September 5, 2004

Many intellectuals in Pakistan harbour the notion that an improved literacy rate can turn their country into a progressive nation. In thinking so, they may be ignoring certain traditional forces that could be their natural allies

IN the wake of a marked increase in death by violence in terrorist attacks throughout the world, there is currently an ongoing debate in Pakistan, sparked off by General Pervez Musharraf’s “Plea for enlightened moderation”, which appeared on June 1 this year in the Washington Post. The article called upon the Muslim world to “shun militancy and extremism and adopt the path of socio-economic uplift”. While this is easier said than done, it is still important to trace both the origins of the term “enlightenment” used in the present-day context and to look at the potential for tolerance and moderation already extant among the people of Pakistan.

The term enlightenment was first commonly used in Europe to denote emergence from the Dark Ages in the 18th century, which was dubbed a “century of light”. It was a time when writers and thinkers were guided by a cult of pure reason and were opposed to those who would stay in the darkness of unscientific emotion and an understanding severely limited and controlled by an all-powerful and doctrinal clergy.

The colonial encounter in South Asia showed us that the outcome of this enlightenment was not without its dark side — along with the railway lines, steam and electricity came new injustices, Victorian morality and regimentation, to name a few. Many secular intellectuals of Pakistan today draw inspiration from this tradition, fervently believing that literacy and learning will one day transform Pakistan into a progressive nation, taking it away from the extremism and violence that plagues it. In their laudable desire to modernize, however, they overlook forces that have always occupied spaces of peace and restraint, forces that could be their natural allies in the battle against extremism and violence.

What they ignore — and sometimes even condemn — is the parallel mainstream current containing rivulets of enlightenment, tolerance and moderation, a current that I shall call ‘popular Islam’. Popular Islam combines the Sufi spirit with centuries-old cultural systems of survival that all humanity practises. To many of our intellectuals, however, this form of religious sentiment epitomizes ignorance, backwardness, and non-Islamic practices from which many of them seek to separate and distance themselves. Paradoxically, this form of popular religious expression is also ferociously opposed by most sections of extremist orthodox Islamic groups in Pakistan for almost the same reasons. However, neither fierce opposition of the extremists nor the condemnation of urban intellectuals has changed the quality or texture of this broad-based organic system that is still the guarantor of a tolerant Pakistan, a system that has contributed to keeping forces of intolerance and violence at bay by virtue of its sheer size and roots in the people.

Popular Islam centres on the Sufi shrines that dot the entire country. Unlike most other places of worship, most of these shrines are open at all times to people of all belief systems, regardless of origin, age or gender, sometimes with custodians keeping the tradition alive of enjoining kindness to the young, generosity to the poor, good counsel to friends, forbearance with enemies, sanctuary to the troubled and respect to the learned.

ORIGINS AND CONTEMPORARY REALITY: These shrines are generally believed to be the graves of Sufi saints. The first Sufis were 9th century ascetics who wandered around the Muslim world, preaching love, peace and brotherhood. Many of them were scholars, poets and musicians, who attracted a large following to their gentle form of Islam.

In South Asia, Iran and Central Asia, the places where Sufi masters settled and died have become important centres of pilgrimage and sanctuaries of peace. Pakistan is no exception. In many cases, these shrines are the continuation of a pre-Islamic sacred geography that had drawn local populations to them ever since recorded history, and popular Islam has maintained the continuity of these sacred places with the overlay of a Sufi shrine.

Driven from their once-flourishing cultural centres by the expanding Mongol armies, groups of Muslim scholars, mystics, musicians and ascetics from Central Asia sought refuge in more peaceful places. This steady stream of refugees, which flowed out of Central Asia from the 13th century onwards found sanctuary in South Asia and turned it into their home. The integration of this Diaspora resulted in a fusion of poetic, musical and philosophical elements on South Asian soil. And it is this heritage that today forms an integral part of popular Islam in Pakistan.

This acceptance of religious diversity is the foundation of popular Islam in Pakistan. While Muslims offer their prayers in a mosque, shrines are centres that welcome people of all creeds. The character of Pakistani popular Islam is such that it requires neither official patronage nor military protection. Such is the power of religious sentiment embodied in the shrines that every head of state of Pakistan must annually wash the mausoleums of revered Sufi saints of the past in full view of the television cameras. Fortunately for the proponents of a culture of tolerance and moderation, the significance of some of the shrines of dead holy men is a factor that can never be eliminated from Pakistan’s body politic.

Theft, adultery, infertility, ill fortune, envy, loss, peril and threat, vengeance, health — the list of individual problems is endless that may be brought to the shrines or directed through locally respected figures who are held to have special effectiveness in the writing of talismans (taviz) and operation of powerful signs to reveal, cure, protect and strike down the enemy.

The acts of the malevolent forces that harm, of the good spirits that bless, the meaning of the dreams and visions that may portend who knows what, require in turn the proper responses, interpretations and acts of these local spiritual figures, who operate with a logic of power and the unseen that demands very specific modes of behaviour and mediation understood only intuitively by most people who are drawn to them. Defying the constraints of Cartesian logic, this belief system generates a fuzzy logic of its own, a logic closer to avant-garde 21st century understanding of science and research. And yet it is this intuitive understanding that to this day contains elements of creativity, generosity and tolerance.

THE CULTURE OF CREATIVITY, GIVING AND TOLERANCE: It is the custom in Pakistan to celebrate the death anniversary of a Sufi saint in a joyous manner, for the saint is not dead, but has merely left the empty shell of his body to merge with the Eternal. This union with the universe is celebrated with a day and a night of dancing and singing, bright lights, garlands of rose and jasmine flowers, rose and sandalwood incense and the distribution of sweets. The day is called the urs (an Arabic word meaning ‘marriage’, and the anniversary signifies the marriage of the saint with divinity). The vast body of Sufi poetry and literature in the local languages is heard and repeated by the people gathering there.

One such fusion was the creation of the Pakistani musical genre called Qawwali, which evolved in South Asia from the 13th century as a musical form created through the mingling of Indian and Turco-Iranian traditions. The term is derived from the Arabic word qaul, meaning ‘that which is said or professed’. Qawwali renders multilingual and polycultural texts and settings blended into an essentially North Indian musical base. It was the response to the multilingual and polytheistic milieu of India that the Sufis encountered and qawwali was their unique gift, offering unity in diversity. Qawwali today is a flourishing form of Sufi music in the major demographic concentrations of Pakistan, where all citizens congregate to be entertained and to feel a deep communion with another reality beyond their everyday life. Musical and artistic expression flourish in this ambience, and it is no coincidence that the great Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan emerged from this milieu and put it on the world music map.

At the international level, it is this emanation of popular Islam that counters the lurid propaganda of Western yellow journalism of Pakistan as a nation of terrorists with knives between their teeth. It is also this form of Islam that served to convert local populations from their earlier polytheistic beliefs, succeeding at times in removing barriers of caste, hierarchy and creating a new form of pluralistic tolerance. This form of religion rarely issues judgments and condemnations; instead, it generates an atmosphere of joy and devotion beyond dry liturgy. The most remarkable aspect is that the unlettered practitioners of what we call popular Islam are often more aware of the dangers of extremism than the ruling intelligentsias and can constitute a bastion of tolerance and moderation against a radical and militant wave of extremism. Popular Sufi poetry in every Pakistani tongue chides the intolerant, rigid cleric while attempting to spread the message of unity, peace and love. But there is more to the shrines than just the original message. Who are the keepers and custodians of this important institution?

THE CUSTODIANS OF THE SHRINE — PRIMORDIAL NGOs: Most shrines run free kitchens for the poor and needy. Even in today’s Pakistan, hungry people gather at these shrines to get free food. The organization of feeding the needy is a complex and astonishingly well-managed affair and primarily dependent upon the generosity of the more fortunate who visit the shrine and give what they can. Informal groups of keepers and holy men cluster around each shrine, providing food to the hungry from free kitchens and distributing lucky charms and amulets to the needy and taking in the donations of all devotees. These “mafias” running shrines are probably the oldest surviving NGOs in Pakistan’s history. Typically, the structure takes the form of a holy man (called a sajjada nashin or pir) who usually traced his lineage to the saint buried there, aided by a group of lieutenants known as majavar. It was inevitable that the high volume of popular donations to these “autonomous” shrines would attract interest.

ENTER THE STATE — RECYCLING ALMS TO MADRESSAH: The most significant change took place when Pakistan’s first military government under self-promoted Field Marshal Ayub Khan (1958-69) nationalized most Sufi shrines and hospices under the Waqf Ordinance, providing the state with the largest single source of income from voluntary giving. This process of shrine nationalization broke the back of the ancient system of local administration, except where the custodians were able to prove that the land upon which the shrine was situated was private property belonging to the family of the saint buried there. In some places — particularly in Sindh — where living Sufi saints wielded — and still wield — considerable temporal power in addition to their spiritual attributes, many shrines remain the private domain of their families. Indeed, some of these families blossom in our parliaments as a loose association of mashaikh or spiritual guides. Needless to add, not all of them follow the lofty principles of their forbears. It was argued by the state that these shrines had become centres of drug-taking, immorality and cheating of the peasantry and the urban poor. What was not asked was what was preferable: the familiar practice of charlatanry and hucksterism or the new violence of the radical extremists that grew in the undercutting of this ancient system?

Despite its ambivalent attitude towards the shrines, the state was thus pragmatic enough to extract a source of revenue by commodifying popular religious sentiment. The old systems, deprived of their material sustenance, still continue in nationalized shrines, but only as a diluted, shadowy form, often a sanctuary for petty criminals and drug dealers.

The Auqaf departments of the provinces do not rely on external assistance. The generosity of pilgrims to the shrine putting money into the ubiquitous green boxes belonging to the state makes them one of the wealthiest departments of any province.

The mechanism of disbursement of these public voluntary giving through the provincial Auqaf departments is another alarming story. The dichotomy of popular Islam in its nationalized state is more evident here than anywhere else: a large volume of the funds that came from the generosity of people desiring peace and solutions of their problems is funnelled regularly by the state into the mosque schools, the dini madressahs.

Paradoxically, generosity emanating from a culture of peace and moderation was passed onto mosque schools, some of which bred the culture of new militancy and hatred.

THE HOLY MEN OF THE BUREAUCRATS — THE CULT OF MODERATE DARKNESS: Beyond the shrines and grafting on to the traditions of popular Islam grew a powerful group of Pakistani civil servants and their supporters, who as pious Muslims continue to propagate the belief that the simple lovable people of Pakistan did not need to read, write or acquire formal knowledge, for the folk wisdom they had attained through Sufi poetry was already a great treasure.

Their paternalistic attitude was based on one premise: since there was already an intellectual and moral elite in place, they argued, there was no urgent need for literacy or formal education. This stream of “enlightened Islam” has continued to sap the strength of the nation since its birth and influenced educational policies. It lamentably still persists in Pakistan’s mainstream bureaucratic culture. One late proponent of it is virtually worshipped by some civil servants as the pir of bureaucracy, while another appears regularly on television as an all-knowing, white-bearded, enlightened Sufi teacher surrounded by adulatory youth. This cult of moderate darkness falsely purports to have its roots in popular Islam and Sufi poetry and thus in the people. No greater disservice is done to the cause of enlightened moderation than by this group.

THE WAY AHEAD: The harnessing of popular Islam as a positive force for tolerance is still a field that needs intensive investigation. It is a field of religious and social practice so wide that it often eludes both knowledge of the intelligentsia and the control of the state while drawing harsh attacks from the intolerant fringes of our clergy. And where it is known by our thinkers, it is often perfunctorily dismissed as the superstitious ideas of the peasantry or the urban illiterates.

Mediation outside the channels of state power and institutions and with “higher” powers is closely linked to these shrines and to what the dominant literate groups classify as magic and superstition. In the absence of state institutions, it fulfils important social functions of Pakistani citizens — therapy, charity, psychiatric care and recreation, to name a few. The domed shrines of the holy men are only the visible tip of the iceberg of practice, knowledge and relations that have their deeper and vaster mass below the surface of our regard. And it is this vast mass that we must also draw upon as an important ally in our struggle to achieve a future Pakistan of enlightened moderation.

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