Bullhe Shah and His Veil of “Meem”

Re: # 173

zeemax,

.... to be honest, i used to be against homosexuality before i was for it .....it is all part of growing up and finding out that sometimes your preconcieved notions can be wrong ...... sex is a private matter and what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedroom is their business ... i am sure you will bring up the silly argument of 'what about consenting children' even when you know the answer to that .....

.... if you want to find an excuse for your faith, try something else other than the 'morality' issue ..... in my personal experience i have found most rabudly religious people - regardless of the religion - to be judgmental, cruel, immoral, corrupt and untrusworty ..... it seems to me that people who have made their peace with their god in heaven think it is okay to fu*k over people on earth ..... there are exceptions, but morality - at least, the stuff that i value - seems to be inversely proportional to religiosity ........

Re: # 174

tahmed,

.... is that a rumsfeld quote ?

#177 Posted by hamidm2,

Okay, you're going around in circles. So effectively you're saying that homosexuality is okay because it is consenting adults but incest is not okay because it's contrary to the evolved human values. Correct?

Now explain how animals accept incest but reject homosexuality (except hindoos).

Pls see my previous post for further clarity i.e. Is man less evolved than animals? Or animals are less evolved because they reject homosexuality while it's a sign of evolution that more evolved humans (like your ilk) do?

I hope the question is clear. Gimme the answer.

Re: # 179

zeemax,

.... as far as i know, animals too indulge in homosexual behavior ... although, i do agree that it seems to be a quirk of nature because heterosexual behavior is necessary for the survival of the species ........ i believe that people do not choose to be homosexuals, just as people do not choose to be fat or short or tall, and therefore it is not right to discriminate against them ......

.... but like i said before, as far as you and others of your ilk are concerned, religion seems to be all about sex? .... i have a theory about why that is the case, but i won't share it because i don't want to offend you ........

akcheema sahib:
zeemax is a piece of Allah Mian's brilliant work. According to his religion a marriage of 6 year old with a 53 year old man is a-okay and first cousin marriages are fine as long as it's coming from Allah's surrogates. I would suggest don't waste your time with this troll. He'd had this argument before over here. http://www.chowk.com/interacts/11810/1/0/144

The trick here is that axioms on which any moral/ethical framework is devised has to come from a religious source/scripture otherwise axioms can't be acknowledged as such (according to zeemax) and the person putting forth a moral framework is a hypocrite. I'm sure it gets zeemax some thrills. (By the way, this guy is a Munafique-in-denial, the kind who literally believes in their own BS.)

#180 Posted by hamidm2,

Now you say:

a quirk of nature because heterosexual behavior is necessary for the survival of the species ........ i believe that people do not choose to be homosexuals

So homos are an accident of nature but contrary to survival of species, and should their behavior is understandable. Am I with you?

What else is necessary for the survival of the species? Do you think a family system is necessary for survival because a human baby is the most helpless and more dependant upon its parents when born - amongst all species? Do you think the 'programming' against incest would be for that reason?

But then again, a family stem is tribal and contrary to liberal values. Why get married in the first place? Why not just fcuk like rabbits and procreate so the 'species' can survive?

It goes on and on. You can't defend your position. If you defend one position, the other will crumble.

And no, religion is not all about sex. The condom drawer in your kitchen is - where a ready stock is kept to be shared by whomever in the family needs one at an awkward moment. After all they're all consenting adults, right?

(P.S. By 'you', I don't mean you. I mean everyone who shares your muddled views)

should their behavior=so their behavior

family stem=family system

(Chowk beti does mysterious things to posts!)

hamidm: be warned..i just directed masadi to this board from the ANP board..that is what i do when someone gives me too much trouble - let the dogs loose. or masadi in this case.

Remembering the Beloved Town of Bhera:

Reminiscences of a displaced Hindu



Gian Sarup



Bhera is a town that is cherished even by those who had to flee it en masse and for ever in very dire circumstances. The town continues to evoke a sense of a paradise lost for our generation of men and women who had to leave Bhera in 1947. We have very warm memories of our childhood in our ancestral town, our place of birth, and our watan.



I am a 73-years old Hindu from Bhera. In 1947, I was a 13-years old kid who had moved to the 9th class in the Kirpa Ram Anglo-Sanskrit High School, popularly known as the Arya High School. I still remember the poem, “Hubb-ul-watani,” (love for one’s native land) in our Urdu textbook for the Seventh Class. The poem started with the lines, “Dilli mein ek sitar niwazi ki jaan thaa, aur jaan se aziz tha Dilli ko jaananta.” This sitar player accepted an offer of “khilat-o-zar” from the Royal Court of Hyderabad, and one day he set out on his journey to Deccan in a carriage sent to fetch him. When his carriage reached near the famous Jama Masjid, the sitar player looked at the grand sight and asked the gadibaan (the driver) whether Hyderabad would have a mosque like Jama Masjid. The driver replied that there were several beautiful mosques in Hyderabad but there was none like the Jama Masjid of Delhi. By the time a few more of the city’s landmarks, each judged as unmatched by the gadibaan, went by, the carriage had reached the banks of river Jamuna. The sitar player could not help asking once again if they had a river like Jamuna in the environs of Hyderabad. The driver told him that there was a river there, but it was no match to the enchanting Jamuna of Delhi. The sitar player could not take it any more, and told the driver to turn back to Delhi where he would make do with much less but would be at home in his watan!



Patriotism once used to be basically local, centered on hometowns. Your town was the axis of your attachments and pride. We used to be nourished on local hubb-ul-watani. Our emotional ties were centered on all manner of things associated with the town. Bhera’s heroes and characters, its boli and humor, its history and folklore, its festivals and celebrations, its food and confections, its bazaars and mohallas, and its places of worship and even orchards became the facets of our local pride. The very name of the town became a core component of our being.



When the Hindu and Sikh families left Bhera and other places in West Punjab for India at the time of country’s partition, a large number of them found their way to Delhi. After this huge influx of Punjabi refugees, Delhi became largely a Punjabi city. There are scores of localities in Delhi that are predominantly populated by the now grown up children of these refugees from Pakistani Punjab, yet there are only four localities in Greater Delhi that were named after the towns in West Punjab: Gujranwala Town, Multan Colony, Bhera Enclave, and Miyanwali Nagar. Bhera Enclave is located in the northwest sector of Delhi. Bherochis started building their houses there toward the end of 1970’s, as much as three decades after they had arrived in India. Their hubb-ul-watani beckoned them to resurrect for their future generations a sliver of Bhera, nearly four hundred miles southeast of their ancestral hometown on the banks of river Jehlum. In the office of the Enclave’s Community Center, the lead plaque tells the visitors, “The residents of Bhera Enclave fondly remember BHERA – the city of their ancestors.”



A poignant example of the hubb-ul-watani of a Bherochi Hindu is the content of the last rites (antim-sanskaar) of his death in Delhi. Joginder Nath Kapur was the son of a prominent Kapur family of Bhera. His father owned the largest iron shop in the town’s main bazaar. Kapur Sahib, as we used to address Joginder ji, matriculated from the Arya School and got his B.Sc from a college in Lahore. He taught Science and English in his alma mater in Bhera and also coached its hockey team for a while. In Delhi, he started a large private coaching college (Delhi Public College) that catered to thousands of refugee students like me who worked fulltime in offices and attended its classes in the evenings to appear as private candidates for university exams. For a science teacher, Kapur Sahib was highly proficient in Persian. Whenever the regular tutor for our Intermediate Persian class went on leave, Kapur Sahib would step in and teach us Persian poetry by translating and explicating Rumi, Saadi, and Firdosi! Once in a while, on public demand in the college functions, he would recite in his inimitable style the sorrowful poem, Ek saarson ka kafila, shauq-e-watan dil mein liye, aazad sab afkaar se, athkelian karta hua, wapis tha ghar ko jaa raha” by Vakil Abdul Hamid Sahib. When this noble son of Bhera died in 1987 in Delhi, the last rites at his Kirya-Karam ceremony included a discourse, “The Historical Importance of Bhera: A respectful tribute to the memory of Swargya (Late) Joginder Nath Kapur,” in Hindi. I cannot think of a more touching gesture of a people’s regard for their place of origin. The lecture was delivered by Dr. Birbal Gandhi of Bhera Enclave. It is a four-page long document in chaste Hindi. I can translate here only the last line of this address: “The efforts of the Bhera Welfare Society succeeded in securing [enough] land in the West Delhi area for the construction of houses by displaced Bherochis so that the name of Bhera lasts for long (ta ke Bhera ka naam qaaim rahe).



The generation of our children knows the names of the towns their parents and grandparents had come from, but generally have little, if any, interest in the history or the character of these places. Newer generations generally do not speak Punjabi at home, though they understand it. They can neither read nor write Urdu. Their grandparents are not there any more; their parents, uncles, and aunts do not reminisce about Bhera that often in their presence. Born and raised in India and some foreign countries, not many among them are looking forward to visiting their ancestral hometowns in Pakistan. Professor Kalpana Sahni, the daughter of the late Prof. Bhisham Sahni, has been one heartening and notable exception. On a visit to Lahore, she undertook a trip to Bhera where she tried to locate the home of her ancestors in the Sahniyan da Mohalla. She wrote a very evocative piece, “The persistence of memory: Another country, an ancestral village, and remembrances that spill across time and borders.” It originally appeared in Outlook (October 30, 2000), an Indian weekly newsmagazine, and can now be found on several web sites on Bhera, such as www.merabhera.com or www.geocities.com/hbugvi . Prof. Sahni’s desire to visit her father’s ancestral town and home must have been kindled over many years of listening to her family’s remembrances of the old times, accounts of her forefathers’ move from Bhera to Rawalpindi, mention of sundry characters from Bhera, and conversations in what she calls the give-away Punjabi of Bhera (see Note 1). Her father’s writings inspired her as well. Bhisham Sahni’s last novel, Mayyadas ki Marhi, was set in Bhera. The original novel written in Hindi came out in 1988. Its English version, The Mansion (also translated in English by her father), was published by Harper-Collins in 1995. She apparently has had a very Bhera-nurturing family environment.



Our generation’s emotional bond with Bhera might have faded quite a bit, (dil bhi kam dukhta hai, woh yaad bhi kam aatai hein), but it never withered. In India or outside of it, when we come across someone from Bhera or a nearby town, we greet them heartily as our watanis. In the spring of 1982, I had taken some of my relatives from India to show them around Chicago (about sixty miles east of the town where I have lived since 1972). Not far from the Shedd Aquarium, I spotted a gentleman who looked like an Indian or a Pakistani taking pictures of the scenery. He must have noticed me, too. At one point he approached me and asked if I could take a few pictures of him with Lake Michigan for the background. I readily took the shots he wanted, and we started chatting when I discovered that he was from Mandi Phularwan, a town hardly 12 miles away from Bhera. He was Dr. Aijaz Sarvar Gilani., vacationing by himself in the United States. We immediately felt connected like watanis, exchanged our addresses, and wondered aloud how we two strangers, born and raised in two towns so close to each other, were destined to run into each other in Chicago of all the places! Just before we took leave of each other, he asked if I knew how well Hindus from Phularwan were faring in India. I was moved by his concern to know how well the folk, who were once a part of his hometown community, were doing in exile. I was sad to disappoint him, for I did not know of anyone from Phularwan. We shook hands, said goodbye, and he left in his tourist bus.



Hindus and Sikhs visiting their hometowns in Pakistan are overwhelmed by the warmth (bahut piyar mohabbat naal milde ne) with which the people greet them there. In 1978, my younger brother, then a British citizen, took a short trip to Bhera via Lahore from Delhi. On his return to England, he wrote me a series of letters about his visit to Bhera. He writes in one of his letters:



“I talked to a few Muslims, but those who came to know that I am a Hindu who is here on a visit, were overjoyed and started talking about the good old days when Hindus and Muslims lived together as brothers. I will never forget the Muslim co-passenger who did not let me buy my bus ticket from Bhalwal to Sargodha [he paid for my ticket]. Another passenger offered me tea en route. One of the Muslim servants of Mr. Telreja (a Sindhi Hindu in Lahore) pressed me to go and see a Punjabi movie on his expense.



Our hubb-ul-watani warms our hearts to learn how prosperous once Bhera was. The entry on Bhera in the Imperial Gazetteer of India (1908) reads: “ . . .the town was the largest and most prosperous commercial town in this part of the Province, having a direct export trade to Kabul, the Derajat, and Sukkur, and importing European goods from Karachi and Amritsar (1908, Volume VIII: Behrampur to Bombay, p.100). Around 1975, my younger brother made a special trip from Harrow to the India House Library in London to get a photo-copy of the page from which the above quote is reproduced.



The same sentiment of love for Bhera hurt us when we came across dispatches on the town’s decline. In the 1950’and 1960’s sixties, visitors reported a depressing picture of Bhera as a declining town. I have not read Balraj Sahani’s book in which he talks about his visit to Bhera. The impression I got from a conversation with his brother Bhisham Sahni, a senior colleague of mine at Delhi College, was that Balraj ji had found large parts of the town in a state of utter desolation and ruins. It depressed us to learn that the town had fallen into such a sorry state.



Sometimes I buy travel guides on Pakistan, especially if they have something to say about Bhera. One of these books, published in 1990, reports:



Old towns were washed away by the rivers and replaced by new towns on safer ground. Some have just died; Bhera, near Sargodha, for example, used to be a flourishing place. It was an ancient town where Sher Shah [Suri] built a beautiful mosque. There were shrines which attracted pilgrims. Bhera was a center of Moghul local government. It was plundered by the Durrani, repopulated by the Sikhs and prospered under the British when it became the most important city for miles around. Then as the canal colonies flourished, other towns grew and Bhera waned. Local government was moved [in fact the local administration was downgraded from a tehsil to a sub-tehsil status, though the court was not removed]. Having sustained a lot of damage in 1947, it is now a ghost town. (Insight Guides: Pakistan. APA Publications: HK,1990, p.180).



My heart kind of sank when I read the last characterization, and wondered why the rundown condition of Bhera had not gotten any better during the thirty years between Balraj Sahni’s impression and the summation in this travel book (it had many superb pictures but none of Bhera; a sinking ship?).



For the last few years, we have been getting some reassuring news. We hear of a resurgent spirit of Bhera, though some parts of the old town remain in a moribund condition. It may no longer be news for the residents of Bhera, but we learned only recently that the town had been getting Sui gas for quite some time and has a public water supply system. The town now has an Intermediate College, something it did not have in the pre-Partition days. The access afforded to Bhera by the Lahore-Islamabad motorway has been another happy tiding. The town now has a population of 33,600 (2001), compared to the rough estimate of 28,000 we used to hear before the partition. Several new colonies have sprung up around the old town. However, information on the condition of the satellite villages of Bhera is hard to come by.



One wonders what happened to the two hamlets of Khan Mohammad Da and Haathiwind on the bus route from Bhera to Bhalwal. Folks in one of these villages used to “harvest” shora left as residue by evaporating shallow pools of water in embanked plots of arid land. No commercially available map of Pakistan shows these old villages and others like Bathuni. I did succeed in finding the neighboring village of Hazurpur in my Lonely Planet Travel Atlas for India and Bangladesh (1995, p.12 and 16). This atlas is my proud possession, because it maps also show Haranpur, my father’s place of birth, and also Jalalpur (Sharif), my mother’s place of birth (my Nannaka shehar). The three towns of Bhera, Haranpur, and Jalalpur -- all three situated on the banks of Jehlum -- have been variously linked to Alexander’s battle with King Porus in 326 B.C. In terms of geographic origins then, our ancestry is indeed a tapestry of ancient strands. Our family could not bring much personal stuff with us when we left Bhera, but the most treasured things my mother made a point of carrying on her were two Phulkaaris and one Baagh. She gave one precious heirloom piece to each one of her three daughters-in-law when they came as brides to our house in Delhi. One of these pieces was stitched by our paternal grandmother in Haranpur, the other by our maternal grandmother in Jalalpur, and the last of the three by our mother in Bhera!



Bhera continues to inspire love and pride for the town among the new and old generations of its current residents. Their hubb-ul-watani is reflected in their dedicated efforts to put Bhera on the internet map. They have invested huge personal resources to set up several websites on Bhera. Besides the Wikipedia’s site on Bhera, there are web sites that have been set up by individual Pakistani Bherochis. The website by H. A. Bugavi is perhaps the oldest site, distinguished for its genuine concern for the historical assets of Bhera. The other by Ali Javeed appears more systematic and open to contributions from Bherochis who had to leave the town in 1947. These gentlemen are inspired by their sheer love for their town. Their websites cover the town’s history, architecture, mosques, abandoned temples and the Sikh gurdawara, and the illustrious lives of its distinguished sons. Visiting these sites comes close to a sort of pilgrimage for those of us who have been away for so long and have felt banished and cut off.



Now that Pakistani visas have become relatively easy to obtain, it has encouraged the Hindu and Sikh expatriates to visit the town. If one can, someone of our generation (born and raised in Bhera) should spend a few days to study the changes the town has gone through. My brother got less than four hours to spend in Bhera. He and his host, the late Mrs. Kamala Sahni of Salam, took the circular drive around the town, went to the Railway Station from where they followed the road to Ganjwala Darwaaza and on to the Chowk, and parked the car in Gopal Bahri’s katra. From there, they took a walking trip to the DhoanaN wala Mohalla where we were born and raised, visited the Jhugi wala Mandir (adjacent to the ChhaintaaN wali Masjid), looked at what was once our father’s shop (still vacant and locked up), found in total ruin the facing shop of Hafiz Lilari (Rangraze) who dyed the chunnis of Hindu girls in the local spectrum of colors, took a stroll in the Guru Bazaar, walked to the Jeetu da Maidaan to meet Dr. Fazal Qadir Shah at his clinic, and to a few other places. Besides the overall impressions of the town, my brother also shared with me some precious bits of information that were closer to our hearts.



Massi Durgan’s house, adjacent to ours, was a tibba, the upper story of our house was not there, but other houses in the mohalla looked reasonably intact and were occupied by refugees from the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana,. As I and my escort (Dr. Fazal Qadir Shah’s son) entered the mohalla, I saw a lady washing clothes inside the deori, at the very place in our house where our Mataji (Mother) used to wash our clothes. I am sure the hand-pump is still there. It was day time and no man [being present] at home, it was not appropriate to speak to the orthodox lady who was inside our house…I was inside the mohalla for about ten minutes…”



Now nearly thirty years later (since his 1978 visit), we find ourselves old and frail to travel and visit the town we left behind. People of our generation (my elder brother is 78, and younger brother 68) make do with our very precious remembrances of Bhera and visits to its web sites. When we manage to get together, we hardly tire of talking about Bhera, much to the apparent boredom of our wives whose parents were from three different towns in Pakistan: Pind Daaddan Khan, Sialkot, and Jampur near D.G.Khan. One day we brothers sat down and prepared a schematic map of our DhoanaN wala Mohalla (named after the Hindu caste of Dhawans) as it existed in the pre-Partition days. We numbered all the houses inside the mohalla and in the alley leading to it from 1 to 30, and prepared a companion list of the names of the families that lived in these houses until 1947. Unlike most Hindu neighborhoods like SahniyaN da Mohalla, our mohalla and a few others were gated neighborhoods with their circumscribed boundaries. The Hindu mohallas were generally named after single Hindu castes, but their resident families often belonged to other castes as well. In our Mohalla, for instance, we had only one Dhawan family, but also one Bahri, one Khanna, two Kapur, four Malhotra families, and a few other castes.



People of our parents’ generation are gone from this world, and ours is the last generation that has personal memories of the good old Bhera of our childhood and also of our trail of woe and survival to the Wagah border. We know first hand the price our parents’ generation and ours paid in the grand drama of the birth of two nations as it was enacted in Bhera. Pakistanis who are our contemporaries from Bhera witnessed these events from the other side. They are the audiences who may have some resonance for our roodad (narrative). It will be nice to hear from them on how the things and events I talk about here looked to them from the other side.



When most people got caught up in the vortex of the religious strife and brutal reprisals of 1947, some righteous, God-fearing persons held their heads well above the swirling waters of hatred and revenge. The Hindus and Sikhs of Bhera, who were able to escape to India after 15th August 1947, owe their lives to two such men, both of them true Muslims and great men. One of them was the native son of Bhera, Sheikh Fazal Haq Piracha. He was the one who single-handedly dissuaded the Muslim mobs of tenant farmers and villagers from acting on their plans to kill and plunder the town’s Hindus and Sikhs. The Muslim mobs had gathered one morning near one of the city’s gates to launch their attack. Their drums had kept their sinister beat all through the previous night to rally the believers. Mobilized by the countryside Mullahs to avenge the killings of Muslims in the Hindu and Sikh majority areas of India, the mob was all worked up to start a bloody reprisal against the kafirs. We learned that Sheikh Fazal Haq Piracha confronted the brigands early that morning. At one point, he took off his turban and put it at the feet of the mob leader(s) and begged them to turn back to their homes and leave the Hindus and Sikhs of Bhera alone. He told them that Hindus and Sikhs had lived in Bhera for centuries in peace with Muslims and they owed them at least a safe passage for the sake of Bhera’s past and fair name. His prominent stature in the community (see Note 2) and his heart-felt appeal persuaded the mobs to disperse. His hubb-ul-watani for the hometown and his faith combined to save the day for the town’s Hindus and Sikhs. Our present and coming generations should be indebted to this very righteous person.



Someone looking through the archival papers of the late Sheikh Fazal Haq Piracha would find many a letter written from India by Bhera’s Hindus and Sikhs who had individually conveyed their gratitude to him for saving the lives of their families and community in 1947. Our father, Hori Lall, also wrote to Sheikh Sahib in the mid-1950s, thanking him deeply for his intervention that saved our lives. In 1978, my brother made it a point to visit Sheikh Sahib’s house in Bhera to pay his respects to the memory of our singular savior. He wrote about it, “On our circular tour of the town, we stopped at the residence of the late Sheikh F. H. Piracha as I wanted to pay my respects. Unfortunately, his son [very likely, Ehsan-ul-Haq, who later became a junior minister in Bhuto’s government], was not at home.” The web site by the Prince Brothers (http://bhera.sitesled.com/piracha.html) has an excellent article in Urdu on this pre-eminent khaandaan of the Pirachas. It recounts the illustrious careers and contributions of its members to their nation and the town of Bhera. I wish its authors would consider it fit to include this act of profound humanity by Sheikh Fazal Haq Piracha in their biographical essay on him and also arrange to include a picture of him.



The other savior of Bhera’s Hindus and Sikhs was a tall, handsome Muslim Captain attached to the army contingent that was sent to Bhera for safely escorting our evacuation-train to the Mandi Bahauddin refugee camp. A few miles from Bhera near Hazurpur, the train was stopped by a large mob of marauders drawn from the neighboring villages. They were waiting there to ambush the train. The Captain ordered his men to open fire in order to deter the mob. He succeeded in scaring them to disperse, thus stopping the attack and saving the lives of Bhera’s Hindu/Sikh men, women, and children. Some of the attackers must have been injured and a few perhaps even got killed. His Muslim and Sikh soldiers removed the tree trunk from the railway tracks that the attackers had placed there to halt the train, and the train resumed its journey to Malakwal and onto Mandi Bahauddin. At Mandi Bahauddin Railway Station, I saw quite a few Hindu elders (one from our mohalla) take off their turbans and lay them at the Captain’s feet as a gesture of their deep gratitude for saving them, their womenfolk and children. He was uneasy at this gesture and just stepped back from the turbans, telling the Hindus that what he did to save them and their families was a matter of duty for him. He surely was a true Muslim, a gentleman officer, and a karmayogi for whom a duty performed was its own reward. We do not know this officer’s name or the place he was from, but his face will ever remain hallowed in our memories. He was a stranger, but a great benefactor. May God bless his soul.



How do you judge a community? One way is to look at the great men and women it has produced from its ranks (the elitist measure). The other way to evaluate a community is to look at its average member (the common-man measure). Judged by the first (the best person) standard, Bhera wins hands down. The exemplary stand of Sheikh Fazal ul Haq in saving his town’s Hindus and Sikhs from a sure massacre brings credit not only to his person and his family, but also to the entire community of Bhera’s Muslims. S. Radhakrishanan, a philosopher and a former President of India, portrayed the “best man” view of a society in these words: “When the wick is ablaze at its tip, the whole lamp is said to be burning bright.” It surely applies to Bhera, and its people can rightfully take pride in the radiant nobility of Sheikh Fazal ul Haq.



Judged by the other, “common man” standard, Bhera’s Muslims acquitted themselves quite well. We, the departed Hindus and Sikhs, have to recognize the essential decency of the Muslim folks of Bhera. If men like Sheikh Fazal-ul-Haq and the Muslim Captain saved our lives, then the Muslim commoners of Bhera can be said to have spared our lives. The local Muslim community did not seek to harm, much less to annihilate, the town’s Hindus and Sikhs. We are grateful to all those who by their decency and restraint made it possible for us to leave the town in relative peace and safety. Except for one case of fatal stabbing of a Hindu boy, Bayya (son of Ram Lal Mandharia) and one case of arson (Lall Kuppi’s kiryaana shop in Guru Bazaar was set on fire), we were let go unharmed from Bhera. Few towns in West as well as East Punjab could match Bhera’s record of good sense in those trying times of collective insanity when the sanctity of human life and the honor of women did not seem to matter any more.



Before our special train left Bhera’s railway station one day in September, 1947, a batch of Muslim National Guards (the Muslim counterpart of those days to the Hindu RSS) showed up in their green uniforms and lined up on the platform in a “Guard-of-Honor” formation to bid us farewell. We watched them from the windows of our railway compartment, not knowing what to make of this entirely unexpected move. We were at that time more concerned about the oppressive heat in our railway compartments. We were packed like herrings in the train; several families stuffed in each small compartment, and as many as 7,000 Hindus and Sikhs (along with the baggage they could carry on their person from their homes to the railway station) squeezed in eight or nine railway bogies. The crowding made the inside of the train feel like an oven, even when all the windows were kept wide open. At one point, one Muslim national guard, Baalu (for Iqbal), who used to work as a sweeper for a Kapur family in our mohalla, approached the head of this family and advised that we better close the windows. It did not make any sense; he did not tell us why the windows need be closed. He kept pleading though. Before he went back to be with his fellow-guards, he made sure that we were going to shut all the windows. The gentleman returned after a while to ask why we had kept one window open. We told him that it would not shut. He suggested we better place a trunk (suit case) or even a rolled-bedding against the window to cover it. We sensed something was remiss, something ominous to befall us. It was only when the train suddenly stopped just a few miles from the station and we heard rapid firing by the escort soldiers that the full scope of the peril we were in dawned on us. It became clear why this caring person was so much concerned about the open windows. He knew of the planned attack, but could not divulge it.



Naturally, it is hard for us to forgive the out-of-towners from the surrounding villages (including a few from the town itself), who could hardly wait to kill the Hindu and Sikh men, and carry away their women and cash and jewelry as maal-e-ghanimat. Once turned back from the gates of Bhera by the pleas of Sheikh Fazal Haq Piracha, most of them showed up again a few weeks later to waylay the special train for the evacuation of the town’s Hindus and Sikhs. Before our train was stopped a few miles away from Bhera, we could see from the window chinks a few of these folks running by the side of our train. They had axes and spears in their hands, and those who did not have a donkey or a camel were carrying cots on their heads to bring back the booty. These laggards were trying hard to reach the site of planned ambush in time so as not to miss on their share of the spoils. When the train stopped at the barricade that had been set up for the purpose, the main body of raiders came rushing from behind the embankments of a canal to attack the train. The Captain promptly ordered his armed men to open fire, making the mobs retreat and find shelter behind the embankments. But for the effective protection provided by the armed escort, Bhera’s Hindus and Sikhs would have been a captive target for butchery in the stalled train





As we moved farther from the blessed land of Bhera, our troubles started multiplying and getting real bad. The long stay in the Mandi Bahauddin camp was marked by unnerving uncertainties, hardships, and a cholera epidemic in the camp. On the reassuring side was the presence of a battalion of Baloch regiment posted at the camp to guard it. After several weeks of stay in the camp, the Bhera’s Hindus and Sikhs boarded another refugee train that would take them from Mandi Bahauddin to the Indian border. The 44-hour long journey from Mandi Bahauddin to the Wagha border via Lala Musa (this journey in normal times took no more than three to four hours) was a frightening passage. But we were fortunate to make it safely to India. We got down from the train at Attari railway station and kissed the soil of India.



To be uprooted from your native lands, family homes and means of livelihood and to have your “dukh-sukh di saanjhi” community scattered across a thousand towns were an enormous dislocation for our parents’ generation. What they ended up facing was contrary to the history as they had known it. They had believed that kingdoms and governments could change, but the people (raiyyat) stayed put in their towns and were left largely untouched. The events as they transpired left them heart-broken. They had to leave for an unknown place in India and start a new life in a new setting. Any hope of returning one day with their ousted communities to their hometowns had disappeared fast. They realized that they and their children have been banished for ever and the keys to their houses they carried on them were no more than mementos. It took them decades of struggle and untold hardships to resettle. Most made it eventually in the new country, while countless others languished on the way to an ever elusive recovery. Yes, the anguish of our irreversible displacement has been hard to overcome.



Just as erstwhile rivals, who once pursued the same prize in town, become mellow over time, the sole inheritors of Bhera have started to empathize with the town’s disinherited people of 1947. The dispossessed have for long been resigned to whatever hand the fate had played for them and the inheritors of Bhera did not show any visible triumph in seeing us leave the land of our forefathers. The wounds of our loss have crusted, if not disappeared. The two sides now get together, talk, and write without serious recriminations and hurts. They see each other from the distance of time and space, and no party appears diabolic to the other any longer. There is a noticeable nostalgia for the times when we lived like neighbors without any running battles. A couplet form Momin says it all:



Kabhi ham mein tum mein bhi chah thi, kabhi ham mein tum mein bhi rah thi,

Kabhi ham bhi tum bhi thai aashnaa, tumhen yaad ho ke na yaad ho.



Once we and you had good will between us,

Once we and you had a way between us;

Once we and you were also friends,

Now you may remember it or you may not.



The overall amity among Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs in Bhera of the pre-Partition days was based on the concept of shared “ann-jal-hawah,” common life experiences, and a joyful pride in everything Bherochi from its phenian to mehndi (henna). Our pride in Bhera served to bind us, making us all feel that we were better than the people of neighboring towns! We were immensely proud of the town’s long history and the great persons the town had produced in different fields. When it comes to the mystic bond of shared ann-jal-hawah, the town’s Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs savored roties made from the locally grown wheat, drank the “salubrious” water from its Jehlum-fed aquifers, breathed the refreshing (“khush-gawaar”) air of Bhera, and basked in its “balmy” sunshine. With apologies to Faiz, we may slightly reword one of his couplets (see Note 3) from “Raqeeb se.”





[Hum] pe bhi [bikhra] hai uss [ufaq] se [khursheed] ka noor,

Jis mein beeti hui [subhoan] ki [jhalak] baaqi hai



The Sun spread its rays from the same horizon on us as well

The glimpses of those luminous mornings are still with us.



In the realm of common experiences, we all learned to take our first steps and to walk on Bhera’s terra firma, picked up its boli for our mother tongue, and partook of its romantic legends of Heer-Ranjha and Sohni-Mahiwal. When we went to school, we started learning Urdu from Class I, English from Class V, Hindi in VI, and Persian or Sanskrit in Class VII onwards. Exposure to a steady set of common influences had created a sort of common cultural ethos for the town.



Not too distant in the future, our generation who along with our parents had witnessed the finale of the centuries-old sojourn of Hindus and Sikhs in Bhera will not be around to tell about it. The ranks of our generation are dwindling steadily. So let us remember Bhera and celebrate our sad and happy memories of this town while we can! No one could have said it any better than Ghalib:



Naghama-hai gham ko bhi eh dil ghanimat janeai

Be-sadaa ho jaaey ga yeh saaz-e-hasti ek din!



O’ heart, consider even your sad songs to be a blessing,

One of these days, this instrument of our being will go silent.



NOTES



Note 1: Besides expressions like “aasaan-jasaan,” some words were pronounced so distinctively in Bhera that a Bherochi was instantly identified. Here is an anecdote we used to hear. Someone was once asked the name of the town he was from, and he repeated the question to get it right, “Maira shehar?” The person who had asked the question immediately responded, “Stop, stop. You do not have to tell me what town you are from. I know it, you must be from Bhera!” Around 1950, my younger brother and I were going from Karol Bagh to Pahar Ganj by a tonga in Delhi, and were chatting. All of a sudden, an older passenger on the front seat, asked us, “O mundeo, tussi pichhon Bherai de ho?” (Boys, are you originally from Bhera?) Astonished, we asked him how he figured out where we were from. He told us that it was our maira, maira (instead of mera) that gave away our origin! As the lady in the Sahniyan da Mohalla house in Bhera told Kalpana Sahni, “We have only to open our mouths to give ourselves away!”



Note 2: Sheikh Fazal Haq Piracha served as a member of the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi from 1934 to 1946. He was also the Chairman of Bhera’s Municipal Committee from 1924 to 1958.



Note 3: The original couplet as Faiz wrote it is as follows:



Tujh pe bhi barsaa hai uss baam se mehtab ka noor

Jis mein beeti hui raaton ki kassak baqi hai.



From the same balcony, Diana shed her luminous rays on you as well.

The sweet pain of those nights past, still lingers in our hearts!

# 185 what nonsense!

This kind of irrational attachment to land is nothing but the product of a particular way of thinking.

Hubb-ul-watani and Hum-watani indeed!

(Having said, one can understand/sympathize with this Hindu man's sense of loss and the fact that he can't get his bhera out of his system, and will keep looking for his Hum-watanis no matter how many times he is kicked.)

Laddu Sahib,
Peace. For the first time I can remember on Chowk you are actually interacting in a sensible manner. Since you seem genuinely sincere in your beliefs I am hoping that you will be open minded enough to read the biography of the Prophet written by Martin Lings. It is entitled, Muhammad: His Life based on the Earliest Sources.

And a question:
What is your view on Khwaja Gharib Nawaz of Ajmer Sharif?

Rabb ikk gunjjaldaar bujhaarat
Rabb ikk gorakh dhanda
paich eissday kholan lagga
kafir ho jaye banda.

ithas been very interesting debates except some below the belt attacks.

I have some different poitn of views,to share with you all, genetics is present and modern knowledge of twentieth century and it tells that gene pool is reduced when cousin marriages are celeberated. But i read an intersting thing in Al-Ghazzali's Tehzeeb Ahyaal Alum in Chapter on MArriage and conditions for marriage that avoid mariages between cousins and it is a hadith albeit zaeef( zaeef menas chain was missing and content needs to be checked on the bases of rationality)... so which scientific knowledeg developed this idea of not marrying cousins soem 1400 years ago? It deos not matter whther it was practiced 100 % or not but except Punjab it is practiced that Muslims avoid cousin marriages !

Furhter more why Indians are bent upon always to check things on the bases of theri own terms and consdier themselves the msot educated ones on the surface of earth from times immemorial?

As to use of technical terms by Laddu how will we adjsut the sayings of 14th century Saints of Spain and many saints of India that feeling lost in Ultimate reality is the first stage of the lowest level of spiritual journey and there are furhter many many stages of thsi journey?

As to circular thinking I rememebr saying of imam Jafer Sadiq Ra that Allah created reason first of all and shah Wali Alalh that without reason and Hikmat all laws on the name of religion are farce and islamic Shariah's basic thrust on rational and reason instead of blind following is stressed so much , but here it is treated as a blind belief?how to reconcilethis with historical facts and truths?

As to evolution's beauty , how can we determine that genetic mutation is by chance and it is not directed or determined by certain proportion of chemicals and eleemnts?

I wait answers of these points then we can move further. I hope to get answers not confusion and abuses!

a short but beautiful clip on the spirituality of the Prophet by Shaykh Dr. Tahir ul Qadri (Language: Urdu)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB3D9SDAs3I

The Messenger of God,
Prophet Muhammad ibn Abdullah

"How can people in this world grasp his reality?
They, who are asleep and pleased by dreams from him.
How beautiful what has been said about his reality!
Your light is everything and everything else is particles.
O Prophet, your soldiers in every time are your Companions!"

Imam Busayri, al-Burda.



The Shaykhs of the Naqshbandi Order are known as the Golden Chain because of their connection to the highest, most perfect human being, Muhammad , the First to be created, the First to be mentioned, the First to be honored.

When Allah ordered the Pen to write, it asked, "What shall I write?" and Allah said, "Write 'La Ilaha Ill-Allah.'" The Pen wrote "La Ilaha Ill-Allah" for seventy-thousand of Allah's years and then it stopped. One of Allah's days is equal to one thousand of our years. Then Allah ordered it to write again, and the Pen asked, "What shall I write?" and Allah answered, "Write Muhammadun Rasul-Allah." And the Pen said, "O Allah, who is this Muhammad that You have put Your Name next to his name?" Allah said, "You must know that if it were not for Muhammad I would not have created anything in Creation." So the Pen wrote Muhammadun Rasul-Allah for another seventy-thousand years.

When did Allah order the Pen to Write? When did the Pen Write? When did that writing of "La ilaha ill-Allah Muhammadun Rasul-Allah" occur? No one knows. The mention of the name of the Prophet by Allah, Almighty and Exalted, is something which happened before the creation of anything, and its reality occurred in pre-Eternity. That is the reason the Prophet mentioned, "kuntu Nabiyyan wa adamu bayni-l-ma'i wa-t-tin" - "I was a Prophet when Adam was between water and clay."

He is the Perfect Human Being. He is the Seal of all prophets and messengers. What can a weak servant say in order to honor the Master of Messengers? If it were not for him, no one would ever have known Allah, Almighty and Exalted. Never would the fabric of the universe have been woven into existence as it has been woven. Therefore the pen cannot describe the most perfect of the Perfect human beings, the Master of Masters, the King of Kings, the Sultan of Sultans of the Divine Presence.

He is the Heart of the Divine Presence. He is the Heart of the Unique Essence. He is the Sign for Oneness and the Sign of Oneness. He is known as the Secret of All Secrets. He is the only one addressed by Allah Almighty and Exalted, because he is the only one considered Responsible in the Presence of Allah who said, "Were it not for him I would not have created any of My creation." All of the creation was given to the Prophet as a divine gesture of honor from Allah, Almighty and Exalted. Therefore the Prophet is responsible for that creation which is his honor and his Trust. For that reason he is the only one to be addressed in the Divine Presence.

The singular status of the Prophet is the heart and the Essence of the phrase of tawheed [La ilaha ill-Allah Muhammadun Rasul-Allah] and the foundation of Sufism. The Prophet is the "one soul" mentioned in the Qur'anic verse, "[O Mankind] Your creation and your resurrection is in no wise but as an individual soul" [31:28]. It is also the Prophet who is the "single life" represented in the verse, "If anyone slew a person... it would be as if he slew the whole people: And if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people." [5:32]

The Prophet , moreover, referred to his responsibility in the hadith: a`malakum tu`radu `alayya kulla yawm, "All your actions are shown to me every day. If they are good, I pray for you; if they are bad, I ask Allah's forgiveness for you." That means that the Prophet is the one who is responsible towards God for his Community. That is why, as we said, he is "the only to be spoken to." It is the meaning of Intercession. Allah refers to this intercession in the verse, "If they had only, when they were unjust to themselves, come unto thee and asked Allah's forgiveness, and the Messenger had asked forgiveness for them, they would have found Allah indeed Oft-Returning, Most Merciful" [4:64].

His honorable biography and his blessed speeches and actions can never be encompassed in a book. But we can say that he is Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Abdul Muttalib ibn Hashim and that his lineage goes back to Ibrahim . He was born in Makkah al-Mukarrama on a Monday, the 12th of Rabi`ul Awwal, 570 CE, in the Year of the Elephant. His mother, Sayyida Amina, when she gave birth to him, saw a light coming from her that turned all darkness into light as far as Persia. When he was born, the first thing he did after coming from his mother's womb was to fall into prostration. His father died before he was born. He was nursed by Thuayba and then by Halima as-Sa`diyya, with whom he stayed for four years.

While returning with him from a visit to his uncles in Madinat al-Munawwara (at that time Yathrib), his mother fell sick and died. He was six years old. His grandfather raised him for two years, until he also died. Orphaned three times, he went to live with his uncle, Abu Talib. Allah Almighty and Exalted ordered the Angel of the Trumpet, Israfil to accompany him at all times until the age of eleven years. Then Allah ordered Jibril to accompany him and to look after him and to keep him in his safekeeping, and to send to his heart heavenly and spiritual Powers.

He traveled with his uncle to Sham (Damascus). On their way they passed by Basra where a monk named Buhaira, living in a monastery nearby, told his uncle, "Take him back, it will be safer for him." At that time he was twelve years old. Years later he traveled again to Sham with Maysara, to trade on behalf of the Lady Khadija . They were very successful. Maysara told Khadija about his miraculous powers and his business acumen and she became interested in him. She proposed marriage and he accepted her offer. He married her when he was 25 years of age and she was forty.

He was known throughout his tribe as as-Sadiq al-Amin, the Truthful and Trustworthy One. When he was 35 years of age, the Quraish Tribe was renovating the House of Allah, the Ka'aba. They disputed among themselves as to who should put the sacred Black Stone (hajaru-l-aswad) in its place. They finally came to an agreement that the most trustworthy person should replace it, and that person was the Prophet .

At that time inspirations and revelations were coming to his heart. He was always in a state of spiritual vision and insight, but he was not authorized to speak about it. He preferred to be alone and used a cave in a mountain called al-Hira for contemplation and meditation. He sought seclusion as the means to reach the Divine Presence of Allah Almighty and Exalted.

He avoided all kinds of attachment, even with his family. He was always in meditation and contemplation, afloat on the Ocean of the Dhikr of the Heart. He disconnected himself completely from everything, until there appeared to him the light of Allah Almighty and Exalted, which graced him with the condition of complete intimacy and happiness. That intimacy allowed the mirror of revelation to increase in purity and brightness, until he attained to the highest state of perfection, where he observed the dawning of a new creation. The primordial signs of beauty shone forth to spread and decorate the universe. Trees, stones, earth, the stars, the sun, the moon, the clouds, wind, rain, and animals would greet him in perfect Arabic speech and say, "as-Salam 'alayka Ya Rasul-Allah" -- "Peace be upon You, O Prophet of God."

At forty years of age, when standing on the Mountain of Hira, there appeared on the horizon a figure he did not recognize, who said to him, "O Muhammad, I am Jibril and You are the Prophet of God whom He has sent to this nation." Then he handed him a piece of silk which was decorated with jewels. He put it in his hand and told him, "Read." He asked "What am I to read?" He hugged the Prophet and told him, "Read." He again said, "What shall I read?" He hugged him again and said,

"Read, in the name of Your Lord, who Created,
Created man out of a blood-clot,
Read, and thy Lord is Most bountiful
Who has taught with the Pen,
Taught man what he knew not!" [96:1-5]

Then he ordered him to climb down the mountain to the plains below; he placed him on a large white stone and gave him two green robes. Then Jibril hit the earth with his feet. Immediately a spring poured forth and the angel made ablutions in it and ordered him to do the same. Then Jibril took a handful of water and threw it on the face of the Prophet . Sufi saints say that the water he threw was a sign that the Prophet was granted authority to spread to human beings the Knowledge of the Secrets of Allah's Divine Presence, either by physical means or by spiritual means. Then he observed two cycles of prayer (rak'ats) and told the Prophet , "This is the way to worship," and he disappeared.

The Prophet returned to Makkah and told his wife all that had occurred. She believed him and she was the first Muslim. Then she went with the Prophet to Waraqah bin Nawfal, her cousin, who was considered a person knowledgeable in spirituality. The Prophet told him what happened. He believed him and he was the first man to believe in the Prophet . He said, "This is the Holy Spirit who descended on Moses ." He said, "Would that I be alive when your people expel you from Makkah!" The prophet asked, "Are my people going to put me out of Makkah?" He said, "Yes, that is what is written."

Then Abu Bakr became a believer and he was followed by Ali . In public the Prophet gave guidance needed for daily life, and in private he would give the special advice needed for attaining the state of Ihsan (perfect good character). That is why Abu Huraira said in an authentic hadith mentioned in Bukhari, "The Prophet has poured into my heart two kinds of knowledge: one I have spread to people and the other, if I were to share it, they would cut my throat."

The knowledge Abu Huraira referred to is the hidden, secret knowledge that the Prophet gave to his Companions. He did not authorize them to spread that knowledge because it is the secret knowledge of the heart. From these secrets all Masters of the Naqshbandi Golden Chain and all other Sufi Orders receive their knowledge. This knowledge was transmitted only from heart to heart, either through Abu Bakr as-Siddiq or through Ali .

For three years, as the Muslims increased in number, they used Dar al-Arqam as a mosque in which to teach, to worship and to hide. Then the Prophet was ordered to proclaim the religion openly. Allah sent a surah of the Qur'an challenging anyone to write anything like it. Poets, leaders and famous people tried until they openly accepted the self-evident fact that it was not possible. Still the unbelievers went to his uncle, complaining, saying, "Give us Muhammad so we may kill him." He said, "No one can touch him as long as I am living." The unbelievers tortured all those who did believe him. They kidnapped their wives, killed their children and raped their daughters. The new Muslims suffered all kinds of difficulties at the hands of the unbelievers.

For thirteen years the Prophet stayed in Makkah, calling the people to Allah's religion.

The unbelievers asked for a miracle or a sign in the heavens. The Holy Prophet divided the full moon in two in front of their eyes. Some of them believed and some of them did not. After this the persecution continued and some Muslims asked permission to emigrate. They emigrated to Ethiopia, where the King gave them refuge and, through their influence, became a believer in the Prophet . They stayed there for five years before some of them returned to Makkah. The Prophet's uncle and then his wife Khadija al-Kubra died. These were his staunchest supporters. It was the year of sadness.

A year and a half later, he was invited to the Presence of Allah, Almighty and Exalted. From Makkah to Jerusalem (Quds) he travelled accompanied by Archangel Gabriel (Jibril) . From Jerusalem he ascended to the heavens by means of Buraq, a heavenly mount who carried him up. All the prophets in the different levels of heaven came to greet him. He ascended higher and higher, until he heard the scratching of the Pen, writing out God's Decree. He approached the Divine Presence, closer and closer, until Jibril said to him, "Ya Rasul Allah (O Prophet of God), I cannot continue further, or I will be extinguished." The Prophet said, "O Jibril, accompany me!" He said, "I cannot, or I will be burned in Allah's Light." So Muhammad , the most Perfect of the Perfect, continued alone. Driven by his love for Allah's Divine Presence he approached closer and closer, achieving the State of Complete Annihilation in five different stages.

From one stage to another the Prophet moved into Allah's Divine Secrets. Between each stage was five hundred thousand years. He passed through these vast Divine Oceans of Knowledge, which Allah Almighty and Exalted has created, until he was completely dissolved in Allah's Existence, seeing nothing except Him. Then Allah called him to return to existence after he had reached the State of Annihilation. He returned and Allah told him, "O Muhammad, Approach closer." From this it is understood that the Prophet , having reached the State of Complete Annihilation, was called by Allah by his name, indicating that he was appearing anew with Allah's Appearance. He reached so near to the Divine Light, that he was "two bow-lengths or nearer" [53:9]. Allah asked him, "Who are you, O Muhammad?" At that time the Prophet was not conscious of himself and he replied: "You, O my Lord." This is the perfection of the state of not associating anyone with Allah. It is the perfect sign of Tawhid (Oneness), when nothing exists except His Glory, His Essence, Himself.

Shaykh Nazim al-Haqqani has related, from the hidden knowledge of the Sufi saints, some of the events that occurred on that incredible journey of the Prophet. This is knowledge from the Prophet which Abu Huraira referred to in his hadith, knowledge passed down from the heart of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq. The Prophet said, "Whatever Allah poured into my heart I poured into the heart of as-Siddiq." This knowledge was then passed to the Naqshbandi Sufi saints and constitutes their spiritual inheritance.

Shaykh Nazim al-Haqqani said, "Allah Almighty and Exalted said to the Prophet on the Night of Ascension, O Muhammad, I have created all of creation for your sake, and I am giving it all to you. At that moment Allah granted the Prophet power to see all that He had created, with all of their lights and all of the favors that Allah had granted His creatures by decorating them with his Attributes and with His Divine Love and Beauty.

"Muhammad was enthralled and enraptured because Allah had given him the gift of such a creation. Allah said to him, 'Ya Muhammad, are you happy with this creation?' He said, 'Yes, My Lord.' He said, 'I am giving them to you in Trust to keep, to be responsible for, and to return to Me just as I gave them to you.' Muhammad was looking at them in delight because they were illuminated with beautiful lights, and he said, 'O My Lord, I accept.' Allah said, 'Are you accepting?' He replied, 'I accept, I accept.' As he finished replying the third time, Allah granted him a vision of the sins and the many forms of misery, darkness, and ignorance into which they were going to fall.

"When Muhammad saw this he was dismayed, wondering how he would be able to return them to His Lord as clean as in their original state. He said, 'O My Lord, what is this?' Allah replied, 'O My beloved, this is your responsibility. You have to return them to Me as clean as I gave them to You.' Then Muhammad said, 'O my Lord, give me helpers to help me clean them, to sanctify their spirits, and to take them from darkness and ignorance to the state of knowledge, of piety, of peace and love.'

"Then Allah, Almighty and Exalted, granted him a vision in which he informed him that out of this creation He had chosen for him 7,007 Naqshbandi Saints. He told him, 'O My beloved, O Muhammad, these saints are from the most Distinguished Saints that I created to help you in keeping this creation clean. Out of them are 313 who are in the highest, most perfect state in the Divine Presence. They are the inheritors of the secrets of 313 Messengers. Then I am giving you forty, who are carrying the most distinguished powers, and they are considered the Pillars of all saints. They are going to be the Masters of their times and they are going to be the Inheritors of the Secrets of Reality.'

"'At the hands of these saints everyone will be healed from his wounds, both externally and internally. These saints will be able to carry the whole Nation and the whole of Creation without any sign of tiring. Every one of them will be the Ghawth (Arch-Intercessor) in his time, under whom will be the five Qutub (Spiritual Poles).'

"The Prophet was happy and he said, 'O my Lord, give me more!' Then Allah showed him 124,000 saints, and He said, 'These saints are the inheritors of the 124,000 prophets. Each one is an inheritor from one prophet. They also will be there to help you clean this Nation.'

"While the Prophet was ascending to the Divine Presence, Allah caused him to hear a human voice. The voice was that of his friend and closest Companion, Abu Bakr as-Siddiq . The Prophet was told by Allah Almighty to order Abu Bakr as-Siddiq to call all the Naqshbandi saints: the 40, the 313, and the 7,007, and all their followers, in their spiritual forms, into the Divine Presence. All were to receive those distinguished Lights and Blessings.

"Then Allah ordered the Prophet , who ordered Abu Bakr , to call the 124,000 saints of the other 40 Tariqats and their followers to be given that Light in the Divine Presence. All of the Shaykhs began to appear in that gathering with all of their followers. Allah then asked the Prophet to look at them with his Prophetic power and light, and to lift them all to the station of Siddiqin, the Trustworthy and the Truthful. Then Allah Almighty and Exalted said to the Prophet , and the Prophet said to the saints, 'All of you and all of your followers are going to be stars shining among human beings, to spread that light which I gave you in pre-Eternity to all human beings on earth.'"

Mawlana Shaykh Nazim says, "That is only one of the secrets that has been revealed about the Night of Ascension to the hearts of the saints through the transmission of the Golden Chain of the Naqshbandi Order." Many more visions were given to the Prophet , but there is no permission to unveil them.

That Night, the Prophet was ordered by Allah to perform 50 prayers a day. He shortened it to five prayers a day on the advice of the Prophet Moses (Musa) . He returned from that Night Journey, and the first one to believe him was Abu Bakr as-Siddiq . The unbelievers, hoping to ridicule him, asked him to describe Jerusalem. He described it in all its details, and the unbelievers were humiliated.

Persecution against the Prophet and his Companions escalated. Then Allah sent him the Ansar (Helpers) from Madinah. Islam had begun to spread among the tribes of this small oasis not far from Makkah. Allah gave the believers permission to migrate to Madinah, the home of the Ansar. Abu Bakr wanted to migrate, but Muhammad told him, "Don't leave yet, wait, and maybe you will travel with me. There is a very important event which must happen."

The Prophet fled at night with Abu Bakr and left behind him Ali to impersonate him in his bed. On the way he stopped to hide in the Cave of Thawr. Abu Bakr said, "O Prophet, don't enter, I will enter first." In his heart he thought that there might be something harmful inside and he chose to encounter it first. He found a hole in the cave. He called the Prophet to come in and he put his foot over the hole. The Prophet came in and lay down with his head on Abu Bakr's thigh. A snake inside the hole began to bite the foot of Abu Bakr. He tried not to move although he was in great pain. Tears flowed down his cheeks. One warm tear dropped on the blessed face of the Prophet . At this, as was mentioned in the Qur'an: "He said to his friend, Grieve not for verily Allah is with us." [9: 40] and he also said, "What do you think of two when God is their Third?" [57: 5]. Abu Bakr said to the Prophet, "O Prophet of God, I am not sad, but I am in pain. A snake is biting my foot and I am worried that it might bite you. I am crying because my heart is burning for you and for your safety." The Prophet was so pleased with the reply of his beloved Companion that he hugged Abu Bakr as-Siddiq , put his hand on his heart and poured the knowledge that Allah had given him into the heart of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq. That is why he said in a hadith, "Whatever Allah poured into my heart, I poured into the heart of Abu Bakr ."

Our Grandshaykh Muhammad Nazim al-Haqqani says, "Following this the Prophet put his other hand on the foot of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq and read, Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim, and the foot was immediately healed. Then he ordered the snake to come out and the snake came out, coiling itself in front of the Prophet . Then the Prophet said to the snake, 'Do you not know that the flesh of a Siddiq is forbidden to you? Why are eating the flesh of my Companion?' He replied to the Prophet in a perfect and pure Arabic, 'O Prophet of Allah, were not all things created for your sake and for your love? O Prophet, I too love You. When I heard that Allah Almighty and Exalted said that the best nation is your nation, I asked Him to prolong my life and grant me the honor of being among your nation and looking at your face. And Allah granted me that wish and that honor. When Abu Bakr put his foot in that hole, it blocked my sight. I wanted him to move his foot to enable me to see you.' The Prophet said, 'Look at me now and fulfill your wish.' The snake looked and looked; after a while, it died. The Prophet ordered the Jinn to carry the snake away and bury it."

Mawlana Shaykh Nazim says, "These are secrets that have been given to the hearts of the Naqshbandi Saints." He continues the story thus: "Then the Prophet said to Abu Bakr, 'There was no need to stop in this cave, except that a significant event will happen here. The Light of the root of the spiritual Tree which is going to spread over all humanity, the Light coming directly from the Divine Presence, will appear here. Allah has ordered me to transmit it to you and to all the Naqshbandi Sufi followers.'

"This lineage was not called the Naqshbandi at that time, but was known as the Children of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, and he was known to saints as the 'Father' of this line.

"Then Allah asked the Prophet to order Abu Bakr as-Siddiq to call all the Masters of the Golden Chain who are the inheritors of Abu Bakr. The latter called the Grandshaykhs of this Golden Chain, all of them, from his time down to the time of the Mahdi . All of them were called through their spirits from the World of Souls. Then he was ordered to call the 7,007 Naqshbandi Saints. Then the Prophet called the 124,000 prophets.

"Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, by order of the Prophet , ordered every grandshaykh to summon all his followers to appear spiritually. Then Abu Bakr as-Siddiq ordered all the Shaykhs to take the hands of their followers to receive initiation. He put his hand above them all, and then Muhammad put his hand above all of them, and then Allah put His Hand, the Hand of Power (Qudrat), over them all. Allah by Himself, put on the tongue of everyone present His recitation (talqeen az-Zikr), and He told the Prophet to order Abu Bakr as-Siddiq to order all the saints present with their followers to recite what they were hearing from the Voice of Power:

ALLAHU ALLAHU ALLAHU HAQQ

ALLAHU ALLAHU ALLAHU HAQQ

ALLAHU ALLAHU ALLAHU HAQQ (real audio v3)

"All of those present followed their Shaykhs and the Shaykhs followed what they heard the Prophet reciting. Then Allah Almighty and Exalted taught the secret of the Dhikr, known as Khatm-il-Khwajagan, to Abdul Khaliq al-Ghujduwani, who led the first dhikr among the saints of this Order. The Prophet announced to Abu Bakr, who announced to all saints, that Abdul Khaliq al-Ghujdawani is the leader of the Khatm-i-Khwajagan. Everyone was honored to receive that secret and light from Khwaja Abdul Khaliq al-Ghujdawani, in the presence of all saints, in the presence of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, in the presence of The Prophet , in the Presence of Allah."

Mawlana Shaykh Nazim said, "Anyone who accepts initiation from us or attends our Dhikr must know that he was in the cave at that blessed time, in the Presence of the Prophet , and that he received all of these secrets then. These secrets have been transmitted to us from the masters of the Golden Chain, through Abu Bakr as-Siddiq."

Abu Bakr as-Siddiq was overjoyed and astounded with what took place in that cave, and he understood why the Prophet had chosen him to be the companion of his migration. The Naqshbandi Shaykhs consider the events in the cave as the foundation of the Tariqat. Not only is it the source of the daily wird (devotion) but the souls of all members of the Order were present together at that time.

After the events in the cave, they continued on to Madinat al-Munawwarah. When they reached Quba, a village near Madinah, on a Monday in Rabi'ul Awwal, they stopped for several days. There the Prophet built the first mosque. They continued on their way on a Friday, after praying the Friday Prayer at Quba. It was the first Jum'a that he prayed. He entered Madinah with his friend, amid shouts of takbir (ALLAHU AKBAR) and tahmid (AL-HAMDU LILLAH) and the excited, joyful happiness of everyone. He moved to the place his camel stopped, and it is there that he built his mosque and his home. He stayed as a guest in the home of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari until his mosque was built.

When the Prophet came to Madinah, it was full of diseases. As soon as he arrived, the diseases disappeared. Following is a brief list of the main events of the next ten years.

Year One - The Prophet was inspired to call the people to prayer by means of the human voice (Adhan).

Year Two - He was ordered to institute the monthly fast of Ramadan, and he was directed to face the Ka'aba in Makkah during prayers, instead of towards Jerusalem as they had done previously. It was the year that he fought the unbelievers in the decisive Battle of Badr.

Year Three - The Prophet fought the unbelievers at Uhud.

Year Four - The battle of Bani Nadeer took place, and permission was given for shortening the prayer during traveling and fighting. Alcohol was forbidden. Tayammum, or ritual purification with sand when water is not available, was allowed and the "prayer in fear" was authorized.

Year Five - The battle of Khandaq took place and the defection of Banu Quraizah and Mustaliq occurred.

Year Six - The Treaty of Hudaibiyya took place as did the Pledge of Loyalty -- the model of Sufi initiation -- under the Tree. The fifth pillar of the religion, the obligation of Hajj, also came in this year.

Year Seven - The battle of Khaibar took place.

Year Eight - The events of Mu'ta, the peaceful conquest of Makkah and the battle of Hunayn occurred.

Year Nine - The battle of Tabuk occurred and the Pilgrimage of as-Siddiq. It was called the Year of Wufud.

Year Ten - The Prophet made what is known as the Farewell Pilgrimage.

Year Eleven -The Prophet passed on to the other life.



Description of the Holy Prophet's Features

Allah Almighty and Exalted adorned the Prophet with His Divine Lights and Manners, and then He added more by saying to him: "Truly you are of a magnificient nature" [68:4].

The Prophet was neither tall nor short, but he was of middle height. He had broad shoulders. His color was light, neither dark nor white. He had a broad forehead, with heavy eyebrows, not connected but with a blaze shining like silver in the middle of them. His eyes were large. His teeth were very white, like pearls. His hair was not curly nor was it straight, but in between. His neck was long. His chest was broad, without much flesh. The color of his chest was light, and between his sternum and his navel was a line of hair. He had no hair on his chest other than that line. His shoulders were wide and had hair on them. On his shoulders were two seals of Prophecy. All his Companions used to look at them. The right shoulder had a black beauty mark, and around it were some small hairs, like the hairs of a horse. His forearms were large. His wrists were long. His fingers were also long. His palm was smoother than silk. Whenever he put his hand on the head of a child or a man, the beautiful scent of musk came from it. Wherever he moved, a cloud moved with him that shaded him from the heat of the sun. His sweat was like white pearls, and its smell was like amber and musk. The Companions said they had never seen anything like it before.

The Holy Prophet used to look down more than he raised his head. Whoever saw him from afar was amazed by him and whoever knew him intimately loved him. He was most handsome both in his external appearance and his internal appearance.

Amr ibn al-`As said, "No one was dearer to me than the Holy Prophet nor was anyone more glorious than him in my eyes. So bright was his glory that I could not look at his face for any length of time, so that if I were asked to describe him I would not be able to as I had not looked at him long enough."

The Prophet was the bravest among people, the most just and the most generous. He used to walk alone among his enemies at night without a guard. He was never afraid of anything in this world. He was the most modest of his person, the most sincere, and the most pious. He never spoke just to spend time. He preferred silence to speech and never showed pride, although he was the most eloquent speaker.

Allah gave the Prophet mastery in politics and mastery in private conduct. Although he didn't write or read, Allah raised him from the land of ignorance, taught him the best of manners and the best of ethics.

He was the gentlest of men, the most tolerant, the most merciful, as Allah Himself called him "Kindest and Most Merciful" [9:128]. He smiled at everyone and joked with everyone in a decent way. Alone he was always crying and entreating Allah for forgiveness for his Ummah. He was always contemplating and meditating. He always used to sit to remember Allah by reciting Dhikr.

He used to walk with the widow and orphan. He showed humbleness to unbelievers, wishing them to become believers. Someone asked him "pray for Allah to curse the unbelievers." He said, "I was not sent to curse but as a Mercy. I will ask for them to be guided because they don't know."

He called everyone to Allah. He never humiliated the poor. He was never afraid of a king. He always chose the easy way, according to Allah's wish [2:185, 20:2]. He laughed without making a sound, not out loud. He always said, "serve your people." He used to milk his goats, serve his family, patch clothes, walk sometimes barefooted, visit the sick, even if they were unbelievers or hypocrites, visiting the graves of believers and greeting them, training with the sword, learning the bow and arrow, riding the horse, riding the camel, riding the donkey. He used to eat with the poor and wretched. He always accepted a gift graciously, even if it was a spoonful of yogurt, and he used to reward it. He never ate from sadaqa (charity), but immediately passed it on to the poor. He never kept one dinar or one dirham in his house except he gave it to the poor. He never came home until he spent all that Allah had given him.

He was very good to his family and to his friends. He urged his friends to walk in front of him and walked behind them. He said, "leave my back for angels." His companionship was the companionship of patience and shyness. Whoever argued with him saw patience from him, and he did not reply to those who insulted him. He never came against anyone in anger nor ever used bad language. He was never angry for himself and was only angry for his Lord's sake. He used to eat with his servants. He never slapped anyone with his hand. He never punished for a mistake, but always forgave. His servant Anas () said, "In all my life, he never asked me once: why did you do this, or why didn't you do that?"


The Clothes of the Holy Prophet

He used to wear whatever he found, cotton or wool, but mostly he used to wear cotton. He liked green clothes. Abu Huraira says, "He wore the long, loose shirts, the burda and the habra and the jubba, and he wore the turban with a face-veil and loose-ended, the izar and the rida'." Jabir ibn Samurah () says, "I saw the Prophet on a moonlit night. He had a red cloak over his body, and I looked attentively in turn towards him and the moon. Certainly, he appeared to me more beautiful than the moon itself." He used to wear the white turban and the black turban and sometimes the red turban. He used to leave a tail at the back of his turban. Imam Tabari said "he used to have a turban of seven arms' length." He had a turban by the name of Sihab (the Clouds) which he gave to Ali (). He used to wear a silver ring on his right hand, engraved with the words "Muhammadun Rasul-Allah." He used to wear khuffs (leather socks) on his feet. He liked perfumes and fragrant scents.

He never saw ease and would not possess even a bed, as he wished to make his abode in the next world. His mattress was made from tree-leaves. He had a big cloak which he used to put on the floor and sit on. Sometimes he use to sleep on a reed mat or directly on the floor.


The Miracles of the Holy Prophet

He was a healer for himself and for others. He used to heal by reciting Qur'an on the sick person. He warned people to avoid too much eating. He performed countless miracles. He prayed that Ali not feel the hot and cold weather, and he never felt them. He prayed for Ibn `Abbas to be a genius in religion, jurisprudence, and explanation of Qur'an, which came to pass. When Qutada's eye fell out of its socket, he put it back, and Qutada was able to see with it better than he ever had before. He rubbed the foot of Ibn Abi `Atiq when it was broken and it healed immediately. The moon split on his order as a sign to the unbelievers. Water sprang forth from his fingers from which a whole army drank and made ablution. From a small cup of water, water was pouring, making the desert like an oasis. The branch of a tree under which he sat, bowed in a gesture of love as he stood up to leave. The minbar (pulpit) at which he used to preach, used to give a moaning sound, as if crying for him. The stones praised Allah in his hand, so that everyone heard them. The animals complained to him. The deer and the wolf testified to his prophethood. He predicted that his daughter Fatima would be the first to follow him in death. He foretold Uthman Dhu-n-Nurayn, his third caliph and son-in-law, would be assassinated. He announced the murder of al-Aswad bin Annasi on the night of his death in Sana'a in far off Yaman. He mentioned the death of the King of Persia to his Companions on the exact moment that it happened. He ate meat full of poison, but nothing happened to him though the one who ate with him died immediately. Countless other miracles could be mentioned.


The Sayings of the Holy Prophet

No one can make a complete account of his sayings. Even if the seas of this world were ink and the trees were pens no one could write all the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad . Thousands and hundreds of thousands of his ahadith (narrated sayings) have been written from what he was saying and it was known as the `Ilm al-Hadith or Science of Prophetic Narration.

He said:

"Allah rewards people according to what they achieve."

"Allah said, whoever comes against one of My saints, I will declare war against him."

"Allah's saints are under his domes. No one knows them except Him."

"Be near the poor [meaning the spiritual poor] because they have a government of their own."

"Be in this world as a stranger and a guest, and make the mosques your homes, and teach your heart leniency, and make much remembrance and cry much."

"How many people welcome a day whose end they will not live to see, and expect a tomorrow which they do not reach?"

"Say the truth, even if to your detriment."

"Make everything easy and don't make it difficult. Give good tidings and don't cause people to run away."

"Allah said, 'O Son of Adam, you will get what you have intended, and you will be with the one whom you love more.'"

"Keep Allah and He will keep you. Keep Allah before you. If you need help, ask His Help."

"Be austere in this lower world and Allah will love you. Be austere with what is in the hands of people and the people will love you."

"The one who has the most perfect mind is the one who is most fearful of Allah.

"Beware of the lower world because it is a black magic."

"Refrain except from good speech."

"Give back the Trust and don't betray it."

"When Allah loves someone, He will put him in difficulties."

"When Allah wants good for His servant, He will guide him to someone that shows him the way."

"Forgive, and Allah will forgive you."

"Be merciful, Allah will be merciful with you."

"The one under the heaviest punishment on the Day of Judgment is a fierce scholar."

"The one under the heaviest punishment on the Day of Judgement is a scholar whose knowledge did not benefit him."

"Ask Allah forgiveness and health."

"Keep what you are doing secret."

"The most sinful person is the one whose tongue is always lying."

"All Creation is a servant of Allah. The most beloved to Him among them is the one that helped his brothers."

"The best deed is when people will be safe from your tongue and your hand."

"As long as you say 'La ilaha ill-Allah' (No god but God) it will lift Allah's punishment from you and change you for the good."

"O People, are you not ashamed that you collect more than you eat, and you build houses more than you need to live in?"

The Passing of the Holy Prophet

When Allah Almighty and Exalted perfected his Nation and completed His favor on His Prophet , He transferred him to a house better than his house, and to a Friend better than his friends. Allah Called his soul in his last days. As a result, his final sickness began in the last ten days of the month of Safar, in the house of his wife Maimuna (). When his sickness intensified, he transferred to the house of `Ayesha (). He was sick for twelve days. He used to send Abu Bakr as-Siddiq to lead the prayers as a sign to the Sahaba that he had chosen him as his successor.

He passed away on a Monday, the 12th of Rabi`ul Awwal. Wrapped in his nightgown, he was washed by Sayyidinas `Ali, `Abbas ibn `Abd al-Muttalib and his two sons, Qutham and Fadl. `Usama bin Zaid and Shakran were pouring the water which Awwas Khazraji was bringing from the well. As they performed their washing, the body exuded beautiful scents, so that `Ali () said continually: "By God, what would I give for you! How sweet you are and how wholesome you are, both alive and dead!" His Companions entered his house one by one to pray on him, then ladies prayed on him, then children prayed on him. He was buried in the same place he passed away, in the house of `Ayesha . Abu Talhah Zayd ibn Sahl dug his grave and those who washed him lowered his blessed body into it. Then it was covered and leveled and they threw water on it.

People were bereaved, tongues were silent. The world seemed darkened. No one knew what to say. The Holy Spirit -- the angel Jibril -- was no longer to come bringing revelation. The Prophet's death was the greatest disaster for every Companion. Many people were crying and shouting. But Allah sent supporters for His religion, because that was the Seal of Prophets. He sent a Renewer (mujaddid) of this religion century after century. Saint after saint, we find that every grandshaykh of the Most Distinguished Naqshbandi Order was like a shadow of the Prophet , reviving the deen (religion) and training the seekers to find their Lord as the Companions had been trained.

The secret of God's strong support and pure guidance passed from Muhammad to his beloved friend, Abu Bakr as-Siddiq. What the Prophet poured into the heart of Abu Bakr () no one knows. May Allah send upon our Prophet more and more of His Light! He was sent as a Mercy for human beings and his secret passed from one saint to another to support this religion and to bring his secret to the hearts of human beings.
-Shaykh Hisham Kabbani Naqshbandi. A traditional view of the Prophet.

Re#173 and a few others

Zeemax

You haven't rebutted anything I said, nothing that I could read here anyway. You seem to be going around in circles with your rhetoric. If you had read my replies in 152/153, you would not have been so smug. I also laid down the limitations of current scientific knowledge, BUT I also stated that gaps in knowledge cannot be filled with fairytales.

If you are so proponent of the creation of Adam ex-nihilo, are you suggesting that Adam's earlier offsprings procreated with each other, to elaborate, brothers sleeping with sisters, "so you may understand"; its a false argument.

Coming to your logic, if it can be called that, how do you define religion? Before we were talking about Islam and Sufism etc. Why are you taking ownership for the term "religion". Which religion anyway? They are far from being unanimous in moral issues. According to the Old Testament, God's (or Yahweh or Allah - he can't stick with one name can he?!) so called chosen one Lot (i.e., "Hazrat Loot Alah-is-salam" to you) offers his daughters to a lynch mob so his "guests" (god's angels) could be spared the humiliation of being raped by the "frustrated sodomites". What kind of a sick man would do that. Earlier in the same myth he manages to impregnate his daughters as, being sexually frustrated for not having any men around, they decide to get him drunk and "lay with him" as the good book puts it. Parts of the stories of Lot and his odd tribe have permeated into Islamic folklore, obviously the details haven't all come from the Koran.

Abraham and his son Isaac (Ismail in Muslim mythology) had this "trusting" relationship with god that he appears in his dreams a couple of times and off he goes with his son to sacrifice him to his master and (?)friend. Now you tell me "wise guy"!, would you sacrifise your child, at the age of 8/9 in some god's name if he happens to appear repeatedly in your dreams. Its you, not I, who started this circular reasoning. I think the sensible course to take would be to seek professional help. Now you can't get out of this one as millions of poor, unsuspecting animals are sacrifised each year on "Eid-ul-Adha" in commemmoration of this deplorable fairytale. And exactly what moral lessons can one derive from it, please elaborate; I am waiting intently!