Carnage At
Qalandar Shrine: The Shia, Sunni, Sufi Triangle
Saeed
Naqvi
Audiences
in their hundreds of thousands across the subcontinent will remember Reshma
with her flashing eyes and haunting, gypsy voice singing “Dama dum mast
qalandar”. Well, that’s the Dhamaal signature tune. It was the punchline of
this song which had become controversial when President Zia ul Haq set
Pakistani Islam on a course of Arabization in the 80s in order to wrench it
away from the syncretic Islam which hundreds of Sufi schools had established in
India since the 13th century. “If Iran imbibes Indian culture, it
will still remain Iran, but if Pakistan retains Indian traditions, it will over
time become India.” That was the General’s warped reasoning.
The
suicide attack on the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, in Sindh, which killed
nearly 100 devotees last week, is unlikely to dampen the Dhamaal spirit, the
ecstatic dance performed in the shrine’s courtyard at dusk every Thursday to
the magical rhythm of drums. Nazir Akbarabadi has a brilliant poem on “haal” or
trance. It describes perfectly the transcendent dance at Dhamaal. Terrorism is
too feeble an instrument to kill the idea.
The
punchline of the Mast Qalandar song is “Ali da pehla number” which means “Ali
is first”. This, unfortunately, touches on the principal point of difference
between Shias and Sunnis. Shias believe that the prophet’s son-in-law, Ali
should have been the first inheritor of the Prophet’s worldly and spiritual
responsibilities, the Caliphate. Sunnis accept what actually happened: the
Prophet’s senior companion, Abu Bakr Siddiq became the first Caliph of Islam.
To
avoid further controversies, the punchline was amended. It became “Ali dum dum
de andar”, or Ali is in every breath.
The
two sects cite different traditions to advance their claims. The Shias point to
the episode of Ghadir Khumm. Returning from his last Haj, the prophet stopped
at an elevated spot in Ghadir, held Ali by the hand and announced to the
congregation that they must respect Ali’s primacy after the Prophet’s death.
While
creating Qawwali as a devotional form of music, Amir Khusro dressed up this
episode as a compulsory Qaul or declaration of faith to be sung at the start of
every Qawwali session. Google Qawwali and search “Mun Kunto Maula, Fahaza Ali
Maula”, (Roughly translated it means: he who considers me his spiritual and
temporal leader must accord the same status to Ali).
It
is an open and shut case, claim the Shias. The prophet had publicly passed the
baton to Ali.
Sunnis
advance their claim differently: when the Prophet was fatally ill, he asked his
companion Abu Bakr to lead the Friday prayers.
Why
are Shia-Sunni differences being explained in the context of an attack on the
Sindh Sufi shrine? Because in popular perception there is a lack of clarity on
the Shia, Sunni, Sufi triangle.
Sufi
saints were all of Sunni origin as are the overwhelming majority of devotees at
their shrines. There will be a sizeable number of Hindu and a sprinkling of
others.
If
most of those in attendance at shrines like Shahbaz Qalandar are Sunnis why
would Jihadist Salafis, who are also Sunni, kill them so brutally. Islamic
State claimed “credit” for the carnage in Sindh. The IS, let it be clarified,
is an amalgam of Salafis, Muslim Brotherhood, offshoots of Al Qaeda, Jabhat al
Nusra and dispossessed Baathists from Iraq now standing on a militant, Sunni
platform because post Saddam Hussain Baghdad is largely in Shia hands. In other
words each component of IS may have different emphases but together they form a
critical mass.
The
harsh Salafi disapproval, even visceral hatred for Sufis, can be explained in
broad terms: the Sufi incorporation of music, dance, local customs into their
practice of Islam. Also, their acceptance of people of all faiths, castes,
their general Catholicism, contrast sharply from the arid austerities of the
Salafis. But this does not fully explain the intensity of their anger. This is
focused on the personality of Ali who is the centerpiece of Sufi ritual.
Ali,
as I have mentioned earlier, is the main point of contention between Shias and
Sunnis. After the coming of the Ayatullahs in Iran, the Arab-Ajam,
Saudi-Iranian antipathies began to determine the geo-politics of the Arab
world.
In
this churning, Israel and Saudi Arabia have, overtime, become strategic
partners. Partly as a result of Saudi clout in the region, the Palestinian
issue has lost saliency: Shia-Sunni was promoted as the fundamental faultline.
At a recent lecture in Oslo, Henry Kissinger said it in so many words: the
defining issue in the Arab world is not Palestinian homeland but the Shia-Sunni
conflict.
If
the West, Israel and Saudi Arabia are on the same page on what is increasingly
being described as the central faultline in the Arab world, namely the
Shia-Sunni divide, what does one make of the Sunni Salafi suicide bomber, sometimes
wearing the IS cap, on a relentless spree of murder and mayhem? On whose side
is the West? It must be added, in parenthesis, that no suicide bomber has ever
been identified as a Shia. Mysteriously, this fact has never been highlighted
by the western media, currently under severe pressure to arrest its plummeting
credibility.
In
the Indian sub continent, the Shia, Sunni, Sufi triangle has its own dynamics.
From the Delhi Sultanate right upto the last Moghul, rulers had Central Asian
antecedents with a sprinkling of Persian, Shia elite in key positions.
This
may have been one enabling factor for most the regional Muslim dynasties being
Shia – Bahmani Sultanate, Sharqi, Berar,
Bidar, Qutub Shahi, Adil Shahi, Awadh Nawabi, Najafi Nawabs of Bengal, Nawab of
Murshidabad and Rampur.
All
these came under the cultural influence of Iran which has an abiding respect
for its Zoroastrian past. Shias of the subcontinent, like the Parsis, celebrate
Navroz, the Persian New Year.
The
catchment areas of these Kingdoms and Nawabis were fertile ground for Sufi
schools to take root. In Awadh Holi, Basant, Diwali, Krishna, Radha, Rama were
incorporated into Sufi songs. Mohsin Kakorvi’s celebration of the Prophet’s
birthday invokes Ganga, Jamuna and Krishna. Maulana Hasrat Mohani belonged to a
school which respected Krishna as God’s messenger. His numerous poems on Radha
and Krishna are high points of Sufi mysticism. All Urdu poets are of a Sufi
bent. There is not a single line in the annals of Urdu poetry supportive of the
hapless Mullah.
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