Gurudwara Patti Sahib is relatively small, as far as Sikh places of worship go. The single-storey structure is surrounded by a courtyard, next to which there are several rooms. These were once reserved for pilgrims who would travel from across pre-Partition India to Nankana Sahib to celebrate Guru Nanak Jayanti, the birth anniversary of the first Sikh guru on whom this Pakistani city is named. Most of these rooms have now been taken over by Sikh families who moved to Nankana Sahib over the past decade after fleeing Taliban violence in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

It was at this gurudwara that Giani Pratab, a devotee, decided to teach young children the tenets of Sikhism and its holy book, the Adhi Granth.

Till a few years ago, just a handful of Sikh families lived in Nankana Sahib, said to be the birthplace of Guru Nanak, a majority of them having migrated to India after Partition. Today, the city is home to 200-250 Sikh families.

Giani Pratab had come to Nankana Sahib in the 1960s to pay homage to Guru Nanak. Looking at the condition of its gurudwaras, abandoned since Partition, he decided to stay on and look after them.

This was years before the Pakistan government started renovating Sikh shrines and Sikh families from tribal areas too had not yet migrated to Nankana Sahib. In a Muslim-dominated city he was the only Sikh. Starting from the late 1960s, Sikhs slowly started migrating here from India and the process gathered pace with the Talibanisation of Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Pratab, well-versed in the Adhi Granth, started acquainting children with the Gurmukhi script, giving them access to the sacred poetry of Sikh Gurus. Alongside their school education, the children were given religious learning at this gurudwara. This was essential for the children who, educated in the Pakistani system, would otherwise never have learnt the principles of Gurmukhi and would have been unaware of their religious scriptures.

Years later when Mastan Singh, a prominent member of Nankana Sahib’s Sikh community, established the Guru Nanak High School, the only institute that imparted religious learning alongside secular education to students in the city, the makeshift school at Gurudwara Patti Sahib was shut down.
 

Preserving Punjabi

Patti, in Punjabi, refers to a wooden board on which children learn to write and this gurudwara has a legacy of education.

As Guru Nanak was from the Bedi clan, who were ancient readers of the Vedas, it was imperative for him to learn Sanskrit. After mastering the ancient Indian language, he was taught Arabic and Persian, the two most politically dominant languages of his time. The place where Nanak was taught these languages, by Maulana Qutab-ud-din that came to be called Gurdwara Patti Sahib.

Almost five centuries after Nanak, young Sikh children, at this very place, were taught the alphabet of Gurmukhi, a script created by Nanak’s disciple and spiritual successor, Guru Angad Dev. The second Sikh Guru had sought to develop a new script to teach the message of the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak.

It was also at this gurudwara that Nanak the poet was born. Having mastered several languages, Nanak fused Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit words with the vernacular Punjabi for his first composition.

New words, phrases and symbols were added to a language which, before Nanak, was not considered worthy of containing serious philosophical knowledge. In this way, Nanak not only contributed to the spiritual development of Punjab but played an even greater role in its linguistic development.

Punjabi today has acquired the status of a sacred language in institutional Sikhism but when Nanak wrote, it was considered the language of the laypeople, not fit to be used by the educated elite. Literature, history, philosophy and religion were passed on in sacred languages – Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian – not accessible to everyone. This perhaps was one of the most revolutionary steps taken by Nanak.

He took knowledge from the elite, from their scriptures and their languages, and presented it in the vernacular. He democraticised philosophy and restored dignity to a language, a people and a culture that had for centuries been culturally subjugated.

However, years after Sikhism elevated Punjabi to a sacred language, it has once again been relegated to the sidelines in Nanak’s land. Urdu and English are the languages in which formal education is imparted in Pakistan’s Punjab province, while any references to Punjabi poets, literature and culture are obliterated. The common sentiment towards Punjabi is that of derision. It is considered to be a language of curses — for instance, last year, a private school listed Punjabi as an example of the kinds of “foul language” to be banned on its premises. Though the school claimed that this was a misunderstanding and they meant Punjabi curses, the controversy reiterated the disdain towards the language and its fading away in Pakistan.

On February 21, the world celebrated International Mother Language Day with a focus on promoting multilingual education. Now more than ever before, there is a need to revisit Nanak’s legacy and the significance of languages not just in Punjab but across the world, wherever they have been subsumed by purportedly powerful languages.

Haroon Khalid is the author of three books, most recently, Walking with Nanak

This article was first published on Scroll.in

I stood at the threshold of the gurudwara. A small plaque above its wooden door declared that it was Gurudwara Chakki Sahib, Eimanabad. The door of the place of worship was locked, while a Nishan Sahib, the Sikh flag, rose from its courtyard, hoisted on a pole.
Eimanabad city, close to the Grand Truck Road, is a splendid repository of history. Structures of several temples, now converted into houses, stand tall and proud amidst the houses. Scattered across it are remnants of exquisite havelis and palaces of nobles who once resided here.

One of these havelis was that of Malik Bhago, a corrupt noble who was reprimanded by Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, on the holy man’s visit to the city. According to legend, Nanak refused to attend the sumptuous feast that Bhago had organised for the priests and Brahmins on the occasion of his son’s wedding, choosing instead to eat at the house of a carpenter, Bhai Lalo. Infuriated, Bhago summoned Nanak to his palace and questioned him over the rebuff.

Taking some bread from Bhago’s spread, the Guru squeezed it and blood oozed out of it. When he did the same with bread from Bhai Lalo’s house, which he had summoned to the venue, it released milk. The guru explained that this was because the bread of Bhago had been purchased by money accumulated through corrupt means and by exploiting the poor, while Bhai Lalo had earned his money with honesty.

A few streets away is the gurudwara Bhai Lalo di Khoi, where Bhai Lalo’s house once stood and where Guru Nanak and his companion, Bhai Mardana, had stayed. The metal door to this gurudwara was also locked.

The conquest of Eimanabad

Before the the city of Gujranwala emerged as a major trade hub, Eimanabad was one of the most important cities east of Lahore, lying on the route connecting Kabul in Peshawar to Lahore and Delhi. With the rise of Gujranwala, Eminabad became a small town.
In the first half of the 16th century, Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, crossed the Chenab river, which flows through parts of India and Punjab (in present-day Pakistan), in search of new territory to capture. He came upon a massive city and forces unleashed terror on it, killing thousands of citizens and imprisoning many more.

The city in question was Saidpur, its name later changed to Eimanabad on the orders of its new king. Nanak’s hagiography suggests he was in Saidpur when Babur captured the city. Along with other citizens, he too was imprisoned and forced to work on a stone mill.

According to one of the retellings of this story, Nanak, a saint, did not want to use his hands to rotate the stone mill and is said to have used his magical powers to make the mill rotate on its own. This is ironic, given that Nanak, in his poetry, has spoke vehemently against superstitious beliefs on magic. Once, when asked if he could perform magic, he is believed to have sarcastically said:

Dwell then in flame uninjured,
Remain unharmed amid eternal ice,
Make blocks of stone thy food,
Spurn the solid earth before thee with thy foot,
Weigh the heavens in a balance
Then ask thou that Nanak perform wonders  

When the guards at the prison saw Nanak’s purported magic, they informed Babur, who summoned the Sikh guru to his court and asked for his blessings so he could be successful in his future conquests. Nanak refused to bless the Mughal king, questioning his audacity to seek his blessings after conquering the land where he lived. However, even without the guru’s blessings, Babur succeeded in his conquests and in spreading the Mughal Empire. Today, the Gurudwara Chakki Sahib is located at the spot where Nanak was imprisoned and performed this “magical” deed.

Gurudwara Chakki Sahib. [Photo: Haroon Khalid]
 

Impression of an emperor

Almost 500 years after Nanak and Babur’s meeting, India and Pakistan are divided on the Mughal emperor’s legacy. For Hindu nationalists in India, Babur is an imperialist who plundered their land, curbed religious freedoms and suppressed their traditions. Some Hindus believe that the Babri Masjid, or the Mosque of Babur in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, was built after demolishing a structure on the Ram Janmabhoomi, or the birthplace of Lord Ram, making it a major bone of contention.

Its demolition on December 6, 1992, by a group of Hindu kar sevaks, is one of the most important political events in India’s recent history and triggered communal riots all over the country.

In contrast, Pakistan, perhaps more so after 1992, began to embrace Babur. It suited the State’s historical framework – the need to depict the superiority of Muslim culture over the Hindu civilisation. Much like the invaders Muhammad Bin Qasim, Mahmud Ghaznvi and Mohammad Ghori, Babur became a symbol of Muslim nationalism that culminated in the creation of Pakistan.

Several roads and chowks in the different cities of the country are named after the first Mughal Emperor. The State has even named a missile after him and just two weeks ago, Pakistan tested an enhanced version of the medium-range and subsonic cruise Babur missile.

As both the states interpret Babur to suit their narratives, I look towards Guru Nanak and what he had to say about the conqueror. His poem Babur Bani, included in the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikhism’s central scripture and its 11th and eternal guru, beautifully captures the destruction that the king left at Eimanabad in its aftermath. He writes:

Bringing the marriage party of sin,
Babar has invaded from Kabul,
demanding our land as his wedding gift, O Lalo…
…The Qazis and the Brahmins have lost their roles,
and Satan now conducts the marriage rites, O Lalo…
…The wedding songs of murder are sung, O Nanak,
and blood is sprinkled instead of saffron, O Lalo. 

The poem mentions that his forces did not differentiate between Muslims and Hindus. Both fell victim to his wrath, which Nanak sarcastically calls “justice” of god. For Nanak, Babur was not a Muslim king bent upon destroying the Hindu culture and neither was an Islamic national who wanted to spread his religion over a the land.

He was simply a king motivated by greed and glory, so much so that anyone, irrespective of religion, who came in his way, was destroyed.

Haroon Khalid is the author of the books Walking with Nanak, In Search of Shiva and A White Trail

This article was first published on Scroll.in

Sprouting from the concrete floor of a madrassa is the bark of the ancient Karir tree that has remained rooted to this spot as the world around it changed. The shade of this tree was the madrassa itself when Baba Farid Shakarganj, head of the Sufi tradition of Chistiya, moved here – a small town called Ajodhan on the banks of the Sutlej river – from Delhi. He wanted to be as far away from the political elite as possible. Over time, as the stature of the shrine grew, so did the city, which came to be called Pakpattan (pure ford) in honour of the saint, in Punjab province.

Every evening, descendants of the saint hosted hundreds of devotees at the shrine for qawwali sessions containing the verses of Baba Farid – the first Punjabi poet, who was given the title Shakarganj, or treasure of sugar, for his sweet use of language. With the collections the devotees brought in, a modest structure was built around the simple grave of the saint. Later, as more of his descendants passed away, the shrine grew bigger. And grander structures were raised to house the permanent abode of these inherited saints.

The shrine of Baba Farid Shakarganj in Pakpattan in Punjab province.

The living saints became more powerful as the graves of the deceased saints grew. Eventually, the spiritual descendants of the saints emerged as the most important political family of this area. The Mughals respected them. Ranjit Singh, the founder of the Sikh empire in the early 19th century, had cordial relations with them. The British allowed them to keep their political influence as long as they did not challenge their authority. And after Pakistan came to be, subsequent military dictators have wooed them for their political needs.

It has been 750 years exactly since the death of Baba Farid. It is perhaps under this tree that he taught his last lesson to his students. One of these students was Nizamuddin Auliya, who later moved to Delhi and became a revered scholar and Sufi saint himself. In his writings, Nizamuddin Auliya talked about Baba Farid’s poverty and his institute. Students considered the day they cooked and ate the fruit of the Karir tree as a day of feast, he wrote.

Today, several devotees sit under the shade of this tree eating from plastic bags of rice that they have received from the langar hall facing it. Free food from the langar is served here every day. The wild fruit still grows on the Karir tree, but no one needs it anymore.
 

Different strokes

About 380 km from Pakpattan, further south, is another sacred city in the local spiritual tradition called Uch Sharif. Just as Sikh devotees add the term Sahib as a suffix to a holy place, to show respect, Muslims use Sharif. Just outside the city are the remains of a splendid structure from the 15th century, in traditional Multani style with blue and white tiles and a white dome. In the early half of the 19th century, these tombs were destroyed by the flooding of the Sutlej that used to flow close by.

A mosque at the shrine of Pir Jalaludin Bokhara in Uch Sharif.

Next to the partially destroyed tombs is the shrine of Pir Jalaludin Bokhari. Protected by a thick boundary wall, hundreds of devotees make their way into the shrine every day to pay homage to one of the most famous Sufi saints of the region. Born in 1199 in Bukhara, in what is now modern Uzbekistan, he drew his lineage from the Prophet of Islam. He traveled the world as an Islamic missionary and is believed to have converted many non-Muslims.

Unlike Baba Farid, who kept away from political authorities, Pir Jalaludin Bokhari is said to have met with and influenced several important political figures, including Nasiruddin Mahmud, the son of Shamsuddin Iltutmish who ruled the Delhi sultanate. As distinct as their own lives were the children of both of these Sufi saints, who followed a similar trajectory to emerge as both the religious and political elite of their respective regions.
 

Char Yaar

At the entrance of the shrine was a poster that captured my imagination. It depicted the four most prominent Sufi saints of this region – Pir Jalaludin, Baba Farid, Bahauddin Zakariya and Lal Shahbaz Qalandar. In popular Sufi iconography, they are referred to as Char Yaar or the four friends. Legends of their magic and friendship are narrated in the country’s various Sufi shrines, including this one.

Facing the poster was a verandah that served as a mosque. Within this verandah were four rooms, all believed to have once been used by these four friends as they met here. There is, of course, no historical evidence to suggest the four ever met, hence the legend of them being friends is a later construction. What possibly gave birth to this myth is the corresponding time period of all these Sufi saints. The poster at the shrine entrance is also a reinforcement of this story. For ordinary devotees who acquire all their knowledge about Sufism and its saints from these shrines, the four distinct Sufi personalities and philosophies merge into one.

Herein lies the problem. All these saints represented a different branch of Sufism, a distinct philosophy that does not necessarily conform to each other. For example, as mentioned earlier, Baba Farid made a conscious effort to stay away from the political elite of his time. However, both Jalaludin and Bahauddin were quite comfortable in political circles.
 

The dancing rebel

About 220 km from Pakpattan is the splendid city of Multan. Here, on top of an ancient mound, Bahauddin Zakariya ran his madrassa, as a contemporary of Baba Farid. But while Baba Farid opened the doors of his madrassa to all except the political elite, Bahauddin’s madrassa catered only to this section.

Distinct from all of them was Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, a rebel Sufi who danced, sang and smoked hashish to connect with the divine. The other three saints, all of whom respected religious rituals, would have strongly disagreed with Lal Shahbaz’s approach. His shrine in Sehwan, in Sindh province, is believed to have been constructed over an ancient Shiva temple. True to its heritage, his devotees even today play wild music and whirl ecstatically as a form of worship, reminiscent of Shiva’s tandava.

With radical and extremist narratives of Islam dominating global discussions on religion, there is an increasing need to refer to the softer version of Islam that is represented by Sufism. However, what is usually ignored in this discussion is that there is no one uniform tradition of Sufism. Sufism, too, has distinct traditions, some traditionalist, others rebellious, some who follow rituals and rites, and others who flout them, some who flirted with political circles, yet others who lived with the ordinary folk.

Today, even for devotees, these distinctions have become blurred as Sufi Islam is presented as an antidote to an extremist ideology. Without this nuanced understanding, Sufism would never be able to play the role that is expected of it in this violence-marred world.

Haroon Khalid is the author of the books In Search of Shiva: A Study of Folk Religious Practices in Pakistan and A White Trail: A Journey into the Heart of Pakistan’s Religious Minorities.

This article was first published on Scroll.in