u/Arbitrary_Sadist

On March 7, 2022, Pakistan's ambassador in Washington sat down with U.S. assistant secretary of state Donald Lu. The message was short and clear, remove Imran Khan through a no-confidence vote and Washington will look the other way. "All will be forgiven," the ambassador later recalled. Thirty three days later, Khan was gone.

But this didn't start with that meeting. In June 2021, CIA Director William Burns personally flew to Islamabad to meet Khan. Waited a full day. Khan never showed. Said he'd only speak to his counterpart, meaning Biden, who had been dodging Khan's calls since day one. Burns left with nothing. Weeks later Khan went on record with Axios and just said it out loud, "Absolutely not. There is no way we are going to allow any bases, any sort of action from Pakistani territory into Afghanistan." No diplomatic cushioning, no ambiguity.

Washington had its answer. Pakistan's military had seen enough of their own prime minister.

In July 2021, behind Khan's back, the military quietly put a former CIA Islamabad station chief on retainer as a lobbyist in Washington. The generals were already cutting their own deal.

Then came the moment that sealed it. On February 24, 2022, the exact day Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Khan was in Moscow shaking hands with Putin on a long scheduled visit. Biden's national security advisor Sullivan had personally called Islamabad days before urging them to cancel. Khan didn't budge. Pakistan then abstained on the UN vote condemning the invasion. Washington was done.

Weeks later came the Lu meeting. The cable. And then Khan was out.

What followed was a gut punch. Artillery shells started flowing to Ukraine secretly through U.S. defense contractors. American support for Pakistan's IMF lifeline was explicitly tied to keeping that weapons pipeline running. Pakistan got its $3 billion bailout in July 2023. In February 2024 the military brazenly rigged the elections and the U.S. and EU sat on their hands and said nothing.

And Khan? Buried under a never ending conveyor belt of charges, corruption, contempt, national security, one case collapsing only for another to appear. He has been behind bars for nearly 3 years now. His wife still in prison. His party outlawed, stripped of its electoral symbol, barred from even fielding candidates under its own name.

The cypher was always real. They called it fake, jailed the man who leaked it, and hoped everyone would move on. They didn't.

Source: Drop Site News

A lot of people when they think of India immediately think of the Taj Mahal, which is a Muslim built monument by the Mughal Empire that once ruled India.

However, modern day India was founded upon secular principles with a Hindu ruling class and majority, contrary to the prior Muslim dynasties that ruled over the Indian subcontinent, and the Great Empires such as the Mughal Empire and the Delhi Sultanate. For a layman, they naturally associate these empires with India, since their capitals were located in modern day India and due to the confusion caused by the names "India" and "Hindustan".

But once you scratch the surface you will realise that the only true inheritor of the legacy of the Mughal empire and all the Muslim dynasties that ruled over India in the past 1000 years is Pakistan. Pakistan was founded on the basis of this exact legacy, the founder of Pakistan argued that Hindus and Muslims are separate distinct civilisations. The Muslims of India were Indo-Persian in culture, and belonged to a faith that came from across the border. Whereas the Hindu population of India stuck to the old Indo-Aryan culture, the pagan Hindu beliefs and increasingly associated with the empires prior to the rise of the Muslims.

And today, when you look at India, it is run by a far right Hindu nationalist political party, which actively fuels the narrative that Muslims as a whole and all the successive Muslim dynasties that ruled India were invaders and have no place in the land they call "Hindu-stan" (funnily enough both the word Hindustan and Hindu are Persian words for the people of India).

And in a way from their own pov they are correct, but where are the Muslims who have lived in the land for over a thousand years supposed to go? This is exactly why Pakistan was created, and although Pakistan was unable to obtain the historic Muslim capital of Delhi and much of the land it's predecessors held. It is a remnant of the Muslim rule over the entire Indian subcontinent, and it's existence is a source of immense grief and torment for the Hindu nationalist for this exact reason.

Someone better take their phone away from them cuz it's posts like these that lead to fetishization of Muslim women.

Islam purifies culture, doesn't replace it. So many civilisations still have their history and culture after centuries of Muslim rule. In comparison modernisation is the Chief destroyer of cultures, you go wherever in the world and you find same suits, same tall glass buildings, same phones being used by people all over the world, same cars being driven. Modernisation has effectively replaced much of human civilisational culture.

His defence was the hadith permitting the killing of a dangerous creature that approaches, to which an old jinn in attendance said that he heard this from the Prophet.

Now I am not making this to troll anyone, this is genuinely my sincere and objective take. I am someone who enjoys a variety of food and don't form judgements over a country's food unless I have had a proper authentic experience of it. In addition to this, I am not someone who likes one specific type of food either. So my take here is as objective as it will get.

Now the thing with Indian food is, most of the stuff people love, like chicken tikka masala, and the various curries, are all just foods introduced by Muslims in the Subcontinent. Foods like Falooda, Samosa, Biryani, Chicken Tikka, Naans, and so on were introduced by Muslims, and neighbouring Pakistan legit does it so much better than India.

I have gone out of my way to try native India foods like Vada Pav, Pav Bhaji, Choke Bhature, and so on. And my main gripe is that, as far as vegetarian foods go they are great. If you are a vegetarian and you want some good food, India is a great place for you.

But a) the food simply isn't that healthy, B) all the food is a mix of various vegetables. This is legit native Indian food, the actual meat based food, for the most part was introduced by the Muslims who came to India, and Pakistan absolutely mogs India when it comes to meat based cuisine. Butter Chicken was literally made by a man from Peshawar, which is in modern day Pakistan.

So anyone who finds Indian food amazing, it's probably because you are mistaking Pakistani food for Indian food. Cuz otherwise the food is beyond mid.

Honestly, I am tired of people hyping up Arab food like it's a God send, most of it is super mid. I am not even gonna go into talking about Gulf Arab food cuz that's not even good enough to feature in the list. But from my experience Levantine Arab food is the best, and in comparison to what I typically eat, it has to be the most mid food ever. Don't get me wrong some of the stuff is genuinely delicious and really nice, but all in all it's similar bunch of flavours recycled in every other dish. Arabs don't know how to use proper spices either, their food for the most part is super bland. And while the food is definitely on the healthier side, no one can tell me that it's not mid. Shawarma is mid, Mandi is mid, hummus is mid, Falafel is mid, Kanafah and Baklava is all mid.

So firstly, I want to applaud Paradox and the devs for actually incorporating, after a long time, the proper Sunni and Shia sects, as well as the madhabs (schools of thought). Now secondly, I want to clarify how these rites actually differ from Christian rites.

Madhabs were systems of legal interpretation, not competing doctrinal movements. Unlike in Christianity, where rites could and often did evolve into theological divergence and heresy, the madhabs operated within a shared framework of core beliefs and were not meant to produce new doctrines.

Their purpose was to preserve unity while allowing limited variation in practice. Because of this, divergence within Islamic rites should be much more constrained mechanically. It shouldn’t be easy for a madhhab-level variation to escalate into heresy in the same way as Christian rites, as that doesn’t really reflect how these schools functioned historically. Also, rulers didn’t feel the need to enforce their own madhab on others; sometimes they did, but mostly they left other madhabs alone, so there was less competition and more harmony.

So my suggestion to Paradox would be to not allow madhabs to drift into full-blown sects. Historically, these schools did not develop into separate sects or heresies. Major sectarian divisions in the Muslim world, such as between Sunni Islam and Shia Islam, emerged from political and theological disputes, not from the gradual divergence of legal schools.

Because of this, allowing madhhab-level “Rites” to drift freely into full doctrinal splits or heresies would not reflect how Islamic traditions historically developed. It would be more accurate if their divergence were more constrained, keeping them within a shared doctrinal framework rather than turning routine legal differences into separate faiths.

I absolutely don’t want a copy and paste of this system onto Islam. For now, if Paradox can keep the system constrained and prevent madhabs from drifting into “heresies” and “sects”, that will give them a good foundation for an eventual Islam DLC where they can look at the political and theological disputes which formed the basis of the divisions within the Muslim world.

The Original map of Pakistan was supposed to include the Muslim capital of Delhi. It's a shame Muslims were denied it. But insha'Allah it shall soon be returned rightfully to the Pakistanis.