Celebrating Sufism and promoting the message of peace

Five-day festival showcases theatre, dance and musical performances along with discussion sessions

LAHORE: A five-day festival showcasing theatre, dance and musical performances on Sufi poetry and poets along with discussion sessions is under way at the Punjabi Complex of the Gaddafi Stadium.

Aimed at promoting Sufi poetry, Mela Chiraghan kicked off on April 6 and will end on Monday (tomorrow).

The festival started with musical performances by prominent singers like Ustad Hamid Ali Khan, Ghulam Abbas and Shabnam Majeed on Thursday. On Friday, the event hosted an evening titled Lok Ras, dedicated to dance on Sufi poetry recitals, a poetry session and Shah Husain conference to discuss ideology and message of Sufi Poet Shah Husain.

While speaking at a session on Shah Husain poetry in context to contemporary society, culture activist Iftikhar Bhutta said that Sufi poets like Bulleh Shah, Mian Muhammad and Shah Husain have always been portrayed as rebels against the ruling elite through their poetry.



“In contemporary era, their message cannot be taken forward for the coming generations since their motto of peace and liberalism is constantly being challenged by fundamentalist regimes,” he said, adding that few organisations on national level were ready to own and sponsor Punjabi language and its writers. “Literary activists should unite to hold more events like this,” he added.

University of Gujrat’s Centre for Language and Translational Studies head Dr Ghulam Ali said that as the country was facing even more cultural conflicts internally, there was a need for ideological revolution, and Shah Husain’s message couldn’t be more relevant in this scenario.

According to Ali, Husain came up with a counter narrative of the social and political issues that he was facing and he raised voice against dominant powers and in favour of the common people.

“Husain’s thought process shifted from purely religious to an exploration of social paradigms,” Ali said. Talking about his philosophy on social issues, Ali said that Shah Husain used Punjabi language to address the issues of local people, instead of using Farsi, which was known as the language of kings.

Ali said that Husain went against the set patterns of society in order to get heard, for example he negated class system since he himself came from a lower class.

“Secondly, Husain’s poetry is rife with feminist idioms. He used women as his mouth piece in an attempt to give them their equal status in the society and to get them heard,” Ali said, adding that a hitherto marginalised version of women of that time and their status was mainstreamed through his philosophy and ‘kaafi’ style of poetry.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 9^th, 2017.