Eassy on Shah Adul Latif ...
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SHAH ABDUL LATIF of Bhitai, called simply 'Shah' or 'Monarch' is a unique figure in literature. He is not only the greatest of Sindhi writers, but he has been equated with the literature of his land, as if he were co-terminous with Sindhi literature. ... Shah was the finest flower in a garden of poetry.
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The path leads from Pakistani Hyderabad around fifty kilometers to the north. It is already past 10pm when we leave. As we leave the bright lights of the city behind us, darkness engulfs the horizon in all directions. To the west of the road, the Indus meanders through its wide river bed that is mostly dried up this year. Here, Alexander the Great once pulled along with his army after his mutinous soldiers forced him to abandon the plans to conquer India.
Actually, we wished to travel at our own risk, however, our hosts felt obliged to use all means at their disposal to ensure our safety. So now a car with heavily armed police officers drives in front of us and another car follows us from behind. Through the windshield I see men with machine guns on the loading area of a pickup truck, they jostle for space; they seem to be having fun. Two of them have long shaggy beards of the Islamists; I wonder if it is so unlikely that it would suddenly occur to one of them that shooting us right now could secure him a place in Paradise, rather than us falling into the hands of terrorists or kidnappers by pure chance. The thought makes me laugh!
Since the past few years, I have travelled quite often with Sufis, I have visited many of their pilgrimage sites and I have felt safer there, no matter how dangerous the place was supposed to be.
We reach Bhit Shah shortly before midnight, we get down at a small place, in the midst of brightly lit stalls and shops that overflow with sweets, religious souvenirs, soft toys, embroidered caps, a wide range of glitter plastic made in China that can take every possible form and shape. In the midst of the flashing confusion, there are some young men, who seem to have merged with the surroundings. They look at us with unmoving eyes. They seem to be indifferent whether someone buys something or not. Maybe they simply assume that every rupee that God intends for them to earn, will inevitably end up in their hands, regardless of whether they perform the theater of Bazaar for us or not.
From our protection force, only two police officers are left behind, one tall and thin and the other short and fat, who despite their old Kalashnikov rifles seem to be as scary, as the two comedians from the Pippi Longstocking (Pippi Langstrumpf in German) films.
The poet, feminist, socialist and philosophy professor Amar Sindhu, who incidentally runs a literary café in Hyderabad, has brought us here without telling us exactly what to expect: An architecturally significant place, it had been called, possibly there would be Qawwali - the mystical songs of the Indo-Pakistani Sufis. In fact, I hear faint tones of peculiar melodies and voices through the sounds of rhythmically struck strings, even here, among the shopkeepers. Beggars sit isolated on the floor, one squats without his lower leg on a ragged blanket, an old lady looks through me in trance or insanity. They seem just as little interested in us like the shopkeepers. Unlike the usually seen scenario in such markets, no Orient Pop blares out of extremely loud speakers.
Suddenly some barking stray dogs pass by, halt there, two dogs seem to negotiate with each other with authority, disappear into the darkness.
To the left of the entrance to the actual tomb there is a stall, where the seals and biographies of Shah Abdul Latif as well as illustrated books about Bhit Shah, mosque architecture, the Koran and the Hadith editions are offered to the public. Even, "Mystical Dimensions of Islam" by Annemarie Schimmel can be seen here.
For centuries, Islam in the Indian subcontinent has been influenced by Sufism. Many Sufis emphasize on the inner unity of religions in their diversity that has been self derived from the Koran. Hence, it is not surprising that the spirituality of the Islamist ideologue, oriented towards tolerance and charity, is a nuisance until today. Sufism is banned among the Shiite Mullahs in Iran as well as Sunni fundamentalists of Saudi Arabia. One of the main issues is the profound reverence for saints and masters that starts with the exuberant love for the person of the Prophet Mohammed. Thresholds or tombs are kissed and perfumed. Many of the partly syncretistic and ecstatic celebrations lead to uninhibited trance. Civil ethics as well as gender segregation cannot be maintained, and the violation of rules and breaking of taboos represent an intolerable provocation for every authoritarian state that primarily provides an instrument of power for the discipline and control of its subjects in the religion.
However, in this very area of present-day Pakistan, Sufism with its multireligious mix of people with different ethnic backgrounds, has had a reconciliatory and mediatory impact by opening the spiritual borders for a long time between Sunnis and Shiites, Hindus, Christians, Jews, Parsis and the various old religions, whose followers sometimes till today live in remote valleys - such as the Kalasha with their polytheistic and animist culture.