Khudaya dasey tanha na kei souk pe gham kei,
laka ze da yaar pe gham kei yum tanha!
Na ba ma ghundei shaheed wi pe jahan kei,
ne ba ta ghundei dilbar shi bal paida!
Lord, do not make anyone lonely in sorrow
like I am alone in grief for my beloved!
Never will there be on earth a martyr like me,
Nor a beloved like you be found!
Enemies of Pakistan are at it again. After blowing up girls schools in North West Pakistan, forcing traffic to drive on right hand side instead of left in Malakand, digging up the grave of a minority sect leader and hanging the already dead person in the public square in Swat, militants have now started blowing the resting place of those who are already dead.
Is there any limit to this insanity?
Pashto’s language’s famous poet Rehman Baba‘s mausoleum was severely damaged by militants in the early hours of March 5, 2009.
Believe it or not; probably like some of our readers, I am now reluctant to open newspaper to avoid reading any bad news about Pakistan. It hurts. It simply hurts. This is such a bitter pill ‘jo na ugli jaaye hai na nigli jaaye hai’ (which I can neither swallow nor throw out). I have now become numb to bad news and I try to avoid it but then every few days a bigger and worse bad news like the one above comes by which I have to write about. This is despite the pain I feel in writing these sentences.
According to Dawn newspaper:
The shrine’s watchman had received a threat from suspected militants on his cell phone three days ago. He told police that the attack took place to crack down on the tradition of women making pilgrimages to the site of the grave of Rehman baba; a 17th century poet, revered for his message of love and peace.
The high intensity device almost destroyed the grave of the Rehman Baba and the gates of a mosque, canteen and conference hall situated in the spacious Rehman Baba Complex. Police said the bombers had tied explosives around the pillars of the tombs, to pull down the mausoleum.
The entire area was covered with thick smoke and dust soon after the blast,’ said the president of the volunteers of the shrine association of the complex, Sardar Khan, who was busy in removing rubble of the damaged portions. He told Dawn that he was the first one to reach the shrine after the blast. ‘I saw major portion of the grave was blown up and the building was badly damaged but no one was present there,’ he said and added that he informed the local police and some media persons about the incident.
The Dawn newspaper gives more information on the mausoleum complex in following words:
The tomb was a part of the spacious complex housing a conference hall, library, mosque, canteen, guest house, small shrines of some other saints, Tawoos Baba, Syed Sattar Bacha and Syed Sultan Bacha.
The work on construction of the complex was initiated on November 17, 1991 and completed in 1994 with an estimated cost of about 15 million rupees.
Rehman Baba’s full name was Abd-ur-Rehman and he lived 1632 to 1707 AD. He enjoys the same fame in Pushto as Shirazi does in Persian.
I, along with our editorial board as well as our readers sincerely hope and pray for peace in Pakistan and hope to get our lovely country back from the clutches of these ‘zaalim’ people who could do acts like the ones shown in photos here.
God bless Pakistan and here is our prayer to peace !
I want to end this post with a couplet from Rehman Baba’s poem ‘Agony of Love’.
ATP’s Earlier Post: Two Poems by Rehman Baba
Photo Credits: Riaz Anjum at Associated Press of Pakistan
References:
1. The first Pushto sher of Rehman Baba is from the website here
2. Pashto Academy: University of Peshawar: Nightingale of Peshawar
3. Poetry of Rehman Baba at Learn Pushto
Couldn’t the Long March be about ridding Pakistan of the Taliban. Can Pakistanis for once unite and come out in millions to support a Swati girl’s right to education and walk all the way up to Mingora from Islamabad?
I fear every day for Takhti Bahi.
What a sad sad incident. I am sure the people who had been threatening for such a long time would not be that hard to crack but no one will crack them.
Taliban are here and now and the government is busy in horsetrading.
Another post here has mentioned the anti-Qadiani movement here, from the 1970’s. Indeed it was the original movement from 1949 that rehabilitated the mullahs who otherwise had no political future as a result of opposing Pakistan and calling the Quaid e Azam ‘Kafir e Azam’. Ignoring how we allowed the army to deny us forever a civilised country with Rule of Law and instead gave us a banana republic with martial – i.e. jungle – law. Ignoring too how we callously denied that our forces and their al-badr and al-shams proxies were killing and raping our own people in 1971. But even Rahman Baba would not have been able to ignore what Zia did to a neighbouring country and our own society just for US approval and dollars for his illegitimate rule. We were silent, if not celebrating, when Zia brought in his Taliban-like laws. We allowed the likes of Sipah Sahaba to be developed in our midst. We didn’t mind our own youth being turned in to LeT militias and sent to kill in Kashmir. We hailed or ignored all that the Taliban were up to in Afghanistan. We released Sufi Muhammad despite his crimes in illegally taking thousands of youth to Afghnistan (not to mention his flouting radio broadcast licensing laws!). And now we have the likes of Fazlullah and Beitullah. Rahman Baba would have seen this back in 1979, had he been around. In his own words:
Sow flowers so your surroundings become a garden
Don
First they came for Ahmadis:
I am convinced that this is the natural and obvious consequence of not speaking out against the outrage of Sep. 1974. The takfiri mullahs went after ahmadis, hijacked the first democratically elected parliament, hoodwinked Bhutto into making the ammendment in the constituion. Despite the somewhat luke warm disappointment shown by the liberal quarters, the majority sunni population agreed with the verdict. Now the saudi/salafi creed has metamorphed into a hideous monster. They rode on the shoulders of more puritanical sunnis (deobandis) who were atleast respectful of many Divines and Sufis all over Pakistan. Even Barelvis who adhere to many sufi ways made sure that they were part of this takfiri process. Now Salafi/Wahabi creed took over the madrassahs, created Taliban and militant groups which stand on the extreme to ridiculously extreme range on the theological spectrum who like to kill and main in the name of Islam.
The majority of Pakistan should know that this is because you did not stop this vile movement when it came to a minority sect. Who do you expect to help you when the majority is the target?
– We condemn this madness, sheer sickness.
-Though I dont understand Pushto but the sentiment expressed in the pushto poems are amply felt.
– This act of frustration is like the rocketing of the Bamian Buddha.
Seems no cheers are coming our way for sometime in the future.
Naseer