off saints and sinners

8/13/2019 Off Saints and Sinners

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Declan Walsh

NORMALLY, we cannot know God, says Rizwan Qadeer, a neat and amiable inhabitant ofLahore, Western-dressed and American-educated, eyes shining behind his spectacles. But our

saints, they have that knowledge.

Mr Qadeer is standing in the belly of a shrine that he is building to a modern gnostic, Hafiz

Iqbal, whom he venerates especially. Cool, and smelling pleasantly of damp earth and mortar, it

holds Iqbals grave, covered by an embroidered green shroud and sprinkled with pink rose petals.A young mana Pakistani resident of London, Mr Qadeer saysstands in silent prayer to the

saint, who was employed by Lahores municipal government as a street-sweeper, and died in

2001. In a tradition of popular Sufism, which mingles classical Islamic mysticism with Hinduism

and folk beliefs and is a dominant feature of Islam in South Asia, the saints divine essence, orbaraka, emanates from his tomb. Physically, our holy saints do die, says Mr Qadeer. But the

spirit is still here,because they have reached eternity.

Echoing down a winding stairwell, a scraping of masonry and clink of chisel on marble signal a

remarkable monument rising. It is in the scruffy Lahori suburb of Baghbanpura, where Iqbal

lived for six decades. From a narrow alley running alongside the shrine, it is mostly hidden: itshigh outer walls, of recessed brickwork speckled with multicoloured tiles, rising out of sight to a

pair of domes and skinny minarets. A few steep steps lead into a small cloistered forecourt,

where masons are at work.

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hillside in Pakistans province of Punjab, outside the town of Thatta, legend has it that 125,000

Muslim saints are buried.

Pakistans southernmost state of Sindh, a vast desert bisectedby the Indus river, is perhaps best

known for its shrines. A few miles outside the city of Hyderabad, in sight of the Indus, a middle-

aged dwarf called Subhan manages one of them. She found the shrine deserted a few years ago,and moved into it. It is a small shack, with a low doorway hung with cowbells, in the tradition of

a Hindu temple. A dusty green shroud covers the grave. Incense burns at its foot. Subhan says it

holds the dust of a medieval saint called Haji Pir Marad. Sometimes, she says, he wrestles withthe Indus to prevent it from changing course. In fits of terrible rage, he has caused pileups on the

road. She advises passing motorists to propitiate the saint with a modest gift of rupees. On a

good day, she collects around 50 rupees (60 cents) from the travellers who stop to pray.

All the traffic, on that recent sunny day, was bound for the nearby town of Sehwan Sharif, where

Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, one of Pakistans most prominent Sufi saints, is entombed. It was the

734th anniversary of his death, an event marked by an annual festival attended by several

hundred thousand devotees. This event is known as Qalandars urs, or wedding-night, to signifyhis union with God. A three-day orgy of music, dancing and intoxication, literally and spiritually,

the ursat Sehwan is one of the best parties in Pakistan, or anywhere.

Outside Qalandars shrine, a white marble monument, decorated with flashing neon, pilgrims

work themselves into an all-night ecstasy. Tossing their long black hair, a dozen prostitutes fromKarachi or Lahore have a place reserved by the shrines golden doorway, to dance a furious jig.

It is the dhammal, a rhythmic skipping from foot to foot, for which Qalandars followers are

well-known. Thousands are moshing to a heavy drumbeat. The air is hot and wet with their

sweat. A scent of rose petals and hashish sweetens it. In a flash of gold, out in the crush, a troupeof bandsmen in braided Sergeant Pepper uniforms are blowing inaudibly into brass instruments,

then lifting trumpets and trombones into the air as they dance the dhammal.

Fighting through the crowd, a stream of peasant pilgrims flows into the shrine. Many carry

glittering shrouds, lovingly embroidered by a wife or mother, as an offering for the tomb. They

will be bestowed with a poor mans prayer, for a good harvest, debt relief, or a son. Last year Itold my master [Qalandar] that I would bring him a goat if he gave me a son. I have come to

honour that promise, said Muhammad Riaz Rahman, a shopkeeper from Multan, tugging a

calm-looking billy, daubed with pink dye, through the crowd.

To orthodox Sufis, all this is absurd. Islams mystical strain, like the Jewish and Christian

traditions it somewhat resembles, is a strictly delineated path to self-knowledge. The proper Sufiseeks to attain this state through rigorous disciplines, of which dhikr, the remembrance of God,

by reciting or meditating on his name, is the most common. Through self-knowledge, the devout

mystic strives to attain knowledge of God Himself. This sets Sufis apart from Islams other

functionaries, its jurists, or mullahs, and its theologians.

Throughout Islamic history, Sufis and mullahs, dedicated to enforcing Koranic laws, haveclashed. Mullahs demand obedience; Sufis tend to stress tolerance. In their poetry, which

mullahs shudder to read, Sufis often represent the state of rapture that they seek in the language


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of physical love or drunkenness. I have no concern but carousing and rapture, wrote Rumi,

Sufisms greatest poet, whose followers, of the Turkey-based Mawlawi order, remember him in a

whirling dance, thesaga, which has become synonymous in the West with all Sufism.

Building Baba Hassan Dins shrineAlixandra Fassina

Yetdespite what the hordes at Sehwan may believeorthodox Sufis are also law-abiding

Muslims. There should be no contradiction between these two positions. Sufism is Islam andIslam is Sufism, says Khwaja Hasan Thani Nizami, the hereditary keeper of the shrine ofNizamuddin Auliya in Delhi. In orthodox Islam, for example, the limits of sainthood are strictly

prescribed. Dead Muslim saints cannot intercede with God or perform miracles. If Muslims pray

at their shrines, it can only be for the dead mans salvation. They may not pray to him, whichwould beshirk, a form of idolatry. According to Ahmed Javed, a bearded Pakistani Sufi and

scholar: You cant ask a dead saint to mediate, to solve a problem, to fulfil a wish, never, never,

never. That isshirkin law and in Sufism.

But South Asians never have been terribly law-abiding. Nor, during the centuries-old process of

Islamisation that they led, have the Sufi orders always insisted that they should be. This really

began in the 13th century, soon after the conquest of Delhi by an army of Persian-speakingAfghans. A powerful Sufi order, the Chistis, proceeded to spread across north India, led by

Chisti, the great mystic buried in Ajmer.

Chistis initiates wore motley, practised poverty, neglected their families and despised the

Muslim sultans and emperors who would rule India for five centuries. In the words of a famous

Chisti couplet: Why must you enter the doors of emirs and sultans? You are walking in thesteps of Satan! The Chistis were known for their love of poetry and, especially, music. Pilgrim-


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poets still gather in the shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya, another great Chisti saint and poet, in

Delhi, wearing the yellow pixie-hats of the orders initiates.

Under Chisti influence, low-caste Hindus converted to Islam, to escape their low birth. Women,

who are everywhere prominent in Sufism, were also especially welcomed. Perhaps most

remarkably, the Chistis accepted recalcitrant non-Muslims as Sufi initiates. This set the tone foran astonishingly harmonious cohabitation between Hindus and Muslims in South Asia which

continues, though it is sorely tested, to this day.

In the shrine of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, a great poet of Sindh, musicians gather to sing hymns.

As their voices rise, in the blue-tiled portico of the shrine, a line of brightly clad Hindu women

traipse in from the Sindhi desert which, for nomads like them, is still an open border to India.The Pakistani Muslim crowd, seated cross-legged on the forecourt, stirs to give them room. The

women pass through, to give obeisance to Bhitais tomb. It is a moving scene.

For its message of tolerance, Sufism has long been fashionable outside the Muslim world.

Outside Philadelphia, amid rolling green hills, is the shrine of Muhammad Raheem BawaMuhaiyaddeen, a Sri Lankan Sufi saint, who died in America in 1986. In recent times, moreover,

Western interest in Islamic mysticism has become urgent. Some American commentators seeSufis as potential allies in a hostile Muslim world. A report by RAND Corporation, an American

think-tank, recommended bolstering Sufism, as an open, intellectual interpretation of Islam.

On the face of it, this makes sense. In north-western Pakistan, where the Taliban rule, the

Pushtuns have often taken against Sufi saints. According to the 1911 Census of British India, the

Afridi tribe, having no shrine to worship at, induced by generous offers a saint of the mostnotorious piety to take up his abode among them. They then slit his throat, buried his corpse,

and built a splendid shrine over it. These days, alas, they would probably not build the shrine: the

Taliban tend to consider Sufism idolatrous. They are in the same puritan camp as Saudi Arabiasunforgiving Wahhabi sect, their sometime sponsors. In the land of Muhammad, whom mysticsrevere as the first Sufi, the Wahhabis have bulldozed many old shrines.

At Qalandars shrine in Sehwan, a pilgrim called Tanvir Ahmed describes spending four months

among the Taliban last year, in Swat, a Taliban fief near the Afghan frontier. He had thought to

join the militants. But he was put off by their injunctions against Sufi saints. To a murmur ofapproval from other devotees, gathering thickly around us, Mr Ahmed says: No one can deny

our respected saints of God.

But the ursalso presents troubling scenes. As dusk falls, and the crowd dancing the dhammaloutside the shrine swells, so does an army of men and boys, stripped to the waist. Legs akimbo,

they sing a funeral dirge to the Shia martyr Hussain. It describes the battle of Karbala, in which

Hussain fell, and Sunni and Shia Muslims were so painfully divided. As their deep voices rise, sothe mens arms lift together. Then each hand slaps down, with a thwack, on its owners red and

glistening chest.


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Hashish helps a mystic along the path toenlightenmentAlixandra Fassina

In daylight, inside the shrine, an even more strikingly sectarian ritual takes place. Shia pilgrims

flagellate themselves with chains dangling with knife-blades and cry out to Ali, father of themartyred Hussain, and revered in Shia Islam. As they open their backs, sending blood onto the

shrines floor, other pilgrims recoil. Many appear disgusted. In theory, Sufism transcends Islamic

sects. For example, Qalandar was a Shia; manyor mostof his devotees are Sunni. Yet theshrines of Sindh, where many Shia Muslims live, are increasingly seeing strident sectarian

displays. This may be partly a reaction to the attacks Pakistani Shias increasingly face from

fundamentalists like the Taliban. It is a sign of popular Sufism under duress.

Sufi scholars, in Karachi, Delhi and Lahore, are concerned by this. But none wants government

helpleast of all from a reviled Western government. Many also note that Sufism is not, asWesterners seem to think, uniform. The conservative Naqshbandis, followers of another of South

Asias main orders, have helped spreadjihad: there was a Naqshbandi insurgent group in Iraq.

Qalandar, one of Pakistans most prominent Sufi saints, was not really of any order. He exists in

a tradition of eccentric, mendicant Sufis. He was strongly influenced by Hinduism; many Hindus

consider him a manifestation of Shiva. A Hindu performs the opening ritual of the annual urs.During the festival many devotees bring clay dishes of henna to Qalandars tomb, as to a Hindu

bride on her wedding-night, and spread it on themselves, invoking the name of a Hindu water-

god.

Amid syncretism, heresy thrives. Outside Qalandars mausoleum, just before dusk, a tall bearded

man, wrapped in a black cloak and carrying a silver club, shouts into a loud-hailer: Ali Allah!

Allah Ali!Ali is God! God is Ali! He is Sayeed Ghafur Ali, a fine-looking dervish, andleader of a sect in Karachi which propagates this fearful blasphemy. In many Muslim places it

would cost Mr Ali his head. But in Sehwan no one seems to mind. Asked, in a calmer setting,

whether he has been a dervish for long, Mr Ali smiles and removes two tightly-bound parcels,about the size of American footballs, from his trouser pockets. They contain his hair, which

grows in thick tresses under his cloak. Mr Ali says he has not visited a barber since he dedicated

himself to Qalandar.

Unlike most renowned Sufi saints, Qalandar left little literature. In academic histories, his name

hardly appears. To plug the gap, his devotees attribute miracles to him. One tells how Qalandar


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reconstituted a Hindu disciple, Bodhla Bahar, after an evil raja had made mincemeat of him. The

narrator of this story may appear to have been smoking drugs. For Qalandars black-cladfakirs,

many of whom are full time vagrants, much like Hinduisms dread-lockedsaddhus, the ursis awonderful opportunity to eat, dance and get stoned among friends. Though I only smoke in the

mornings to strengthen the body, cautions Emir Bux, an elderly itinerant inside the shrine, with

an orange hennaed beard and a headdress of curvy wooden snakes.

Sex is also to be had at theurs, but less freely. Sufi shrines have always appealed to prostitutes.

This is partly because of the Sufis tolerance of sinners, but also because they make good placesto sin. At Sehwan, which has a name for licentiousness, a transsexual prostituteor hijra

called Ghazala says she came from Lahore, with 15 of her eunuch sisters, to pray and dance.

Smoking a cigarette down to its filter, Ghazala, a muscular figure with greying temples, claims:

We came here only to worship our saint. That is an unlikely story.

Presiding over this riot, from a grand house beside the shrine, is Mehdi Shah, a doctor from

Islamabad, who recently inherited the title ofsajjada nishin, or keeper of the shrine. This is an

important office in Pakistan. The wardens of its most important shrines, including some, knownaspirs, who claim descent from important saints, are among the countrys biggest landowners.

This is partly a legacy of their usefulness to two former invaders of South Asia, the Mughals andBritish, both of whom patronised the shrine-keepers. Since the early 1960s, Pakistani

governments have been taking over the most lucrative shrines, including Qalandars. But

Pakistanspirsare still formidable. By one estimate,pirpoliticians command 10% of the popular

vote. The current prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, and foreign minister, Shah MahmudQureshi, are bothpirs.

A colourful version of

IslamAaron Huey

Like so much else in Sehwan Sharif, this tradition has got messy. Mr Shah, the keeper of the

shrine, is candid about the responsibilitiespir-dom confers: To guide people and make money.But he regrets the competition for the office this has engendered. In Sehwan Sharif, several

dozen local families claim to be guardians of the shrine. There may be a thousand Tom, Dick

and Harrys claiming to besajjada nishin, grumbles Mr Shah.


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In a small room next to the shrine, decorated with peacock feathers, one of these wannabes,

Paryal Shah, has set up shop. As Mr Shah, a bearded man rattling with amulets, enters the room,

pilgrims hurl themselves at his feet. Grunting, occasionally slapping a pilgrim who crushes histoes, Mr Shah dispenses blessings among them. God will help you, he growls, doling out white

cotton threads, blessed in advance, or a scrap of paper scribbled with a Koranic verse. It is hard

to know how seriously anyone takes this charade. Mr Shahs English-speaking right-hand,Ahmed Bhutto, winks and says that he and Mr Shahs other disciples practice strict chastity: Ionly do it with my wife!

A more troublesome rival to Mehdi Shah is his uncle, Mozafir Ali Shah. They are locked in a

property dispute so ugly that Mehdi Shah refuses even to visit his uncles house for a traditional

family celebration: a dance performance by a visiting troupe of prostitutes. To the uninitiated,

this splendid occasion is not obviously religious. The men of Mozafir Alis house sit in proudsilence, as prostitutes straddle its courtyard, thrashing their long hair and kissing these hereditary

notables knees. The women of the house rain rupee notes down on the dancers from a balcony

discreetly above. A drummer shouts: Sakhi Shahbaz Qalandar duma dum mast!

True Sufis are embarrassed by such scenes. At Delhis great Sufi shrine, Mr Nizami, the keeper,

says a Sufi must have three qualities: knowledge of Islam; love of God; and sanity. Whateverelse they lack, he scoffs, the devotees of Qalandar are insane: there is no Sufi among them! Mr

Javed, the Sufi in Lahore, agrees. But he contrasts such harmless superstition, as he terms

popular Sufi beliefs, with the ruthless literalism of the Taliban. He says: I feel safe among

shallow-minded occultists. I do not feel safe among literalists.

Scholars like these are Sufisms true keepers. But in the undergrowth of popular Sufism, it is

remarkable how little of their prescriptions survive. It has always been so. The diversity of SouthAsian Islam is a staggering multicultural achievement. If its mystics, orthodox and popular, are

now increasingly besieged by mullahs, fellows of the Taliban, the massive gatherings at Sehwanand other Pakistani shrines suggest they will not be overrun soon.

Moreover, South Asias popularSufism is not all degenerate. Some of South Asias greatest

artistic achievements, especially in architecture, are expressions of it. The shrine to Baba HassanDin rising in Lahore is among them.

Mr Qadeer and Mr Niaz, the disciples of Hafiz Iqbal, began work on it a few months after his

death. It is being constructed entirely in natural materials, including clay bricks, white marble,

gemstones, and lime plaster strengthened, as luck would have it, by the thousands of frogs that

perished in it. The craftsmen building the shrine use traditional tools and techniques, somerevived especially for the task.

Unsupported by concrete, the shrines domes rest on the weight of their own artful construction.Its cloisters are modelled on the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf. Its bejewelled mosaics are copied

from the walls of Delhis 17th-century Red Fort. On the walls of the false burial chambers,

Koranic verses, chosen by Hafiz Iqbal, have been inscribed in an ink made from burned mustardoil, in a style of calligraphy taken from the Taj Mahal. It is a wonderful creation. Kamil Khan


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Mumtaz, the architect, a Sufi initiate himself, believes there has been no Islamic monument built

like it, anywhere in the Muslim world, for 300 years. May it last longer.

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