Haroon Khalid - What a shrine with dogs reveals about the state of puritan Islam in Pakistan
As we drove down the
three-lane highway, Iqbal Qaiser, my mentor and travel companion, pointed
towards a settlement on our left. This was the town of Pattoki. From afar I
could see small houses and shops, and rising from their midst was a tall minaret
of a mosque. This minaret can be seen in every village and town of Pakistan,
announcing that these lands are now dominated by Islam.
Not so long ago, the
minarets must have been accompanied by turrets of temples and domes of
gurdwaras. Not anymore. The turrets and the domes exist somewhere, hidden
within the locality, as if embarrassed of their own existence, knowing well
that they don’t belong here anymore. The minarets, when they existed in a
multi-religious society, were more modest in height, humbly accepting that
their truth is only one of the several truths. After the creation of Pakistan,
they became more assured of their path and became prouder and taller.
A few years ago, when
I visited the city of Nankana Sahib in Pakistan’s Punjab province for the first
time, I noticed the tall minaret of a mosque looking down at Gurdwara
Janamasthan Guru Nanak. This holy city presents a challenge to the homogeneity
of society. Hundreds of thousands of Sikhs descend here every year to celebrate
the birthday of Guru Nanak, while the government looks after and renovates the
Sikh shrines. The minaret at this mosque was one of the tallest minarets I have
ever seen attached to a mosque.
“That is an
interesting shrine,” said Iqbal Qaiser, as he pointed towards the minaret
rising from the middle of Pattoki. I later found out that the shrine was but a
small part of a huge complex. The grave of the saint around which this shrine
was raised was located in one corner of the courtyard. “The shrine belongs to
Peer Abbas. He is popularly known as Kutiyan wali sarkar (the
master of dogs)?” The wali here signifies female. Almost all
Sufis are referred to as females in iconography. This is in relation with God
who is represented as a male figure. In Sufi poetry, a devotee, or a Sufi,
presents himself as Heer, the legendary Punjabi folk lover, to Ranjha, the
protagonist of the legend and a symbol of divinity in the Sufi tradition. This
Sufi tradition also borrows from the Bhakhti tradition of Hinduism, in which
Radha is represented as an ideal devotee approaching her God, Krishna, the male
figure.
“He was an eccentric
man,” said Iqbal Qaiser. “He used to roam around different cities and villages
with a pack of dogs. Whatever food people used to offer to the saint, he would
give it to his dogs.” Peer Abbass belonged
to a particular school of thought within the Sufi tradition of Islam, known as
the Malamti sect. Prominent German Anthropologist Jürgen Wasim Frembgen defines
the Malamti sect as a free Sufi order that is influenced by indigenous South
Asian traditions. One of the sect’s most important features is the concealment
of their spiritual achievements. They do so by violating religious laws,
indulging in reprehensible behaviour in public, and associating with those who
are socially disgraced and stigmatised. For them salvation lies in inviting
disdain and humiliation from their fellow humans. In this way, they are able to
curb their ego and hence focus on divinity.
By preferring the
company of dogs over humans, or any other animal, Peer Abbas was aiming to do
exactly that. Dogs are considered impure in the Islamic tradition. According to
Hadith literature, which is a collection of sayings of Prophet Muhammad, dogs
are not to be allowed inside the house and if one ever comes in contact with a
dog’s saliva religious ablution is required. The Maliki school of thought, one
of the most prominent schools of thought in Islamic jurisprudence, holds that
touching a dog entails an impurity that is removed by a lesser ablution. A few
other sayings attributed to Prophet Muhammad state that angels do not enter a
house where there are dogs. Muslim scholars interpreting the Hadith have
further said that dogs profane a mosque or a prayer place by their presence, a
defilement that can only be corrected by physically removing them and
symbolically washing the place they touched by earth and clean water.
One can therefore
imagine the disdain Peer Abbas must have invited by associating with an impure
animal. Here he was reversing the order of sacred and profane, by casting the
profane as sacred. One can find parallels of this tradition in the tantric
cult, where the sacred becomes profane and profane sacred.
There are of course
direct comparisons between Peer Abbas’s idiosyncratic association with dogs and
Shaivism. For example, Lord Shiva, in his terrifying form, ugra, is
accompanied by a pack of dogs, while he is depicted as mendicant ascetic. In
Tantrism, Shiva, in the incarnation of Bhairava, is depicted either with the
face of a dog or has a dog as his vehicle. In Bhairav temples all over India,
devotees offer prayers to the statues of dogs or living dogs. Dogs wander
inside and outside the temple of Kalbhairav in Varanasi, and are garlanded by
worshippers. Others present them with food offerings as a form of worship.
Soon after my initial
sighting of the shrine of Peer Abbass, I decided to visit his shrine along with
Iqbal Qaiser. I navigated the car through the narrow streets of the town. Vans,
cars, motorcycles, rickshaws and pedestrians, all vied for space in this market
town. The one with the biggest vehicle and the most audacious horn got the way.
On different walls of the town I noticed posters announcing the date of the urs
of Peer Abbas. In the Sufi tradition, death anniversary of a saint is
celebrated with much pomp and fair as opposed to birthdays. The celebration is
known as urs. This is because it is believed that after his death
the Sufi becomes one with the divine existence, a concept similar to Monoism of
Hinduism. This union is represented as a marriage ceremony where the divine is
understood to be the husband (Krishna or Ranjha) while the bride (Radha or
Heer) is the Sufi.
The shrine was located
at the centre of the city. At its threshold, there were a handful of dogs
lazing around in the sun. They had wreaths around their necks. They were
unperturbed by our presence as we passed around them. The grave of the saint
was located in one corner. More work was being done to renovate the complex, of
which the mosque was now the biggest structure. Iqbal Qaiser had earlier told
me that dogs freely roam around the complex, choosing to rest near the grave of
the saint. However there were none here...
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