June 12, 2005

It’s quite unusual for an interviewer to run into someone who has written not one, not two, but three well documented and well researched books and insists that her volumes are interesting but not outstanding. Her best, she claims, is yet to come. A woman of many facets, Samina Quraeshi is a teacher, artist, designer, painter, photographer and writer, and has excelled in everything that she has done. She is also an interviewer’s delight for she is articulate, but a nightmare when one has to profile her achievements in merely 1,500 words.

She has sandwiched a two-day visit to Karachi, the city she has grown up in, between her visit to Islamabad where her third book, Legends of the Indus, was launched by Lok Virsa and her trip to Fez in Morocco where a five-day festival of devotional music is to be held. Travelling with her is her “best friend” architect Richard Shepard, who is her husband of 30 years. His interest in her culture, which is an abiding passion for her, brought the two together, ever since they met at Yale University, where she was studying art and he architecture.

As I meet them at the club, where they are staying, she responds to my reference to her as a scholar, shortly after we are seated. “I am not a scholar. I consider myself a student,” she says, only to add in the same breath. “A scholar is someone like Dr Annemarie Schimmel who was an authority on Islamic mysticism and who authored 80 invaluable books.”

Schimmel was Quraeshi’s mentor, collaborator and an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Out of respect to the German scholar, in whose footsteps she is aspiring to walk, Quraeshi calls her Apaji. “She warned me that I should beware of being ‘in the sleep of heedlessness’. She said that if God has given me some talent then I should make use of that,” says Quraeshi.

With her two children Sadia and Cassim in their twenties and with her achieving what were milestones to her — “Innovating in the Academy” award and the Henry Luce chair for inter-disciplinary studies — Samina Quraeshi has decided to leave other pursuits and concentrate full time on her fourth book Pirs, Faqirs and Dervishes: A Journey with the Sufis. “I can’t work 60 hours a week, teaching and doing an administrative job, and then find time for my research,” she says. She plans returning to Pakistan to work on her book which will take her to India as well. She says that it took her seven years to complete each of her previous books because she could work on them in her spare time only.

“The Sufi journey is very consuming. It is becoming more and more important in my personal life. As a woman, I am drawn to Sufi females such as Pak Daman and Bibi Jawandi. Then there were emperor Shah Jahan’s daughters, Roshan Ara and Jahan Ara, who made architectural contributions to Khawaja Moinuddin’s last resting place on this earth and at Mian Mir’s mausoleum too,” says Quraeshi.

“Many Sufis wrote poetry and their verse had universal appeal. Not many people would know that the message in Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti’s poems found its way into the holy scriptures of Sikhism. The Sufis were so connected with God that they attracted people of different faiths. Their devotees were also influenced by the fact that in their lifetime the Sufis practised what they preached. I shall try to probe for my next book whether such practices as laying chadars on the graves or tying threads on the premises of mausoleums of the saints are faith or superstition,” says Samina Quraeshi.

While introducing her three books all printed abroad, she says that she would try to have her fourth work published locally or have an agreement with the foreign publisher to make it available in the subcontinent at an affordable price.

Her maiden publication was Legacy of the Indus, which showed the richness and diversity of the Indus region. It could also be called a discovery of Pakistan. The second titled Lahore, the City Within traces the walled city from the year 1000 to the present day. As for the third Legends of the Indus, it was launched when Quraeshi was invited by Pakistan’s High Commissioner, Maleeha Lodhi, to give a lecture at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Ms Lodhi invited President Musharraf to “grace the occasion”. He was so impressed that the book was once again launched in Islamabad. The Pakistan government has bought some copies to distribute it among foreign dignitaries but she laments the fact that it is too high-priced for most Pakistanis to buy.

The coffee table book has essays and poems by Dr Annemarie Schimmel and Ali S. Asani, professor of Indo-Muslim Languages and Culture at Harvard University. As for the main text the author has re-narrated the romantic legends from Pakistan’s five regions. These also serve as mirrors of Pakistani rural life — Adam Khan and Durkhane (from the NWFP), Sassi and Punnu (Sindh), Sohni and Mahiwal (northern Punjab), Heer and Ranjah (southern Punjab) and Omar and Marvi (Balochistan). The book is profusely illustrated with photographs, miniature paintings and textile motifs.

While on these legends, she recalls, “I once asked Dr Schimmel why did all the women die in these stories, and what she told me was indeed thought-provoking. She said that death in these legends didn’t mean termination of life, but it meant reunion with the divine. Their lives were simply short worldly journeys in search of their soul mates.”

About her interest in stories, she said that she had heard them from her parents and grandparents. And then they became a part of her consciousness. They grew on her. “If I have to describe myself in one short sentence, I’ll say I am a storyteller. I narrate my story through words and images alike,” she says. Reverting to her interest in Sufism she claims that she inherited it from her elders and the places that they described became got embedded in her consciousness. When she went to Mumbai, the city where she was born and from where her mother hailed, she saw the Haji Ali Dargah in the middle of the sea and she felt she had seen it before. “It was just that I heard about the place from my mother so often that I found it very familiar. My father was from Ajmer, which also explains my Sufi connection. I was just three when we migrated to Pakistan. Even though I have no visual memory I have heard so much about the town and the dargah that it doesn’t seem alien to me at all.”

Talking about her interest in reading, she recalled that her father bought Mackwin and Co, a bookshop in Saddar, Karachi, from an Englishman shortly after partition. “I was encouraged to go there and read or browse any book as long as I didn’t spoil it. It was like a personal library. My elder brother Shams Quraeshi, who later took charge of the book store, became my guide. He would tell me what books to read. Strangely, in a family of eight sons and two daughters, Shams Bhai and I were the only book lovers. Reading became my passion. I also began to enjoy the visual beauty of some books. I learnt about the ‘making of the books’. That has been a passion with me too.”

“You express yourself through spoken words, written words and images both painted and photographed, if you were asked to choose one, what would be your choice?” I query.

“I would be miserable if I am forced to make a choice. There are moments when I think I can’t express myself adequately through the written word, I may like to put my thoughts verbally, and if nothing works I may like to use images. So, I won’t agree to making a choice. Everything is so interrelated. The strength of the words — spoken or written — is reinforced with images. So, it is the combination of words and images that makes the narration or description so powerful,” answers Quraeshi.

Painting, she says, came naturally to her. She drew and painted from a very early age. She has exhibited her visual art in different countries and is planning a major arts exhibition later this year in Karachi.

In conclusion when she talks about the impression of Islam in the West her husband, who to quote him “embraced Islam” at the time of their marriage, joins in. She says that there is a lot of interest in what is now the fastest growing religion in the world. The educated, she says, are taking academic interest in the religion. Shepard says that unfortunately the man on the street in America wonders, “Why do they hate us?”

“We the Muslims need to clear the misunderstandings. I often deliver lectures on Islam. I once went to a synagogue and read excerpts from the Holy Quran and the audience was surprised to learn how much stress our religion lays on peace and brotherhood,” she says.

“We should in our own ways try to remove the ignorance of the West about Islam. Remember ignorance breeds fear and hatred,” she remarks and I couldn’t have agreed with her more.