Data Darbar – the same bloody story

A few weeks ago, I wrote a feature for the Lahore pages of this paper, titled ‘Lahore’s Bleeding Heart: Data Darbar’. In retrospect, the title of my reprieve into a new mystic connection now leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

In the wake of July 2's suicide attacks on the shrine, on this, the ultimate haven for Punjab’s varied vagabonds I feel a sense of despair finally cement itself. We lost something beyond lives during this particular attack, an unidentified sense of the ‘sacred’ that even those of us posing as ‘secular fundamentalists’ have never been able to discount entirely.

That is how Sufism operates: outside, above and beyond traditional definitions and prescriptions of discourse and intellect. It is why most of us, knowing that we cannot ever truly comprehend the mystic — who turns his back on the world and inward unto an indefinite, infinite, inexplicable ‘God’ — never deride them. It is why the odd costumes; the beads; the whirling dervishes and the hermits command a sacred space of silent respect, admiration even. Because no matter how much we wish it, these brave souls know something that we don’t and couldn’t know.

Habib Jalib quoted once in his poems ‘Shayir na banenge darbari’, distinguishing between the activism of the poet’s contemplation and the blind devotion of the darbari’s apathy to the world’s problems. I always resented the implication by my (otherwise) favourite Pakistani poet after Faiz Saab, because much as I realise that we all cannot and indeed should not be malangs; their presence is vital. It marks out an alternative for humanity that amid all the mayhem needs to be treasured.

During a visit to Data Darbar, I met Shah Jee, a 90-something who had been abandoned at the shrine as a toddler and had grown with it for nearly a century. He took me to a wall near the Jamia Hajweria, inscribed with the words “Ganj Bakhsh-e faiz-e aalam, mazhar-e Nur-i Khuda Naqisaan ra pir-e kaamil, kaamilaan ra rahnuma” (Ganj Bakhsh is a manifestation of the Light of God for the people. A perfect guide unto the imperfect ones and a guide unto the perfect ones). The irony of these words, at present, is incredibly profound as I wonder whether that relic of a man, still lives. I am forced to wonder is because I am too scared to go and find out for myself. I am too scared because that is what they want and I finally understand why terrorists do what they do. There are two sides to the story of Islam in Pakistan: the Salafi Taliban side, driven at its helm by Maudoodi-esque, jihadist rhetoric and a parallel Sufi side, driven by poetry, love and devotion sans dogma.

This attack is an ultimatum. It says there is only one side and one story and it is theirs to tell.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 3^rd, 2010.