‘Firdaus,’ by K. M. Anees ul Haq is a visionary appraisal of the social context of Islam since Independence. Its use of techniques of magic realism incisively critiques the psycho-social perspective of Islam and its post Independence evolution in India. It is a sharply succinct account of the birth of fundamental Islam in India.
The story of Firdaus is poignant and heart-warming. Firdaus is an authentic and honest, not-so-ordinary girl from an affluent family who has to cope with the vicissitudes and peccadilloes of her own malignantly hypocritical and bigoted society.
Her innocent, youthful curiosity about her own sensuality leads her into an affair with her father’s driver resulting in pregnancy and a harrowing abortion. This is the beginning of a period of trials, turmoil and socio-psychological turbulence, which takes her through a marriage to a diehard bigot, which she terminates with a formal divorce.
The organisation she establishes, called the ‘Anjuman’, is for the upliftment of the ignorant and oppressed within Muslim society – principally, women. In this also she faces, endures and overcomes the harshest and most relentless opposition from her own clergy and malevolent self-proclaimed stalwarts of Islam.
The lover of her college days, now an aspiring entrepreneur, also eventually spurns her for her inability to conceive as a consequence of her medically terminated pregnancy.
She loses her beloved father to the malevolent machinations of the clergy and self opinionated leaders of reactionary Islamic organisations.
She receives tangible guidance and substantial material assistance from a family of Sikhs. This epitomizes the ways in which people of the different faiths have been able on innumerable occasions to rise above their phobias and irrational suspicions to cultivate relationships of amity, trust, harmony and mutual respect.
‘Firdaus,’ is a work of love and hope. It is gently and unfailingly descriptive; and is never accusatory or condemning. It is an extensively researched appraisal of the deterrents to and within Islam.
It is contiguously the tender account of the truly magnificent emancipation of a very human woman person.