Khuda ke Liye

Khuda Kay Liye was released on 20^th July 2007 all over Pakistan and is written, directed and produced by Shoaib Mansoor with an impressive cast which included a prominent actor from India, Naseerudin Shah. The film touches upon the religious and political scenarios of our country which caused many Mullahs to call for a ban of this film in Pakistan. However, the film held its ground and became a block buster hit grossing over $10 million worldwide. The film talks about two situations of our country that many of us are either facing or have faced in our lives. One tells us about how we Pakistani Muslims are targeted by the US as terrorists where as the other part discusses that their targeting is justified because of a few Muslim fanatics. Shocking as my last statement sounds but true nonetheless because instead of blaming the foreign bodies for calling us terrorists I would rather peep into my own collar! Just as the film convinced me to by showing exactly what some Muslim extremists are doing to their ‘brothers’ by teaching them that Islam permits to kill in the name of Jihad. After seeing this why would not people call us terrorists? Why will not they blame us? It is because of some of our own Muslim fellow beings that we have earned this title.

The film is of two brothers who live a pleasant life with their parents in Pakistan. Both brothers have the gift of music and with determination find themselves emerging as successful singers. However fate has something else planned for them and one of the brothers, played by Shaan is taken into custody by the FBI when he goes to America to study music. The reason for his imprisonment happens to be the 9/11 incident which left many Americans feeling hatred for Muslims especially Pakistani ones. The exact situation is shown in the film when Shaan’s neighbor in America gets drunk and accuses him of being a terrorist because he is a Pakistani. The police then take hold of Shaan and no matter whatever they find in his possessions they take it to be negative and further torment him without hearing what he has to say. He pleads his innocence but they refuse to listen and torture him in his cell with ways beyond humanity. Is this our identity? Our religion that has turned against us and has made people other than us look at us with hatred? When we show our green passports the lines we are asked to make and rooms we are sent in for further questioning at airports, are those because this is the identity we have made for ourselves?

The answer to this works parallel in the film where the other brother, played by Fawad Khan, comes in contact with a Muslim extremist Mullah and leaves his love for singing and follows the ‘right’ way of Islam. The Mullah misinterprets the teaching s of Islam and further preaches them to Fawad and many others like him who then feel that most unfair things are justified in the name of Islam. Fawad marries a woman without her wish and consummates the marriage forcefully keeping her entrapped in a small village which cuts her off from the entire world. The woman, played by Iman Ali, is a Pakistani Muslim girl living in Britain with her father and his girl friend. The father suffers from his guilt of living with a woman he hasn’t married and decides not to defy his religion further by lying to his daughter and forcefully marrying his daughter to her cousin who is Fawad Khan. This is another aspect of our society and we as a nation. Where the guilt of our sub consciousness is burned onto others while we free ourselves of it asking apologies from God while others suffer. Also the freedom of right to speak , to chose one’s own spouse and more are faraway thoughts and anyone who wishes to achieve such freedom is shunned from the society, according to Muslim extremists. Whereas Islam and our holy book says nothing of this kind. The use of arms and other weapons is alright for a common man and for him to use on anyone because they have the right to kill is what the film shows Fawad and his other Mullah driven friends doing. Fawad turns in to a monster with his wife with no feelings of humanity left in him. Is this what Islam teaches us? No. but it is certainly what Muslim extremists have taught and are still teaching their followers brain washing and programming them against other human beings going against the subject of humanity which their religion teaches them.

The film also highlights the fact that we as a nation are not exactly one but are divided where we fight our own people. When Iman ali, the daughter, is captured by Fawad and kept trapped in a village the British government comes to help her with her foreign mother where her own people abandoned her. Her rights were spelled out by Muslim scholar, played by Naseerudin Shah, where as the Mullah sahib thought those rights to be horrifying, rejecting them outright. And then we call ourselves a nation?