Clash of Canons

By Riyaz Wani - Indian Express - New Delhi,India
Sunday, December 10, 2006

Last month an unidentified gunman hurled a grenade at a procession of worshippers in South Kashmir led by Abdur Rashid Dawoodi, a prominent cleric of the Barelvi sect. Five people—four of them children—were killed and many injured. While the prompt response from the government and the condemnations from across the state’s political divide contained any immediate fallout of the outrage, the incident brought out into the open the simmering sectarian schism, which over the past two decades has become the undertone to the Valley’s Sufi Islamic homogeneity.

The period of turmoil was crucial. For not only did Kashmir slide headlong into unremitting chaos but its social landscape also witnessed a sweeping crisscrossing of different political ideologies and a drift towards a new Islamic orthodoxy.
Most of the action came in the 1990s. Seminaries and madrassas influenced and inspired by the Deobandi thought, sprang up all over the Valley—their number, a rough estimate says, is 450-500.

Though madrassas in the Valley, in sharp contrast to their counterparts in Pakistan, steered clear of the militant struggle, the effect on the Valley’s traditional religious orientation has been far reaching. Thousands of students graduating from these institutions have started preaching the “pure, intrinsic Islam”, in line with the interpretations of Hazrat Abu Haneefa, the originator of Islam’s Hanfia school of thought followed by the Deobandis.

They look down upon the inherent Sufi leanings of the people who visit shrines and seek blessings of the saints as generally antithetical to the spirit of monotheistic Islam, which doesn’t tolerate a worshipful attitude towards even the Prophet, leave alone saints. And their message is not lost on the people and has in fact resonated in the ears of the Kashmir’s new generation bred under the shadow of a rough Kalashnikov culture.

In fact, a decade and a half on, Deobandi Islam has come to dominate the religioscape of the Valley.
Mufti Abdur Raheem, the Grand Mufti of North Kashmir, proudly admits so. “Most Muslims in Kashmir belong to the Deobandi thought,” he says. Mufti Raheem, however, disputes the fact that Deobandi philosophy owes its rise to the extraordinary circumstances of the past two decades. “Deoband influence in Kashmir has been there since the beginning of the last century. Besides, many of our major Darul Ulooms were set up before militancy started in Kashmir”.
He traces the Deobandi influence to the prominent pre-partition Muslim Conference leader of the Valley, Moulana Yousuf Shah, the granduncle of Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
HOWEVER, this resurgence in religious orthodoxy has been in conflict with the existing Kashmiri Islam, traditionally influenced by Sufism. In fact, Kashmiri Islam cannot even be equated with Sufism, which has more of a subcontinental dimension. The Kashmiri Islam, says the Valley’s prominent historian Fida Hasnain, is called Rishut—named after the indigenous saints of Kashmir who are called Rishis.
Flagbearers of Valley’s Rishut are Sheiklul Alam Sheikh Nooruddin Wali, Shiekh Hamza Makhdoomi, Hazarat Bulbul Sahib and Hazrat Naqshbandi Sahib. The Rishis preached an overwhelming devotion to God and Prophet Muhammad and insisted on the values of tolerance and harmony.So, Kashmiris, particularly women, have always been frequent visitors to the shrines where they seek the saints’ blessings and their intercession in the fulfillment of their wishes.

But Deobandi Islam generally discourages this as being violative of the basic tenets of religion. And they are not alone in doing so. Over the past two decades, the Valley has also been witness to the imperceptible rise of the Jamiat Ahle Hadith, an apolitical religious group, which believes in the supremacy of the Quran and Sunnah, unmediated by any religious scholar. Jamiat, according to its chairman Moulana Showkat, now owns about 600 mosques and five major Darul Ulooms.

On the other hand, madrassas in Kashmir are only a recent phenomenon. They set up base mostly in the Nineties when Kashmir was in the firm grip of separatist militancy. So, their coming cannot be seen in isolation from the larger geo-political situation in the sub-continent, particularly its Afghanistan component.

But over the past few years, the Valley has experienced a renewed groundswell for its Sufi roots. Large sections of the population, particularly in South Kashmir, who were once the dedicated followers of Jamaat-I-Islami, have returned to the influence of Barelvi thought propagated by Abdur Rashid Dawoodi.

Like Sufism, Barelvi Islam does not forbid its followers to seek the blessings of saints, which has been traditionally the way of life for most Kashmiris. And this is also seen as the reason for its fast spread. So the attack on the procession of worshippers — which, according to separatist organisations was the handiwork of Indian agencies—is seen as a reaction against the resurgence of Sufism, which Kashmir observers think has serious implications for the Valley’s prevailing political and religious alignments.

Alevis struggle for equal rights

Turkish Daily News with Associated Press - Ankara, Turkey

Sunday, December 10, 2006

‘They think we’re heretics because they don’t read the Koran well, they don’t understand it,’ says Akkaya, an Alevi prayer leader.

It's Sunday, and prayer leader Bektaş Akkaya is twanging a Turkish version of the electric banjo, working some 200 members of this country's largest non-Sunni group into a trance.

Women in headscarves slap their knees, swaying to the music and wiping tears from their eyes. A young man swings his arms wildly across his chest, his head gyrating like a bobblehead doll until he collapses.

Here, there is no imam, minaret or call to prayer. But for a large proportion of Turkey's 71 million people, this is Islam.

The worshippers are Alevis, followers of a faith rooted in the beliefs of Shia Islam but who diverge greatly from the Shiites in practice. The Alevis incorporate shamanistic traditions and do away with many customary Islamic practices, including the separation of men and women in prayer.

To many Sunni and Shiite traditionalists, they are considered heretics -- making them the target of discrimination in Turkey and a focus of interest for the European Union, which has made religious liberties a condition for Turkish membership.

Alevis say they only want to practice their religion without state interference or discrimination. They claim fundamentalists now gaining influence in Turkey are the ones who have lost their way -- by focusing more on austere rituals rather than the sincerity and depth of faith.

“They think we're heretics because they don't read the Koran well, they don't understand it,” says Akkaya. “If a servant of Allah says he's a servant of Allah, then he is.”

The plight of the Alevis was not mentioned in Pope Benedict XVI's pleas to improve the lot of religious minorities during his visit here last week. But because they are numerous -- Alevis represent at least a tenth of Turkey's population -- their fate may be the best indicator of this country's willingness to tolerate free religious practice.

Adherents of Alevism, which is mostly confined to Turkey, complain of discrimination in business and education, barriers to getting government jobs, forced assimilation through mandatory courses on Sunni Islam. They say they are denied funding from the powerful Religious Affairs Directorate, or Diyanet, which uses state funds for nearly 80,000 mosques, but views the cem evleri where Alevi ceremonies are held as illegitimate and un-Islamic.

“A Muslim prays in a mosque,” Ali Bardakoğlu, head of the Religious Affairs Directorate, said in an interview aired on Tuesday. He added that Turkey's problems with religious minorities were being over-inflated. “To say there's no religious freedom in Turkey by exaggerating some isolated problems that need to be solved with debate is unfair,” he said.

Earlier this year, he said the state did not have funds for “supporting mystical worship.”
Estimates of the number of Alevis vary, but by any measure they are significant. Alevis themselves claim to represent nearly a third of Turkey's Muslims -- or more than 20 million people.

Turkey to Restore Tripoli Dervish Lodge

By Unal Livaneli - Zaman Online - Konya,Turkey

Sunday, December 10, 2006

The Turkish Cooperation and Development Administration (TIKA) will restore an Ottoman Dervish Lodge in Lebanon.

The Sufi headquarters had been damaged in a flood a half century ago and was later left to decay during the Lebanese civil war.

Khaled Tadmoir, head of the Preservation of Historical Artifacts Commission in Tripoli, came to Turkish city of Konya to attend the 733rd anniversary of the death of Mevlana Jelaladdin Rumi, a highly influential Sufi Muslim.

Tadmori said former Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati had given the restoration project to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his trip to Lebanon in 2005.

Tadmori recalled that Erdogan had then handed over the project to TIKA, stating that they expected the restoration to be completed in 2007.

The project cost $450,000, Tadmori said, and added they had proposed the ministry of culture to display Turkish-Islamic artifacts in Lebanon.

A soulful journey to Kailasa

Chitra Unnithan - Times of India - India

Saturday, December 9, 2006

A sensational singer, Kailash Kher comes across as a person who breathes music. It's really a pleasure to meet Kailash Kher. He breaks into one of his soulful songs while posing for the camera. He flashes an amiable smile while sharing his vivid experiences of life.

Mention to him that the youth today goes down on its knees while listening to his Sufism and he is quick to reply, "The youth has added an amazing charm to this era where emotions, technology and hope seem to have blended well. It's a blessing to be witnessing this phase."

Be it 'Teri Deewani', 'Tauba Tauba', 'Rang Deni', 'Mangal Mangal' 'O Sikandar' or the very well received 'Allah Ke Bande', Kailash simply enchants when he sings.

Coming from a simple background, Kailash considers the fast paced life today as the only change in his life post fame. "The course of my life or my thoughts have not changed one bit," he informs.

Time and again he is referred to as Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. How does he take such compliments? "Compliments are attached to the feelings of the person giving them and they have a lot of emotional value for me," he explains.

And which is the best compliment he has received so far? "Once this elderly lady in America came upto me and said, 'When Kailash sings, God sings.' Another one that I hold close to my heart was from Pandit Jasraj who said, 'Your concerts take me through a spiritual journey.'

And they mean a lot to me when they come from such legends," says this effervescent music creator whose enthusiastic spirit shows in his work. Rubbishing reports that he sang for beggars and had a chaiwalah as a friend at Andheri railway station where he stayed for sometime, he says, "That was a slightly hyped story about me. The chaiwalah was only an acquaintance. Yes I did live on the railway station for sometime but then, I don't feel extraordinary today to be where I am. I sing for my audience who I consider bhagwaan ka swaroop and call my work Kailasa, which means heaven, " he avers.

In the city to attend a cultural festival and promote child labour, Kailash has done umpteen charity concerts. "I did an AIDS concert last week for the Richard Gere foundation that was a true balle balle show," he informs.

Ask him about his love life and he smiles knowingly. "No time for love. Moreover, my love life would not bring any social change, so why write about it?" he asks.

From singing jingles to mesmerising people with his distinctive and unconventional voice, Kailash has become a household name with a schedule full of concerts and recordings with music directors.

After working with so many actors, which is the actor he is looking forward to sing for? "I really admire Ajay Devgan. Hamara nature kaafi milta hain. John Abraham aur Abhishek Bachchan toh solid hain," he exclaims.

A road to peace

IANS /Monsters and Critics.com - Glasgow,UK
Friday, December 8, 2006

He was the only Indian, the only Hindu and the only vegetarian at a global Sufi conference in Pakistan. And D.R. Kaarthikeyan, a former top-notch crime investigator, is back home with the firm conviction that most Pakistanis want to live in peace with India.

The former chief of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) also feels that an overwhelming majority in Pakistan firmly believes in the principles of Sufi ideology.
'Contrary to widespread public perception in India, even at higher levels, Sufism continues to be a dominant faith among sizeable sections of the Pakistani people, particularly the educated class,' Kaarthikeyan, 66, told IANS here.

'That is the impression I get from my interactions at the conference,' he said, referring to the four-day international meet in Lahore late last month on 'Sufism - A Road to Peace'.

The conference drew delegates representing the world's four major religions - Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism - from several countries although the bulk of the participation was from Pakistan.

The only Indian delegate was Kaarthikeyan, who retired from CBI in 2001. Kaarthikeyan also headed the special team that investigated the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

Kaarthikeyan, a staunch believer in inter-faith harmony, said he did get the impression from private conversations with Pakistanis that some in that country were against Sufi ideology because they thought it violated Islamic thoughts.
'But Islamic scholars at the conference made it clear that Sufism was a way of life,' he said.

Pakistanis taking part in the conference also repeatedly emphasized that they wanted good and stable ties with India.
'The vast majority of the people not only want this but long for reconciliation of differences and re-establishment of the old relations,' Kaarthikeyan said.
'Many people were nostalgic about their birthplaces or their ancestral places in India.
'Everyone agreed that we should not live in the past. There is no remedy for historical mistakes. Blame game should stop now. Otherwise endless debates will go on about our relationship.'

One or two Pakistanis at the conference referred to the Kashmir dispute but added that if one believed in the Sufi way of life, there could be 'reasonable solution of existing differences'.

'The conference was an eye opener to me,' Kaarthikeyan said. 'We have developed a lot of prejudices against the Pakistani people. All that is wrong. The average Pakistani wants harmonious relations with India.'

A resolution passed at the end of the Nov 22-24 conference declared: 'Sufism is the road to peace for the world, which is threatened by recurring episodes of violence, terrorism, intolerance, hatred and warfare.
'We do resolve that the state and governments should commit themselves to the philosophy of Sufism and make it an integral part of the state policy for promoting love, inter-faith harmony, peaceful co-existence, mutual trust and humanistic values.'

Kaarthikeyan said that many Pakistani delegates had positive things to say about President Pervez Musharraf - from the point of view of Lahore.

'Our street lights are now burning and Lahore is more clean,' the Pakistanis told him. Kaarthikeyan added: 'Lahore was indeed very nice.'

Painter, poet, writer, spy; film rights sold

By Chandrima S. Bhattacharya - Calcutta Telegraph - Calcutta,India

Thursday, December 7, 2006

If she were better known, Noor Inayat Khan would be the subject of Hollywood. But that is likely now.

Noor was the great-great-great-granddaughter of Tipu Sultan. Her father was a Sufi mystic and musician who went to Paris and settled there. The quiet, dreamy and beautiful half-Indian, half-American Noor was a poet, story-writer, painter, musician — and a spy.

Noor, who had lived in France and Britain, was the only Indian secret agent working for Britain during WW II and the first woman wireless operator in occupied France, one of the deadliest zones.

On Tuesday evening, Shrabani Basu, author of Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan, read from her book at a city bookstore. The event was attended by Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi, and one of Tipu Sultan’s descendants.

Spy Princess has done brisk business. Published by Roli Books here, it has gone into its third reprint since July.

Noor, a shy girl with no British blood in her, on a suicide mission to fight Fascism, but fiercely loyal to India’s independence, arriving at the British RAF station in a car called The Hearse, landing on a full moon night in France, is a strange, touching, tragic portrait. But she has inspired a lot of writing already — a 1952 biography, and two novels, one English and one French.
So what led Basu to writing Noor again?

“Not many in India know her,” says Basu, whose work received a boost when the UK declassified documents relating to the war in 2003. She discovered Noor’s letters in the documents — and the person.

As radio operator, her codename was Madeleine. When she was shot by the Gestapo after eluding them for months, she was only 30.

Noor’s may become a more familiar story, since economist and Labour Peer Meghnad Desai has bought the film rights from Basu, a London-based journalist. “It may be an Indian-Hollywood-British production,” says Basu, who will collaborate on the screenplay.

Turkey in the 20th century: between Sufi groups, the EU and radical Islam

By Wlodzimierz Redzioch - Sunday Catholic Weekly - Czestochowa,Poland
Wednesday, December 6, 2006

In the 19th century the large Ottoman Empire began losing its lands and its definitive collapse was after World War I. In 1908 the Young Turks seized power and they were in favour of introducing the constitutional system and during the war they were Germany's allies. In 1920, after the defeat, under the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres, the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist.

During the same year the Grand National Assembly proclaimed the national government in Ankara, with Kemal Atatürk as its leader. In 1922 the sultanate was abolished and the next year the Parliament proclaimed the Republic of Turkey, its first president became the charismatic national leader Kemal Atatürk.

On the one hand the ideology of the Young Turks referred to liberal ideas but on the other hand, they referred to nationalistic ideas. The new Turkish identity was based on two pillars: ethnic (Turks) and religious (Islam). In one word, in the 20th century Turkey gave up the tolerant millet system of the Ottoman Empire and replaced it with nationalism that rejected all things, which were non-Turkish and non-Muslim.

Although it should be explained that the role of the Muslim religion is a special one: Atatürk created a secular state, removing religion from the sphere of public life and putting it under the state control. The Ministry of Religious Affairs was called into being and today it manages 75,000 mosques with their staff. Therefore, the highest religious authority in Turkey is a state official. It is the army that guarantees the secular character of the state and the army often interferes in the political life of the country.

Islam, removed from the political life, is flourishing first of all in the spiritual confraternities, the Sufi groups (Sufism is the mystical-ascetic movement in Islam).

Recently new movements have originated, commencing with the most radical and anti-West ones to the more moderate ones. At the same time the government has become more tolerant towards Islam. Thanks to that opening Turgut Özal became Turkey's Prime Minister in 1980. He was involved in Sufism.

His premature death and the social-economic problems caused that the radical Islamic Refah Party (Welfare) headed by Necmettin Erbakan seized power. The policy of the new government contrasted with the principles of secular character of the Turkish state and was openly anti-American. Furthermore, Erbakan supported the fundamentalist Islamic movements like the Muslim Brotherhood.

That caused an intervention of the army, the warranty of Turkey's secular character. That made the government change its policy completely and vote antireligious laws. Even the Prime Minister's party was banned and the Islamic activists were arrested. Unfortunately, those drastic activities of the army strengthened the Islamic front even more instead of weakening it.

A new Islamic Justice and Progress Party (AKP) was created, its leader being Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Its programme was more moderate than the programme of the Refah Party: the Islamic Sharia law system was not regarded as the state law but as 'a source of inspiration' of the state legislation; in its foreign policy the party was in favour of alliance with the USA, of Turkey's access to the European Union, and they declared the need to fight against terrorism.

In spite of its declared moderate character the AKP and its leader were under close army surveillance. However, that did not prevent them from winning the elections in 2002 and seizing power. The leader of the AKP became Prime Minister.

Currently, the West, especially Europe (Turkey has been inspiring to enter the EU since 1987) and the Islamic countries are observing the political and social situation of Turkey. The Turkish experiment, with a moderate Islamic, democratic and pro-Western government may become the example for other Muslim countries and can prove that Islam can be brought together with democracy. That's why, the fundamentalist fractions in the Islamic world sabotage it using all possible means.

Unfortunately, the problems, related to the fulfilment of all the conditions that the EU requires, are the evidence that democratisation of Turkey is a difficult and complicated process and its result cannot be predicted.

Spy in the tale

By Pragya Paramita - Kolkata Newsline - New Delhi,India
Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Shrabani Basu talks about why she chose to write about a little-known Indian woman spy in her second novel.

It was a small newspaper article on Noor Inayat Khan that piqued her curiosity to find more about the women. It was this curiosity that led journalist-turned-author Shrabani Basu to pen a book on India’s only woman spy during the Second World War.

The book, Spy Princess, has already gained popularity and is based on the life of Noor Inayat Khan. Noor was the first Asian woman wireless operator who was sent to Germany- occupied France to build the ground work for the Normandy invasion. It was when she was captured and killed by the Gestapo.

“Not only was she the first Asian to volunteer in this service but the first women to become the operator,” says Basu, at a recent launch of the book in a city bookstore.

“Though few in India have heard about Noor she is a famous figure in France. In fact, she was awarded Croix de Guerre, one of the highest French honours, and also the George Cross award by the British government,” says Basu.

Finding out about Noor was not an easy task as she had to leaf through countless war records at the archives in London. That apart, Basu interviewed not just Noor’s family, including her brother Vilayat Khan, but also family members of those who had been her friends during the movement. It was a task that took over three years to finish.

“What fascinated me about her was that she had been a quiet, gentle girl who used to play the harp and write children’s books. Though she was a Sufi and believed in non-violence, yet she joined up to fight in the war in 1942,” says Basu.

Brought up in France by an Indian father [Pir Hazrat Inayat Khan] and an American mother [Pirani Ameena Begum Ora Ray Baker], she firmly believed in the Indian struggle for freedom.

Recalling an incident, Basu says that when Noor was asked by the British intelligence on why she wanted to fight the war on their side in spite of being an Indian, she replied that it was for a greater cause against a bigger enemy and after the Second World War she would join the Indian resistance. “She was not one to mince words. Her forthrightness earned her not just friends but also a lot of respect.”

Today, Basu is happy that her book has brought Noor back in focus, especially in India. “When Pranab Mukherjee visited France he spent over an hour visiting Noor’s family after reading the book,” informs Basu.

The focus is not just on Noor’s life but also on the books penned by her, especially Twenty Jataka Tales whose sales have shot up after the release of Basu’s book. “But I hope she is honoured here. A postage stamp with her picture should be nice,” she says.

For now, Basu is excited that Lord Meghnath Desai has bought the rights for a film which might be a Hollywood-Bollywood venture.

“A music album by New York-based musician called Jeffery Arms has also come out. It is good to see that she is being appreciated after so many years.”

Philosophy of Sindh’s Sufi poets highlighted

Bureau report - The News International - Pakistan
Wednesday, December 6, 2006

KARACHI: Many Sufi poets and scholars in Sindh are influenced by Malamati Sufis”, claimed Abdul Haque Chang, a lecturer of Mehran University during the first seminar conference on, “The cultural and historical legacy of Pakistan: investigating interpretations of regional patrimony in Sindh”, at the Alliance Francaise on Wednesday.

The element of Malamat is found in poetry of Sufi Saints like Qalander Shahbaz and Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, who are critical of the self. Malamati Sufi is usually defined as the “blameworthy”, but Chang defined them as the “critical thinkers”, whose points of view are not understood.

“Malamati Sufis think critically about religion, about society, and about practices of the time”, he said during his presentation on The concept of Malamat in the Sufi Poets of Sindh. It originated in the 3rd Century Hujra by Abu Ali Sindhi, who was originally a Hindu and later converted to Islam, and continues to influence the contemporary Sufi movement in Sindh.

Jamaat of Shaitan (Satan) is the contemporary Malamati Sufi group which celebrates “Shaitan Day”, once a year and continues to question the dogma of society and religion-so while they are called the blame worthy, he maintains that “they are the critical thinkers of society”. Another speaker, Mohan Devraj Thontya, a PhD student of General History at University of Karachi, said that shrines in Sindh attract many pilgrims from neighboring countries.

In his paper “The Shrines of Maheshwari Meghwar Saints in Sindh”, Thontya mentioned that the four shrines of Maheshwari Meghwar Saints in Sindh belong to Bar Mati Pantj, which was initiated by Shree Dhani Matang Dev in the 11th Century A.D through preaching in Sindh and Kutch, including some parts of Gujarat and Rajasthan.

These shrines, which are located in the Southern part of Sindh, are visited by pilgrims of Maheshwari Meghwar followers. He said that “the shrines earlier were simple compared to the decorated shrines of today”.

Dr. Juergen Frembgen, the Chief Curator of the Oriental Department at the Museum of Ethnology in Munich and a private lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, said that Sufi posters were the icons of devotion and of the tales of healing and deeds of these saints. Showing slides of various posters and post cards he collected of famous Sufi Poets Lal Shahbaz Qaladar over the years, he highlighted the significance of poster art in the Sufi movement.

His presentation titled, “Icons of Love and Devotion: Sufi Posters depicting Lal Shahbaz Qaladar”, focused on the persona and characteristics attributed to the late saint through the images depicted in many of his posters. Explaining some of the posters, Frembgen said that some of the depictions like the saint flying, dancing and interacting with other saints were reflective of the characteristics attributed to Qaladar.

“He was imagined as flying high, miraculous, and superhuman”, he said. He believed that some posters showing the saint in a long black robe with his arms open, and at other places interacting with his disciples could have been the influence of Christian depiction of Jesus Christ with his disciples.

Other papers read were:
“The Chaukundi Tombs: will they too die?” by Muhammad Adeel Qureshi, a research assistant at the Pakistan Study Centre, University of Karachi,

“The Archaeological Evidence helping in Building the History of Karachi”, by Dr. Kaleem Lashari, Director of Sindh Archives,

“The Temple of Rama Pir in Tando Allahyar: some preliminary reflections related to its History, Architecture and Symbolism”, by Sohail Amir Ali Bawani, student of Islamic Studies and Humanities at The Shia Imami Ismaili Tariqa and Religious Education Board (ITREB ),

“Neither Hindus nor Muslims: history of Sufism and devotion in Dalit communities”, by Dr. Michel Boivin, a research fellow and a teacher of Contemporary History of South Asia at the Centre of South Asian Studies-France and who is currently working on An interdisciplinary study on Sufi devotion in Sehwan Sharif,

and "Understanding Karachi: planning, history and reform for the Future" by Arif Hassan, Chairman of the Urban Resource Centre.

The programme was divided into three sessions which were chaired by Dr. Asma Ibrahim, Ameena Saiyid, and Pervez Siddiqui respectively.

“The mystic music of Islam” screened at Indo-Pak Saanjh

By Sanjay Bumbroo & Ashok Sethi - The Tribune - Chandigarh,India

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

“Saanjh”, the multicultural festival featuring top artistes of India and Pakistan, has laid the path to create a seamless bonhomie among the divided group of folk and drama artistes of both countries.

The “Saanjh”, organised by the Springdale School fraternity here in Amritsar, concluded on Monday. It created some nostalgic moments. People enjoyed the Sufiana music, which have lost its original glory in the wake of the Partition.

Sain Zahoor of Haveli Lakhan in Pakistan, lending his rich voice to the kalams of Baba Farid, won hearts of the people with his wide repertoire of his ability to give finest performance. He finds his inspiration in the great Sufi tradition. He has carved out a special niche for himself and for his Sufi music.

Spreading the message of love with kalams of Baba Farid and songs of Meera Bai, while wearing ghoongru on the feet and carrying a tumba, Sain enthralled the audience on the second day of the show held at Spring Dale Senior School here late last night. Winner of the BBC Best Voice of the Year Award, Sain held the audience spellbound as he danced and sang “Ki Jaane Mein Kaun Bullya…”.

Seeking more such Sufiana kalams, the audience kept pestering him to render some of his earlier songs.

The co-organiser of the show from Pakistan, Rafi Theater, and its chief executive officer and theatre and TV personality, Usmaan Peerzada, said artistes could play a significant role in sustaining the thaw in the relations between the two nations. Expressing his satisfaction over the peace process initiated a few years ago, he felt that people contact through the exchange of cultural delegations would lend a more meaningful substance to the Indo-Pak relations.

He said both governments had realised the importance of cultural ties that both neighbours enjoy. The strong bridges being built across the Radcliff (border) would definitely bore fruit in future.

Advising artistes of both countries, Usmaan said, “Let’s build the atmosphere of love and not allow hatred ever to come near us”. Taking dig at some Bollywood films, which portray Pakistan in a different light, felt that producers in Mumbai film industry would take note of the present scenario and would not repeat the old folly.

He offered a sage suggestion to the present group of Punjabi artistes to revive the old composite culture, which had once lit the literary light in this region. Based on his proposition, his theatre group has once again extended a hand of friendship and collaboration with the Punjabi counterparts in India to re-establish the new-age theatre.

His father Rafi Peerzada had made a humble beginning four decades ago to bring back into focus the rich Punjabi theatre and revive its old glory.

Commenting on the show, Usmaan said the live show had managed to bring the peoples of the two countries closer and acted as a bridge between the long lost friends and brothers.

Such shows should be held regularly so that the artistes could showcase their talent and got connected to the generation next through rich culture and tradition of both countries.

Mushaq Hussain and Innayat Hussain, who returned to their place of birth after 60 years, felt that as if they had discovered a treasure trove. Sentimental about their visit to their native village of Nangli, the Hussain brothers said the smell of soil of the village had brought back the memories of their childhood. Innayat said he was just five years old and his brother seven when had Partition forced them to leave their native place.

Narrating nostalgically the stories about his father Jalaldin and grandfather Haider Ali, who were famous artistes of the bygone era, Innayat Hussain said they used to tell a number of stories about their life in their native village.

During their visit to Nangli, both brothers were received with great affection by the villagers. Their father used to mention about his friend Nambardar Harbans Singh, they added.

The Hussain brothers, with their voice choked, vowed to return back to renew their connection with the village.

A 90-minute documentary “Laatoo”, directed by Faizaan Peerzada and Alix Phillippon, was also presented during the four-day Saanjh festival.

It presents dance as a celebration of life, not as a vulgar form. It chronicles the diversity of dance forms practised in Pakistan, with images of the techniques from kathak, bharatnatyam and Oddissi to the mujras. It has drawn a contrast between spiritual classical dance forms and vulgar fashion shows and dance parties.

Another documentary film on Sufi music, “The mystic music of Islam”, screened at the festival has been produced by Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore [correction: Moore informs us that he did not produce this film. We suspect that it is a film by William Dalrymple]. It depicts the finest nuances of Sufism. The producer has explained traditions of Sufi music in Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, India and Morocco in the documentary.

Allahditta Lonaywala, a disciple of late Nusrat Fateh Ali, along with his son Nadim Abbas, visited India for the first time. Allahditta, who belonged to the Punjabi gharana, Taalwandi, spellbound the spectators with his dexterously woven melodies.

The surprise event of the evening had Saida Begam of the ‘Puranchoti’ of the Patiala gharana establish common linkage between folk and Sufi. The audience was treated to a beautiful fusion of the dhamal and dhol by the tabla maestro Waris Ballu from Lahore and the drummer of Spring Dale School’s in a jugalbandi.

City police gear up for Maqdoom Baba’s Urs

By Jinal Shah - Mumbai Newsline - Mumbai,India
Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Thirty years ago, when Mahim police could not get leads on a gruesome murder case involving a dismembered body found at Bandstand, the investigators—as a last resort—made a trip to Maqdoom Shah Baba’s dargah at Mahim, case papers in tow. A near miracle followed: They traced fingerprints and solved the case, now a small Mumbai Police legend known as the Bhutto murder case.

This incident was just a renewal of the Mumbai Police’s 120-year-old faith in the Sufi saint. It’s no wonder, like every year, this year too it will be the Mahim police who’ll first offer a chaddar (silk chawl) at the shrine on the occasion of Urs (annual commemoration), to be celebrated on Wednesday.

“The Urs of the saint starts with the police sandal,” said Senior Police Inspector (Mahim police station) Joseph Gaikwad, also chairman of the police committee, which readies for the event with great gusto each year. The sandal, including sandalwood paste, perfumes or ittar, flowers, silver utensils and a silk chaddar plus other offerings, is carried in a procession to the shrine.

It is only after this event, that other devotees can enter, including people who come from distant places like Mumbra, Kalyan and even Nashik. “If there is a difficult case or if we have to go outstation for investigation, we first go to the dargah to seek blessings,” said Gaikwad.

The procession begins from Mahim police station, which is believed to have been once the residence of the saint, who lived between 1335 and 1360 AD, during the reign of Mughal ruler Ferozeshah Tughlaq.

The otherwise rather drab police station transforms into a colourful site of music—various local groups perform—and prayers, with maulvis chanting and policemen of all rank and religion bowing down before a chair believed to be the Baba’s seat.

In the same room in the police station is also a 71-year-old cupboard that once belonged to Raymond Esquire, a British inspector at Mahim. Labelled ‘Hazrat Maqdoom Feqitali Sahib’, it stores a set of antique artefacts belonging to the saint.

The police committee will flag off a 10-day programme including a fun-fair, qawalis and other cultural events. This year, the Mumbai Police has also launched a book on the Sufi saint.

"Is Dil Se": All Stages of Love

By Eye TV India Bureau - Smash Hits - India

Monday, December 4, 2006

Sukhwinder Singh is the most renowned singer in Bollywood today. The voice behind "Chhaiya Chhaiya" has become the most sought-after in India's tinsel town. Recently, he was honored in the US for his title song in 'Omkara'. The Smashits interviewed the singer in New Delhi on the release of his latest album 'Is Dil Se'.

Excerpts from the interview:

How did you feel when honored in the US for 'Omkara'?

I felt really happy that apart from India, the song was appreciated overseas also. Singing for the movie was also an experience as it was the first time in my career when I sang the song on a situation. And talking about the US, I had a concert in Los Angeles and there were 38,000 audiences in the hall and they were all Americans. They enjoyed the music so much that it made me feel very happy.

Is Indian music becoming global?Yes, definitely. Indian music is going global and the credit goes to A. R. Rehman for taking Indian music to international heights.

Which has been the most memorable moment in your career?The most memorable moment of my life was when I met A. R. Rehman.

How has your experience been from 'Dil Se' to 'Is Dil Se'?The experience has been wonderful. I am really happy and satisfied. And yes naming this album as 'Is Dil Se' was purely a coincidence. However, there is nothing like that we wanted to cash on something from 'Dil Se' to 'Is Dil Se'.

Tell us something about the album 'Is Dil Se'.

This is my best romantic album till date. This album comprises all phases of love, be it confession stage, or romantic stage or anger...This album is a mix bag of expressions of love. There are eight songs in this album meant for all situations and I am sure everybody will enjoy the songs.

How is this album different from your last album?My last album 'Nasha Hi Nasha' was based on Trans music whereas this album is completely filmy style. This has all romantic, naughty songs.

Which is your favorite song in this album?I like all the songs. Title song as well as another song 'Tauba Tauba' are my favorites. I have really enjoyed singing for this album. It's very close to my heart.

Aren't you fond of Sufi music?
Yes, Sufi music is very close to my heart. Since childhood I have been visiting mosques and have been listening to Sufi hymns. Sufi music is very close to my heart… it's God music…comes straight from the heart.

What appeals you more -- album songs or film songs?

Irrespective of an album or a film song, I enjoy everyone of them. For me song is more important than its category -- a film song or an album song. If you sing from your heart, you give your best and if you take singing as a challenge or competition, it doesn't come out from your heart and hence you are not here to stay for long.

An Affair of the Heart: Sufi Presences in Montréal

By Sharon Gubbay Helfer - Tolerance.ca -Montréal,Québec,Canada

Monday, December 4, 2006

My first encounter with Sufis and Sufism came in the late 1970s in Boulder, Colorado, then as now a hub for things esoteric. My roommate at the mime school I was attending, a gorgeous free spirit with flowing hair and bare feet, captivated us with stories of the time she had spent following Sufi master Pir Vilayat Khan.

Swept up by her enthusiasm, I added two then-current Sufi bestsellers to my bookshelf, “The Conference of the Birds” and “The Pleasantries of Mullah Nasruddin.”

After I left Boulder the books remained on my shelf, along with a lingering sense of something lovely, enchanting even, but life moved me in other directions. Openness to the spiritual took a back seat to more immediate issues: making a living, marrying, raising a family. This was followed by advanced academic studies in religion – studies that answered many questions but that left the great mysteries – the domain of Sufism and the other mystical traditions – untouched.

A renewed interest recently brought me to explore and write about the contemporary Sufi presence in Montréal, to meet with some of Montreal’s Sufis, to hear about their journeys and experiences … and to touch again the magic of the Sufi way.

Despite my early encounters, I began this exploration knowing next to nothing about Sufism – what it is, where it came from, how it works – not even the fact that Sufism is the mystical heart of Islam. Back in the 1970s, I was not alone in having only the slightest, vaguely exotic impression of Islam. In today’s context, of course, everyone seems to have a conception – often a misconception – of this religion.

One great benefit of spending even a little time getting to know Sufis is that one comes directly into contact with a dimension of Islam that has received little media attention here. I have been intrigued to learn that Sufis are Muslims who are entirely focused on and dedicated to the understanding that the world is created from love, that beauty and truth lie at the core of all religions and that the search for these core truths unites seekers from all faiths.

Another plus for me has been the chance to find out something about the 13th century Persian scholar and mystic Jalal al-din Rumi, whose intense and passionate poetry has made him the best-selling poet in America today. What is more, public awareness will almost certainly continue to grow, since UNESCO has declared 2007 the year of Rumi, in honour of the 800th anniversary of the year of his birth.

It is, then, fitting, that my adventures among Montreal Sufis begin with a visit to the local restaurant named in honour of the great man. * * * There is something enchanting about the evening, sitting outside at Rumi Restaurant, corner Fairmount and Hutchison, in Montreal. A hint of coolness in the air enhances the pleasure of sipping hot tea, fragrant with cardamom, poured in an amber stream into small glasses.

I have come to speak with restaurant owners Hassan and Husayn Friedman about the mystical Sufi path they both have chosen and about their restaurant. From their brightly embroidered black caps to the lively intensity of their search for truth and the people-friendly flair required by the restaurant business, the two are colourful characters, both the slim, red-haired and reserved Hassan and the larger, more muscular chef Husayn, a voluble fountain of Sufi stories.

Although the Friedman brothers chose the name for their restaurant only after rejecting a string of more prosaic options, “Rumi” has turned out to be an inspired choice, opening the way to a golden, warm decor and the exotic Turkish, Persian and Middle-Eastern-based menu as well as to books for the nook at the back, where diners hungry for more than what arrives on their plates can feed their souls on the lore and poetry of Sufism.

The enchantment of the evening borrows from the sensual richness of the aromas that waft out from the kitchen and from the feeling of camaraderie engendered as Hassan and Husayn welcome new and old customers with friendly words and the sometimes wacky humour Sufis are known for. But there is something more. What enchants is the fact that the warmth and camaraderie as well as the delicious flavours being served up are understood by Hassan and Husayn to be but the tiniest expression, “a drop of a drop of a drop,” of the glory of the divine creator, whose direct presence they seek by means of knowledge that is not codified in texts but that is written in the hearts of the enlightened.

(...)

“From a genuine master,” says Husayn, otherwise known as Todd Friedman, “it is beyond what you imagine because it is a living experience, because they have reached that ocean of truth and love. They look at you; they don’t see your imperfections. They do, but they don’t look to them. They see the manifestation, they see in your light what name the Divine Presence created you with.

With permission, they may guide you to that Reality. They have the key to unlock your treasures. The key to each person’s heart is in the hands of someone on Earth. What you feel in their presence is a kind of love…

If you took all the love of mothers, all the love of fathers, all the love of brothers and sisters, all the love of lovers, it is not going to be one drop of a drop of what you feel from those Enlightened ones because you have a secret connection of your soul with them …”

Husayn’s description of “a kind of love” and of something “not to be described, … not from the five senses” would be confirmed by several of the other Sufis I spoke with. Shaykh Omar at the Naqshbandi Centre, psychiatrist Joel Ibrahim Kreps and sociologist Karim Ben Driss all cited some such experience as the reason why they became Sufis in the first place.

Another of Husayn’s explanations, which would return on several occasions and that seems important to an understanding of Sufism, has to do with a necessary balance between the two kinds of knowledge, the knowledge of the heart and knowledge of the law that can be studied and practiced. The latter is deemed necessary as a discipline to tame the ego, which is metaphorically pictured as a powerful and spirited steed.

“You need a discipline on the physicality, you need to tame the physicality, to be able to master it; and then you need Reality, the knowledge of heart, to bring you into that state of faith, belief and then to enlightenment. They call it the two wings. They are complementary.” The two wings, the law and the deep truths of Reality, are both needed.

My new Sufi friends explain to me at different times that problems come to Islam, as to any religion, when the balance is lost, as for example if adherence to the details of Islamic law become all-important and the Reality of love is lost. My conversation with Husayn ranges over a number of other topics but finally he announces, “Now we have to feed you! This is the important thing!” The dinner is a wonderful Rumi meal, perfumed with spices and enhanced by the 300 angels that surely accompany every bite.

We are joined by a number of other friends and companions, thus increasing the pleasure of sharing food and hearing about the adventures of different people, including their travels to spend time with Sufi masters in Michigan and Cyprus, what they learned and how they learned.

My evening at the Naqshbandi Centre Having tasted and savoured the food at Restaurant Rumi, my next step has to be to “taste” the experience of a Sufi prayer gathering. So it is that I find my way to the Naqshbandi Sufi Centre, first to explore the premises and see how things are set up, and then to experience a Thursday-evening prayer service.

About a half mile east of Rumi Restaurant on Fairmount Street in Montreal, is the Naqshbandi Sufi Centre. Although it is plain and unprepossessing from the outside, the interior is laid out with all the essentials of a traditional mosque as well as specific Sufi elements. Shaykh Omar, the soft-spoken, Mali-born son of a French mother and Malian father shows me around the long, rectangular space.

At the far end of the room is the mihrab, or prayer niche that indicates the qibla or direction of prayer (east, towards Mecca). The floor is carpeted throughout with overlain Persian rugs and at the end opposite the mihrab there are cushions around three sides. This is where, when I come to participate in the ritual of dhikr, I sit, together with the other women, while the men place themselves in the front half of the room.

On one wall above the cushions, cheerful children’s drawings are pinned up. These are a bright memento of the most recent visit of Shaykh Hisham from Michigan. The rest of the wall space around the room is filled with framed artwork, most of it calligraphy spelling out names and attributes of God and of the Prophet Muhammad.

The written names are understood to emanate some quality of the namesake and so to bless the space. The calligraphic variety is wonderful: swooping, graceful lines of text created in India, Ottoman work recognizable by the presence of green circles, pieces from Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Indonesia, and sculpted wood from Malaysia. There are many styles in all kinds of media: embroidery on velvet, engraving on copper or silver. Exquisite handiwork, such as an entire Koran copied out in miniature, hangs beside a sacred name stamped on plastic and made in China.

As Shaykh Omar explains, the most costly things are placed here beside the simplest in order to convey a message: Often our society accords value to things that have no true merit and makes monetary-worth-based divisions between things that can live very well together, as they do on these walls. As proof, says Omar, God chose to manifest the human spirit, that which proceeds from His light, in a body of dust.

The vibrant variety in the calligraphy that lines the walls of the Naqshbandi community centre is reflected in the varied ethnic origins of the men, women and a few children who are there for the traditional Sufi dhikr prayer service the night I attend.

Dhikr is designed to open the heart and awareness to the ever-present divine reality and the evening is memorable, filled with warmth and spiritual intensity. Sincerely interested outsiders are welcome and I am touched by the beautiful smiles with which I am greeted, from the radiant woman who sits on the floor beside me, a teacher from Sudan robed in a warm yellow sari, and from the other men and women present.

The participants that evening constitute a veritable rainbow of origins, dress, and skin colours both local and from North Africa, Mali and Iraq, with religious roots, in addition to Islam, in Francophone Catholic Québec and Anglo-Protestant Canada; as well, there are two Montreal Jews whose forbears were from Eastern Europe – Rumi restaurant owners Hassan and Husayn – and one young man whose origins, like my own, lie in the Baghdadi Jewish community.

Curious about the different religious backgrounds represented, I ask Shaykh Omar about the Naqshbandi relationship to traditional Islamic practice. He explains that the people who come to the centre are at different stages along the path of commitment to Sufism. Acceptance of Islam is not a prerequisite. However, traditional Sufism requires that the pursuit of esoteric knowledge be balanced by the discipline of adherence to Islamic law and practice since, as Shaykh Omar put it, echoing what Husayn had told me at the restaurant, “You need two wings to fly.”

Controversial celebrations end without violence

NDTV Correspondent - NDTV.com - New Delhi,India
Monday, December 4, 2006

Three days of controversial Datta Jayanti celebrations by the BJP ended without violence on Monday in Karnataka's Chikmagalur district.

Communal violence over the event in the past forced the High Court to impose restrictions. Security was tight in Chikmagalur town and at the communally sensitive Bababudangiri hills, the site of Datta Peeta shrine.

Pilgrims and several hundred BJP supporters made their way to visit the Datta peetha.The cave, which houses the shrine is also the site of a Sufi dargah and a dispute over ownership has led to communal tension.

Muslims revere the place as the site chosen by a Sufi saint for worship but Hindus believe that Dattatreya meditated there.

After 1975, the ownership of the shrine became a matter of dispute and in the 1990s the Sangh Parivar focused its attention on the shrine.

Rebel Sufis of the Punjab

By Ishtiaq Ahmed - The News International - Pakistan
Saturday, December 2, 2006

The Sufi brotherhoods that arrived in South Asia from the Middle East and central Asia had already been influenced by the pantheistic traditions of South Asia, and in some cases the result was theist fusions or unitarian views of God.

It is, however, important to point out that some Sufi orders were quite conservative such as the Suhrawardia and Naqshbandia. They had a strong presence in the Punjab. The Naqshbandi Sufi, Ahmed Sirhindi or Mujadid Alf-Sani, who lived during the 16th century and is buried at Sirhind in the Indian East Punjab, played an important role in the revival of strict Islam in the Mughal Empire and indeed in the Punjab.

On the other hand, non-conformist philosophical and theosophical ideas and movements emanating from Islamic and Hindu roots gave birth to interesting syntheses and syncretism. Some individual Sufis evolved radical non-conformist positions that decried the dogmatic forms of religion, whether Islam or Hinduism. The basic idea that gained acceptance in such circles was that ultimately there is one Great Spirit or God holding together the cosmic and earthly systems. Therefore, they conceived humanity as one great family with its different manifestations in terms of religions and cultures.

In practical and symbolic terms this is illustrated rather well from the 16th century by the close friendship between the Sufi poet, Hussain of Lahore (b. 1538), and the Hindu Brahmin youth, Madho Lal, from the nearby village of Shahdara. To this day an annual festival, the Madho-Lal Hussain Mela, is held on the outskirts of Lahore to commemorate their union. They are buried in the same tomb, to which thousands of people flock on this ceremonial occasion.

Hussain broke away from orthodoxy. He danced and drank wine and lived a life of defiance. The Mughal Emperor Akbar was in power at Agra at that time and he too weakened the hold of dogmatism. Therefore this was a period of Hindu-Muslim symbiosis both at the level of the Mughal state -- of which the Punjab was one possession -- and among the common people.

Sultan Bahu (born 1639) was another Sufi who continued to question the compatibility of orthodox and the non--conformist worldview of radical Sufism. He was a prolific writer, whose message displayed the inevitable tension between a rigid worldview dichotomising social reality into Islamic and non-Islamic categories. Such a train of thinking reached its apogee under Bulleh Shah (1680-1758).

Bulleh Shah's murshid or spiritual master, Shah Inayat, belonged to the Qadriyya Shattari School: known for its close affinity with yoga and other meditative practices.

One day some rich but God-fearing man had deposited a great deal of wealth with Shah Inayat with the supplication that he should distribute it among needy people. Shah Inayat told Bulleh Shah, 'Distribute this wealth among the poor and needy in accordance with the law of God'.

A crowd of needy people had gathered at the spot in the hope of getting something. Bulleh Shah told one of them to take everything and to the rest he gave nothing. Such a decision caused a stir and people began to complain and agitate. Shah Inayat too was perplexed by this decision. He asked Bulleh Shah admonishingly to explain what he had done. Bulleh Shah said, 'You told me to distribute the wealth according to the law of God. I did exactly that. Just look around. There are a few rich people and the vast majority are poor and dispossessed. So, I followed the divine law which works in this world'.

Shah Inayat Qadri could not deny the force of the argument put forward by his disciple. Thus began a long association between the two but the disciple developed even more radical non-conformist views. Some of Bulleh Shah's verses are worth quoting:

Masjid dha de, mandir dha de, dha de jo kucch dainda
Par kisi da dil na dhain, Rab dilan vich rehnda

Tear down the Mosque, tear down the temple
Tear down every thing in sight
But don't (tear down) break anyone's heart
Because God lives there

Then he writes:
Gal samajh laee te raolaa keeh
eyh Raam, Raheem te Maulaa keeh?

Why all this commotion if you claim understanding?
Why this fuss about calling Him Ram, Rahim or Moula?
(Ram is a Hindu god; Rahim and Moula are Allah's designations)

About priests in general Bulleh Shah writes:
Mulla tay mashaalchi dohaan ikko chit
Loukan karday chananan, aap anhairae vich

Mullah and the torch-bearer, both from the same flock
Guiding others; themselves in the dark

The rebel Sufis were cosmopolitans. They lived simple lives and shunned the company of the rich and powerful. The ruling elite therefore always looked upon them with suspicion and perhaps even fear.

However, such Sufis remained rebels in intellectual terms. They were not social revolutionaries. The enlightened and composite tradition of the Punjab remained firm and steadfast well into the 19th and 20th centuries, when power had passed into the hands of the British.

Mian Muhammad (1830-1904) and Khawaja Ghulam Farid (1841-1901) continued to preach universal peace and brotherhood.

Many Hindus and Sikhs were disciples of Muslim Sufis. In January 2005 I met a Hindu gentleman at Patiala, Amrik Chand Ahluwalia – 80 years of age -- who told me his family were disciples of a Muslim Sufi whose shrine was located on the border of Punjab and Balochistan. As a child his family and he had travelled to that place to perform ziarat. He told me that his family ate meat (goat and chicken) but only if it was slaughtered according to Islamic ritual.

Some Muslims had continued to live in Patiala despite the exodus of 1947, and more from the neighbouring states of Haryana and UP had settled in Patiala afterwards and now getting halal meat was no problem.

This revelation was quite interesting. I pondered if a comparable Muslim adherence to Hindu values can be discerned in our Muslim Punjabi environment. It occurred to me that in our West Punjab homes eating beef was never popular and even now nobody relishes eating beef or serving it to guests. So a fusion of Hindu and Islamic beliefs and practices has survived into the current period despite nearly 60 years of the partition of the Punjab.

For this we must thank the syncretism of the rebel Sufis of the Punjab.

The writer is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University in Sweden. Email: ishtiaq.ahmed@statsvet.su.se

Boy keeps Sufi music alive abroad

By Swati Vashishta - CNN-IBN - New Delhi,India

Saturday , December 2, 2006

Jaipur: A 14-year-old Sufi singer from Jaisalmer in Rajasthan has won the Best Actor award at the Brooklyn International Film Festival.

Swaroop Khan Manganiyar, from Baiya village in Jaisalmer, won the award for his performance in Joel Palombo's movie Milk and Opium. It was an achievement that this school dropout had never dreamed of.

"My director tells me they'll make another movie, so I'm working on my acting, I practice singing and acting at home," says Swaroop, who is now high not just on success, but also on hope.
Milk and Opium talks about globalisation taking over traditions in India and Swaroop says his role in the movie was challenging.

His mother now wants to see more of him on celluloid. "I want him to become a hero and make it big in life," says Samdha, Swaroop's mother.

There may be accolades abroad for him, but for Swaroop's family little has changed back home. They belong to a community of Sufi singers who live in poverty after losing patronage from their royal connoisseurs. "We are respected and valued when we go abroad and perform there but back home we have little value," says Fakir Khan Manganiyar, a Sufi singer from Barmer.

Many of these celebrated Manganiyar artists have won awards in the past, but now, eke out a living in the anonymity of the desert. They hope that at least Swaroop will make it big some day.

Artists bring Persian culture to Tokyo audience

By Angela Jeffs - The Japan Times - Tokyo, Japan

Saturday, December 2, 2006

It does not sit comfortably with Iranian-born Siavash Arianfar to be interviewed. But the truth is that, without Arianfar, it is unlikely that Caravan would have ever materialized.

Caravan -- a mystical journey along the Silk Road via Persian traditional music and Sufi poetry -- will take place Dec. 3 at Super Deluxe in Roppongi.
On that date, six male musicians and five female dancers will perform on two stages, accompanying readings of poetry in Persian and English translation by the 13th-century mystic Jalalud'din Rumi.

"Sufi poetry speaks of love and love and love," says Arianfar. "I read poetry, but don't need to write it. Rumi's words are enough. Entering into his poems is like entering a jungle, natural, free, wild."

Writing on Sufi -- the path to the truth and knowledge of ourselves through love, achieving inner peace and happiness -- Rumi wrote: "When I came to love, I am ashamed of all that I ever said about love."

Closely identified with Sufi mysticism, Rumi was born in 1207 on the eastern shores of what was then the Persian Empire. The town where he grew up, Balhk, is now in Afghanistan.
He settled though in Konia, in what is now Turkey. His epiphany as a poet was in meeting in the dervish Shams of Tebriz.
This was the point he left literary respectability behind and entered a world of mystically inspired devotion and creativity.

Rumi was a poet of intuition, Arianfar explains. "There is a rhythm and emotional depth to his poems that transcend grammar. By contrast, poetry by Hafiz (another famed Sufi poet of the same period) is a symbol of grammatical perfection for the academic world."

Arianfar began to play the ney, a classical woodwind instrument, around the age of 20.
He then left family and friends in Tehran sometime after the Iran-Iraq war of 1980 and began traveling. Before coming to Japan in 1995, he spent the last five years of his wanderings in India, studying science at university.

"Why Japan? To be honest, I don't know why I came. I thought I would be here just a short time. The reasons began to clarify only after I found fellow musicians and we decided to play together, form a band."

Working as an electrician for a Japanese company means he is now both fluent and comfortable in language and culture. Teaching kung fu to'a twice a week in Tokyo's Sangenbashi and the Olympic Center means he is fit.
As Arianfar writes in his flier for Sound Mind & Sound Body: "To know yourself is to know the truth. Kung fu is the path to knowledge, the road to self-consciousness. Who are we fighting? It is a mirror of ourselves. The mirror of our actions and reactions is a companion or vehicle to face our fears, to free our brains from unwanted thoughts, and to connect self with the universe."
Kung fu, he says, helps toward living harmoniously free of bad intentions.

Sufi poetry carries a similar message: Rumi: "I am neither of the East nor of the West, no boundaries exist within my breast." Also: "There are many languages in the world, in meaning all the same, if you break the cup, water will be unified, will flow together."

Celebrating his cultural heritage with Japanese musicians -- Madoka on tambour and tar, Ken on barbat (oud), Maya on tabla, and Junzo on daf and dahol -- the chance came to perform at Museum in Ogikubo in 2003.

Two years later, they performed again at the same venue, with an even larger audience. The word, it seems, was spreading. Just as the word spread along the Silk Road in the past. Because the Silk Road was not just a network of transportation routes for caravans of commodities, but a geographical space, with Central Asia the melting pot of many differing civilizations.

This multicultural wave of ongoing human experience reached China under the Tang Dynasty, and eventually reached Japan, with whom China had very good relations at that time.
Gagaku music, as played by the Japanese Imperial court, has roots in Persian music. "All Persian art springs from and works towards the reunification of man with God.

As Rumi says: "We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust." Music dissolves self, Arianfar explains. "It makes us realize we are everything and nothing."

Sufism and the struggle within Islam

By Khaleb Khazari-El - World War 4 Report - Brooklyn,NY,USA
July/December 2006

One of the many ways in which the planetary struggle has gone through the proverbial looking glass since the 9-11 attacks is the seeming reversal in the juxtaposition of Western imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism. In the Cold War, the United States was allied with fundamentalist regimes like Saudi Arabia and fundamentalist movements like Afghanistan's Mujahedeen against the threats of communism and radical nationalism. The US, in fact, continues to back fundamentalists—in Saudi Arabia, in Afghanistan, in occupied Iraq. But it is perceived, at least, to be protecting secular modernity from fundamentalist assault. This perception is shared by both the "neo-conservative" policy wonks and the fundamentalists themselves—at least those on the wrong end of Washington's firepower.

If we look to the roots of Islamic fundamentalism, however, we find that it came into existence alongside another tradition which was a wellspring of resistance in the colonial era but is now largely forgotten to history. These twin traditions were two branches of the same tree: one throve, the other ultimately withered. Fundamentalism prevailed over the threats of nationalism and communism in the long 20th-century contest as to which ideology would bear the anti-imperialist mantle in the Islamic world. The other tradition did not survive to wage this struggle—but now that the contest has been clearly decided, may be worth a close re-examination. This forgotten tradition is militant sufism.

The story of militant sufism is replete with paradox. Sufism initially represented a proto-universalism, and was opposed by orthodoxy. But revolutionary sufism was, in its day, allied with fundamentalism, itself orthodoxy's backlash against modernity. Yet, the fundamentalists today attack the surviving sufis, seeing their struggle as a unified jihad against both imperialism and heresy.

There are, however, signs that point to the potential for the emergence of a universalist yet localist and autonomist anti-imperialism embodied by neo-sufis and related esoteric or dissident Islamic traditions. As the sufis of the medieval era formed a bridge between Islam and the indigenous spiritual traditions of those areas conquered by Caliphate, today's neo-sufis could serve as a bridge between a non-fundamentalist Islamic anti-imperialism, and more open-minded and libertarian elements of the secular anti-imperialist left in the Islamic world, which is now in danger of being completely marginalized or crushed—especially in places like Iraq, where it is needed most.

Under the pressure of 19th-century European colonialism, sufism broke with the apolitical quietism which had generally characterized the tradition. Today, surviving sufis have similarly rethought the alliance or convergence with fundamentalism which often characterized the era of militancy. It remains to be seen if the surviving secular left elements can overcome the dogmatic rejection of all spiritual traditions as either quietist opiate or fundamentalist reaction—a perception which contributes to their own marginalization, as long-suppressed spiritual thirsts dramatically re-assert themselves.

In his 1988 book The Struggle Within Islam: The Conflict Between Religion and Politics, Indian scholar and statesman Rafiq Zakaria traces the tension to the very beginning, noting that the Prophet Mohammed was both a religious and political leader. This conflict is now at the center of the world stage: a violent struggle within world Islam as to what its stance should be before the assaults of gobalization, secularism and capitalism.

A new radical sufism could offer an alternative to the actually-existing jihad of Wahhabi totalitarianism. But to understand the contemporary juxtaposition of sufism and the jihad, it is necessary to take a brief look at how the struggle between sufism and the more doctrinaire and orthodox manifestations of Islam played out...in the 13th century. We cannot understand where we are without understanding how we got here. Certainly, the 13th-century struggle against the Crusaders weighs very heavily on the mind of contemporary radical Islam; we are unwise to assume that this history doesn't concern us.

After the Fall of the Caliphate: How Sufism Saved Islam
Zakaria calls the medieval sufis "bridge builders," who, persecuted as heretics, paradoxically saved Islam following the decline of the Caliphate. As the scene opens, the Abbasid dynasty has fallen. Baghdad, the Caliphate's seat, has been sacked by the Mongols under Hulagu Khan, as had principal centers of learning and commerce like Aleppo.

The long war with the Crusaders was followed by a shorter but far more destructive war with the Mongols and Turkic peoples displaced from the Central Asian steppes by the Mongol irruption. The Seljuk Turks, initially a military slave caste that fought for the Aabbasid Caliphate, had long since become the real power behind the throne, and now they had inherited a disintegrating realm. After 500 years and more of a unified Islamic empire which had reached heights of centralized power, culture, learning and wealth, the Caliphate (although continuing to exist in name) has collapsed into fragmented mini-states divided by sectarian strife.

The two main factions were the Sunnis and Shi'ites, but even within these broad tendencies various sects vied—Hanafis, Hanbalis, Ismailis, Kharijites. Each claimed their teachings to be the only true Islam, and seas of blood were spilled over the narrowest of doctrinal distinctions—a symptom of the general social breakdown. Local communities were run by the ulema, the body of scholars (mullahs). As long as they had local control and sharia law was enforced, the mullahs would play along with whatever faction was in power and provide young men to fight. Doctrinal rigidity, therefore, actually abetted the general disintegration.

And yet within a century, three new Islamic empires had emerged onto the world scene, and become new centers of commerce, learning and political power. The Arab world was no longer the imperial center, but the empires of the Ottoman Turks, Safavid Persia and the Moghuls of India would survive into modern times.

How did this come to pass? Zakaria credits the sufis, despite the fact that their doctrines were deemed apostasy by the ulema and nearly all of the ruling factions, and they were at times bitterly persecuted.

(...)

A further tragic irony is that sufism, once in the vanguard of anti-imperialist struggle, is now rejected as heresy or, worse still, conflated with imperialism by the new jihadis.
From its origins, sufism was a populist tradition that drew the disaffected who distrusted the leaders of the day as too worldly and corrupt, and sought something more spiritually pure. In its embrace of local and even pre-Islamic traditions, it arguably represented a certain proto-universalism, even pro-secularism.

The contemporary Indian spiritual thinker Maulana Wahiduddin Khan actually traces the roots of the Western Enlightenment to the Islamic revolution of the seventh century, in which the successors of the Prophet overthrew the shirk (idolatry) of the absolutist Persian and Byzantine empires.

The possibly pseudonymous American writer Hakim Bey has even credited sufism with a kind of proto-anarchism, in its extreme suspicion of and often outright opposition to authority, both political and religious.

Sufism continued to be a wellspring of populist sentiment right through the anti-colonialist struggles—yet somewhere along the way, the situation was reversed. Today it is Wahhabism—ironically, the official state doctrine of that most worldly and wealthy of all the Muslim states, Saudi Arabia—which has assumed the mantle of populism and resistance.

All over the Islamic world, the disaffected flock to Wahhabism and related doctrines as the alternative to the corruption of official leaders and their supine stance before imperialism and globalization. And because imperialism and globalization have appropriated the mantles of secularism, pluralism, tolerance, universalism—these are also being rejected. This final reality has much to say about why it is Wahhabism rather than sufism that now provides the wellspring of resistance.

Is the situation reversible? The glimmers of hope lie in the possibilities for the de-coupling of the notions of imperialism and universalism. Contrary to current depressing dogmas of global polarization, a "clash of civilizations," indigenous Islamic dissidence to both fundamentalism and imperialism does exist. Maulana Wahiduddin Khan rejects the terrorist "jihad" as fasad (error, illegitimacy) and poses a "true jihad" of non-violent activism that embraces rather than rejects pluralism.

Summer program focusing on Islam in India

By Linda Harbrecht - Lehigh University - Bethlehem,PA,USA

Friday, December 1, 2006

A six-credit, one-month summer program focusing on Islam in India will be introduced in May. Rob Rozehnal, assistant professor of Islamic studies and comparative South Asian religions, will lead the course, which is titled "Islam in South Asia: Sufi Saints and Muslim Missionaries."The class will be co-taught by Matthew Nelson, a professor of political science at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

"This is a really unique and innovative program," Rozehnal says. "We'll be exploring the encounter between Islamic and Indian civilizations from multiple perspectives. India will definitely be a 3-D assault on the senses for students, in terms of its food, its social landscape, and the summer heat.

This is designed to be a thoroughly atypical study abroad experience—an intense cultural immersion."While in India, students will visit a number of significant Sufi shrines, mosques, and Hindu temples. The program will also benefit from the academic support of three prominent Indian universities: the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia, and Aligarh Muslim University.

Understanding “the incredible diversity and dynamism of Islam”

Rozehnal says that through his classes and his writings (as in his forthcoming book, Islamic Sufism Unbound: The Chishti Sabiri Order in 21st Century Pakistan ) he attempts to account for what he calls the "truly global nature of the Muslim world.

"I think it's vital to remind students of the incredible diversity and dynamism of Islam around the globe,” Rozehnal says. “The lived reality is far more complex than what we see through daily news reports. South Asia is the demographic center of today's Islamic world. There are some 130 million Muslims in India, a minority community among a vast Hindu majority. There is no better way to communicate this than to get students out of the classroom and immersed in the dizzying complexity of today's India."

Rozehnal joined the Lehigh faculty in 2003 and was recently named a Frank Hook Assistant Professor. In addition to the history and practice of Sufism in South Asia, his research interests include ritual studies, postcolonial theory and religious nationalism.

Boundaries gone, in a heartbeat

By Nilova Roy Chaudhury - Hindustan Times - New Delhi,India

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Jaws drop and a collective gasp rises in the morning air as Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, musical genius and qawwal from Pakistan, walks in, wearing low hipster jeans. It was not what the audience at the Indian Women's Press Corps (IWPC) had quite expected.

Could this be the nephew and heir of the legendary Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the man who galvanised the idea of Sufi music worldwide? Nusrat died, aged 44, a few years ago, and Rahat, his anointed successor, travelled across the globe with him for the last 12 years of his life, imbibing and taking forward the legacy of the devotional qawwali.

Weeks ago, when the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan met in Delhi, the air was tense and bitter, following the Mumbai blasts. Earlier this week, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri flew in on a private-official visit to attend the wedding Union Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar's daughter.

And now, here's Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, melting the ice, and song by song, dhadak by dhadak, helping dissolve the bitterness between India and Pakistan. He is in Delhi, helping promote people-to-people harmony courtesy the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR), for his first ever performance in India, since relations between India and Pakistan deteriorated post- Mumbai bomb blasts.

"It's enough for me to have Rahat sitting next to me and saying he receives more love and izzat from Indians than he does back home," said Pavan Verma, Director General of ICCR. "My reason for bringing him is more than served."

Verma, who laments the lack of a cultural centre in neighbouring states, said, "Our policy towards neighbours is not one of reciprocity, bring one send one. But this 'soft culture' and harmony does create a certain ambience that enables serious political decisions to get taken," Verma said.

"Music is above politics, it joins the hearts and minds, whatever the state of relations between our countries," said a very politically correct Rahat. "Sufi music carries a message of peace and love. "No one understands the sufi tradition and qawwali as well as they do in India," Rahat said.

Asked for an 'honest' answer on how long he does riyaaz [musical practice] everyday, the 30-year-old replies with a laugh, "These days because I am travelling, I hardly manage to put in only a few hours every day!"

Despite that, as External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee took time off from a handful of Cabinet meetings to come to the IWPC-ICCR concert on Thursday, Rahat enthralled an audience bursting at the seams at the Siri Fort auditorium, leaving many clamouring for more.