The truth behind the Basant ruling
The Basant prohibition has been explained officially in terms of foul play by kite flyers who use metallic wire or coat their twine with such preparations that it becomes fatal for the people in the streets who happen to get it on their throats. But the real reason is the clerics’ hatred of the festivity. They campaigned against it calling it a Hindu festival and a pagan ritual. The Muslims, they insisted, must be barred from it. It was on account of this campaign that the prohibition was proclaimed. Hindus revere and worship everything in nature. To them, the stars, the ...
Read Full PostTalking about Sufism: Faiz vs Askari
The national politics have brought us to a point where everybody is engaged in a religious debate. While my contemporaries brave the treacherous ocean’s currents, I, for one, have to plead ignorance of the finer points of the Quran and Hadith studies. Akbar’s verse – I never entered a debate about religion, for I always lacked the extra intelligence it required – has served me well in the perilous times we live in. So it’s not as if I am preparing to enter the debate now; just wondering about the blessed moment when Faiz Ahmed Faiz did. A word first ...
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Laal: Fighting fundamentalism with Sufi thought
Clad in black, the darwaish twirls and twirls on his bare feet, so enthralled, so totally immersed as if he was about to whirl himself to a parallel dimension. A child in rags stands nearby, eyeing him gleefully. His eyes shine: he wants to join in. A group of women gather around, clapping, singing, laughing, almost in a trance themselves. The shrine of their patron Saint lurks in the background: the perfect catharsis for the wretched, the refuge of the forsaken! Filmed not long before the bomb-blast at the Pakpattan shrine, Laal’s latest video “Fareeda” pays homage to the Sufi ...
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Tolerant Islam under attack
Every Thursday, as the drums would roll, the colourful devotees would crowd, the rose petals would float, the excited children would hop, the cars would swerve, the buses would gather, the food would overflow, the lights would glow, and I would wonder anew at the hospitability and attraction of the Abdullah Shah Ghazi mazaar. Abdullah Shah Ghazi is said to have arrived from Iraq in the eighth century to preach the brand of tolerant Islam that is still followed by the majority of people here. Many people claim to have been granted their wishes here. Apart from the faithful, there ...
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Attacking shrines: The new fundamentalism
The explosions at the shrine of the Sufi saint Abdullah Shah Ghazi are yet another glaring testimony to the belief that a new-fangled brand of ‘Islamic’ fundamentalism has emerged as a force to be reckoned with. But under the garbed reality of civilian genocide, intelligence failure and staggering chaos which have devastated the lives of the Karachites, a more scathing assault has been launched on the Naqshbandi Sufi order. Upon glancing at Trimingham’s The Sufi Orders of Islam some months ago (the contents of which have been sourced mainly from Taj al-Din ibn Mahdi Zaman al-Rumi’s Risala fi sunan al-Ta’ifa ...
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Where sufism stands
Sufism is a complex and cross-cutting belief system in Pakistan. Even Deobandis believe in Sufism. Naqshbandi, the major Sufi cult in Pakistan, is mainly comprised of the Deobandis. It is interesting that Maulana Masood Azhar, head of the major terrorist group Jaish-e-Muhammad, is also believer of Sufism and has restricted his followers to the practices of the Naqshbandi cult. To further complicate the intermingling of beliefs and practices, the Barelvis, who are considered representatives of Sufism in Pakistan, are not free from pro-militant jihadi tendencies. In the Kashmir insurgent movement during the 1990′s the Barelvis were quite prominent. Some Barelvi militant ...
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Dum Ghutku – a class of its own
The chorus verse employed in Arif Lohar’s Coke Studio rendition of ‘Jugni’ in ‘Alif Allah Chambay di Booty’ conveys simultaneously a sense of ‘suffocation’ and ‘with every breath’ in traditional folk-speak. Something that I, and perhaps many, would never have come to know about had Rohail Hyatt not decided to introduce a platform where the varied strains in Pakistani music could meld to give birth to magic on screen and in sound. Pakistani ‘sufi’ music is a term that generally represents a melting pot of folk, cultural, mystic and religious influences. Perhaps Hyatt’s greatest achievement with Coke Studio is the fact ...
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Tolerance for our inner terrorist
I might get my share of hate mail if this piece finds it way online and people read it. Actually, I wanted to claim responsibility for the attacks. I want to share some burden. I want to say that what happened at the Data Darbar was our own doing, we the people of Pakistan brought it upon us. Living in a society which openly engages in discourse where those who have different religious beliefs will always be vulnerable to a death wish… where they would always be ‘waajib-ul-qatal’… what else could we possibly expect? I mean it is OK ...
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