02-16-2005, 05:41 PM
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ANALYSIS
Pakistan, By Definition
From its birth as 'an Islamic home' in South Asia to its present asymmetries, former foreign minister Jaswant Singh extends themes tossed up by a new book on Pakistan
JASWANT SINGH
THE IDEA OF PAKISTAN
by Stephen Philip Cohen
Oxford University Press
Rs: 495; Pages: 382
Stephen Philip Cohen, in The Idea of Pakistan, cites Al-Biruni as a source of ideas for Jinnah and Field Marshal Ayub Khan. This intrigued me. What did this illustrious contemporary of the great Ibu-i-Sina (Avicenna) write such as to influence two very different personages? Al-Biruni's India is admittedly one of the most penetrative accounts of Indian society, but a society of the 11th century, not the 20th.
ANALYSIS
Pakistan, By Definition
From its birth as 'an Islamic home' in South Asia to its present asymmetries, former foreign minister Jaswant Singh extends themes tossed up by a new book on Pakistan
JASWANT SINGH
THE IDEA OF PAKISTAN
by Stephen Philip Cohen
Oxford University Press
Rs: 495; Pages: 382
Stephen Philip Cohen, in The Idea of Pakistan, cites Al-Biruni as a source of ideas for Jinnah and Field Marshal Ayub Khan. This intrigued me. What did this illustrious contemporary of the great Ibu-i-Sina (Avicenna) write such as to influence two very different personages? Al-Biruni's India is admittedly one of the most penetrative accounts of Indian society, but a society of the 11th century, not the 20th.