My cousin was busy in cooking something special for us. Unlike an Afghan male, he likes to cook and is too good in it. Right from the morning, he was busy in either ordering things or going himself to buy them from the nearby shops. At about 11 AM, he called us to come to kitchen. When we went there, we saw that he had fried some beef pieces and kept them on a plate. But he was looking too much emotional and happy. We were all surprised as what might have happened. He showed us one of the beef pieces and stood on a side and started smiling. I looked at the beef and did not find anything unusual. Being uncertain as how to react, I looked at him. He was still smiling and asking us to look keenly at the piece of meat. My other friends also tried but they were also clueless. Then he came forward, took the piece of meat and showed us some lines. According to him, they formed the Arabic word ‘Allah.’ Then we had to look at the meat again. There were some lines which were definitely the veins or arteries running in the meat and if one looked with a certain aim, he could have found them to be forming the word ‘Allah’ in Arabic. I was not in mood to discourage him. I praised Allah for this and came out of the kitchen. My friends were busy for some more time watching and talking about the meat piece in the kitchen.

This was the first time when I witnessed this thing myself. Before this, I had seen numerous similar pictures on Facebook, shared with great enthusiasm and religious sentiments by some people. people had find the names of ‘Allah’, the Holy Prophet, Muhammad (PBUH), his four companions, the word ‘Islam’, ‘Quran’ and other things associated with religion on things like on tree trunks, in cloud formations, on the skin of an animal, on a potato or on an apple and numerous other things. Whenever such things were shared, ‘Allah-o-Akbar’ was written and people were asked to like or share them. Some people even went beyond this. They told that those who like it or share it will be rewarded, here and in the hereafter, and those who don’t do so or don’t believe in them, will soon be punished.

With all my respects to religion and the sacred things associated with it, there are always present some questions regarding these things. In majority of these cases, the level of genuineness is always a challenge. It is very difficult to make sure that the thing shown is not the artwork on computer or skills of hands of a talented artist. There are definitely present those young minds who become too much impressed with these things and soon look for something similar and when they cannot find one, they try to invent one. This work has become comparatively easy having a look at the extraordinary interest and talents of our youngsters with computers and other latest electronic devices.

Just like the story mentioned above in which we were not able to point out any specific word until shown to us, there are many instances when one can make different words or shapes out of a generally visible thing or view. It was also the case when two people saw the lines of a same object differently and they drew different conclusions. One found out that the lines formed the word ‘Allah’ while other found out that they formed another word.  In the same way, the shape of clouds can also be taken with similar thinking approaches. Many people think that clouds sometimes combine together to make a word like ‘Allah’ or ‘Muhammad’ but same design can be different for those who don’t know Arabic or who have not seen the shape of these words. In psychology, this technique of drawings and images is used to learn the thoughts of a person because same shape, drawing or image may be defined differently by different people.

A friend of mine gets really infuriated when he sees such things. In his words, ‘The West is busy in studying the clouds, animals, and other things to improve in the field of science while we are busy in finding the names of ‘Allah’ and then don’t do anything at all. Finding the name of Allah may be a blessing but it also demands further research and efforts from us’.

Many years before, a video became viral in which a mosque is shown to be flying in air. People near this are shouting ‘Allah-o-Akbar’ and the whole scene is very emotional. Later on, it was discovered that it was a computer work and there was no reality in it. At that time, such things used to be very rare but these days, we witness large number of similar pictures or videos on the internet. Last year as well, a video was shared in which intense firing is in progress in a street between rebels and government forces of Syria. In such intense fighting, a person in white clothes is shown who walks calmly across the street. Rebels shout ‘Allah-o-Akbar’ and they regard him as an angel, descended from heavens for the help of rebels. It is also an irony that these rebels later on proved to be the people of ill characters who killed thousands of civilians and left behind the stories of rape, murder and cruelty wherever they went. It is impossible that angels should come to help such people. We believe in the existence and help of angels but they always come to pious and just people and not for a group of sentimental bandits.

So in all these incidents, we saw that people are made much emotional about things related to the religion.

Now, let’s move to the second part of this story. A TV channel was showing some things like towels, slippers, heels of shoes, floor mates, and similar things used on floor on which designs were made that resembled the names of ‘Allah’ and ‘Muhammad’.  These designs were made such clearly that one could have easily noticed and read these sacred names. Unfortunately, these things were not made in Europe. They were manufactured in the garment industries of our neighboring Asian countries. This act can be called a blunt act of blasphemy and effort to hurt the feelings of a certain religious group. This can be called the ‘violent’ act in which ones religious relics have been insulted.

With this the story completed. First, make the people emotional or don’t let them think with sound rationality. When this target is achieved, do something to spark their emotions and then sit on a side and see the destruction. Same was the case with the short-duration movie about our Holy Prophet (PBUH) shown on Youtube that sparked anger across the Muslim world, resulting in the death of dozens of people and millions of dollars of assets were destroyed in the violent protests.

I am not saying there may be any kind of conspiracy behind these things but of course, these two things seem to be closely linked with each other. Solution; never limit the religion to some sentimental things and objects and try to understand its teachings. Otherwise, you would always be used as a puppet to destroy your own home. And it is a very old war trick, if you want to grow strong, make your enemy weak.