The Islam seen in Pakistan since Sept. 11 has been a religion of the daylight. The austere fundamentalists hold their marches and speeches after Friday prayers in the heat and glare of the afternoon sun. Everything is clear-cut in the bright light, and the streets of Peshawar, Quetta and other fundamentalist strongholds are deserted a few hours after dusk.
But there is also an Islam of the night. A widely practiced mystical branch of Islam that promotes tolerance and celebrates music and dance, Sufism is loathed by such fundamentalists as the Taliban, and even by some mainstream branches of Islam such as the Wahhabi, next to whose restraint it can seem decadent.
Here in Pakistan, Sufism is part of the culture. Anti-mullah, anti-intellectual, anti-establishment, Sufis, who prefer to call themselves "we friends," have no hierarchy, no organization and no set text; instead they search for direct communion with God through poetry, music and dance. Much Sufi teaching is done by sharing fables and jokes, such as "The Subtleties of Mullah Nasruddin," a classic Middle Eastern collection of extended haikus about a holy fool's misadventures.
Spread out across Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Sufis aim to be "in the world, but not of it." Sufis are different from Western mystics; rather than retreating into contemplation, they tend to combine their spiritual search with daily chores, work and family obligations. Many hold high office; Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani, organizer of a recent meeting of Afghan exiles in Peshawar, also heads one of the main Afghan Sufi orders.
The name sufi comes from the Arabic word for wool, a reference to the coarse woolen clothes worn by the wandering holy men who brought Islam to the subcontinent from Iran and Central Asia. My introduction to Sufism came here in Lahore, at the shrine of Baba Shah Jaman, where Thursday night has been Sufi night for the last 357 years.
The shrine lies in Icchra, Lahore's oldest quarter, which was founded in mythological times by the Hindu god Ram. It was a short ride in a tonga -- a horse-drawn carriage -- through the damp night air from the city center to a world quite removed from both Western neon signs and the screeching mullahs.
The lane leading to Baba Shah Jaman's shrine was lined with wild-eyed old men meditating behind begging bowls. In front of the large, two-story building that houses the shrine, men parked their motorbikes in neat rows or clambered out of rickshaws to join the milling crowds. Their faces were illuminated by the bare bulbs of the stalls where samosas, lentil patties and religious knickknacks are sold. Vendors walked through the crush of people with round baskets of candy on their heads.
"Cigarette, smoking, smoking, cigarette!" shouted a man whose teeth were stained scarlet from chewing betel nut. In the background was the sound of drums and enthusiastic shouting. It felt very much like arriving at an outdoor rave or festival.
I climbed the steps leading up to the shrine, left my sandals with the attendant and stepped into a marble-tiled courtyard full of men who stood praying. In one corner was the mausoleum, a square building with a dome and a queue of supplicants at the door. I joined the line, feeling a little out of place. Inside, the mausoleum was white and bright, the walls glittering with hundreds of tiny mirrors and adorned with curling Quranic inscriptions. The air smelled of rosewater from the petals scattered over the grave. Subdued praying was the only sound, as dreamy men stood with their hands cupped, or prostrated themselves and kissed the saint's grave. It was a room of concentrated holiness.
Next to the serene courtyard was a graveyard, which was, unexpectedly, more lively. I was sucked into the crowd of pressing bodies that were pushing and shoving, not letting one pause for even a moment.
Men were sitting everywhere, sprawling onto and over the graves, with no women in sight. Suddenly, I noticed that almost every pair of hands was busy rolling a joint or even two or three at once, emptying the tobacco into the palm, burning lumps of hashish and packing the resulting mixture up into the cigarette. It was an egalitarian crowd puffing away in the dark: unwashed rickshaw drivers, businessmen in Western shirts, trendy young toughs, dreadlocked holy men in green turbans.
There was a warm-up drummer entertaining the crowd, but the main event at these Thursday night gatherings is the drummer Pappu Sain. A great big brown Hell's Angel of a man with a beard and slicked-back hair who wields a dhol (drum) the size of a barrel, Pappu and his cousin Joora Sain have played at all the major Sufi festivals and have ventured as far abroad as Germany.
Mahmood, a 24-year-old law student with a fine bouffant hairdo, was one of the hundreds sitting patiently in a ground-floor courtyard waiting to hear the local hero play.
"This music you will hear is very special music, very spiritual. It is our obligation to Allah to listen to this music. We forget ourselves and only know God," he said.
I asked him if he was a Sunni or Shiite Muslim -- usually a big issue in Pakistan's sectarian and divided society.
"I am Muslim. I am Sunni and Shias and Wahabbi. Here we are just Muslim," he replied.
What did he think of the religious parties that organize the demonstrations?
"I'm liking them a little but they are," he said, stopping to make a sign of narrowness with his hands, "too aggressive."
What about the Taliban?
"The Taliban are upright, honest men. They are not corrupt, they do not steal. But they don't like music."
I should say so.
But do you think it's OK to like music? He looked shocked at such a question.
"I am a modern Muslim!"
A man with seven joints between his fingers thrust his hand toward us. Mahmood leaned forward, put his lips onto the man's fist, and all seven ends glowed bright orange. Exhaling the thick smoke, he made a few things clear to me: "Hashish is totally banned in our religion. It is like sharab -- wine. But it helps us to concentrate on the music. It is a train station, the start of our spiritual journey."
Sufism has long been associated with the use of hashish. Pakistani author Aga Saleem says Sufi tolerance toward mind-altering substances can likely be attributed to Islam coming into contact with India and also the philosophy found in far-flung Greek colonies in Iran and Afghanistan:
The Greeks worshipped Dionysus and sought ecstasy in wine. They thought of this as a means of liberation.Similar traditions exist in Hinduism and this influenced Islamic mysticism. Since wine is strictly forbidden in Islam, the Islamic mystics prefer hashish and bhang (hemp).
The warm-up drummers finished and a space was cleared in the courtyard for Pappu Sain and his crew of dancers. Pappu and Joora started to beat out complex rhythms between them, each eyeing the other up suspiciously as the music stopped and started.
Mahmood said: "They are attacking each other in beats." Through their music, they were also chasing each other through the forest, dipping their feet in an icy Himalayan stream, cheering each other up as they trudged across the deserts of Sindh. They were like brothers, the best of friends; they fell out, then made up again.
In the crowd, heads started to shake and bodies to rock. Each time the drumming reached a crescendo everyone started shouting, howling, yelping a guttural "Ay, ay, ay!" I felt tremors run from the pit of my stomach and took a sharp breath.
"This is catharsis," said Mahmood.
"Mast qalandar!" shouted a man in the crowd. Five hundred others took up the chant.
"Mast qalandar mast! Mast qalandar mast!"
Mahmood told me that "mast qalandar" means "we have forgotten ourselves and are with Allah." Pappu Sain began to whirl round and around, eyes closed, keeping perfect time as he scattered the crowd with his circlings.
"He is now mast -- completely forgetting himself," said Mahmood. "You could touch him and he wouldn't notice. Pappu Sain has supernatural strength to dance with such a big drum. No other man could do it."
The dancers around Pappu were also men possessed. A thickset, pale man who looked like a pub landlord shook his head from side to side so fast his features blurred. An old man blew on a goat's horn, making a sound like a didgeridoo. Two teenage boys in shiny red dresses danced a sweaty, jerky, provocative dance, sweat gleaming on their flushed cheeks.
The drummers and dancers were individual planets, moving in their own orbits like pieces of a medieval clockwork model of the solar system. These people were night people, I thought, the kinds of misfits I'd seen at raves in Britain, but here they weren't outcasts or losers, they were gifted. Then Mahmood pointed out a middle-aged, bearded dancer whose every limb jerked spasmodically.
"He is professor of English at Punjab University," he said, "but tonight he is Sufi."
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