| Pakistanis as a rule abhor suicide. The orthodox amongst them are deterred by the warnings in the Hadith that anyone taking his or their own life shall ‘suffer the fire of hell … and be excluded from heaven forever.’ The less orthodox are daunted by the law which makes attempted suicide a punishable offence. Those who succeed in killing themselves are exempt from such punishment, for it is presumed that they shall be adjudged and sentenced by a superior court. |
| Although suicide is a private act, it is rarely an entirely voluntary act. You have to be driven to an extreme of desperation to kill yourself, for suicide – ‘that thing that ends all other deeds’ – is essentially an act against the unwritten laws of nature. Among animals, only Man and rodents like lemmings deliberately take their own lives, and even lemmings do so in response to an irresistible instinct, the few sacrificing themselves to ensure the survival of the remainder. |
Published in THE NATION 11 June 1993, and reprinted in THE ARMLESS QUEEN (1994). |
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