This appeared in TOI today.
A Strange Meeting
Wahhabism finds an unexpected counter
Ali Khan
A village in Barabanki district is a microcosm of the struggle between the Barelvi Sunnis and those with Wahhabi inclinations. The town鈥檚 population is largely Sunni with a Shia minority. Before partition, the rulers of the estate were Shia and a collateral branch of the Mahmudabad family. Mahmudabad鈥檚 Muharram processions are famous all over India and in some parts of the world. When processions were banned in Lucknow, people flocked to Mahmudabad. Bilehra always had smaller processions but the thing that stood out was that most of the crowds were Sunni Muslims.
With the arrival of funds from some Middle East countries as well as returning migrant workers, some of whom had spent years away from home and were influenced by their surroundings, Bilehra gradually saw the rise of Wahhabism. The crowds in Muharram diminished and the number of people who attended prayers at the Barelvi mosque also fell. According to one young man, for a number of years the people who subscribed to the Barelvi school of thought would outwardly show loyalty to the Wahhabis.
The Wahhabis 鈥?with their puritanical behaviour and insistence that some Sunnis and all Shias are essentially infidels 鈥?have polarised Muslim societies worldwide. Their literalist interpretation of the Quran is reductionist and does not allow scope for debate, analysis or a contextual, historical and consequently nuanced understanding. They strictly forbid music, religious or spiritual, and the veneration of holy men amongst many other things.
A number of urs, gatherings around the tomb of a Sufi pir where music is performed and poetry is read aloud in remembrance of the Prophet, his family and the pir, are held in and around Bilehra. People who attended these functions are now subject to the taunts of students at the Wahhabi mosques. During Muharram, people would be afraid of going to processions or keeping a tazia, a paper replica of the shrine of Imam Hussain in Iraq, in their houses since these acts would also mark them out for heckling and jeering. The less powerful Barelvis could not match the money or resources thrown at them. But it is not power or money that has shaken or caught by surprise the Wahhabis.
Earlier this year an individual ignored and labelled a madman roaming the streets of Bilehra became the crucial factor in the
resurgence of the Barelvis. Mastaan Baba was homeless. People remember him wandering around, sleeping under trees, eating what little he was given and never trying to gather any worldly possessions. About six months ago, he was asleep as usual underneath a mango tree in the fields adjoining the Kerbala, where the tazias are brought after the processions and buried. A little girl came and lay down next to him and when he noticed her he got upset, pushed her and asked her to go away. Apparently, when she got up, her back had straightened and she was no longer a hunchback.
People flocked from villages all around to see the girl and to see this man. He continued to wear what he had always worn, a dirty white kurta, a black lungi or cotton towel wrapped around his legs like a sarong. He carried a little satchel tucked under his arms. The little brick room in which he sometimes slept has now become a beehive of activity. People have set up shops around the room, a power cable that was meant to be laid a long time ago is now finally in place and there is a constant throng around him.
Politicians, IAS officers and many other officials have all come to him in different capacities. Since that night he hit the girl, there have been more stories about his powers and how he has changed people鈥檚 lives. Hindus and Muslims both are seen around him. This article is not about whether following him is permissible in Islam. It seems that people are desperate to seek out men who have not been 鈥榗orrupted鈥?by the material world. The rise of Mastaan Baba in Bilehra has had an inadvertent effect on Bilehra鈥檚 Muslims.
People who had gone over to the Wahhabi mosque and others who had hidden their true sympathies with the Barelvis have started to drift back. Whereas the Barelvi mosque used to be nearly empty with about 30 people, recent Eid prayers saw close to 300 people in attendance. Wahhabis in Bilehra who openly condemned anything involving the veneration of living or dead men as innovations in Islam, have found themselves drawn to a quiet, wandering man. A few refuse to acknowledge Mastaan Baba but, according to people who live there, their wives and daughters regularly and secretly go to visit him!
It seems there are now a couple of more people in Bilehra who claim to be Mastaan Baba. Regardless of whether this man is genuine or not, it seems he has managed to single-handedly and unintentionally stall the rise of Wahhabism, in and around Bilehra.
The writer is a religious studies sc
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See in Islam main thing is salaat, fasting etc. After performing those you come here to get some amusement by answering or questioning or by other internet etc.
Those people in villages or towns, they too need amusement after their farz prayers. Now all do not know or have ability to use internet. Many do not read novels or story as now present educated persons do.
So they do something to pass time. They don't have much love either for Allah or prophet as they may mention in their poem, discussion etc. But that is not a problem. Too much crazy love is not needed too.
So, what was I talking to take it easy when you see those kind of people. Or there is only one thing to do. Now Iftaar time :)
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A story created to extract peoples money
You know Im Pakistani and I know Barelvis. Im Shia myself. Most of the Sufi Saints, they were Shias, just very very ultra liberal and open minded.The Barelvis are the sect of Hanafi Sunnis that formed to preserve the Sufi traditions of the Subcontinent from the Wahabi inspired Deobandi's slander.
They're good people mainly, less liable to cause Fitnah in the name of religion and they also have great love for the Ahl-e-Bayt. They're like Islam was before colonialism and Wahhabi destroyed the Sufi legacy that was prevalent in the Muslim world before that.
But educated Barelvis would call this Mastaan Baba story as village BS. The Sufi Shrines are usually under the control of the Pirs and Malangs who tolerate drinks and drugs. They are sanctuaries for the most wretched people in society, the beggars %26amp; addicts. So the Sufi shrines themselves have lost their own legacy, of asceticism and spirituality and instead have become faint shadows of themselves
Also you may find this interesting
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/world/鈥?/a>
