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V,.?’ >k ■• tiiy. vl^ V -la. ■It- ■'.% iJttLiif'l ll (l SUFIS OF SINDH Dr. MOTILAL JOTWANI PUBLICATIONS DIVISION MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING GOVERNMENT OF INDIA April 1986 (Chaitra 1908) (First Edition) September 1996 (Bhadra 1918) (Revised Edition) © Publications Division ISBN : 81-230-0508-3 Price : Rs. 75.00 PUBLISHED BY THE DIRECTOR PUBLICATIONS DIVISION MINISTRY OF INFORMATION & BROADCASTING GOVERNMENT OF INDIA PATIALA HOUSE, NEW DELHI-110 001 SALES EMPORIA • PUBLICATIONS DIVISION SUPER BAZAR CONNAUGHT CIRCUS NEW DELHI-110 001 COMMERCE HOUSE CURRIMBHOY ROAD BALLARD PIER MUMBAI-400 038 8 ESPLANADE EAST CALCUTTA-700 069 RAJAJI BHAWAN BESANT NAGAR MADRAS-600 090 BIHAR STATE CO-OPERATIVE BANK BUILDING ASHOKA RAJPATH PATNA-800 004 PRESS ROAD THIRUVANANTHAPURAM-695 001 27/6 RAM MOHAN ROY MARG LUCKNOW-226 001 STATE ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM BUILDING PUBLIC GARDENS HYDERABAD-500 004 PRINTED AT : SHEEL PRINT-N-PACK, SHAHDARA, DELHI-110 032 TO Professor annemarie schimmel AS A TOKEN OF RESPECT AND ADMIRATION .. , t -- ^W jnif* ' ”1 '■ 'r^ ' ■ ■ • *'^ li{"'- ■' &• v !«• 1 ' sY'.vfEV'o-'t: «' ^ Mv;. v;:^:,: . .mf: ■ ■ ,iOL *.. ,' . < lAJ* / W-ilVf.^9&<k '. '^t.'RiS.'fiP"' *j!rt> sa «« ~ 'f-v^ —. . ^ ^ f _^ _ v..'j" _ifc# • . ‘ 4^-:i (/'^' ky^. ■*.■•'■ 'i' ■' ,\pi.- .s-oiiff' '''• ■ .ip (' ^ ' '■ it ' t%< - ' 4 , V \jr‘‘'<'A\ 1-^ Preface to the First Edition Sufis of Sindh as also of other regions in the world have been secular. And let me say at the very outset that the word ‘secular’ in the Indian subcontinental tradition doesn’t mean the same as in the Western one, and add that the ‘sacred’—far from being contrary to the ‘secular’—becomes meaningful only when it is ‘secular’. In order to substantiate all this, I recount here a significant incident of my early life. The incident illustrates according to the Indian subcontinental tradition what the ‘secular’ is and underlines the idea that secularity enriches the spiritual life. Incidentally, it is the one great incident to which I owe my scholarly interest in the Indian subcontinental saint/Sufi literature. It was January 8,1948, and I was barely 12 at that time. Our country had been divided into India and Pakistan on a narrow religious basis on August 14/15, 1947. After the Partition, communal frenzy raised its ugly head and cities ran amuck, their streets roaring ‘Allaho Akbar’ and ‘Har Har Mahadev’ Originally from Rohri, a town in Sukkur district of Sindh (now in Pakistan), we were in Karachi Sindh during those days, for my father had taken up a teaching job there. We lived in a rented set of two rooms in a building belonging to a devout Muslim. Things were never bad in Sindh before the Partition, for the people, bred and brought up as they were on the Sindhi Sufi soil, lived in peace and harmony. But on the fateful day of January 8, 1948, it looked like the world would come to an abrupt end for us. The rioters were at the gate and demanded of the house-owner to quietly hand over all the kafirs (non-believers, i.e., Hindus) in his premises. Huddled alongwith other members of the family in a small store room of the house, I waited with bated breath for destruction and death, I knew what could happen to us in such circumstances, but my younger brother and sister in the cell would not quite know that they lurched between life and death. Presently our house-owner lied to them, saying “The people you are looking for sailed to India yesterday...The poor creatures couldn’t even take alongwith them their possessions... Do you want their belongings ?” A few killers came inside and collected a few things— the mementoes of a sad chapter of human history! My father, a Sufi—for, there have been Sufis among the Hindus also—took a hesitant decision on that day to migrate to the newly-formed India. Continuing to live there would have meant an untold misery for us and for the Muslim brethren sympathising with us. I remember, the two families—ours and that of Allahdino, the house¬ owner—were sad and gloomy for the rest of the day. Allahdino ? He is so dear to our heart that we in our family never use any honorific before his name. God’s good man, he is God himself—God without any honorific. Allahdino ? He is a commoner in the Indian subcontinent, with a name having roots in the Indian composite culture: he is Allahdino with a Sindhi- Sanskritical suffix dino (dutt, meaning ‘given by, or gifted by’; Allahdino meaning gifted by Allah, or God) in his Muslim name, as there are many Hindu names like “Gurubakhsh” with a Semitic suffix bakhsh (again meaning ‘given by, or gifted by’; Gurubakhsh meaning gifted by the Guru, or Preceptor) in them. As the night descended on that gloomy day, my father and