In a viral video circulating on social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), a poised young woman with expressive eyes and a candid demeanour delivers a pointed critique of Pakistan's perennial quest for an "external Abba"—a paternal saviour from abroad.
The clip, posted by user Nida Ahmed on X December 6, 2025, under the caption "Who is the real Abba of Pakistanis??," features Tamkenat Mansoor, a multifaceted Pakistani figure known not as the misidentified Nidah Ahmed, but as a trained medical doctor specializing in aesthetic medicine, content creator, influencer, activist, and actress.
With roles in popular dramas like Kala Doriya and Stand-up Girl, Mansoor blends her professional acumen with sharp social commentary, amassing over 480,000 Instagram followers through her blend of humour, health advocacy, and cultural critique.
In the video, she gestures emphatically, her voice laced with irony, as she dissects why Pakistanis seem perpetually drawn to foreign powers—the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey—as surrogate fathers to "fix" their nation's woes. "We keep looking outside for someone to come and save us," she implies, highlighting a cultural dependency that prioritizes external intervention over internal reform.
It's a refreshing pivot from pure metaphysics to a more grounded, albeit still paternalistic, geopolitics. Yet, as insightful as Mansoor's observation is, it scratches only the surface of a deeper malaise: the insidious entanglement of religious metaphysics—dreams of divine messiahs—with the inexorable laws of physics that govern human society. This fusion doesn't just confuse; it paralyzes, substituting verifiable facts and empirical evidence for faith-fueled fantasies.
As the proverb goes: "no hope is better than false hope" suggests that unrealistic optimism can be more damaging than facing a difficult reality, as false hope leads to greater disappointment, distracts from productive action, and prevents acceptance.
Lions generally don't recognize their own reflection as "self" and often react aggressively or curiously to it as if it's another lion, attacking the image because they perceive it as a rival or unknown animal rather than themselves, though female lions in captivity have shown some signs of understanding, while males usually just fight the reflection. They don't understand the mirror shows their own image and will attack it to "catch" the "other" lion.
At its core, this messianic yearning in Pakistani—and broader Muslim—society traces back to ancient religious archetypes, where hope for a transcendent redeemer collides with the Quran's emphatic call for rational, evidence-based guidance Quran 2:113; 115;177; 282; 283; 4:127; 176; 5:32; 7:32; 9:71 16:116; 22:40 and many more.
The Jewish concept of the Mashiach, a future king from King David's lineage destined to usher in global peace, universal knowledge of God, and the ingathering of exiles to a rebuilt Holy Temple, exemplifies this metaphysical archetype. Rooted in texts like the Book of Daniel, it emerged from a history of exile and oppression, offering solace through the promise of divine intervention.
This idea didn't remain confined to Judaism. As Islam blossomed in the 7th century, it encountered vibrant Jewish communities in regions like Baghdad, the intellectual hub of the Abbasid Caliphate. Here, amid a melting pot of Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Christian, and Jewish eschatologies, the notion of a hidden saviour seeped into Muslim thought, morphing into the figure of Imam Mahdi—a guided one who would restore justice before the Day of Judgment.
Despite the Quran's clear finality—"Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but the Messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets" (33:40)—insisting that no further prophets or revelations would come, and that guidance lies in reason ('aql) and empirical observation (as in verses urging contemplation of natural signs, like 2:164), these external influences birthed a paradox.
Muslims, ostensibly rejecting messianic intermediaries, began awaiting their own: the Mahdi, often conflated with the return of Jesus (Isa), to battle tyranny and enforce equity. Terms like Amir al-Mu'minin (Commander of the Faithful) and Caliph (successor) evolved into vessels for this hope, blurring the line between political leadership and divine mandate.
This metaphysical intrusion has repeatedly manifested in history, turning abstract dreams into tangible disruptions that defy the physics of cause and effect—where actions yield predictable outcomes based on evidence, not incantations. Consider the tragic siege of Mecca's Grand Mosque on November 20, 1979, when Juhayman al-Otaybi and his brother-in-law, Muhammad bin Abdullah al-Qahtani, barricaded themselves inside, proclaiming al-Qahtani as the Mahdi.
What began as a millenarian fantasy escalated into a two-week bloodbath, claiming hundreds of lives and exposing the fragility of Saudi stability. Or take Yusuf Ali Kazzab (also known as Yousuf Ali) in Lahore whose one of the Caliph is popularly known as red-hate nutter (Zaid Hamid), who in the late 20th century gathered followers by claiming the Prophet Muhammad had "appeared in his body," a blasphemous assertion of prophetic embodiment that led to legal convictions for deception and fraud.
Such figures echo the schismatic movements like the Bahá'í Faith in Iran, which posited Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a latter-day messiah, or the Ahmadiyya community in India and Pakistan, whose founder claimed divine revelation post-Muhammad (pbuh)—claims that ignited communal violence and state persecution.
More recently, in 2025, Pakistani filmmaker and TV host Aftab Iqbal stirred controversy by prophesying a "45-year-old Hashemite Caliph" or God-sent Khalifa who would rise in Pakistan, explicitly tying it to Mahdi lore and fuelling viral debates on impending divine rule.
These episodes aren't mere anomalies; they are symptoms of a society where metaphysical narratives override empirical scrutiny, breeding cults of personality that promise salvation without the sweat of systemic reform.
The confusion deepens when we contrast this with the "law of physics" Mansoor implicitly invokes: a world of facts, not faith; measurable progress, not miraculous interventions. Physics, in its broadest sense, describes the universe's immutable rules—gravity pulls without exception, energy conserves without divine fiat.
Human societies, too, operate under analogous principles: economies grow through investment and innovation, not prayers for a caliph; health improves via vaccines and sanitation, not awaiting a healer-Mahdi. Yet, in Pakistan, where over 97% identify as Muslim, this religious overlay fosters a fatalism that conflates the two realms.
Metaphysics—ideas born of thought and dream—posits saviours who bend reality to faith: an Imam Mehdi who materializes armies from ether, or a foreign "Abba" like Erdogan or MBS who magically stabilizes borders and balances budgets.
Facts, however, demand evidence: Pakistan's GDP stagnates not from satanic plots but from corruption, inequality, and underinvestment in education (literacy hovers at 60%, per World Bank data). Climate disasters like the 2022 floods, displacing 33 million, aren't apocalyptic signs but consequences of deforestation and poor infrastructure—problems solvable by engineering, not eschatology.
Mansoor's video marks a tentative shift: by naming US drones, Saudi petrodollars, and Turkish soft power as the "real Abba," she drags the discourse from occult hopes to observable geopolitics. It's a nod to physics—power dynamics as tangible forces, not ethereal wills. But even here, the messianic root lingers; these nations aren't saviours but self-interested actors, their "aid" often laced with strings that exacerbate dependency.
The Quran, ironically, aligns more with Mansoor's empirical turn than with Mahdi-waiting: "Do they not reflect upon the Quran? If it had been from other than Allah, they would have found within it much contradiction" (4:82), urging critical analysis over blind belief. Guidance post-Muhammad (PBUH) lies in independent reasoning and observation of nature's laws, as was the tradition of the early Islam where even Greek philosophy had arrived in Europe not in Greek but in Arabic language not passive longing for a deus ex machina.
Pakistan — like any country trapped in this ancient knot — must finally untangle religion from the steering wheel of the state. Not by abandoning faith (never that), but by returning it to where it truly shines: the human heart, the quiet conscience, the personal quest for meaning. Let politics and governance be guided by facts, evidence, and the common good.
Even the Qur’an’s dietary commands (2:173, 5:3) were revealed in Medina not as eternal cosmic edicts, but as a masterful act of bridge-building. The prohibited foods listed were already part of Jewish practice in the city. By aligning Muslim dietary law with what the People of the other religious community already observed, the Prophet (pbuh) created shared values, mutual respect, and social harmony among tribes who had been at each other’s throats for generations. Religion, in that moment, served peace and unity — not division, not domination.
Look at the universe itself: stars burn for billions of years without needing a messiah to sign off on nuclear fusion. Rivers sculpt grand canyons with nothing but patience and the laws of physics. Nature needs no sermons, no miracles, no political parties claiming divine mandate — it simply works and so is the case for societies and states.
We, the children of caves and trees, once shivered in the wild. Then we dared to defy the heavens: we planted seeds against the will of storms, built roofs against the anger of rain, wove cloth against the bite of winter. We looked at the invisible force that slams every falling apple to the earth, called it “God’s law”… and then built aeroplanes that laugh at gravity, carrying pilgrims from Lahore to Mecca in mere hours, faster than any angel could fly.
That is humanity’s true miracle: not blind submission, but courageous understanding. We honour God not by freezing the world in 7th-century rules, but by using the intellect He gave us to build a better one.
Tamkenat Mansoor's critique is a clarion call, but true liberation demands we shatter the mirage entirely—embracing a world where dreams inspire, but facts dictate. Only then can Pakistan, unburdened by waiting, author its own destiny.
Let faith remain sacred in mosques and hearts. Let the country be run by reason, science, and justice. That is the only path to real peace — and to true greatness.
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