A few days ago there was the desecration of the Holy Qur’an in Florida, US by pastor Terry Jones. I saw this news item on a Pakistani TV channel. I did not see any report in Arab News (I read daily) nor on any Arabic TV channel. On the contrary, there were protests and demonstrations in Pakistan. There were condemnations from all sections of society, followed by rallies and strikes in all major cities of the country disrupting the daily rhythm of life. President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the incident during his address to the Parliament and asked United Nations to take action against such practices.

For me it was a very strange experience to find no reaction to this incident in any Arab country or rest of the Muslim world. Are Pakistanis the only spokespersons for the rest of Muslim Ummah or are we an overemotional people? Now I feel that we have become oversensitive to anything connected with Islam because of the exploitation of religion for political purposes by some parties in our country. A one-day closure of shops in Karachi alone means loss of millions of dollars. In my opinion our leaders should follow Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries and seek guidance from them in such matters rather than destroy our country.

I know that we Muslims should condemn any show of disrespect to the Holy Qur’an or the Prophet (peace be upon him) but destruction of public property or disruption of normal life is not the best way to show our love for our religion.