You drive through the boulevards of Karachi's rich localities, passing a string of crore-rupee mansions. The houses on both sides are monstrous behemoths. Tall ionic columns appear to leap across from the boundary walls. Gold paint emblazons the balustrade and railings. Polished metal gates, marble-covered facades, mahagony window panes. Its clear that the vault had run out of space to store money, so no effort was spared to throw together an expensive concoction that is painful for any appreciative eye to bear. But suddenly, you notice an engraving on one side of the facade that reads in Arabic 'Mashallah.' You want to spit out the nausea that collected within you from taking a 10-second look at the house. But the 'Praise be to God' clamps down your throat and you wonder whether an expression of outrage would be noticed by the cemented calligraphy on the wall. You turn your face and walk away in disgust, only to see more replulsive architectural specimens adorned with the same flowery narcissist invocations to God. You wonder, could God be this immune to such horrific creations made by the hands of His ostensibly most genius product?
The 'Mashallah,' 'Subhanallah' and unending variations of God's name on flamboyant freak shows are not the evil warders that they are often claimed to be. They are an obtuse effort to make a critic subconsciously deflate his or her judgment and deflect the assessment to acknowledge the 'Divine Hand' in something as tasteless as what stands before you. Could you dare to criticise something that has Allah's name written all over it? If you do, then you are conveniently a heretic and not worthy of offering any opinion to begin with. If you dont, mission accomplished!
The next time you see God's name being utilized in the name of art, think whether the artistic creation really needed such an honour. Good art does not depend on praises to God; it instead harks to the inner soul lurking within you that God himself has so artistically concealed. Chances are that the art work enmeshed with cheap holiness is so terribly regular that only God's name can truly protect it from being thrashed into immediate oblivion.
