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The book, Quran and Modernity by a former Indian ambassador to several countries is spread over 16 chapters. Every chapter deals with one of the most debated subjects. Ishrat Aziz is an erudite diplomat, who has collected information from a variety of sources and experienced how things related to Islam are dealt with in the Muslim world in the name of Islam. Among the countries he has served are the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Algeria, etc. “I have been collecting information about Islam from several sources including my own country, India. After observing Islam in these countries I have tried to present what I understood from it,” says he. In his new avatar as a scholar of Islam, he has raised some pointed and pertinent questions. These may be the same questions with which several scholars in different parts of the world are grappling with. Declares, he: “There is no one unanimously agreed Sharia, universally practiced by all Muslims. Why not since all Sharia is derived from one book, the Koran? Why there is this diversity in understanding the same text of the scripture?” He goes on to lob a volley of questions on unanimity or absence of those questions leaving his reader confounded to the core until he reaches the last chapters of the book. Fifty-seven countries are members of the Organisation of the Islamic Countries or simply OIC. There are also several other countries like India and the Russian Federation where millions of followers of the faith reside. The number of Muslims in the world could be around 2 billion. The Muslim countries are often found fighting with each other. Muslim societies like others are riven with internal divisions and conflicts and in many cases battle with each other. These wars are based on sectarianism, ethnicity, historical animosities, economic disparities, and narrow self-interests. He asked some of the most uncomfortable questions and went about giving their answers. An impossible task, I would say. He explains Sharia as the interpretation of the Koran, with the help of Sunnah and Ahadith (sayings of the Prophet), by the four Imams but declares it is not divine. There is no unanimity on Sharia, he adds. He believes devotional religion is entirely between man and God. Society does not have the right to intervene in this man-God relationship. Attempts by society to involve itself in a man’s devotional dimension will damage the sacred relationship between man and God. Society should keep away from it because it cannot know or decide the truth about a person’s faith or spirituality or lack of them. Aziz adds that behavioral religion covers man’s relationship with society, other men and women, government, laws, human rights, economy, science, technology, and the people of other faiths. Therefore, these are the areas that have to be looked at differently as Muslims grapple with the changing times. He has successfully tried to make this book relevant to Islam and Modernity and Muslims and Modernity. He explains rightly that the Quran (or Koran as the author spells it) is the divinely revealed Scripture; Islam is the theology written by human beings trying to interpret the Quran; Muslims are the people who practice the faith as they understand it. I, a student of Islam and current affairs, found the book astounding. I would like to read it again and again to understand the complex question of how Muslims have tried to understand and practice the Quran over the ages and now. Mir Ayoob Ali Khan, a seasoned journalist, is currently the Consultant Editor of Siasat.comph-lucky-wins.club says 。

AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. ESTThe end of an Eras tour approaches, marking a bittersweet moment for Taylor Swift fansA survey shows Bluesky users are more Democratic and politically engaged than Threads users. Threads has 300 million monthly users, surpassing Bluesky's 24 million. Bluesky allows users to add their own moderation policies. A new survey revealed stark political and behavioral differences between users of rival social media platforms Bluesky and Meta-owned Threads . Advertisement Bluesky's user base skews heavily Democratic, with nearly half of its users identifying with the party, according to findings published earlier this month by CivicScience, a research and survey company. In contrast, only 34% of Threads users identified as either Democrat or Independent. The study also found that Bluesky users are more politically engaged overall. And nearly three-quarters of them said that they experienced higher levels of stress postelection. In contrast, 33% of people who used Threads daily said that their stress levels decreased after Donald Trump's victory on November 5. Advertisement "With the surge of Bluesky coming so directly in the wake of the presidential election, it's not surprising that the user base is disproportionately more left-leaning than the user base of Threads," John Dick, CivicScience CEO and founder, told Business Insider. The survey included 12,188 Threads users and 5,431 Bluesky users. This roughly mirrors the ratio of both platforms' user bases in the adult US population, as 18% of respondents reported using Threads daily, compared to 8% for Bluesky , CivicScience data found. Both social networks experienced significant user growth following the US election, particularly as billionaire Elon Musk, the owner of X, threw his weight behind Trump and actively promoted misinformation that reportedly garnered over 2 billion views. Advertisement Still, Threads seems to be eating Bluesky's lunch. Earlier this month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the platform had more than 300 million monthly active users, compared to Bluesky's 24 million users at the beginning of this month. Bluesky began life inside Twitter in 2019 as a project started under the company's former CEO, Jack Dorsey . Its goal was to give users more control over moderation. Bluesky has been an independent company since 2021 and is a decentralized social network. Bluesky is powered by the "AT Protocol" (Authenticated Transfer Protocol), which means that while Bluesky operates the main server, anyone can create and run their own server that can work with Bluesky . This allows users to choose different providers while maintaining a unified social network experience. Crucially, this also means that users can add their own moderation policies on top of Bluesky's built-in moderation systems . Advertisement "The decentralized moderation policies of Bluesky, which allow for more proliferation of political content on the platform, could be exacerbating this phenomenon," said Dick of Bluesky's left-leaning user base, "as Democrats and liberals create a sort of tribal safe space for their views and conversations." Beyond politics, the survey revealed an optimism gap between the two platforms regarding AI. Bluesky users appear to be significantly more bullish on the technology, with 62% believing that AI will have at least a somewhat positive impact on the quality of their lives over the next decade, compared to 51% of Threads users. Overall, More Bluesky users are likely to use platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and X every day compared to Threads users who gravitate toward Facebook and Instagram, which are both owned by Meta.

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DR. WALLACE: I live with my father and my two younger brothers. I’m a girl who is 17, and my brothers are 13 and 11. Our mother unfortunately got involved in some pretty bad things, including drugs, and she ended up participating in a robbery that put her in prison for over 10 years. This now means that I do the cooking and most of the cleaning at our house. I also wash all of the clothes, but I will give my little brothers credit that they do help me from time to time and they also help my father in the backyard and in our garden. My dad gives me a decent allowance for all the work I do, but I sure would like to save time. He insists on driving me to the market every week to buy groceries even though I’ve told him many times we can get the same or maybe even better prices with online deliveries directly to our door. How can I get my father to consider saving us time, fuel and money by having groceries and other small items delivered to our home? After all, we will soon be living in the year 2025, not 1925! Between my homework, my limited social life and my responsibilities at home, I’d like to save time wherever I can. — A Very Busy Teenager, via email A VERY BUSY TEENAGER: I commend you for doing so much to help your family, and I do agree with the logic you have presented regarding home delivery of recurring items, especially groceries. Speak to as many of your relatives or family friends as you can and try to find at least one or two of them who do receive products delivered to their homes. At this point, you could have them speak to your father about the convenience, the cost savings and so forth. On your end, you could create a spreadsheet to show your father what typical items would cost delivered versus what you’re paying for them “all-in” considering your fuel and time to retrieve them from the local stores. Many large companies such as Amazon, Walmart and Costco have same-day delivery of groceries these days, especially if you live in or near a large metropolitan area. I’M ONLY REQUESTING ONE CUP IN THE MORNING DR. WALLACE: I turn 17 in three weeks, and I’d really like to have a cup of coffee in the morning before I go to school. My parents are telling me to wait until I’m 18 to have coffee! I think this is ridiculous, since there’s no classmate of mine who’s not allowed to have coffee or tea whenever they would like it. Do you think it’s a problem for a soon-to-be 17-year-old to have a cup of coffee here and there? All I’m asking for is a cup in the morning; I’m not planning to drink it all day. It’s pretty cold, and it would warm me up as well. — I’d Like One Cup of Coffee a Day, via email I’D LIKE ONE CUP OF COFFEE PER DAY: I personally don’t see a problem with a single cup of coffee in the morning, even for a teenager who is 16 and not quite yet 17. Many cultures drink hot tea regularly at all ages, which also contains caffeine, albeit in smaller increments. Recent studies indicate that up to 73% of Americans drink at least one cup of coffee per day, so a slight caffeine boost in the morning is something nearly three-quarters of our nation participates in. You could also mention to your parents that you’re planning to stay away from highly caffeinated energy drinks, which likely would be worse for your overall health than a single cup of coffee in the morning.

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Sarnath Banerjee’s cult graphic novel, Corridor , is a full-bodied, rambunctious plunge into the rhythms of Delhi. The narrative freely tapers off in a gamut of directions. There’s just the slimmest of a guiding plot. The two primary male characters-Bhrigu and Shintu-are seekers. The former is on a constant search for rare collectibles-obscure LPs, old pens and books. He is a perpetual wanderer, hoping to complete a never-ending assortment of items. He looks for a copy of Double Helix and stumbles across a second-hand bookshop. It is situated in the outer rings of Connaught Place in central New Delhi. Jehangir Rangoonwala, the owner, calls it the “centre of the universe”. Rangoonwala has had forty odd jobs previously. He’s finally settled in the bookshop as an eager observer, an even more enthusiastic dispenser of his accumulated wisdom. He’s like a magnet, attracting all the bevvy of ancillary characters. The novel makes us privy to whispered secrets and rambling anecdotes of all passing by. There’s the constant impression of disparate lives being loosely threaded together, the city barely holding the friction of mixed outsiders. Bhrigu soaks in the insights of those he meets at the shop and culls together an elaborate sketch of wacky encounters at the very end of the novel. He drifts like a detached spectator. He views his wanderings as a healthy break from a curdled relationship with his girlfriend, Kali. He’s a commitment-phobe but he also can’t shake off the thought of Kali. To him, Delhi is a strange and unfamiliar entity. He feels cast off, doubly lost in existential panic. Calcutta, where his roots are, gives him an emotional anchor, a sense of security. Hustlers, street hustlers of all stripes populate the novel. Banerjee may invoke Baudrillard but more emphatically celebrates the lowbrow, the tacky and profane. Neither quest of the two men holds any shade of glory, even if they open with that impulse. More often than not, these become journeys fraught with frustrations and unrequited desires. The newly married Shintu Sarkar yearns for a cure that will magically fix his impotence. There are all these narratives he has internalised from magazines like Cosmpolitan about the perfect consummation. But how to also reckon with the bug of Indian conditioning? Shintu is confused, vulnerable and cripplingly awkward. It’s representative of anyone caught at a crossroads between acknowledging a burgeoning sexuality and an ethos of respectability. He makes clandestine visits to quack sexologists in the seedy alleys of Old Delhi. What follows him even there is judgement. Or is he merely projecting scrutiny? Shintu can muster no vocabulary for his sexual desires. To do so is almost made to feel like a betrayal of values. The hakim he consults underlines this, correlating morality with virility. As he rails, “impotency can be prevented by self-restraint”, strips from old Amar Chitra Katha comics on the “ideal boy” perforate the pages. Snippets from moral science textbooks and chart papers for school boys also flood these sections. Of course, Shintu ends up being duped and realises “sex is in the mind”. Throughout, Banerjee foregrounds the necessary, individual coming to terms with this tussle. Torn between tradition and modernity, characters navigate and forge their own meaning of pleasure, freedom and belonging. Shintu has to battle shame, Bhrigu an urge for Western-import materialism. The other characters in the novel are also locked in their own peculiar pursuits. Prof DVD Murthy, a forensic expert, hunts for a perfume that expunges “the smell of death”, Angrez Bosch in search of karma. Bosch knows it all: energy pyramids, “mastering the kundalini”, vipassana. Ultimately, he gathers his karma being vested not in some spiritual conquest but web designing. Inspired by Sooni Taraporevala’s photography which Banerjee himself acknowledges, Corridor is a quintessential city-novel, one that embraces Delhi in all its heat and contradictions. We get a semblance of a city-tour but Banerjee never buttresses contextual specifics. The novel is laced with an assumed familiarity with Delhi. In an interview with Guernica magazine, Banerjee adds, “my books serve as an archives of emotions and feelings, like a tonal history that captures how I felt at a certain time of my life...it’s not very informational”. Corridor is a chaotic, uncontrolled city symphony-a bustle of social relationships spilling over in a city space. To articulate the city chorus with precision, Banerjee glories in postmodern fragmentation, a heavily accentuated sense of interruption. Bursting through the seams of the novel is a rich panoply of eccentrics. These lives intersect but friendship-kind and genuinely connected-is rare. Corridor is jam packed with a barrage on the senses. There are cutouts from magazines, newspapers, posters, eclectic collages thrust into a disorienting mix. Banerjee doesn’t like neatly structured panels. Hence, the illustrations almost billow out of panels and dislodge textual scaffolding. Most are in black and white but occasionally color pops out. The novel is a massive intertextual swirl, punching together real-life events, historical markers, the fictionally mounted. Posters of Indian actors like Nargis sit cheek-by-jowl in the text with leftist and foreign communist leaders, from Jyoti Basu to Mao, that one of the characters, Digital Dutta, idolises. Corridor zigzags among a tapestry of characters, shifting through nooks and crannies of both Old and New Delhi. Banerjee is a skilful weaver of vignettes. The novel immediately distinguishes its fragmented nature with kitschy interruptions galore. No cue breaks up the sections, its setting-jumps whimsical and erratic. There’s no aesthetic uniformity. At one point we find ourselves hard-pressed in a South Delhi party, packed with intellectuals and artists. In these, there’s a whole lot of posturing, insincerity and superficiality. There’s no lingering, just a string of snapshots inserting us into various moods of the day at far-stretched corners. The dawn-quiet of Jama Masjid, before the prayer calls begin and the city erupts, feels as vivid as the by-lanes of Old Delhi that Shintu strays through. Corridor was published in the heyday of liberalisation. The markets had just opened up. Appetites for a Western style of living shot up. The novel bottles this frenzied rush, a consumerist surge. What does this plethora of choices connote? The space for private recreation is an endless negotiation; rather, the boundaries between the public and private increasingly dissipate even as the neoliberal constructs draw up more divisions. “Delhi is the city of couples”, and Bhrigu “prefers being single”. In Delhi or any city, intimacy and pleasure find no shelter at home. Parks become a refuge. Rangoonwala’s bookshop is another space where the public and private blend. In spite of the congestion, characters feel comfortable enough to exchange the most intimate secrets. It’s an open space, with the warm intimacy of a home. In Corridor , Banerjee is disruptive and playful in his canvas on urban alienation, but you’ll find glimpses of wry affection throughout.