Ishq La-Zawal Hota Hai By Waseem Baloch

About this novel

Ishq To La-Zawal Hota Hai by Muhammad Waseem Baloch is a family-centred Urdu novel about two brothers and their faith. It begins with discipline and the everyday life of the brothers, and it promises a love that never fades.

The novel opens with a few lines of poetry by the writer, about time still leaving room, a test that is not over yet, and a house that remembers someone who has already left. Then the Fajr azaan rings out from the mosque: “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.”

“Hamza, utho, namaz ka waqt ho gaya hai, masjid chalo.” As always, Hamza’s father wakes him for prayer. His father strongly dislikes anyone sleeping after Fajr, and Hamza has often been scolded for missing namaz, so he jumps up straight away: “Achha Abu, aa raha hoon.” His father also tells him to wake his brother Javed. Look how he is sleeping, he says. Doesn’t he know Allah is displeased when He calls His servant and the servant keeps sleeping? What face will he show on the Day of Judgement? Then he leaves for the mosque.

Hamza shakes Javed awake, and Javed grumbles in typical younger-brother style: “Abu na khud sote hain na humein sone dete hain.” The whole night, he says, passes in fear of when Abu will call. Hadia gently scolds him. Abu asks them to pray for their own good, she says, not to send them off to plough a field, and the jamaat will finish if they don’t hurry. Javed complains that other people pray out of fear of Allah, and they pray out of fear of Abu. “Phir wohi buri baat,” Hadia says softly, and the two brothers quietly walk off to the mosque together.

Muhammad Waseem Baloch draws a warm, believable home with a strict but caring father, and sets the ground for the ishq of the title, a love the writer calls la-zawal.

سچا عشق اور سچا ایمان دونوں کبھی زوال کا شکار نہیں ہوتے۔

Read more by the same writer: Khilari, Kaho To Laut Jate Hain and Ab Ke Bichde To Shayad, or see all Waseem Baloch novels.