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Tajdar-i-Haram , the pièce de résistance of Amjad Sabri’s career, has been filling the radio waves and the social media accounts of thousands mourning the untimely demise of the most celebrated qawal in Pakistan’s recent history. The qawali was also >covered by singer Atif Aslam for Coke Studio and has since shot up the charts.
The qawali — 15 to 30 minute-long, depending on whose rendition you find most compelling — was originally performed by the late Sabri brothers, Amjad’s father Ghulam Farid Sabri and Maqbool Ahmed Sabri. The lyrics itself are a wonderful amalgam of excerpts from various poets – Muzaffar Warsi, Muhammad Jaan Qudsi Mashhadi (Arabic), Maulana Jami (Persian form Afghanistan), Zain ul Abideen (4th Shia Imam and descendent of the Holy Prophet), Ameer Khusru (Persian and Barj Bhasha) and Bhai Mardana (Purbi) – in various languages sharing a common theme. The title comes from an excerpt of a poem by Purnam Allahabadi.
True to the tradition, the qawali follows a Sufi theme in which the poets lament separation from their beloved. At the heart of this qawwali is Madina, the beloved city of Muhammad.
Qawali is rooted in the Sufi worship tradition of Sama (listening) that originated in Turkey. Amjad Sabri, who was shot dead on June 22, belonged to the Chishti order of Sufism that started off in Afghanistan in 930 AD. Sama is integral to the Chishti order.
However, Sama is forbidden not just in Salafi Islam but also in some Sufi orders such as Suharwardi and Qadiri. There have always been differences on such issues, but the fundamentalism that has been injected in the last three to four decades has made the differences sharper, and deadlier.
But the lamentation, at the heart of which is longing for the beloved, does not belong to Sabri alone. The verse borrowed from Ameer Khusru’s poem Zeehaal-i-Miskeen also featured in the speech of a proponent of Wahabism, Allama Ehsan Ilahi, delivered on March 23, 1987. He never got to finish the speech. A bomb ripped through the pavilion and Ilahi’s words died with him:
Na neend Naina, Na ang Chaina
Na aap aaven na bhaijen pattiyan,
Sleepless eyes, restless body,
Neither comes the beloved, nor sends any message.
One of the most highly rated orators of his time, Ilahi’s recital of Khusru’s couplet was no act of love, but a message to the dictator Ziaul Haq. Why had the then army chief not staged a war with India and chosen to visit the enemy country instead? By reciting the couplet, Ilahi had demanded an explanation for this.
He had demanded an explanation for the ‘good’ general’s ‘questionable’ act of bowing to a Hindu woman, ‘Rajiv Gandhi’s wife’, as a way of greeting. How could such a decorated general debase himself so? Illahi was also upset because there had been no offensive against the enemy at the Siachen Glacier. Moreover, the leader of the country and its army had picked a political fight against a nonentity, ‘Bhutto’s daughter’ (the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto). “Even her father couldn’t face us (Pakistan’s Salafi leaders)”.
Allama Ehsan Ilahi had studied at the Islamic University of Madinah and wrote a number of books on various sects of Islam in Pakistan to give ideological base to the Ahl al-Hadith school of thought, commonly known as Wahabism. His scholarship had been a part of the program designed by the then vice-chancellor of the university, Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah bin Baz, for propagating institutional Wahabism. Baz, a leading proponent of Salafi Islam, had been appointed as the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia. He had been a supporter of funding Taliban in Afghanistan but was against jihad not sanctioned by the state at the same time. Scholars like Ehsan Ilahi were instrumental in introducing Wahabism, with mushroom growth of salafi madrasas, in Pakistan during the 80s.
In his speech, Ilahi had scoffed at Zia ul Haq’s decision to tie a thread at the Ajmer shrine of Moinuddin Chishti, who established the Chishti order in the Indian subcontinent. “It does not make sense,” he had said.
It was during the speech that an inconspicuous vase of artificial flowers was passed to the stage. It was placed on the table as a centre piece. Just before the bomb nestled in the flowers blew up, Ilahi was quoting an example of religious valor from the Battle of Badr which Muslims had fought in their attempt to return to Madina, the object of the qawwal’s affection. Of course, from an angle diametrically opposed to that of the Sufis.
Ilahi is also considered to be responsible for inciting violence against Shias. He is said to be the voice behind sectarian attacks in Karachi in 1983. Some believe that the bomb in the fateful procession had been planted by Shia militants.
Madina, as the object of affection, is then presented in two different contexts. One comes from the Silsila Chishtia (Sufi tradition) and the other from the mullah (Wahabi tradition). The object of affection is viewed by the mullah as a measure of knowledge (Ilm), while it is viewed by the Sufi through the prism of divine love (Ishq). This difference has always been at the heart of a clash between the mullah and the Sufi.
Ishq trumps Ilm in the Sufi tradition. Historian Dr. Arifa Syeda says that for the Sufis there is no room for rationality that does not lead to Irfan (a state of higher awareness). For them Ishq leads to absorption, and after that when you reflect on the outer world it is a totally different experience. They see the mullahs as confining themselves to Ilm, which points out things without allowing room for absorption.
Followers of the Chishti tradition are not allowed to play a role in court or seek power so that they do not deviate from the right path. Dr. Syeda says Sufis don’t decide because those who decide do not consider themselves equal to others, which is against the Sufi tradition.
She says that someone asked the Prophet where to look for God and he said among the people. It seems that the Sufis have picked it up from there.
People attend funeral of Pakistani Sufi singer Amjad Sabri in Karachi, Pakistan, Thursday, June 23, 2016. Thousands of mourners are attending the funeral of a well-known Pakistani Sufi singer who was shot dead in the port city of Karachi in an attack claimed by Islamic extremists. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil)
These two approaches to the same religion (and the love for the same city) were visible in the very different responses to Amjad Sabri’s murder. On one hand social media was flooded with his qawwalis and expressions of love for him, while on the other there was a flow of hate material against his poetry and music, which went as far as declaring him mushrik (nonbeliever).
One approach teaches you love and the other leads you to war. But we seemingly cannot confine this violence. The recent militancy of the Barelvis, who were considered the most tolerant of all the Muslim schools of thought and have association with the Sufism, shows that sectarian violence plagues the whole society.
