Rehman Baba’s Mausoleum in Peshawar Blown Up

Owais Mughal

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