Prayer from a Sufi soul
Remembering a very special Risalo recitation
By, Ramya Ravi
This article was first published in Pastoral Times Issue VI dated 1st December 2019
Kicking up sand as it went, our Bolero came to a slow halt outside this beautiful old building. “Ferozaben lives here”, I am told. We wait for the dust to settle, step out under the shade of a large, old Prosopis tree. Ferozaben’s family greets us at the car, and takes us into their baithak (guesthouse). Here, we’re served piping hot tea from an intricately designed kettle in rakabis (saucers). Tea in Banni is a deeply cultural affair — made from fresh buffalo milk, and served with deep love that reflects their love for mehman-nawazi (hospitality).
A chai is symbolic of Banni’s centuries old pastoral system and its people, the Maldharis (Maal-livestock, dhari-owner). I allow the tea to warm me, and the rakabis to warm my hands. I compliment them for the beautiful serve ware, and they proudly declare that Ferozaben brought it back from her Hajj, an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. Women who undertake this journey are called hajjiani, and men hajji. Hajjiani Ferozaben handles many identities like all women of Banni. She’s a homemaker, she’s a Maldhari, she makes handicraft, she helped shape a few generations of tough Maldhari women, and within Banni’s social milieu of twenty-one communities, she’s a Jat. But the one identity that makes her special and renowned in Banni, is that she is a woman who recites the Risālo.
Shah Abdul Bhittai and the Risālo
Risālo is a compendium of the famous Sindhi Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif (1689–1752) of Bhit located in modern-day Hyderabad, Pakistan. Shah Jo Risālo, or Poetry of Shah, is considered to be one of the greatest classic in Sindhi literature. Compiled by his devotees after his death, Risālo is a term used for Shah Abdul Latif’s poems. The meaning of Risālo is multi-layered. It means ‘treatise’ in Arabic — the description of an Islamic topic in a prose. It is cognate with the term rasūl meaning ‘apostle’, an affectionate and respectful term for the Prophet. And finally, Risālo also loosely means a ‘message’ — of love, which is central to Sufism.
Abdul Latif Bhittai received his honorific title ‘Shah’ indicative of his status as a Sayyid, a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. He belonged to a select group of Sufi saints who enjoyed great prestige as pīr, or holy men. His poems had a great mystical and aspirational quality to them. Shāhu jo rāgu (Shah music) was rendered through 36 Surs (Svara in Sanskrit), sung in ‘bayt’, or verses, in a state of reverential ecstasy through a form of singing called the va’i. His message buried in these verses, and across all his compositions, is the embodiment of Sufism — ‘aspire to become a better version of yourself, never let the ego impede the finding of your true purpose’. What a message for our times! Infact, it is believed that Shah Abdul is an Uvaisi Sufi, a term used for those whose spiritual initiation came from divine inspiration, i.e. without association to any ‘saintly human intermediary’. So revered was he that upon his death, a shrine was established in his honour by the then ruler 14 Safar A.H, 1166 (1752 C.E.) called the ‘Bhitshah’, or Shah’s Dune.
Sufism in Banni
The poems that still fascinates literary circles, and the stories that compelled me to dig deeper into the Risālo and Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, were the stories of his heroines known as the Eight queens of Sindhi Folklore — Sassui, Momal, Sadia, Noori, Sohni, Sorath, Marui, and Lila. The poems celebrated the queens’ love of divine quality, honesty, integrity, piety and loyalty. Soon the queens and their tragic love stories became the metaphorical equivalence of a spiritual life that has inspired generations of men and women of Sindh to fight oppression and choose love. Because at the very heart of Risālo is Sufism — which perpetuates tolerance to plurality, love, peace and the celebration of a divine feminine.
Sufism is often mistaken by outsiders like me to be an extension of Islam. However, the belief systems are different. Sufism encourages its followers to renounce material wealth, rise above sects, and avoid politicization of religion; it allows for adaptation to local culture and inadvertently encourages a deeper connection to Nature and its unpredictable ways.
It was thus fitting that Ferozaben, perhaps the closest one can come to Shah Abdul Latif’s heroines, knew Risālo. Women of her generation have experienced, and risen above the eccentricities of the landscapes. Drought, floods, extreme heat, famine, migrations, partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, sedenterization drives, changes in governments, rise of traditional Islam, so on and so forth, are only some of the life changing events that she and her ilk have faced. But then what else makes her knowing Risālo special?
Ferozaben and her ilk are living relics
A woman who was taught how to read the sacred text by her scholarly father is special. Reading and writing in Sindhi was, and possibly still is, exceptional among the people of Banni. More and more, people like Ferozaben are relics of a past that was fundamentally Sufi — inclusive of both genders, minimal wealth, and maximum tolerance. Sindh is deeply embedded in Banni’s cultural identity. However, the amalgamation of Banni as a part of Kutch, thereby Gujarat, has now added to their more heterodox cultural identities. This, coupled with rising traditional Islam, makes the present a chalice with a heady mix of old and new. Should they drink from this chalice or not, is only for the people of Banni to decide.
I hear a rustling outside, halt my casual conversation, and park my thoughts aside. I turn to the door, and this beautiful lady, freshly bathed and dressed in her finest red and green ghaggo — a dress unique to jat women — holding a silver box in her hand, enters the room. With a fierce look in her kajal-smeared eyes, she greets me. She notices the other men in the room, and draws her ghunghat — a long, colorful cloth worn over the head as a sign of respect and dignity — lower. They all respectfully stand up for the ‘scholar’ in the room. Her son, a man in his fifties, tells me that I must not tape her or record her — ‘the Sufi kala will be insulted’. And so, I prepare to tape every second of this incredible meeting mentally. Afraid to miss even a single moment, I step over to sit close by. She grabs her silver box out of the way, and throws me a furtive look. I know I have insulted her in some way, and apologize for my foolishness. She decides to forgive me, and opens the box. In it is a copy of a Risālo that has been changing hands since her grandfather’s time. Hands, that bear the distinct signs of time, open the pages of this dated, well-preserved book. She takes a deep breath, and with a quavering but sure voice starts her recitation. We are lost to her reverie, and have begun our own.
“Come, listen and acquire passion,” is what they said today.
They have learned no other words, all they say is: “Flee from self.” Do not make a
sound like an instrument; listen and let the duality slip away.
- Verse 90, Sur Sasui Abiri
Translation in English by Christopher Shackle
