The bombing of the mausoleum of a renowned Pashto mystic poet outside the Pakistani city of Peshawar has darkened the mood further in a nation already numbed by the attack on cricket, its favourite sport, when the Sri Lankan team were targeted in Lahore.
Taliban militants are suspected of being behind the attack on the shrine of Abdul Rehman at the foot of the Khyber pass, where for centuries musicians and poets have gathered in honour of the 17th century messenger of peace and love.
The militants were angry that women had been visiting the shrine of the Rehman Baba as he was popularly known and so they planted explosives around the pillars of the tomb, to pull down the mausoleum in an echo of the Taliban bombing of the giant Buddha statues in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan back in 2001. The structure was damaged and the grave blown up, Dawn reported.
“Is there any limit to this insanity ?’ asks Owais Mughal in a post on All Things Pakistan. The militants had burnt girls schools to the ground in northwest Pakistan, forced traffic to drive on the right hand side instead of left in the Malakand region, dug up graves of a minority sect and even hung the bodies in the public square in Swat region, he says. And now they were blowing up the resting place of the dead.
“Believe it or not; probably like some of our readers, I am now reluctant to open a newspaper to avoid reading any bad news about Pakistan. It hurts. It simply hurts,” he wrote.
William Dalrymple writing in The Sunday Observer said the attack was a reminder that Wahhabi radicals were determined to destroy a gentler, kinder Islam that had dominated South Asia for centuries.
He quotes Rehman Baba:”I am a lover, and I deal in love. Sow flowers, So your surroundings become a garden Don’t sow thorns; for they will prick your feet. We are all one body, Whoever tortures another, wounds himself.”
Rehman Baba believed passionately in the importance of music, poetry and dancing as a path for reaching God, as a way of opening the gates of Paradise, Dalrymple says. But this use of poetry and music in ritual is one of the many aspects of Sufi practice that has attracted the wrath of the Islamists. And this differing understanding of Islam is really at the heart of the conflict that is raging in Pakistan, he says.
Wahhabi fundamentalism has advanced so quickly in Pakistan that madrasas have taught an entire generation to abhor the region’s gentle, syncretic Sufi Islam and to embrace instead an imported form of Saudi Wahhabism.
“The trend towards anti-culture extremism, however, is seen across the Islamic world, much aided in the 1990s by Saudi investment in the spread of the Wahhabi faith,” writes Pakistan’s The Daily Times. With the latest attack, miltants had put the Pakistan state on notice about their intent against Pakistani culture, the paper said. It worried that the Taliban were also likely to attack the Sindhis whose mysticism-based culture is still intact in the interior of the province.
Sufism is anathema to the Taliban and they have long sought to uproot it. When the Taliban seized power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 1996, they locked Sufi shrines. In Pakistan’s Mohmand tribal region, the local Taliban captured the shrine of a revered freedom movement hero, Haji Sahib of Turangzai, and turned it into their headquarters as this BBC story says.
So are parts of Pakistan increasingly looking like a clone of Taliban Afghanistan ?
[Reuters picture of Abdur Rehman's mausoleum near Peshawar and Taliban militants standing guard in Swat]
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@It isn’t your land, it isn’t your history and it isn’t your heritage. if you think so, thats because its your Akhand Bharat nonsense.
- Posted by Bangash Khan
–Khan, Be Thankful for allowing you to live next door. It is all ours and for us to take when we want until then say thanks—all said with good reason and cold logic.
- Posted by rajeevBangash Khan
—Huh, but don’t are not all pakistani’s, as they claim, to be ‘descendants’ of Turks / Mongols / Arabs— from when did you’ll started to claim the sub-continent culture as your own???
- Posted by anup@Anup
It isn’t your land, it isn’t your history and it isn’t your heritage. if you think so, thats because its your Akhand Bharat nonsense.
- Posted by Bangash KhanThis is the direct influence of Saudi Wahhabism, which sends a lot of money to madrassas and groups in Pakistan and spreads its ideology. In Saudi Arabia the wahhabis have descrated and destroyed shrines of important people in Islam, and in Pakistant he Wahabi inspired and funded militants are doing the same.
- Posted by Aamir Alichirkut
—Alright, but frankly aren’t the people of ‘the land of pure’ getting exactly what they asked for - no sympathies from me - nor do i entertain the idea of ‘victimization’ for an opportunistic society like the Pakistani’s, although the loss of heritage indulged by the Islamists is ultimately the loss of we Indians, because it in reality is our culture & heritage & rightfully belongs to us - the Pakistani’s have again failed us by not being able to preserve our rich heritage trusted to them & are sacrificing it at the altar of their hate for India.
- Posted by anupWhat the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas resulted to Afghanistan - the destruction of Rehman Baba’s tomb shall be to Pakistan.
@ Mauryan, Anup Rajeev
Can we please take our discussion on TN Politics out of Pakistani blog?
Thanks in advance
- Posted by chirkutAnup,
On Sufi saints - thanks for sharing the information. I have some disagreements. However, I intend not arguing for argument sake. Let us say, you and I have different views on Sufism and its development.
Sufism does pre-date Islam as you have alluded to. It follows the principle of free spirit that relies on unconditional love and devotion. This is nothing different from what many philosophies in India teach. Sufi Islam spread through most of Pakistan. The Wahabbi and Deobandi schools of Islam tend to isolate Muslims from others, pushing them towards orthodoxy and resemble boot camps. Sufi Islam is based on tolerance and love. See this link. You will mistake it for a Hindu festival.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/slideshow/page /0,,2176124,00.html
- Posted by Mauryan@Mauryan,
I think Indians, especially the youth have a sense of national pride. India is very much an international player on all levels, from entertainment to IT to aerospace. It is very precious that India is a secular and democratic, that all Indians, whether they are Tamil, punjabi, tegulu, christian or any other relgion, culture has the opportunity to advance, if their heart wills it and they choose to truly try.
Indians should always take comfort and restraint in knowing that they are the source of American brainpower for the IT and military in the U.S.
Indians are very well respected and liked in the U.S. as many of them are IT specialists, doctors, engineers and many other professions.
I don’t misplace and identify my Indian pride with rivalry with Pakistan.
Indian-ness stems from the fact that our civilization is ancient, mature in its response and highly spiritually developed.
The so-called trendy new-age concepts of NEO_HUMANISM are actually from India. It is this neo-humanism, which makes India so special, the maternal mother India it is.
- Posted by Global WatcherAnup writes: “At the age of 89, Rajaji forged an united opposition to the Indian National Congress by forming an alliance between the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Swatantra Party and the Forward Bloc.”This front” under C. N. Annadurai captured power in the state in the 1967 elections.
Rajaji’s Swatantra Party won 18 seats in the third Lok Sabha (1962-67). It emerged as the main opposition in four states - Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Orissa. It became the single largest opposition party in the mid-1960s in Parliament with 44 seats in the Fourth Lok Sabha (1967-71).
Rajaji is a Bharat Ratna & the inspiration of a liberal India. This ‘brahmin’ is the one who issued the Temple Entry Authorization and Indemnity Act 1939 by which restrictions were removed on Dalits and Shanars entering Hindu temples. Isn’t Jayalalitha a Brahmin?”
You should not read too much into political alliances. Even today the BJP allies with DMK for one election and then with the ADMK on another. This is not new to the Indian political system. Sure, Rajaji simply did not sit and pick his teeth. He was a famous freedom fighter. When Gandhi ran the Dandhi march, Rajaji led a similar one in TN. He was the first governor general after Mount Batten departed.
What you are not understanding is that in the TN political scene after 1965 changed dramatically. What the news reports do not show openly are the public sentiments. The status of Brahmins reached its nadir in TN from that time until 1975 when the emergency was declared. Brahmins began to migrate out of TN seeking jobs outside as they were denied opportunities for college admissions, jobs and so on. I know of TN Brahmins who hated their state and began to identify themselves with the cultures they moved into. They used to tell me that if TN had managed to secede, the Brahmins would have faced what SL Tamils faced or Jews faced in Nazi Germany.
There are lot of mini-Pakistans inside the sub-continent. A united India helped avoid disasters that would have turned the sub-continent similar to the African countries like Congo, Rwanda, Angola, Uganda etc.
But that is a different topic altogether.
- Posted by MauryanMauryan
- Posted by anup“Sufi religion is 4000 years old?”
The Sufi tradition is immensely old, the tentacles of the brotherhood reach out to many religions and cultures and extend thousands of years into the past, its members were once better known as the Friends of Truth, the Builders, the Masters, the People of the Way and numerous other appellations that had been circulating for far longer than the lifetime of Islam. The Friends, it is said, were already present in Medina during Muhammad’s lifetime and adopted the name Sufi after taking an oath of fidelity to the Muslim cause.
There is a Sufi tradition in Central Asia that claims to go back forty thousand years.
The paintings in the Lascaux caves in the Dordogne, France, which the great authority on parietal art, the Abbé Breuil, has dated to about thirty thousand years BCE, were the work of later Sufi descendants of the shamans. The Lascaux artists were members of a brotherhood that survived after Atlantis sank seven or eight thousand years ago.
The Sufis are believed to have founded a brotherhood called the Sarman or Sarmoun Society, which met in Babylon as far back as c. 2500 BCE and was responsible for preserving the inner teachings and initiations of the Aryan tradition in a period of religious decline. The Sarmouni are believed to have secret training centres hidden to this day in the most remote regions of Central Asia.
Then, when in the seventh century CE civilization was in danger of total collapse through the ravages of global pestilence, war, earthquakes and the suppression of all Greek learning by Byzantine Christianity, the Sufi masters transferred their allegiance from Zoroastrianism to Islam, the latter offering the greater hope of rehabilitation for humanity. Thus the wisdom and science of Persia, with its great heritage of Greek learning, passed into the Muslim culture and was carried by Muslim sages into every quarter of the globe. The Dark Ages were halted and Islam, supported by the Sufis, brought about a brilliant revival of the Graeco-Roman arts and sciences.
Crusaders such as the Templars encountered the rich Saracen culture in the Holy Land and secretly brought back the cream of Sufi thought to Europe to enrich Christian theological scholarship, art and sciences.
With the Mongol invasions, however, came difficult days for European civilization as many sources of Sufi wisdom withdrew. The Sufi Masters of Wisdom known in Central Asia as the Khwajagan lineage withdrew at this time to the Trans-Himalayas, where their schools still persist & have continued to this day to head the Sufi hierarchy from its hidden Trans-Himalayan headquarters. I hope this explains the Taliban’s antipathy towards Rehman Baba.
Mauryan
—“Rajaji (as he was called) was a tootheless icon as far as TN politics was concerned. He had a national stature and was a Brahmin.”
— In response to your ignorance
- Posted by anupAt the age of 89, Rajaji forged an united opposition to the Indian National Congress by forming an alliance between the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Swatantra Party and the Forward Bloc.”This front” under C. N. Annadurai captured power in the state in the 1967 elections.
Rajaji’s Swatantra Party won 18 seats in the third Lok Sabha (1962-67). It emerged as the main opposition in four states - Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Orissa. It became the single largest opposition party in the mid-1960s in Parliament with 44 seats in the Fourth Lok Sabha (1967-71).
Rajaji is a Bharat Ratna & the inspiration of a liberal India. This ‘brahmin’ is the one who issued the Temple Entry Authorization and Indemnity Act 1939 by which restrictions were removed on Dalits and Shanars entering Hindu temples. Isn’t Jayalalitha a Brahmin?
@There are lot of emotional issues lying dormant. Politicians should be careful not to step on them. I wish there was a separate blog for India on Reuters. We can discuss them there instead of here, in a Pakistani forum.
- Posted by rajeev- Posted by Mauryan
-Being not from S.India, I do not have emotional attachment with this issue except believing in oneness of India by being careful about sensitive regional issues anywhere. This is so much we can discuss because of relevance sake. Thanks for sharing some information that you have some S.India connection.
Pakistanis go silent when they find Indians fight or argue amongst themselves. That is very entertaining to them.
A united India has helped avoid several armed conflicts which would have otherwise occurred over the past 60 years. With time, a feeling of “Indianness” has emerged. This wasn’t there even about 30 years ago. Thanks to Pakistan’s repeated attempts to irritate India have united Indians even more. But this Indianness is not entirely dependent on keeping hatred against Pakistanis alive. It is one of the factors that have contributed to our unity while in diversity. And there have been continued accomplishments in various fields, international recognition etc have bolstered these feelings. Pakistan on the other hand has focused entirely on India to keep its unity and it has become like a steroid. They need more and more dosages of it in order to keep going. Or else they begin to fall apart.
- Posted by MauryanThey have lived on a myth of Indian inferiority and are unable to digest the fact that this country has come up against the odds and has achieved a high stature in the international arena.
Pakistani’s go mysteriously silent when the finger points in their direction. Either that, or they are dodging drones.
I am surprised not even on of them is hurling dung, vomit and feces at any body criticizing Pakistan.
- Posted by Global Watcher