Articles by Dr. Parvez

Contentment & Satisfaction A  couple of months back I was consumed with the disease of envy. I used to be jealous of my own friends, their pay packages, their standards of living, their cars, their families... just about everything. What made this problem worse was the absurdness of this jealousy. You see, the things that I was envious of were not the things that I actually required. Instead, those things, if granted to me would complicate my life. For instance, I used to be jealous of my friends having a car. But I don’t require a car for my commute. It would simply stagnate in the parking lot and add to my woes. I was jealous of my friends having two and three children while I had only one. But given my resources, I can focus on the proper upbringing of only one child. In short, whatever I had been given was tailor-made for me. I then made a summary of all the favours I have been granted by God and the list put me to shame. I had no reason- actually no ri

Invest Wisely A friend of mine was telling me about the benefits of SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) in which we can invest as little as Rs. 500-1000 every month (which is not a big sum) in Shariyah-compliant companies and get very good returns after a few years. I have been thinking about this since some days. The Qur'an also speaks of an investment plan. It calls it a goodly loan that Allah would return to us some years later when it reaches maturity on the Day of Judgment and it would be kept deposited with Him until then. He calls it sadqa/infaq/qarz hasanah. Now let us compare the two:     SIP: Returns are immediate, but limited. The maturity amount is not very high; actually nothing compared to the latter. Benefits are short lived. I can use the money only for a few years before I eventually die and become dust. No added benefits. Investment Company might not be secure. It may collapse under market pressure rendering my savings null and void.

The Day I Witnessed Hashr Our final year BDS exams were held in the summer of 2007. We had 72 exams that year, including internals and clinicals. Our exams were conducted by the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS), which means that the results of all the medical students across Maharashtra were declared together... except the results of our college. We had locked horns with our college management in the Bombay High Court, so our results were withheld by the University. The only option left with us was to personally visit the MUHS building and obtain them. The MUHS building is located outside the city limits of Nashik, bang in the middle of nowhere. Just off the state highway, with no field, market or village in the vicinity. We students went to Nashik, from where we hired private cars to the wilderness. It was Ramazan then. We were ushered into the huge central hall of the building and made to wait in the lobby for what seemed to be an eternity. Anxious. Perspiring. Ten

Objectification of Women- Concerns and Solutions She, in her early twenties, walks into the orthodontic clinic accompanied by her concerned father. He wants to get her teeth straightened so she could qualify for better matrimonial prospects. A struggling model wants to get her lips augmented by a cosmetic surgeon. A college student wants to get her hair done to look more attractive. The shopping mall down the road sees hundreds of ladies every week purchasing designer clothes, accessories, cosmetic products and perfumes. What is common in all these examples? The need to look good... for others... for strangers! O bjectifying a person is to see a person as an inanimate object instead of a human being who has a heart and a soul. What is an object? An object is essentially a thing that you use and later discard. There are no emotions attached to the object. You are not required to treat an object with honour, respect or dignity. You need not empathise with the object

Polygamy has always existed among practically all ancient cultures, and India is no exception. Indian mythology is replete with stories of polygamous kings, the most prominent of them being Dashrath and Krishna. Arab culture, too, was inherently polygamous. But Islam capped the number of wives a man could simultaneously have to four. The Qur’anic injunction concerning polygamy that we find in Surah anNisa does not introduce polygamy; rather, it restricts it and make it conditional. The man is obliged by law to treat all his wives equally. And if he cannot do so, he is required to marry only one woman. Since the other ladies whom he would marry would necessarily marry him with their own free consent, there is no reason why any third person should have any problem with it. Societies which do not permit polygamy by law inadvertently promote promiscuity and licentiousness. The man then has multiple partners and extra marital affairs and live in relationships, but he is not allowed t