wandered into the farther climes of Darra that in its still farther extremities connects the valley with the highlands of Tirah. As one was beholding the beautiful scenery interspersed with grey hillocks and olive groves, a man dressed in poor clothing came in view. He was busy offering his early evening prayers on a one odd flat piece of rock in the most serene setting. His small holdings, a pair of shirt trousers rolled into a bundle lay by his side which at the end of his prayer he picked up and climbed on his broken down bicycle on way to his home. It was indeed a very touching scene and one that would motivate one towards Godliness. Earlier one had been part of and privy to similar rendezvous with holiness in the once most peaceful and exceptionally lush green valley of Tirah. Before it was invaded by militants of all hues fleeing their dreaded quarters elsewhere, Tirah was home to Sunni and Shia Muslims and Pashtun Sikhs who lived in an environment of exemplary amity. There was grinding poverty in the area, but one hardly heard a complaint, perhaps it was all due to the influence of the salubrious climate. Each household had a small mosque attached to the main guesthouse reserved for males. All such structures were invariably made of mud; the floors were covered with dry grass and candles were used for lightings. One would never be able to forget the heavenly experience of a prayer or two offered in those mosques in the company of people of meager possessions in absolute quietude and the all pervasive scent of dry grass. Before we all woke up to the presence of a religious war in our backyard, such modest places of worship provided a much needed break from the humdrum of life. At the turn of the millennium, one had seen numerous such structures on the road to Miranshah in the North Waziristan Agency which would induce one to stopping over for a few moments of reflection. Back then one couldn’t picture that one day this idyllic stretch of land would be talked of with such dreadful forebodings for the world in general and this region in particular. Far from the maddening crowds, the mountainous and hilly areas of Pakistan still have some peaceful places for offering prayers. But the number of such places is declining and intolerance is quite brusquely, as if by force, creeping in everywhere. The modest structures of worship of the old days have undergone generous embellishment on a vast scale. Emerging businessmen, expert in hoarding and tax evasion, have taken over the reins of several mosques in their own hands where the prayer leader is not allowed to lead the prayers without a nod from their main financiers. In the not quite distant past there were not many mosques in the hill station at Abbottabad. Most of the places of worship had been set up under the cool shades of the chinar trees on cemented blocks where the faithful would offer prayers at any hour of the day. In the period following the eighties the construction of mosques began apace with the result that tens of all narrow streets in the small town now have more than one mosque, one each for those belonging to a different sect. The Friday sermons in all these mosques provide one weekly opportunity to the mullahs to indulge in a shouting match in a manner that has an uncanny likeness with the commentary of a rowdy football match between two South American countries. This last Friday of the month of Ramazan was yet another occasion for testing of the vocal chords. In one mosque a mullah broke into such uncontrollable fits of crying and sobbing that at the end of his sermon his otherwise strong and sharp voice was reduced to mere whispering. The gentleman offered prayers for the Muslims, dead and alive, of his own way of thinking in all corners of the world and invoked God’s wrath on the rest of His mankind. He also forgot to mention those who had passed by his mosque a few hours earlier on their way to their homes in the northern areas of Pakistan and who could not complete their journey as the assassin’s bullet awaited them at the picturesque Lalu Sir Top. Those tranquil places of worship under the chinar trees were so blissful, one now recalls amid this ceaseless noise, commotion and ill feelings of God’s own people for each other.