When the Arabs were conquering the best lands in the East and the West, Mohammed Bin Qasim brought Islam to South Asia in 711. Today Islam is the faith of millions of people in the region.

Spain had been conquered at about the same time, but Muslims were exterminated from there. But Islam has not only survived in South Asia but spread far and wide.

Respect for all faiths preached by the sufi saints has been perhaps the most important factor behind the flourishing of Islam in South Asia.

The sufi dimension of Islam, which developed into a structured Islamic school of thought, promoted peaceful coexistence and mutual tolerance among different religions.

Sufi saints worked for harmony aimed at bridging differences between people and avoided a clash of religions.

The Arab rule over Sindh subsequently collapsed and the Arabs integrated themselves into the indigenous Sindhi society.

They adopted local language and culture.

Among the Arab families who had come to Sindh was that of Shaikh Shahabuddin Farooqui, the great grandson of Hazrat Umer Farooq (RA). He was the first Muslim ruler in South Asia.

Shaikh Shahabuddin was appointed governor of Sehwan after the conquest of Sindh.

In 1739, Abdul Wahab, a child born in the Farooqui family, took up the task of promoting the real image of Islam as the religion of peace.

Abdul Wahab Farooqi, who was given the title of Sachal, stands tall among the galaxy of saints who worked for religious amity and coexistence. Throughout the 88 years that Sachal lived, Sindh witnessed 15 attacks from the Sikh and Rajput rulers.

During the Sachal era, some outrageous attacks were launched on Sindh also by the Muslim rulers of Afghanistan and Iran.

Besides, different families of Sindh fought among themselves to end the Kalhoro rule and set up their family’s rule in the region.

Them the British arrived in South Asia and started their conquest of the subcontinent.

Sachal Sarmast was aware that the Muslim rule was declining and realised that the British would eventually occupy Sindh. At that time Punjab and the NWFP of the present day Pakistan were under the Sikh rule.

The people of Sindh were in need of guidance to escape the vagaries of tough times ahead. Sachal’s forefathers had brought Islam to Sindh and he overcame forces of orthodoxy and promoted religious harmony.

He espoused the principles of brotherhood, peace and love. The greatness of individuals was central to his thoughts. Because of his philosophy, a number of Hindus who were his disciples willed to be buried along with him, instead of being cremated.

Sachal took on pretensions clerics whose conduct engendered schism in Islam. And the clerics labelled him an apostate.

He believed that such clerics had harmed the spirit of Islam and that Muslims should not be misled by their divisive preaching.

He says:

Some say one thing,

Some say another,

I am, who I am.

Some say I am an infidel,

Some say I am a believer,

I am, who I am.

Sachal’s passion for man’s dignity can be gauged from his verses which say that a human being whether he belongs to the privileged section of society or the underprivileged deserves respect.

He says:

We are, what are we?

Sometimes we are blessed,

Sometimes we are accursed,

‘Sachoo’ we are that eternally,

What other contract can we make?

Sachal believes that God lives in people’s hearts and, therefore, hurting someone would mean hurting God.

He says:

I truly recognised the Lord,

My companion He sure became;

He is the Creator of all

and intrinsic to all

In order to comprehend the spirit of Islam as a religion of peace we need to understand Sachal and his message of coexistence to promote harmony among sects and faiths.

NIAZ Khaskheli is the latest victim of a cruel society which forced him to take his own life after struggling for a long time, and failing to earn enough to feed his family.

His struggle for a job, even one which could provide him basic subsistence, took him from a small town in Sindh to the capital.

He travelled from Sinjhoro, Sanghar, as a poverty-drenched and unemployed man with no means to survive.

After being completely disappointed, Niaz did what a number of frustrated young men have done in the past few years.

Seeing no hope of survival, he immolated himself in front of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Monday last.

How difficult it will be for his widow and three children to survive after his demise is not any riddle. Resort to begging or follow Niaz?

Niaz travelled for about 2,000 kilometres to Islamabad, in search of a job. Someone took him to the bustling capital where he got a job as an attendant in a private laboratory, looking for a better position and living in a cheap hostel with others like him.

Here some men robbed him of his small belongings and harassed him for no reason that pushed him into a very distraught state of mind.

Niaz was too simple to get his respect redeemed. He failed to understand the norms of a society where false promises are instrument of customary privileges, hypocrisy a stepping stone to upper strata and bribery source of achievement.

Unaware of all these ‘norms’ of Pakistani society and failing to get justice, he finally decided to end his life to relieve himself of the agonies he had endured during his minor job.

After his death doctors claimed that he was a problematic person and had suicidal tendency. In other words he was in search of an ‘excuse’.

The disrespect he underwent and harassment he faced, were too hard to absorb for a simple man.

Doctors’ assertion that he carried an idea of committing suicide does not support the facts. All schools and disciplines of psychology would disapprove of it.

There can be more than one reason to justify self-immolation of Niaz Khaskheli, but one. He needed healing of his lost respect. No one paid any heed when he complained about the harassment he was subjected to by his hostel-mates.

He complained about this to relevant quarters but to no avail. He became a crestfallen person to such an extent that he decided to end his life.

Experts may offer many reasons that force a person to commit suicide, but they always forget the basic lesson that it is ones’ act of protest against a brutal system that had pushed him into this desperate state.

The government – the most powerful organ of the system, it is its duty to provide basic subsistence to all citizens.

Governments in all civilised countries consider it their first responsibility to ensure jobs to the people and if no other source of living is available, the state has the responsibility to assure a source of living till he is appropriately placed.

Niaz became a victim of neglect—- by the government as well as our society.

The state functionaries and the state-controlled media continue to make us believe that all is well.

But those in authority themselves know that all is not well. They don’t have the courage to accept the truth.

Now that Niaz is no more, the aggrieved family may wail for some time and try to find out some source of living, which will again be a beginning of another era of misery and humiliation. How will they pass their thorny journey, is a question no one will bother to ponder. But more so, it is not the death of Niaz of Sanghar, how many more like him will have to immolate to communicate that they need an excuse for living.

Perhaps a blank question.