Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims Accept the Mystic Saint of Lahore Data Ganj Bakhsh as their Guardian
By
Khaled Ahmed
September
19, 2020
If you want
to win the heart of a Sindhi Pakistani, sing the song of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar
of Sehwan Sharif — “Dama Dam Mast Qalandar” — containing reference to
Jhulelal, a Hindu deity; and to Ali, the martyred caliph whom the Shia branch
of Muslims celebrate in the face of a majority Sunni opposition. In Pakistan,
the cult of Shahbaz Qalandar has defied assaults from extremist Islam
penetrating the Sindh province. Sindhis continue to sing and dance at the
shrine of Sehwan in defiance of the ideology of the state while bowing to a
heretic Muslim saint.
Sindhi deity Jhulelal
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Sehwan
boasts of the mausoleum of the mystic saint Syed Usman Marwandi, popularly
known as Lal Shahbaz Qalandar. He had arrived from Afghanistan and probably
changed his real name to hide his devotion to Ali like most Muslim mystics. As
he sang in Sindhi, he inducted the Hindu god Jhulelal (red bridegroom) in his
incantations to show respect to his Hindu followers.
In his
paper, “Visual Representations of Jhulelal in India and Pakistan”, Michel
Boivin writes: “The term Jhulelal is actually the name of a Hindu deity
Jhulelal, who is worshipped by the Sindhi Hindus. However, the Sufi Muslims
started using the term Jhulelal only after the song Dama Dam Mast Qalandar
became famous, in which Lal Shahbaz Qalandar has been referred to as Jhulelal
Qalandar.”(Pakistan: Alternative Imaginings of the Nation State)
How did
Jhulelal become a saint of the Muslims? He is said to have appeared on the
island of Khwaja Khizr near Sukkur, in Sindh, to save a Muslim woman who was
coveted by a Hindu king. He is said to have finally disappeared from the
village of Jahejan, later renamed as Udero Lai, where he had asked his
followers to build two sanctuaries in the same complex: One for his Hindu
followers, a Samadhi, and another one for his Muslim followers, a “qabr”.
This
wonderful symbiosis of religions under the guardian saint singing in the Sindhi
language lasted for three centuries and moulded the personality of the Sindhi
man who will not drop a reference to a Hindu god merged in the personality of
the saint of Sehwan. The song has been rendered into Punjabi too and now
invades the vast territory of Punjab. The singers of “Jhulelalan”, like Abida
Parveen, have become legends in Pakistan. Sindhis all over the world greet each
other with the words, “Jai ko chavando Jhulelal then jathinda Beda-Paar”
(Jhulelal will lead you towards success)”.
But the
Sunni orthodoxy of northern Pakistan, strengthened by their participation in
jihad, began to dominate Pakistan’s ideology in the 1980s. Sunni madrasas,
enriched by jihad, began to penetrate Sindh to “set it right”; and today
threaten the foundations of the pluralist culture of Sindh, particularly by
allowing forcible marriages of Hindu girls to Muslims. The mausoleum of Lal
Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan Sharif was targeted again and again as Muslims and
Hindus sang and danced together at the shrine. In February 2017, a “suicide”
bombing at the shrine killed 88, including women and children. The attack was
carried out by the Islamic State (ISIS), the Sunni terrorist gang born in Iraq
to avenge the rise of the Shia majority there. Its presence in Pakistan
together with al Qaeda threatens the way of life the Pakistani people, as shown
by this attack, carried out by a local Muslim converted to violence. Not long
ago the mausoleum of Data Ganj Bakhsh was suicide-bombed in Lahore, where not
long ago Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims lived peacefully together and accepted the
mystic saint as the guardian spirit of the city.
Another
saint of Lahore, Mian Mir, belonged to the same category of pluralist faith.
The Golden Temple of Amritsar was built around a man-made pool (Sarovar) that
was completed by the fourth Sikh Guru, Guru Ram Das in 1577. Guru Arjun, the
fifth Guru of Sikhism, requested Mian Mir to lay its foundation stone in 1589.
Next to the grave of Mian Mir in Lahore, is the tomb of the Mughal princess
Nadira Begum, the wife of Prince Dara Shikoh who tried to teach the Hindu and
Muslim communities to live together in peace.
Khushwant
Singh once lived in Lahore and was loved by all his Muslim friends. What
connected Singh to Muslims was Sikhism itself. The holy book, Adi Granth, was
not a collection of punishing edicts but an anthology of mystical poems culled
from Punjabi and Rajput classics, from Baba Farid to Kabir and Meera. The
compilation of Sikh scripture began under the faith’s founder, Guru Nanak, who
thought of it because of his attraction to the idea of ahl-e-kitab (People of
the Book) in Islam.
----
Khaled
Ahmed is consulting editor, Newsweek Pakistan.
Original
Headline; The symbiosis of religions under the singing saint in Sindh lasted
three centuries
Source: The Indian Express
URL: https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/hindus,-sikhs-muslims-accept-mystic/d/122895
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