Review of aab-e-hayat by umera ahmad

Title of the novel is “ Aab-e-Hayat” and is written by Umera Ahmad. Aab-e-Hayat as a sequel of Peer-e-Kamil: Almost a decade ago, Umera Ahmad wrote her master piece “ Peer-e-Kamil” which was appreciated by the masses of every field. It was the story about “ Salaar Sikandar” who was a liberal Muslim and indulged in bad activities and his tuning point towards becoming a practical Muslim. And it was a story about “ Umama Hashim” who was Qadyani and then how she accepted Islam.

Aab-e-Hayat is a second part of this novel. In this novel, writer describes their marital life, their relationship with each other, Umama’s sacrifices for Salaar and their struggle in life. Summary: Aab-e-Hayat is a novel of two persons and whole novel revolving around them. This novel based on 25 episodes. He wrote novel as a card. Each part in first episode gives the name as card numbers.

Aab-e-Hayat is made of six words. Every word describes the fundamental stage of Human lifeآ: آدم و حواب: بیت العنکبوتح: حاصل و محصولی: یا مجیب السائلینا: ابدا ابدات: تبارک الذیAll these six stages cover the whole life of Human being.

She starts the story by telling the relation of Umama and Salaar. First, she tells the rude character of Umama for Salaar. He does everything for Umama and loves her deeply. But Umama get angry with him. So, there is no “ Sakoon” in their life.

There is also event of meeting with Umama’s family in restaurant and there is fight between both parties. Later on, she gets in touch with her brother “ Waseem”. She also meets with “ Jalaal Ansar” at shopping mall and Salaar get angry on it. Salaar works in a bank and later he is connected with World Bank. Her wife tries her best to make mind of Salaar that is earning is “ Haraam” because it’s all linked to “ Sood”. Writer tells us that how Sood ruin life of common man by setting example of “ Ghulam Fareed”. He killed his whole family with knife accept one and then she adopted by Salaar and named as “ Raeesa”. Writer tells the way of bringing up children by the glimpse of Salaar and Umama as parents.

Then there is huge struggle of Salaar and his family. At age of 42, he recognized by “ tumor” but luckily he lived long with good health.

His son “ Hameen” did business and run company named as TAI (Trade an Idea) and at end TAI and SIF both merged into each other and introduce powerful Islamic system for whole world. Theme: This novel mainly deals with “ Sood” (Riba, Interest), and its effects on common man life. The concept of unlawful earning and its consequences was explicitly presented.

Another main highlight of this novel is “ Family bonding”. It is not necessary for a woman to make an outstanding carrier to make her family proud of her. Umama was a perfect example of this, despite being a house wife; she was the pride of her husband.

The third main important theme of this novel is, Umera Ahmad depicts by setting example of “ Saad” and “ Ahsan Saad” it’s not necessary for being a true Muslim that he only looks like as Islam mentioned and internally he didn’t follows moral values of Islam. And the man is not “ Kafir” who didn’t pretend him as “ True Muslim” but practically he follows Islamic values by heart. So, by concluding it, we should not have to label someone by “ Muslim” or “ Kafir” by his appearance.

Characters and their Description

Salaar: He is the main leading character of the novel. He is the soul of this novel. He is a man with 150 levels.

Umama: She is the female leading character of the novel. She converted to Islam and bear difficulties for it. She sacrificed a lot in order to support her husband and children which made her the nucleus of her family.

Children: Jibraeel, Anaya, Hameen, Raeesa (adopted child)

Ghulam Fareed: He was a man who drowned in interest and killed his whole family except one. Later, Salaar adopted her and named her “ Raeesa”.

Saad: A friend of Salaar from university time and pretend him as he is only Muslim but has two faced personality and fake Muslim.

Arek (Abdullah): He is a neighbor of Salaar in America and accepted Islam by inspiring their family.

Settings

The life of Umama and Salaar is written in the social context of Pakistan, America and also in Congo or Africa. Events: Ring of Umama, as wedding gift by Salaar. Death of Waseem (Umama’s brother) Speech of Salaar in front of pigmies in Africa. Suspense: In this novel, writer creates suspense in first episode by giving some situations to the readers. First episode of Aab-e-Hayat enlighten we with the fact that this novel is like a set of cards. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle.

The second part of suspense in novel was about Salaar, that “ is he alive or not” because in the center of novel, after telling his disease, writer didn’t talk on Salaar’s character. Imaginations: There is also a factor of imagination in the novel. First point is Salaar’s struggle for Islamic society free of Sood. Also depict the imagination of America, that in 2030 America is weak country, he didn’t remain as super power.

CONCLUSION

To conclude this novel, I must say this novel is one of my favorite novels. The best thing that I like most is writer chosen very sensitive topic “ Sood” (Interest) which is the main issue in Islamic countries but these countries do not take it seriously.

The critical part of the novel is the ending of the novel, and writer named it as “ Turp ka Patta”. I read, I didn’t feel satisfied because it was very vague. I read that part for five and six times then I got the point of writer. It may be clearer if writer mentioned the name of “ Neurologist” and “ patient”.