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
Can the Shrif borthers/ Qazis/Imran Khans for once condemn these elements categorically and forcefully and by name that is the Taliban/ the lashker jhagwi/ the jesh muhammad? If only Sharif could put his weight against these elements , I am sure this would be a big political win against the terrorists. But he will never do it, and so he is given a free pass of safety by these elements too.
@owais mughal
“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
And of mankind are some who take (for worship) others besides Allah as rivals (to Allah). They love them as they love Allah. But those who believe, love Allah more (than anything else). If only, those who do wrong could see, when they will see the torment, that all power belongs to Allah and that Allah is Severe in punishment. (Surah Al-Baqarah:165)
This one hits home, we used to study about this great poet as elemntary school children in NWFP.
It is a loss of heritage, a shameless and brazen destroying of one’s own roots, like throwing acid in one’s ancestor’s face.
One person metioned being numb to the hell that is happening in Pakistan on daily bases…I know where you coming from.
I called my fater in law in Mardan and he satrted mentioning someone blowing a music shop in bazar, I interuppted him, I said I don’t want to hear it. Called my folks in Peshawar, they are complaining about all the Swat refuges( people who left their homes to avoid the tyranny of Taliban) staying in the camps on the outskirts of the city causing too much’rush’ and ‘Nufsa Nufsi’ in the city. I want to hang up the phone..I just don’t want to hear it. Give me a piece of some freaking good news for once!
But we all know, not hearing it doesn’t mean it ain’t happening. And then there are my small children who constantly ask me when I am taking them to Pakistan, when I am going to show them the land where their pasrent were born and lived some of the happiest years of their lives.
I am terrified..will there be a land to take them to,
would I myself will be able to recognize the place and people and culture that I was born into and spend the first 21 years of life?
But what I am most terrifed of is this: Worst case scenrio when there is nothing left but ashes and destruction, when talking of happier Pakistan becomes similar to talking about land of myts and legends…… Was there anything that I could have done other then voicing my sadness and grief to avoid that final catostrophe?
It was a serene and peaceful place to visit and to contemplate.
A sad event but I hope that people mislead by religious zealots and extremists will revolt against these thugs in disgust…