The morning Rehman Baba turned in his grave

By Afzal Hussain Bokhari

“By lifting up just one step, they reach the high heavens; I have seen the quickness and speed of saintly men!” Translation into English of the oft-quoted lines from Rehman Baba's largely mystical poetry is as richly appealing as it is in its original Pushto.

Baba's 'Diwan' (collection of poetry) is treated as a must-read in Pukhtun homes.

Half of his poetry is already on the finger-tips of the general masses.

From stiff-necked vice-chancellors of the top universities sitting bureaucratically in their jet-set offices to the humble, ordinary and down-to-earth peasants toiling away on the intoxicating tobacco fields in the rural hinterland of Frontier province, everyone tends to make his conversation more effective and forceful by padding Baba's poetic lines into it.

With the essential Eastern wisdom in them, absolutely illiterate coachmen driving their rapidly-vanishing tongas into the spring morning air sing out philosophically lines from Baba's poetry: "Rehman, what will you do with education? If you just have the good luck, you can rule the world!"

On the morning of Thursday, March 5, as the merry birds danced in the skies above city's Hazarkhwani expanse, some unidentified saboteurs, using a remote control device, detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) planted near the outer walls of the shrine of the legendary Pushto poet

Abdur Rehman, reverently known as Rehman Baba.

Cracks appeared in the entire shrine complex and the carefully planned architecture collapsed at several places.

Municipal engineers somehow felt that if immediate repairs were not undertaken, the beautiful dome above the shrine might also come to the ground.

Baba might really have turned in his grave to think whether, after all his lifelong teachings; he actually deserved to be bombed in his last resting place.

Could his highly moralistic poetry have boiled down to sheer irreverence?

Did any of his proverbial lines incite his followers to desecrate the graves of their forefathers? The explosion sent waves of shock, anger and grief among all sections of civil society, regardless of their ethnic or linguistic backgrounds.

The admirers and devotees of Baba's thoughtful and mystical poetry made a beeline to the shrine to seek answers to mind-boggling questions that militancy posed at the moment.

The staff and students of Peshawar University's Pushto Department and Pushto Academy met to condemn the incident.

Raj Wali Shah Khattak and Salma Shaheen wondered if any of Baba's followers could even think of going to the extent of desecration of shrines.

Sindhi mystic poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai must be wondering in his grave at the odd turn that events had taken.

The grief was not in any manner less in Punjab.

Admirers of Baba Farid, Sultan Bahu, Shah Hussain and other mystic poets felt immensely saddened.

They were haunted by random lines from their poetry.

Pukhtun intellectuals like Ajmal Khan Khattak, Afraseyab Khan Khattak and Murad Khan Shinwari feel visibly perturbed over the unfolding scenario.

With mixed feelings of confusion and disgust, they wonder whether the legacy of Rehman Baba is really in danger.

This confusion and disgust was incidentally writ large on the face of a healthy 'malang baba', who sat leaning on to a stick beside the shiny, leaf-green sheet of cloth spread over Baba's grave.

Some television cameras captured 'malang baba's' image when he sat in a meaningfully angry but pensive mood.

The legacy of Rehman Baba is not restricted to a small zone of lawlessness called Hazarkhwani.

It has spread to all corners of the province. From the textbooks of university students it has travelled down into the hearts of religious preachers.

Baba's legacy is carried by the early-March winds from the outpost of Torkham to the rocks of Akora Khattak where to the south of the GT Road lies buried the martial poet of NWFP called Khushal Khan Khattak.

Khushal was a warrior poet who battled and repulsed the soldiers of the Mughal king.

On the other hand, Rehman Baba was a poet of peace and love.

We have stepped into an age in which the advocates of peace are bombed. Those who brandish Kalashnikov guns and carry rocket launchers on their shoulders are feared and respected.

The government has taken serious note of the targeting of Rehman Baba's shrine.

It has vowed to bring the culprits to justice. The government has also promised to appoint armed guards on the shrines of famous religious leaders.

However, the concept of safeguarding the religious shrines with the help of armed guard does not really match with the traditions of our culture.

During the initial investigation into the Hazarkhwani bombing, the probe officers were told by the head of a mosque in the neighourhood that in an anonymous letter some unidentified persons had warned the custodians of the shrine to clear the place of anti-social elements who were reportedly involved in drug-peddling.

Generally speaking, most of the poorly maintained graveyards in the country have become the frequent haunts of anti-social elements.

Does that mean that we should dynamite the affected places out of shape? Shrines and tombs represent a rich and colourful tradition of the prevalent culture.

If anti-social elements are free to bomb our jirga sessions, dynamite the funeral processions and ambush the visiting team of ace cricketers, we are probably the members of an essentially decadent society.

Something is basically wrong with our orientation.

Reformation will have to emerge from within our polity.

If we are waiting for a messiah to descend on us from above and reform everything with a magic wand in the wink of an eye, more trouble may well be in store for us.