Eid and the Year of the Elephant

It was perhaps remiss of me not to wish my readers a happy Eid last week, so I’m wishing them a guzishta Eid Mubarak now. Eid in the immediate future holds endless possibilities, but now it has happened. Two years ago the Mauliv Sahib had flubbed the Eid prayer badly, getting the number of Takbirs wrong, he then wrapped up the prayer and we had to do it over. Well, I’d spent my entire life doing Eid prayers without that particular worry, but now, every Eid (and there are two a year), I worry about the Maulvi Sahib flubbing it.

This Eid, apart from the very happy circumstance of the Maulvi Sahib doing his job properly, leading the prayer without any error, it was rainy, which added another cause of worry. Being caught in a cloudburst during the Eid prayer would be a painful thing, especially if you’re one of the sleepyheads who got to the mosque too late to get a place inside, and who have to take their chances outside. As it is, remember that there is a certain distance to walk from the mosque to where you have parked your vehicle. You don’t want to get caught by a sudden shower during that walk. Well, I’m happy to report that though the rain had fallen in the morning, it held off long enough to get home dry.

I would have suspected that the Israelis have some sort of hang-up about the name Ali, after they killed first Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and then National Security Adviser Ali Larijani. But they also killed Basij chief Gholamreza Soleimani. Ghollam Reza was named presumably after Imam Ali Reza, the eighth imam, and the one designated by the Abbasid caliph Mamun as his heir. (Imam Ali Reza died soon afterwards, predeceasing Mamun. He is said to have been poisoned by the other Abbasids.) He is still famous for his piety and scholarship.

The assassination of intelligence chief Ismail Khatib cannot be related to any dislike of the name Ali. Nor can it shown to have anything to do with the new particle discovered by the Large Hadron Collider. I’m not sure what happened there, but it’s apparently something big. Big enough to have another Collider being built at great expense. They’d better hurry up about that though, because global warming is causing the earth to slow down. Not much, admittedly, about 1.33 milliseconds a century, but enough to throw sensitive space instruments just that tiny bit out of kilter. It seems that what’s happening is that the glacier melt and the melting of polar caps is putting more water into the oceans, which is slowing the rotation of the planet. Mass is the same, but its redistributed across the planet.

Meanwhile, Iran has said it will allow tankers to Pakistan through the Strait of Hormuz. Why I reminded of the incident of Abdul Muttalib, the grandfather of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), who was found by Arabraha’s soldiers in their camp. His explanation: he was searching for his camels. When he was asked why he was anxious about his camels when Mecca was being besieged, he said that they were besieging the House of Allah, and Allah would take care of His House, but the camels were his, and he had to take care of them.

That invasion and siege is the reference to Surah Fil, the Elephant. Abraha’s invading army was not destroyed by the Meccans, but by the Ababeel’s stones. Was it smallpox? Or stones held in the claws of birds? Whatever the case, that year was memorable for two things: the war–elephant Abraha had brought, and the birth of a grandson, the Holy Prophet (PBUH) to Abdul Muttalib.

I wonder if the Iranians are studying that Surah?