Lahore - off the beaten track

It’s a common lament but modern Lahoris are largely indifferent to their glorious history. For most affluent residents of the city a culinary visit to Cooco’s or Andaaz with their majestic rooftop views of the 17th century Badshahi Mosque suffice as a representative cultural experience, before they beat a hasty retreat to the attractions of the Y Block market. But beyond the well-known spectacular treasures of Lahore’s heritage (Lahore Fort, Badshahi Mosque, Shalamar Gardens, Lahore Museum, Masjid Wazir Khan etc.), all of which are well worth discovering and rediscovering, there are hundreds of amazing places, in and outside the walled city, that tell “tales without end” of Lahore’s fascinating past. Here is a smattering of some of my favorite, less frequently visited, historic sites.

Shrines:

Entrance to the shrine of Syed Hussain Zanjani

Legend has it that the patron saint of Lahore, Data Ganj Bakhsh (d. 1072), arrived in Lahore the day another revered saint, Syed Hussain Zanjani, died. The shrine of Syed Hussain Zanjani is located in the Chah Miran area, and once found with some difficulty, is an oasis of tranquility and spiritual quiet in an area otherwise bustling with commercial activity. There is a spot that marks the place where the famous saint Khawaja Mueenuddin Chishti of Ajmer (Rajasthan) prayed at the shrine when he visited Lahore.

Not far from Syed Hussain Zanjani’s tomb, is one of the most wonderful shrines in the city: the 16th century Mazar of the child saint Ghoray Shah. As you enter the gateway, you see the stall selling toy clay horses that devotees buy as an offering for the saint. The child saint Syed Burhanuddin Ghoray Shah, who loved horses, was believed to have miraculous powers. People who brought him gifts of a toy horse had all their wishes fulfilled. It is said that Ghoray Shah was heart-broken after being scolded by his pious father for granting favors in exchange for toys and died at age five. Four hundred years later, devotees are still bringing toy horses for the saint to seek his favor and to have him intercede on their behalf. The enclosure is peaceful and cool with the shade of old trees. Toy clay horses can be seen placed near the saint’s grave on a raised platform as well as along the graveyard fence.
 

Ghoray Shah Shrine - Toy horses can be seen on the platform in the background

The history of darbaars, mazaars and dargaahs of Lahore can fill volumes. Leaving out Mian Mir (in whose adjacent graveyard I fortuitously found the gravesite of poet Faiz’s beloved older brother Tufail with an inscription of Faiz’s famous verses “Mujh ko shikwa hai meray bhai keh tum jaate hue”) or Madho Lal Hussain seems egregiously wrong but we must move on.


Poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz's brother's tombstone inside Mian Mir's shrine

Havelis:

The walled city had many grand havelis for the intellectual and ruling elites of the city and despite the loss of many historic structures due to official neglect, fortunately, some major havelis are still extant. Despite not being in great condition, Mubarak Haveli in Kucha Chabaksawaran inside Mochi Gate is well worth a visit. It is owned by the Qizilbash family now, having been granted to them for their services to the British. Its fascinating history includes being the temporary residence of the Afghan king Shah Shuja Durrani when he was in exile in Lahore in 1813 / 1814. It is in this haveli that he surrendered the Kohinoor diamond to Maharaja Ranjit Singh in exchange for his freedom. Kohinoor, later taken by the British now forms part of the British Crown Jewels at the Tower of London.
 

Exterior of Mubarak Haveli

Just down the street from the Mubarak haveli in Mochi Darwaza is another Qizilbash property called Nisar Haveli, famous for being the starting point of Lahore’s Muharram procession. The procession starts there and after winding its way through the walled city eventually ends on the evening of 10th Muharram at Karbala Gamay Shah next to the Central Model School not far from the Government College. Beyond its religious and cultural significance, Karbala Gamay Shah is also interesting as the burial place of the great Urdu writer and scholar Muhammad Hussain Azad (who died in Lahore in 1910). Azad’s book Aab-e-Hayat (published in 1880) on Urdu poets and poetry is considered one of the pioneering works of its genre. The site in the back courtyard is marked by a brick structure with a white dome.

Nisar Haveli Courtyard

 

Tomb of Urdu writer Muhammad Hussain Azad in Karbala Gamay Shah

Unfortunately, I have not yet had the opportunity to see, reputedly, the two best maintained grand havelis in the city; Haveli Baroodkhana (owned by the Mian family) and ‘Mubarak Begum’ haveli (owned by the Syed family).

Mosques:

Interior of Begum Shahi Mosque

Anyone who has not visited Masjid Wazir Khan inside Delhi Gate must first visit that gem of Lahore’s architecture. But inside the walled city another lesser known mosque should attract many more visitors. Entering androon shehr from Masti Gate, you will find the oldest extant Mughal mosque in Lahore, the Maryam Zamani or Begum Shahi Mosque, built in 1614. This beautiful mosque close to the Akbari Gateway entrance of the Lahore Fort was built by Emperor Jahangir’s mother who was known as Maryam-uz-zamani (Mary of her age). This wife of Emperor Akbar and mother of Jahangir, born Rajkumari Hira Kunwari, was a Rajput princess and the daughter of Raja Bihari Mal of Amber (now Jaipur). Its prayer hall is beautifully decorated and the central dome remarkable for the richness of its muqarnas and painted frescos.
 

Sikh Monuments:

Gurdwara Janam Asthan Guru Ram Das Ji

Lahore has a rich array of well-known Sikh era buildings like havelis (e.g. Mai Jindan haveli, Haveli Naunehal Singh, now Victoria Girls School), Samadhis (e.g. Maharaja Ranjit Singh) and Gurdwaras (e.g. Dera Sahib in the same compound as Ranjit Singh samadhi) but a lesser known Gurdwara inside the walled city bears mention. In Kotwali Wala Bazaar near Chuna Mandi Chowk in Kashmiri Gate is the “Gurdwara Janam Asthan of Guru Ram Das Jee”. Guru Ram Das was the fourth of the Ten Gurus of Sikhism and was born in Chuna Mandi in 1534. He founded the original township which became the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. The Gurdwara is in good condition and is actively used by the Sikh community. Sikh volunteers keep the structure well-maintained.

With every visit to the historic Lahore, I find, that more and more historical buildings are suffering from neglect or worse, being destroyed. Just last month on a visit to the beautiful Dai Anga Mosque (built in 1649), I was heartbroken to see that the original interior of the mosque had been scraped and ripped out and was being replaced by white bathroom tiles on cement, completely destroying the historic structure. The sign in the mosque’s courtyard calling it a “protected monument” seemed like a cruel joke. To effectively protect a city or nation’s history, culture and heritage its people and governments have to know, care for and value their treasures.

For those interested in exploring the great city of Lahore, I highly recommend getting Yasmeen Lari’s “Lahore Travel Guide”. It is meticulously researched and is a treasure trove of Lahore’s history and heritage. The hand-drawn maps of the walled city are painstakingly done. As a native of Lahore who was unaware of many corners of my own city’s history for too long, I must thank Ms. Lari for this outstanding labour of love.

This post was originally published in the March 28th, 2014 issue of The Friday Times.

The Magic of Qawwali

For the last few weeks I have been immersed in listening to traditional Qawwali music and what a transporting experience it has been! The initial impetus was a couple of divine Coke Studio Pakistan performances this season by the scions of the "Qawwal Bachhay" gharana: Farid Ayaz and Abu Muhammad's "Kangna" (Raga Malkauns) in episode 2 and Ustad Naseeruddin Saami's "Mundari" (Raga Adana) in episode 3. Additionally, I have drawn endless inspiration from Musab's blog "Tangled up in Blue" which has become my home destination when I want to learn about qawwali and its traditions and savor the offerings of the great qawwals. (Musab is someone I have gotten to know only in the blogosphere but this 24 year old in Pakistan genuinely makes me optimistic that our rich cultural heritage will survive and maybe even thrive for many more generations!)

For me, a large part of the pleasure in the arts comes from sharing treasures with others who also love the diversity and ingenuity of human creativity. So here are a few qawwalis I have been enjoying by some of the masters of this genre.

Let me start with the most famous practitioner of all: Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He recorded so much and experimented with so many things during his final few years that some of his music started to lose its sufi / qawwali essence. Poorly done fusion tracks, thumping incongruous beats and amateurish videos of the Ustad singing "Afreen, Afreen" can only be described as regrettable. For, he was indeed a great qawwal! You have to listen to his traditional qawwalis to remember his magic and to recall the great tradition of qawwali in Punjab to which he was an heir. (We are fortunate that with his father Fateh Ali Khan, uncle Mubarak Ali Khan, cousin Badar Miandad and nephew Rahat Fateh Ali we have access to three generations of this family's qawwali music.) Here's Amir Khusrau's famous kalaam, "Mun Kunto Maula" in a wonderful live rendition in London in 1989.

(Update: The London video is no longer on YouTube so here's another excellent version by NFAK - November 2019)

The next piece is by the lesser known Javed Taufiq Niazi and party from the Khurji Noharbani gharana of Bulundshehr, U.P. Along with Punjab, Delhi and U.P. are the other great centers of qawwali tradition in the sub-continent. Niazi sahib and party are based in Karachi. I hope that they gain more public prominence as their style of singing still feels beautifully rooted in the soil of U.P. and retains a great charm. (Zak, maybe you folks can invite them to T2F!). I have listened to the qawwali "Aaya bana aaya, haryala bana aaya" below at least a couple of dozen times in the last few days. The imagery of Hazrat Imam Hussain (visualized as a bridegroom) transformed to the U.P. landscape mixes the spiritual and the local in a manner unique to the syncretistic culture of the region.

Haider ka poot aaya, Zainab ka jaaya aaya
Haider ka poot aaya, Zehra ka jaaya aaya
Hoor-o-malak nay gaaya
Haryala bana aaya, dulara bana aaya

(Update: It is sad that almost all great qawwali videos by Javed Taufiq Niazi and party seem to have disappeared from YouTube. Here's a version of this qawwali by Farid Ayaz & Abu Muhammad but sadly the audio quality is poor - November 2019)

The last piece is a well-known qawwali (among the afficionado) but what makes it quite unusual is that it is a bhajan with lyrics by Nawab Hilm of Hyderabad. This version below is by Farid Ayaz and Abu Muhammad Qawwal, the worthy current flag bearers (along with Naseeruddin Saami) of the longest line of qawwali singers originating in Delhi at the time of Amir Khusrau. Just the "Qawwal Bachhay" generation ahead of them boasted the great Munshi Raziuddin, Manzoor Niazi and Bahauddin/Qutbuddin Qawwals. I understand that recently the sons of Farid Ayaz and Abu Muhammad had their initiation and gave their first public performance in Karachi inaugurating the next generation of the 750 year old tradition. I wish them the very best in keeping alive the illustrious family tradition. Here is "Kanhaiya yaad hai kuch bhi hamari".

Sufi Islam in South Asia – “A Staggering Multicultural Achievement”

Every year, The Economist magazine prints a delightful ‘special holiday double issue” around Christmas. It is filled with unfailingly interesting essays on an amazingly wide array of subjects. This year’s piece de resistance is the essay on South Asian Sufi Islam titled “Of Saints and Sinners”.

The essay is a wonderfully reported depiction of popular Islam as practiced by the millions of devotees of Sufi saints whose tombs and shrines are dotted all across India and Pakistan. These adherents range from the more serious-minded who seek self knowledge as a path to knowing God through contemplation, meditation and Quranic recitations to the far more numerous who flock to these shrines to beseech the saints to answer their prayers, leave offerings of gratitude and to celebrate the popular festivals centered around the urs (death anniversary) of their respective saint. An urs is a festive celebration because the word literally means wedding night to signify the saint's union with God after death.

The Economist essay is focused in large part on the celebration of the urs of the sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan Sharif in Sindh, Pakistan where almost a million people congregate for this 3-day event. (2008 was the 734th anniversary of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar's death.) The descriptions of the throngs of devotees, their diversity and tolerance, the ubiquitous scenes of dancing and celebration with non-stop performances of beautiful music and sufi poetry are joyous and heart-warming.

The Economist does not acknowledge it but it would be unfair not to give credit here to Declan Walsh of "The Guardian" who first reported in the Western press on this great gathering in Sehwan Sharif last year and where I first learnt of this incredible festival in rich detail. His two pieces in 2007 called "Devotees go for a whirl at the country's biggest party" and "The greatest party on earth?" are well worth reading. In particular there is a fantastic audio slideshow that I highly recommend. It has several wonderful photographs from the festival and a very traditional qawwali performance at the shrine in the background.

We cannot move on without sampling some music deeply associated with Sehwan and Lal Shahbaz Qalandar. The signature performance honoring Qalandar (also affectionately known as Jhuley Lal because devotees believe that he fulfils the fertility wishes of childless mothers) is "Lal Meri Pat Rakhio Bhala Jhule Lalan". Every major Sufi musician or Qawwal performs this regularly and it is not unusual to end the program with this as a finale as it tends to bring the house down. Here are distinctly different versions of this piece from two of the greatest sufi singers of the last half century. Here is Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan who is in superb form here:



and here is the inimitable Abida Parveen:



There has been a relentless onslaught in Pakistan against this popular and syncretic form of religion for the last 30 years. Since the beginning of the Russo-Afghan war in 1979, the Pakistani military state, Saudi Wahhabi zeal fueled with petrodollars and American cold war myopia all conspired to promote an intolerant and jihadi Islam that has done tremendous damage to the fabric of mostly tolerant South Asian Islam practiced in much of Punjab and Sindh for centuries. Mercifully, it has still survived in very large pockets because it has roots in the people. Yes, it is superstitious but it is also remarkably generous, tolerant and joyful.

Lahore, where I grew up, is a city full of shrines and mausoleums of saints with each of these hundreds of sites tended to by dedicated keepers and visited in large numbers by devotees, particularly for the annual urs celebration. Each saint has their own legend and mythology and locals keep these traditions alive primarily through oral story-telling. Even when you move beyond the large and well known destinations, like the tomb ('mazar') of Data Ganj Baksh Ali Hajveri (the 11th century sufi who is virtually the patron saint of Lahore) or that of Hazrat Mian Mir (the 16th century saint deeply venerated by Jahangir and Shahjehan and whose tomb was constructed by Shahjehan's son, the poet-prince Dara Shikoh), there is an endless stream of people who visit lesser known but no less fascinating shrines of saints whose stories read like something out of Arabian nights.

There is the shrine of Madho Lal Hussain (which is actually two separate people, the Hindu boy Madho and the saint Lal Hussain, who legend has it were inseparable), the site of the annual Mela ChiraghaN (Festival of Lamps) and a place revered by both Hindus and Muslims. There is the remarkable 16th century mazar of the child saint Ghoray Shah (who died when he was 5) and who, it is believed, loved toy horses so a gift of a toy horse from his followers would result in their prayers being answered. This mazar is crowded with people and you can see the many toy horses that devotees continue to bring for Ghoray Shah. There is also Bibi Pak Daman (Chaste Lady), one of the most popular shrines in the city (not far from Queen Mary's College) which is reputed to be the sepulchre of Ruqqaiya or Bibi Haj and her five virgin sisters. Again, according to local legend Bibi Haj was from Hazrat Ali's family and came to the sub-continent in the early 8th century several years after the battle of Karbala. However, the earth opened up and buried her alive after she had been asked to appear in front of the local ruler which the chaste lady did not wish to do. (Historians date this grave instead to the 12th century and surmise that the daughters buried here were those of Syed Ahmed Tokhta Tirmizi). And hundreds of these Shehrzad-like stories go on and on in a muddled but tolerant, rich and captivating mix of religion and superstition.

Credits: Information about Lahore's shrines are sourced from Yasmeen Lari's excellent Heritage Guidebook on Lahore.