A SUFI SAINT IN PESHAWAR
September 17, 2010
In July 2010, following heavy monsoon rains nearby, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in northern Pakistan was flooded. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa lies at the junction where the Hindu Kush mountains give way to the hills and valleys of the Indus River, flowing down through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. The flood water came cascading down hillsides, sweeping in its torrent man and material alike. It swept away domestic animals and crops besides roads, bridges, public utilities and anything that dared to stand up in its path. Officials estimate the total economic impact to be as much as 43 billion USD. http://cber.iweb.bsu.edu/research/PakistanFlood.pdf
While the rivers were brimming to their dikes, more rain was pouring down as if God had decided, “During the last decade I gave you less, so here is some more.” And all the rivers of Punjab ultimately flow into the Indus which goes into the Arabian Sea. Therefore, the wall of water flowed along its flood plains swept away roads, railway lines, villages, people, animals and crops. Ultimately, the floods have forced the Indus to breach its banks until one-fifth of Pakistan’s total land area was under water.
Perhaps because of Pakistan’s reputation as a haven for Islamic terrorists, the reaction of the International community was slow. Within the country, the floods accentuated the sharp divisions in Pakistan between the wealthy and the poor. Landowners allowed embankments to burst so as to divert water from their land. Local authorities colluded with the warlords to divert funds intended for rebuilding. Ten million people have been forced to drink unsafe water. Two thousand people have died and over a million homes have been destroyed since the flooding began. Pakistan is reaping what it has been sowing: violence.
Of the Muslims in Pakistan, only the Sufis are putting up resistance against the mullahs on behalf of the pluralism. Consider the shrine of the poet Rahman Baba, at the foot of the Khyber Pass. This Sufi poet is revered by the Pashtuns living on both sides of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Rahman Baba preached love.
“I am a lover, and I deal in love.”
“Sow flowers so your surroundings become a garden.”
“Don’t sow thorns; for they will prick your feet.”
“We are all one body. Whoever tortures another, wounds himself.”
Rahman Baba‘s tomb is housed in a large domed shrine, or mazar, outside of Peshawar. The site of his grave is a popular place for poets and mystics to collect to recite his popular poetry. Last year, a madrasa was built with Saudi funds near Rahman Baba’s shrine. The students there complained that women were allowed to pray and seek healing there and eventually the madrasa students placed dynamite around the supports of the shrine’s dome. The explosion did not destroy the mazar. However, it was so damaged that it had to be torn down in order for it to be totally rebuilt.
Perhaps this is the future for Pakistan after the floods. The Sufi followers of Rahman Baba do not bomb mazars or kill innocents. But they do say of the Islamic fundamentalists: “Hypocrites who sit there reading their law books and arguing about how long their beards should be, fail to listen to the true message of the prophet.” Perhaps it is time for the world to hear this message as well.
To North Americans, a turban identifies a Muslim terrorist. They have not yet learned how to “read” a turban, the way residents of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Punjab in northern India do. To these people, the turban a person wears identifies his religion, his region and the language he speaks.
A native of Afghanistan who has settled in the area around the Khyber Pass, called a Pashtun in American English, wears a turban with one end left loose so that it can be wound around his face for concealment or protection. His turban style identifies him to his fellow citizens in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. And there are many different ethnic groups in this area, including Afghan refugees, Persian-speaking Hazaras from the Shia branch of Islam and mountain-top farmers who speak Dardic languages.
Last month, the ethnically diverse area, called North West Frontier Province for more than a century, was renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa by an amendment to the Pakistani constitution.
This inhospitable land around the Khyber Pass and the Hindu Kush mountain range has been inhabited for millennia by Pashtun tribesmen. Its extreme temperatures and rocky soil forced the Pashtuns to live by plunder rather than agriculture. They charged tolls, robbed travelers passing through the mountain passes to get to India.
And whenever the Pashtuns became desperate for resources, they would invade India and take home, jewels, livestock, women and children as slaves, weapons and gold.
Today, the area has become a breeding ground for a growing Islamic militancy that threatens the stability of Pakistan – a U.S. ally in the struggle against terrorism. Instability here threatens NATO’s strategic Khyber Pass lifeline to Afghanistan, where 37,000 U.S. troops are trying to contain the Taliban insurgency.
In the map below, you can see how this area around north India, Pakistan and Afghanistan has poorly defined borders. A similar map of America would show the individual states marked by the straight lines of a surveyor or the clear boundaries of rivers. The random boundaries you see here are the result of people settling with their tribes that shared a language and a religion over thousands of years. And since ancient times, local politics has been closely intertwined with tribal loyalty. Identity has been a core issue for centuries among the Pashtuns – who make up eighty percent of this area’s population, and fifteen percent of Pakistan’s total population.
The north India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan region.
The Pashtuns, having ruled over North India for nearly a thousand years, were finally thrown out by the Sikhs by the end of eighteenth century. Since then, they have seen their region succumb to turmoil through wars and intervention by international powers.
A young Pashtun girl
Their tribal ethos, the Pashtunwali, (see the chart below) has kept them from participating fully in modern diplomacy. Instead, it has further entrenched Islamic fundamentalism among them.
Eager to be recognized politically, the Pashtuns have been urging the Pakistani government to designate them as a geographical area – as Balochistan is for Balochis, as Sind is for Sindhis and as Punjab for Punjabis – for a hundred years.
The amendment to the Pakistani constitution that established the new name of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, an ancient expression meaning “grazing land of the Pashtuns at the Khyber Pass” was deemed less controversial than Pashtunistan, which had been proposed for decades as the name for this territory. Using an older variant of the name was meant to confer dignity upon an area that even now is constantly at war – with rival factions of the Pashtun tribe, with other ethnic groups and now with international troops.
PASHTUNWALI PRINCIPLES OF BEHAVIOR
| QUALITY | DEFINITION |
| Melmastia (hospitality) | Profound respect to all visitors |
| Nanawatai (asylum) | Protection must be given to a person against his/her enemies |
| Badal (justice) | Take revenge against the wrong-doer for injustices committed yesterday or a thousand years ago |
| Tureh (bravery) | A Pashtun must defend his land |
| Sabat (loyalty) | Loyalty must be paid to one’s family, friends, and tribe members |
| Imandari (rightousness) | Pashtuns must behave respectfully towards all creation, including people, animals and the environment around them |
| Isteqamat (steadfastness) | Trust in God in keeping with Islamic idea of belief in only one god |
| Ghayrat (self-honor ) | Pashtuns must respect themselves and others |
| Namus (honor of women) | A Pashtun must protect women from vocal and physical harm[] |
Don't Mistake Me for a Muslim 