KING KANISHKA’S LAHORE IS NOT OUR LAHORE IN THE PUNJAB
IT IS IN THE FRONTIER NEAR HAZARA AND ITS REMAINS ARE STILL THERE

Mir Syed Bokhari has written extensively about it

The art of story telling is in our veins and we spin stories all the time. Few people bother about documentation and can relate anything to

anything. Such story tellers will tell you that Indians had already conquered America much before Columbus and that is why he named the citizens of America as Red Indians. Obviously there would be no documentation. America was inhabited by a number of people and civilizations before Columbus and that is a fact and that we believe when archaeologists dig remains and come up to conclusions. The Turkish Piri Reis map is a good example of research. Kufi inscription stones in Red Indian caves and tepees. All facts!

The name of Lahore is attached to many cities in the world. There is even a Lahore in the United States of America. But the Lahore we call Lahore is the Lahore we live in. The capital of the Punjab. The Lahore of King Kanishka is the Lahore in Gandhara area, or in the Frontier province. The mention of that Lahore is at many places and Mir Syed Bokhari has proven that even Al-Beruni mentions the Gandhara Lahore as Lahore. A book stands written with episodes of Lahore going back to centuries before Jesus Christ himself. In no ways is the Gandhara Lahore is related to the Lahore we live in, the Mahmoodpur of Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi. We have written about it elsewhere.

The issue is merely political. Just after partition, a British scholar wrote a book about 5000 years of Pakistan and removed its Islamic content as essential. Till today the line is same,. Try to make people proud of heritage which is not there’s at all. That is why we differenciate between Geographical and Ideological realities. For a stalwart like Faiz Ahmad Faiz, the Taj Mahal of Agra was not our heritage, but that of India. For us the Quran talks of ONE UMMA and according to that Umma we have one Ideological heritage and different areas interpret it in their own way. That is ijjtehad in all ways. But there is a similarity. A mosque looks like a mosque anywhere. No heritage of ours talk of dresses which are vulgar in nature. No statues to nurture and worship but to enjoy its aesthetics. This is a long discourse. We will take it up elsewhere. Pakistan is Ideology not geography at all. We write with the passions of our heart not because lobbies pay those to think in their terms, to question every achievement of Islam as false.