The ‘urs of the patron saint of Lahore: national popular festival and sacred union between the Pakistani State and society?

Abstract

Sufi shrines in Pakistan are the communal loci of popular piety. Through their symbolic meaning and capacity for mobilization, they have become pivotal power stakes in Pakistani politics. Since the late 1950s, the State has attempted to nationalize them and make them tools for the construction of its identity and authority, in a modernist perspective embodied in the Ministry of Religious Endowments (awqaf ministry). In Pakistan, the veneration of saints takes a spectacularly festive turn during the ‘urs (meaning ‘marriage’ in Arabic, symbolizing the union of the saint with God). As the anniversaries of the death of saints, the ‘urs have become the focus of yearly pilgrimages. In nationalized shrines, these popular festivals are managed by the awqaf ministry. Among the most notable is the ‘urs of the patron saint of Lahore, Hadhrat Syed Ali Bin Uthman al-Hujweri (1010–1072). His shrine is one of the biggest in Pakistan and his ‘urs constitutes one of the largest religious gatherings in the Pakistani calendar. Massively loaded with nationalist and political symbols, the religious ritual is legitimized as a key element of national identity and, conversely, serves to legitimize the government and its administrative machinery. Hence, the State exploits the pilgrimage as a political platform in order to communicate with the population, through emotional and symbolic means. Thus, the celebration of the union of the saint with God somehow becomes the yearly opportunity for the sacred union between the Pakistani State and society.

In Pakistan, the cult of saints remains the most visible expression of Sufism, and shrines (darbars) are the communal loci of this popular piety. Through their symbolic meaning and capacity for mobilization, these places have become pivotal power stakes in Pakistani politics. Since the late 1950s, the State has attempted to nationalize them and make them tools for the construction of its identity and authority, in a modernist perspective embodied in the awqaf ministry (Ministry of Religious Endowments) (Ewing, 1983). One of the aims of the creation of the awqaf ministry was to control the shrines and to replace, or at least curb, the considerable authority of the spiritual leaders, the gaddi nashins ¹ , through the State authority embodied by the awqaf administrator, whose power was legitimized secularly (Malik, 1990, 1998: 60). Controlling the shrines and their production of symbols was an attempt at creating unmediated cultural and political ties between State and society and at converting the devotion to the saints and their descendants to an allegiance towards the state (Gilmartin, 1988; Malik, 1998: 61).

The veneration of saints takes a spectacularly festive turn during the ‘urs, a word which means ‘marriage’ in Arabic – in fact the anniversary of a saint’s death. In a mystical perspective, this points to his union with God and hence his true birth, providing the occasion for a popular yearly pilgrimage that bestows his identity and authority onto a shrine and delineates his mediatory power in relation to God (Gilmartin, 1988: 43). In nationalized shrines, such popular festivals, involving numerous rituals, are managed by the awqaf ministry (also the Ministry of Religious Affairs since 2002).

According to Emile Durkheim (1991), the religious ritual is above all a collective phenomenon, a form of ‘social cement’ crystallizing societal solidarity and integration. Through rituals, society can periodically gain consciousness of itself as an entity and strengthen the collective ideas and emotions that bind it together. This general analysis does indeed apply to many ‘urs in Pakistan, and most notably to that of the patron saint of Lahore, Hadhrat Syed Ali Bin Uthman al-Hujweri (1010–1072). He is popularly known as Data Sahib or as Data Ganj Bakhsh, a respectful name meaning ‘the bestower of spiritual treasures’. He is indeed famous for supposedly fulfilling the wishes of the people who come and pray at his shrine. He is the most important saint in Pakistan and the first great Sufi to have migrated from his native Afghanistan to settle in the subcontinent, where he spent 34 years preaching and teaching until his death.

In the subcontinent, the degree of success of an ‘urs has always been a means of assessing the importance and political influence of a shrine (Gilmartin, 1988: 45). This has never been so true as today, except that in the context of nationalized shrines, participating in an ‘urs such as that of Data Sahib has also become a way of gaining political influence. Furthermore, this popular religious festival is legitimized as a key element of national identity and, conversely, serves to legitimize the government and its administrative machinery. Hence, the State exploits the pilgrimage as a political platform in order to communicate with the population, through physical, emotional and symbolic means. Thus, the celebration of the union of the saint with God somehow becomes the yearly opportunity for the sacred union between the Pakistani State and society. All the more so since the 1 July 2010, when two suicide bombers exploded themselves at the shrine, killing more than 50 people, injuring at least 200 and shocking the whole country.

Since 2001 and the beginning of the ‘War on Terror’, Sufism and the saints have gradually become the symbols of the fight undertaken by the government against creeping ‘talibanization’, deemed to threaten the very fabric of the nation. The major shrines of Pakistan, often praised as places of peace, tolerance and inter-communal harmony, have thus started to be systematically targeted by militants. Generally speaking, the political order is confronted by conflicts of interests but also follows an imperative of cohesion. This sense of unity is often achieved through symbols, which perform the mediatory role between the abstract imaginary realm and reality. They have the ability to spark emotional projections and are powerful vehicles for mobilizing support, people and resources. They have the capacity to legitimize powers, to structure societal stakes and to help groups define themselves politically (Braud, 1996). Data Sahib is one such authentic symbol and his ‘urs a gathering enabling the reproduction and the preservation of the social order.

A unanimously approved saint

Ali Hujweri was a descendant of the Prophet. He was affiliated through his shaykh Abul Fazal Muhammad bin Hasan al-Khuttali to the ‘sober’ Junaidi order founded by the Baghdadi Sufi Junaid (d. 910). He is known for being an orthodox Sufi, an ardent defender of Islamic law (shariah). He is also famous for his book, Kashf ul-Mahjub (Revelation of the Veiled), one of the first Persian treatises on Sufism, which the awqaf ministry has published in an Urdu version. In the high-quality brochure it issues every year for the ‘urs, the ministry portrays the saint as the bearer of the Prophet’s wisdom, a great guide to all, a role model who is purported to rekindle the spark of Islam in the hearts of lost Muslims. He is described as one of the few personalities in Islam to have attained such a high degree of spirituality. Data Sahib is so important a Pakistani saint that Mohammad Iqbal, the great Indian poet and philosopher, who is considered to be the spiritual father of the Pakistani nation, granted him no less a title than that of the ‘makhdoom [spiritual leader] of the Muslim community’.

The shrine is visited on a daily basis by crowds of devotees and it is also a regular meeting place or a final destination for countless political and religious demonstrations, marches and rallies. The saint is an endless reservoir of legitimacy and his shrine has become a ‘pantheon’ for all party leaders and politicians (Aziz, 2001: 166), a sacred place for symbolic politics. Lahore is indeed the cultural capital of Pakistan and it is located in the most powerful province of the country, the Penjab. When the biggest Islamist party of Pakistan, the elitist Jama’at-e Islami, decided to get closer to the population in the 1980s, its national campaign started with a visit to the shrine of Data Sahib (Nasr, 1994: 222) despite its ideology being highly critical of the cult of the saints. When ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned from eight years in exile in November 2007, the first thing he did after landing was to pay his homage to Data Sahib, thus exhibiting his attachment to a saint who is the object of intense popular devotion. Beyond its private meaning, this action was meant to send a message of proximity to the population of Lahore, the city being Nawaz’s hometown and political constituency. Data Sahib is also the recipient of the population’s gratitude on occasions of great national pride. When the national cricket team returned from Australia after winning the World Cup in 1992, it was welcomed at the airport by hundreds of thousands of people and acclaimed during a five-hour procession leading towards, and ending at, Data Sahib’s shrine.

The symbolic power of the shrine has not gone unnoticed by the State. Ever since it took it over, the State has invested huge sums of money in its renovation. It has made it one of the architectural landmarks of the old city, with its sharp golden minarets resembling missiles and its vast mosque (the second largest in the city). A hospital, a school and a library have also been built. These development projects were undertaken in order to portray the government as the provider of social welfare and as a caretaker more efficient than the traditional leadership (Ewing, 1997: 70). ‘We provide the best services and facilities, which would not be possible with private management.’ ² The ‘urs constitutes one of the biggest religious gatherings in the Pakistani calendar. Initially, after the nationalization of the shrine, it apparently went through a decline, both in the number of visitors and in the nature of the festivities. In 1968, the ‘urs lasted only two days. In the following years, one day was added, the ‘urs became a holiday and more visitors than ever visited the shrine (Ewing, 1997: 88). As well as these efforts by the awqaf ministry, the location of the shrine (at a strategic nexus close to a bus station, at a crossroads between main roads from Pindi and from Multan), has been instrumental in making it popular. Many other important shrines in Lahore, like that of Mian Mir, are not so well situated.

A devoted bureaucracy managing the patron saint of Lahore

The main function of the awqaf administration at Data Sahib, as elsewhere, is to manage the shrine and collect the substantial offerings made by visitors in the many green boxes placed at different locations inside and outside the huge premises. The awqaf budget is divided between city ‘zones’, one of them comprising solely the Data shrine, which is probably the most ‘profitable’ in the whole country. In 2007, the Penjab awqaf ministry collected from it 160 million rupees, with 7 million taken just during the ‘urs (Manan, 2007). In 2011, the income of the shrine was roughly the same, almost 155 million rupees, while the overall awqaf income for Penjab amounted to less than 1 billion rupees. ³

The awqaf administration has its offices in the basement of the shrine. It comprises 1 administrator, 48 office staff and 12 khadims (servants), who help the staff to take care of the place, clean it and organize the religious ceremonies. Apart from the employees of the awqaf ministry, another important category of workers at the shrine is the several hundred razakars, voluntary workers, working under the administrator. They have various responsibilities in the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly events. The awqaf administration simply could not manage the organization of the ‘urs without their help. Given the dangers of being crushed in the crowd, pick-pocketing, violence, etc., their role is to make sure discipline and order are respected at all times. They distribute the food cooked in the langar ⁴ , and they also keep an eye on people. It was a razakar who stopped the second suicide bomber in July 2010 before he could enter the shrine and cause more casualties. These voluntary workers perform this role out of sheer devotion to the saint. It is considered to be an honour to be charged with cleaning the shrine and ensuring its proper management in the service of the zayarin (visitors).

Indeed, if the aim of the nationalization was to bureaucratize the shrine culture and curb the autonomy of these traditional institutions and the power of their custodians (Malik, 1998: 54) through an administration that was, contrary to the gaddi nashins, secularly legitimized, the administration has in turn been absorbed into the shrine culture and has progressively submitted to its system of beliefs and practices. The State policy of nationalization and integration of shrines was intended to turn the traditional social order into a modern ‘cosmology’ (Ewing, 1997: 89) through the agents of the bureaucracy. But these administrative roles have with time ‘re-traditionalized’ themselves. This ‘re-colonization’ of the awqaf staff by Sufism has been expressed by many high-ranking employees of the ministry. ⁵ Even the most sceptical bureaucrats end up believing in these saints. According to the administrator of Data Sahib:

My prime job is administrator. But I can’t do this job unless I have the devotion in my heart. … Each and every one of the awqaf employees here has faith in the power of the saint. … And if some of the people working here didn’t have that kind of devotion, they developed it over time when their prayers were answered. ⁶

Furthermore, the management of the shrine has been eased by this sufiization of the bureaucracy. The administrator himself has been contaminated by the saint’s charisma and his status redefined along mystical lines:

This post here might not have so much power from the administrative point of view but, being the administrator of the shrine, people offer me a lot of respect, because they also consider me as the one serving the shrine and they won’t give me a hard time. … It is better not to argue, or to oppose me. … It is not for me that they do this. They listen to me because I am working for the shrine. I derive an indirect authority from it. ⁷

Indeed, the whole awqaf administration, including its provincial hierarchy, wholeheartedly communes with the devotees during the ‘urs.

The ‘urs, a national popular festival and a grand Sufi gala

Given the rather low standards of Pakistani management generally, the official effort put into this festival is exceptional. More than 7 million rupees were allocated by the awqaf ministry for the organization of 2012 ‘urs. A great number of activities contribute to turn the festival into a national Sufi gala. High-profile guests from the political world, the media, academic institutions, the army, charitable institutions and the judiciary are invited to the festivities. Many religious and spiritual leaders from Pakistan and abroad are also present at the shrine during the ‘urs and participate in the activities. Gathering so many VIPs is in itself a feat. In addition, visitors can attend recitations of the Koran and of Sufi praise for the Prophet (na’ats); ‘national competitions’ of recitation are organized, in which schools and colleges are invited to compete; numerous seminars on the life and work of the saint Hujweri are proposed throughout the day as well as conferences on various aspects of Islam, on Sufism and on the Prophet, his wives and his companions; and recitals of poetry in praise of the saint are held as well as concerts of qawwali ⁸ , during which dozens of groups perform. These are usually transmitted on radio Pakistan and on TV from the huge hall located in the basement of the shrine, where most of the religious seminars take place.

Since the beginning of the nationalization of shrines, the responsibility for the langar, which is traditionally distributed to visitors at a shrine by the gaddi nashin, has gradually been adopted by the awqaf administrators. The State has hence taken over the nurturing function performed by the Sufis. Given the great number of visitors, massive logistics are required to organize the langar during Data Sahib’s ‘urs. In 2012, 300,000 rotis (round flat loaves of bread) were cooked, and the contents of hundreds of cauldrons (of either 12 or 22 kg capacity) fed to visitors. Some wealthy devotees of the shrine voluntarily participate in this effort by cooking thousands of kilos of food and distributing hundreds of thousands of pieces of bread. Besides the langar, thousands of litres of milk are distributed to the devotees during the three days and three nights of the festival. They are traditionally offered by the Gujjar clan, the owners of buffalos and cows, but also by the dairymen and bakers of the city.

If the State feeds the population with food believed to be blessed, it also takes great care in assuring the security of its citizens. Indeed, safety measures have been dramatically improved since the suicide attacks on the shrine. The security personnel working every day at the shrine number at least 200. During the ‘urs, the complete area is checked by more than 5,000 police officers. All entry and exit points to and from the city are covered and roof-top surveillance is also set up, over and above the presence of mobile squads, motorbikes and Elite Forces. Eighty security cameras have been installed inside the shrine. Any new fatal incident might indeed prove politically costly for the provincial government, which is closely associated with the shrine.

The interference of politics in religious activities and rituals

The awqaf ministry has gradually appointed a Religious Purposes Committee (RPC) to each and every nationalized shrine. Data Sahib’s RPC has 14 members. Officially, these RPCs are consultative bodies. In the case of prominent shrines, however, RPC members take most important decisions. They often belong to influential political families. Their main duty is to manage the religious activities taking place at the shrine. Despite each committee having to be changed every year, the chairman of the Data shrine’s committee has been for the past five years Ishaq Dar, a PML(N) politician, a senator who has been twice finance minister and once commerce minister under Nawaz Sharif’s two mandates as Prime Minister of Pakistan. The PML(N) party rules the Penjab province and Nawaz’s brother, Shabaz, is its current chief minister. He is the one who decides who is to sit on the committee. During the ‘urs at Data Sahib, most of the work which the administration is supposed to perform (arrangements for the langar, qawwali, ceremonies, etc.) is accomplished by the RPC. The awqaf ministry has allocated a certain amount of money, which is given directly to the chairman. Therefore, the political influence on the administration of Data Sahib is very important.

Conversely, the political benefits enjoyed by the RPC members are numerous: as thousands of people, who are also voters, visit the shrine during the ‘urs to pay homage to the saint, they associate those of them who are politicians with the Sufi. Such public exposure by political parties during the ‘urs might influence votes. To regard the RPC as merely a political tool would, however, be somewhat reductive, as RPC members are more sincerely devoted to the saint than it might seem at first sight. Ishaq Dar is known for his deep attachment to Data Sahib, which he used to visit when he was very young. Every time he pays a personal visit to the shrine, he cleans the area surrounding the tomb. He also believes he has reached his high position in life because of his devotion to the saint. Like many other Lahoris, he never leaves the city without first visiting the shrine; nor does he return without paying homage to the saint. Hence, RPC members also participate in the belief system of the shrine and assume that they will benefit from serving the saint.

During the 2012 ‘urs, one could observe this identification of the ruling politicians with the saint in a large poster exhibited in front of the shrine: on the upper part of the poster were pictures of the tomb and of Data Sahib’s shrine, plus a famous Persian poem, generally attributed to the founder of the Chishti Sufi Order in India, Moinuddin Chishti, who in the 12th century supposedly spent 40 days at his shrine. The poem celebrates Ali Hujweri as ‘the bestower of treasures, the blessing of the world, the reflection of God’s splendors; an accomplished guide for the ignorant as well as for the perfect ones.’ The Urdu sentences beneath it read: ‘You the bestower of spiritual treasures, we swear upon you that remembering you makes us happy and distracts our heart from worldly problems … and that whatever understanding of life we get from you, we are on the right path’. On the lower part of the poster feature the pictures of five politicians from the PML(N), including Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif.

Every year, the inauguration of the ‘urs is performed by a high-ranking politician. In 2004, it was the governor of Penjab, Khalid Maqbool, who carried out the traditional ceremony and laid a new chaddar on the tomb of Data Sahib; in 2012, it was the Penjab chief minister himself who laid a floral wreath on the tomb and inaugurated the distribution of milk, an extremely popular ceremony, at which it is politically beneficial to be seen. Sometimes, the chief minister and the governor share the ritualistic work, including the washing of the tomb of the saint (ghusal mubarik). How is the presence of the nominated representative of the President at the provincial level and/or the prime minister of the province, who generally inaugurate the ‘urs, to be explained? These measures are not new: they were introduced by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in the 1970s. The involvement of the government has varied over time, sometimes being strictly limited to attendance at the ‘urs, sometimes extending to active participation in rituals. The replacement of the traditional leadership at shrines by a secularly legitimized administration has also meant that the traditional rituals have gradually been taken over by members of the national or provincial governments (Ewing, 1883: 263). The governor is the constitutional chief of the province, the chief minister the executive head of the province. The very fact that they go to the shrine and perform these rituals is a powerfully symbolic act aimed at showing the respect and devotion that the government and the whole administrative machinery feel toward the saint. This will earn for them, and for all the bureaucrats, ministers and high officials present, the highest esteem from the population.

Besides, numerous prayers are offered during the ‘urs. The government uses the pilgrimage as a tribune from which, through the intermediary of the saint, it expresses wishes for ‘the triumph of Islam’, ‘the liberation of occupied territories’ (Kashmir) or ‘the integrity and solidarity of the country’. Generally speaking, ever since the beginning of the ‘War on Terror’, Sufi saints have been redefined as metaphors of the ideal Pakistani nation and of the ‘true’ Islam in the name of which the country was created. They are the indigenous identity hallmarks embodying the positive values that Pakistanis are exhorted to emulate to become truly who they are. In the case of Ali Hujweri, during the 2006 ‘urs, an official was heard to declare that ‘Pakistani society needs the tolerance, the patience and the interreligious harmony taught by the Sufi saint Data Sahib for Pakistan to progress’ (Naseer, 2006). In 2012, during a two-day conference on Ali Hujweri at the Penjab state university prior to the ‘urs, speakers, many of whom were members of the government, made a call to promote Sufi teachings in order to eliminate terrorism and extremism and to take the country towards prosperity and development. Hence, the State remains politically and symbolically dependent on these traditional institutions, which it initially aimed at reforming, but which continue to dictate their cultural imperatives and norms to the State.