INVOKING Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Faiz Hameed in the same breath evokes unease, yet it is unavoidable. When Faiz Hameed was sentenced, a question resurfaced—one that Faiz Sahib had once asked with aching longing: When will this pain, O heart, come to rest? When will the night finally pass? We were told they would come; we were told the dawn would break. Has the long-awaited “morning of speech” truly arrived? Is that radiant evening, dreamt of by our poet, now within reach? I have no definitive answer. Yet something has undeniably occurred—something a few expected. Therefore, there is no cause for triumphalism over Faiz Hameed’s court martial, nor reason to sink into despair. What is required is an effort to understand the turn history has just taken before our eyes. What does this moment signify, and what does it foreshadow?

This question cannot be answered without revisiting an earlier chapter of history—one that immediately preceded these events. I refer to the chain that began with the 2014 sit-in. Another crucial link was the episode in which Faiz Hameed was heard cautioning Justice Shaukat Siddiqui not to destroy “my two years of investment” by deciding cases strictly on merit. Together, these incidents provide the foundation for understanding this historical turn. When Imran Khan and his political cousin, Tahir-ul-Qadri, succeeded in staging the sit-in at D-Chowk, Dr. Shahid Hasan Siddiqui remarked that the two had bound Pakistan hand and foot........

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