PESHAWAR: Rahman Baba Adabi Jirga and Pashto Adabi Board, Peshawar, jointly started annual celebrations of the 17th century Sufi Pashto poet, Rahman Baba, at Rahman Baba Complex, Hazarkhawani, here on Friday.

Peshawar district nazim Mohammad Asim Khan laid a floral wreath on the shrine of Rahman Baba and took a round of the complex. A large number of people from different walks of life visited the shrine and paid their respects to the Sufi poet. The Urs marks 356th birth anniversary of Rahman Baba.

Qasim Mahmood, 70, a resident of Shangla, told this scribe that he along with his three colleagues had come to Peshawar to attend the Urs celebrations. He said that he had been paying respects to the Sufi poet for the last over three decades to get spiritual solace. “Rahman Baba was an excellent poet and a sublime Sufi saint,” he said.

Speaking to the Jirga members and disciples, the nazim said that the Peshawar district government would contribute Rs200,000 to annual Urs grant and would address other pressing issues related to the Rahman Baba Complex. He said that Baba was a great Sufi poet and his message of peace, tolerance and humanism would be spread all over the world.

Peshawar nazim, other people pay respects to the Sufi Pashto poet

Earlier, members of the Adabi Jirga and devotees held Quran Khwani and laid floral wreath on the grave of Rahman Baba. Prof Dawar Khan Daud, chief of the Jirga, complained that Mushaira Hall at the Rahman Baba Complex built in 1992 had still been dysfunctional. “Every year we have to conduct the seminar session at Khan-i-Farhang Iran.

We have several times written to the provincial directorate of archives and public libraries to vacate and repair the hall for our activities,” he said.

He regretted that the Jirga had been demanding increase in the annual grant for Urs celebrations, which currently stood at Rs100,000, as they could not publish ‘Rahman Pohana’, a research Pashto journal for the fifth consecutive year due to lack of funds.

He said that there was no office for the Jirga members where they could conduct meetings.

Mohammad Zaman, assistant director of archives and public libraries, told this scribe that Rs50 million had been proposed in the Annual Development Plan for repair and maintenance of the Mushaira Hall. “The mushaira hall will be vacated within three days while work on its renovation will be started after release of the funds,” he said.

The Quran Khwani was followed by Sufi lessons by Rahman Baba scholars who said that Rahman Baba was a social reformer too and lived a pious and eventful life.

Later, a qawwali concert was held in which local folk singers sang Sufi kalam of Rahman Baba with Rabab and Mungai (pitcher).

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2017