THATTA: More than 4,000 devotees in white garb and with small pitchers of milk covered with white pieces of cloth perched on their heads make a beeline before entrance to the shrine of Sheikh Salamat aka Mugarbeen, waiting for their turn to enter the premises and take part in an annual ritual of bathing the shrine’s domes with milk.

Unlike other shrines and mostly Hindu temples where saints’ graves or idols are given a bath of milk, considered to be the ultimate expression of reverence, only the domes of the Mugarbeen mausoleum are chosen for the ritual.

No devotee can even think of walking into the shrine as it is considered equal to committing a ‘cardinal sin’ to glance at the graves of women adjacent to the shrine of Sheikh Salamat, hence, only domes are washed with milk to herald the approach of annual urs of the saint, his devotees and family members, including women and children, who were all massacred during a ruthless war with the troops of Rai Kanoch, the 11th century ruler of Gujarat.

Nobody is allowed to enter the tomb housing graves of women, except a lone disciple who lights earthen lamps inside its premises every evening.

The mausoleum, situated in the coastal town of Jati in Sujawal district, has three tombs. Under the dome of one tomb are buried Sheikh Salamat and his family members, including women, and the other two tombs house the graves of the Sheikh’s grandfather, grandson and other devotees.

According to historian Dr Mohammad Ali Manjhi, Rai Kanoch was a ruler of the state of Kanoch which comprised a major part of today’s Gujarat in India. The raja did not have any direct conflict with Sheikh but he attacked him after the latter gave refuge to a family of Sayyeds who had fled his wrath after he became their enemy when children of the two families — the Sayyeds and the king’s — fought over a petty issue.

Rai Kanoch reacted so cruelly that the frightened Sayyeds had to leave their home and hearth and come to Jati where they found refuge with the Sheikh, a spiritual figurehead of the area. Rai Kanoch sent a messenger to the Sheikh asking him to hand him over the Sayyeds or be prepared for war, said Manjhi.

Sheikh refused to hand over the Sayyeds and opted for war with the king’s forces, which ended up in the massacre of the Sheikh along with his loved ones and the Sayyed family, besides a sizeable number of the raja’s soldiers. This war for honour and gallantry is remembered and celebrated every year, said Manjhi.

Usually, annual urs ceremony of a saint is spread over three days, with exceptions like the melo of Shah Karim of Bulri, the great-grandfather of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, which continues for an entire week.

But Sheikh’s urs celebrations are spread over several weeks, beginning with pre-mela ritual of washing the mausoleum’s domes with milk.

For this purpose, cattle-owning disciples and local devotees donate milk in huge quantity which is collected in a big pond on the premises of the shrine and is then sprinkled with rose petals amid songs sung by local women devoted to the shrine.

Small pitchers are distributed among heads of 1,800 households registered with the shrine’s custodians and finally over 4,000 people led by the Sajjada Nashin take the milk-filled pitchers to the mausoleum on the assigned day while singing religious hymns and eulogies for the supreme sacrifice of the Sheikh and his family and elegies mourning the Sayyed family who were massacred by the raja’s ruthless soldiers.

However, this ritual does not mark the opening of the urs celebrations but it is only one of the pre-mela rituals. The formal urs celebrations are held towards the end of November. The day after the milk bath ritual, a procession of fishermen carrying small and large replicas of fishing boats on their heads comes to the shrine to pay their respects.

They are followed by drum-beaters and then tailors who bring with them sewing machines and sew clothes of anyone at the shrine without charging a penny.

Then there are goldsmiths who bring sets of jewellery and keep washing them in water on the shrine complex only to attract peoples’ attention and then give them free advice on ornament making.

The locals, among them Hindu and Muslim, the rich and the poor, rub shoulders with each other during the rituals breaking barriers of caste, colour and creed.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2019