{"id":4219,"date":"2020-08-17T12:31:20","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T07:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=4219"},"modified":"2020-08-17T12:32:05","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T07:02:05","slug":"our-childhood-spiritual-odysseys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/our-childhood-spiritual-odysseys\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Childhood Spiritual Odysseys"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>\n
\"\"
A view of Srinagar City<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nostalgia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up\namongst Friars<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Author<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Z G Muhammad <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was something beautiful- something extraordinary about our\ncity. It is incomprehensible. At least, I have not understood it.  Something has been about it that had made\nhundreds of Saints, Sages and Sufis converging on it, making it a permanent\nabode and ultimately the final resting place- the shrines. The lofty minarets\nand spires of these shrines, centuries after continue to wrap up the city I was\nborn in and brought up in a mosaic of mystiques.  Hymns in praise of Almighty Allah and pierced\nthe eerie morning silence. These Astana and Khanaqahs cascading with\nspirituality resound with tributes for the last messenger of Allah by great\nPersian poets.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 I am proud of being born\nin this city. I am proud of sharing my spiritual ancestry with Sarafi, Ghani\nand Khaki- great men of devotion and learning. Many times, when I look back,\na   sense of delight fills my heart and\nreminds me of my playful days in the compounds of these Astanas,  jostling and pushing my friends on the stairs\nleading to the shrine perched on the mount Koh-I-Maran<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hundreds of mendicants, wearing long cloaks on their bare bodies\ntouching their ankles, some in multi-coloured- patch-pherans and some in rags came\nto these shrines from far and distant places, and stayed for days in around our\nMohalla. Sometimes, my younger sibling Hassan, my peers Bashir, Deena and Ayub and\nI were unwittingly and instinctively baptized in spirituality even while\nplaying hopscotch and tip-cat outside or on the lawns of these Astanas and\nhospices. My peers and I might have squatted hundreds of times along mendicants\nand beggars on the smoothly chiselled limestone pavements of the hospice in our\nMohalla built in the name of great fourteenth-century saint Hazrat Baha–<\/strong>U-Din Naqshband Bukhari born in the\nvillage of Qasri-I-Arfan near Bukhari in Uzbekistan. And savoured sipping\ncinnamon-kahawa<\/em> laced with parrot\ngreen cardamom from terracotta cups- some painted in gaudy colours and some rough\nand drab.  There were many stories about\neating in terracotta bowls and drinking tea in ceramic cups- All saints,\nincluding Sheikh-ul-Alam, we believed drank from clay cups.  Hundreds of times, I might have joined the\ncrowds of beggars, passersby and devotees with extended ‘moon of my palms’ for\nreceiving taharee <\/em>turmeric-boiled-rice,\nand machama, <\/em>Candy-yellow-rice. It\nwas out of great devotion and faith that children sat along with the beggars\nand mendicants on the bare floor of the shrines for sipping the green tea and\nrelished the handful of candy-yellow-rice.   It was in our social ethos not to call a\nbeggar a beggar but treat him with respect and call him a Musafir- <\/em>(traveller). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember, we children of the natives who carried no airs about\nour lineage were taught to respect the municipal worker Habib Sheikh who cleaned\ndrains and swept lanes of our Mohalla as good as our teachers. They were doing a\ngreat job of keeping the city clean, we were told. “Hold in high esteem mendicants,\nbeggars, needy and have-nots”, this line was religiously drilled in our\nmind by elders at home. My uncle often told me that you do not know if the man in\nrags squatting on the bare floor of the Astana was a divine soul or a Dervish or a Qalandar<\/em>. To impress upon\nchildren respecting the ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water,’ he often quoted\none or other line from Allama Muhammad Iqbal like: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nigah-e-faqr main shaan-e-sikandari\nkya hai?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Khiraaj ki jo gada ho, wo qaiseri kya hai?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(What is worth of a kingdom in the\neyes of a saint?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Such a rule in which the ruler is always\nworried about keeping it secure is worthless \ud83d\ude09<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, many pious commoners with a healing touch that I love calling\nas the ‘ordinary legendry’ embellished the landscape of the city. I remember\none Muhammad Shaban Sheikh- a shoemaker popularly named Shaban Sahib with\nsparkling sunken eyes in wee morning hours much before sun rays glided spires\nof Masjids and Astana’s swept the lawns of the Astana of Naqshband Sahib. He did\nthe job out of devotion, not for any material gains.  Many times I spotted him squatting on the\nlawns of the shrine under the canopy of any of the five majestic Chinars his\nhead dipped inside his long “pheran<\/em>“.\nDuring winters, he would be sitting in the hallway of the hospice in deep\nmeditation. He stayed at the shrine till sun brightened the tops of Chinars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 His shop was not that far\naway from the shrine. It was just five to six hundred yards from our Mohalla in\nnext Mohalla. On his shop, he would often be seen busy in making leather shoes\nand mending shoes and sandals. A couple of young cobblers also worked in his\nsmall shop. The shoemakers’ tools pincers, an assortment of awls, heel removers\nand Turkish hammers were dexterously fitted on walls with leather strips.  The three-pronged anvils- that were\ndistinctive in cobblers’ shops on a low height wooden stool. I often spotted\nShaban Sahib fully engrossed making and mending shoes. People often visited him\non his shop for seeking his blessings and requested him for Dua<\/em>.  He accepted no money, gifts or offerings. On\nmany occasion, I saw him whispering something in the ears of men seeking his\nblessings. And people mostly departed from his shop satisfied. My friends and I\nall respected him and believed that he was a divine man above worldly\nconsiderations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Unlike other Dervishes<\/em> that I had seen in taqis<\/em>– hashish parlours in our localities\nneither listened to music nor smoked hashish. I do not know if he followed Naqshbandi\nsilsila .\u2026<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaban Sahib, the cobbler for his spiritual attainment powers\nwas no ordinary mortal. our city has lost all its spiritual ambience, and we have\nbecome hollow men as the poet says, “headpieces\nfilled with straw.”  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A view of Srinagar City<\/p>\n

Nostalgia<\/p>\n

Growing up
\namongst Friars<\/p>\n

By<\/p>\n

Author<\/p>\n

Z G Muhammad <\/p>\n

There was something beautiful- something extraordinary about our
\ncity. It is incomprehensible. At least, I have not understood it.  Something has been about it that had made
\nhundreds of Saints, Sages and Sufis converging on it, making it a permanent
\nabode and ultimately the final resting place- the shrines. The lofty minarets
\nand spires of these shrines, centuries after continue to wrap up the city I was
\nborn in and brought up in a mosaic of mystiques.  Hymns in praise of Almighty Allah and pierced
\nthe eerie morning silence. These Astana and Khanaqahs cascading with
\nspirituality resound with tributes for the last messenger of Allah by great
\nPersian poets.  <\/p>\n

 I am proud of being born
\nin this city. I am proud of sharing my spiritual ancestry with Sarafi, Ghani
\nand Khaki- great men of devotion and learning. Many times, when I look back,
\na   sense of delight fills my heart and
\nreminds me …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,5,319],"tags":[287,325,383],"class_list":["post-4219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-take","category-kashmir-talk","category-memeiors","tag-downtown-boy","tag-nostalgia-zgm","tag-spirtual-kashmir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4219"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4219"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4220,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4219\/revisions\/4220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}