https://youtu.be/inzcl-wNIeo?si=pMi5t4oDdP5Y9Zvk When Arrogance Forged in Metal Fell Upon the Sand: The Silent Death of Tejas at the Dubai Air Show By Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada When Pride Turned to Metal and Fell Upon the Sand: The Silent Death of Tejas in Dubai By Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada In Dubai’s sky today, a moment seemed to freeze, as if the noisy world suddenly fell silent. On a sunlit runway, when the Indian fighter jet Tejas dipped toward the earth during its final arc, time itself appeared to pause, exhausted. Within seconds, flames leapt upward, smoke curled into the air, and years…
Author: Raja Zahid Khanzada
Camels, Jets, Oil and the Muslim World’s Lost “No” By Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada When the final light flickered across the minarets of the Ottoman Caliphate, British cartographers in distant European capitals bent over their drafting tables, slicing an empire into fragments. Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Palestine—each pulled apart like veins torn from a living body. Nationalist slogans, secret agreements and whispers of revolt formed a tightening fence around Istanbul’s heart, slowly draining the authority that had anchored a vast Muslim world. Stories about intrigue and violence inside the imperial harem made for popular folklore, but history tells a quieter truth.…
A Turning Page in Bangladesh and the Inevitable Reckoning of Power By Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada Time never rests on a single face. Power, no matter how tall its walls or how wide its corridors, never casts the same shadow forever. The bond between human beings and authority is like the soil that shifts the moment the first line of rain touches it. Yet the rulers of our region continue to forget that the earth may endure injustices for centuries but it never absolves them. Sooner or later, it settles every debt owed by the oppressed. The dramatic verdict announced…
The Twenty-Seventh Amendment: A Nation Between Light and Shadow By Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada I opened my eyes in a Pakistan held tight under General Zia ul Haq’s martial law. In those years a newspaper page almost never reached the reader intact; sentences vanished into the censor’s scissors. Teachers and students disappeared into jails. Peaceful rallies were treated as crimes. For my generation, democracy was not an abstract system from a civics book. It was the sting of a whip on someone’s back, the taste of tear gas and the knowledge that a wrong slogan could cost you your future.…
The 27th Amendment — The Other Side of the Picture and the Naked Truth of Power ! By Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada Politics in Pakistan has never followed a straight line. It has always resembled an old, winding footpath where every step uncovers a hidden cry, a forgotten lament, or a buried secret struggling to breathe. A few days ago, I wrote a column titled: “A Dream with Bhutto and Benazir: The Protest of Souls Against the Mutilation of the Constitution.” The column split the landscape in two. To critics of the government, it was a mirror of truth. To…
A Dream of Bhutto and Benazir — The Souls of Democracy Rise in Protest on a Broken Constitution By Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada In the stillness of night, a strange rift tore open, as if someone had split the curtain of time and placed me in a realm untouched by day or night. From afar, a dim light trembled closer, until suddenly, two familiar faces—long lost to history, emerged before me. One carried the same glint of confidence, the same ironclad smile—Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The other, wrapped in a white shawl, bore a radiant face, dignified and gentle, yet bruised…
https://youtu.be/SEORCDjDlV0?si=FGcR8FUu4i1zR__5 Imam Rahim Aga Khan Addresses More Than 30,000 in a Major Dallas Gathering By Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada Dallas Downtown Dallas glowed with an unusual sense of serenity on Sunday night as Imam Rahim Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Ismaili community, offered didar to more than 30,000 followers and addressed them in a half-hour speech that blended spiritual guidance with reflections on daily life, social responsibility, and personal well-being. Speaking to the assembled crowd, the Imam warned that social media is reshaping the human brain, noting that its excessive use has diminished attention spans, weakened relationships, and…
https://youtu.be/H-rFbwp5pZw?si=GsnD_PSPY2xq2k98 America’s Journey of Light — The Visit of Prince Rahim Aga Khan V, Houston’s Historic Moment, and Dallas’s Sacred Anticipation By Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada In recent days, something in the air has shifted for the Ismaili community across the United States. There is a quiet fragrance of prayer in the atmosphere, a sense that a gentle light has stepped onto this land without announcement. Many within the community describe this moment as if history itself has turned a new page. This visit of Prince Rahim Aga Khan V, his first to the United States since assuming the office…
New Provinces and the Call for Justice in the Court of Power By Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada اِنَّ اللّٰهَ يَأْمُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالْاِحْسَانِ” (النحل 90) “Indeed, God commands justice and kindness.” (Quran 16:90) Field Marshal, I have had the chance to listen to you, twice, in Washington and Tampa. The memory of that unexpected encounter in Tampa still lingers: the quiet gravity in your expression, the stillness in your tone, the unmistakable sense that a nation’s expectations were resting on your shoulders. That meeting, brief yet revealing, made one truth evident: some conversations must now be directed to you alone, because…
A Society in Dimmed Light-Karachi’s “Lesboween Day” and the Echo of Surah Lut By Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada I have lived in the United States for the past twenty five years. I have watched the colors of civilizations shift, felt cultures rise and fade, and observed the world’s moral tides from up close. Yet a single story that surfaced on social media from Pakistan struck me with the force of an unexpected storm. Karachi marked a day called Lesboween Day on the thirtieth of October. It was not just another online post. It was a tremor that travelled thousands of…
