International
KARACHI, Pakistan — At the base of one of this city’s oldest Sufi shrines, in the Manghopir neighborhood, a woman haggles over a bag of meat. Sold for $2 a half-kilo, the meat will be fed to one of the crocodiles that laze in the murky green waters of the pond next to the shrine.
The woman, Haseena Iqbal, traveled more than three hours from her home across town with her daughter, son and two nieces to visit the saint buried at the shrine. Like many of the shrine’s visitors, she believes the crocodiles are sacred, formed when the head lice of the saint buried here mixed with the holy water of the hot springs, which bubbles underneath the shrine. As is customary, Iqbal arrived with a mannat, a request for the saint. She believes that by feeding the crocodiles, her prayers will be answered.
Iqbal has already paid bus fare and an entrance fee and given a donation to the shrine’s saint. Now she’s worried that the meat’s inflated price means she won’t have enough money to get home. The crocodiles’ caretaker, Shahan Mahmood, shakes his head sadly. He can’t afford to sell her the meat at a lower price.
“The crocodiles are starving,” he says. “No one is coming to feed them.”
In the last year, Mahmood and the rest of the shrine’s caretakers have buried two crocodiles. For two years, they say, very few of the eggs laid by the reptiles here have hatched. Iqbal forks over the change and watches as the caretaker walks to the makeshift iron fence to feed the closest crocodile. Mahmood says this is the first purchase of meat he has seen in three days.
Since 2009, attacks by militant religious groups on shrines like this one have deterred visitors, threatening not just the lives of the crocodiles but the ancient Sufi culture of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital. Groups with roots in Saudi Wahhabism — a school of Islamic ideology that’s practiced by groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban — believe that many of the teachings of Pakistan’s Sufi culture, including the concept of mannat, are directly opposed to Islam and akin to idol worship. After the Pakistani Taliban struck Karachi’s most popular shrine, that of patron saint Abdullah Shah Gazi, with twin bombs in 2010, the number of casual visitors to the mausoleum sharply declined.
Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, has been practiced in Pakistan for centuries — characterized by hypnotic rituals, a slew of saints scattered across the country and a personal approach to Allah. Its followers live across the Muslim world, although many of its traditions are particular to a given location. In Turkey, for example, Sufism is known for whirling dervishes, a specific dance style. In Pakistan, Sufi gatherings are marked by dhamaal, a South Asian dance that overtakes practitioners when the soul of a jinni invades the body.
“In Pakistan, Sufism has become intertwined with the pre-existing local culture, incorporating Islam into old Hindu and South Asian customs like praying to a saint; having a religious leader, known as a pir, prominently displayed in homes; and scattering rose petals on the tombs in shrines,” says Michel Boivin, a senior researcher at University of Paris’s Center for South Asian Studies. Sufi shrines were long visited by Muslims regardless of sect or socioeconomic background. But now, as fundamentalist ideology grows in Karachi and beyond, Sufi culture is under attack.
Haseena Iqbal
visitor to the Manghopir shrine
In Manghopir, the shrine’s caretakers worry about the consequences for their fledgling microeconomy. Vendors struggle to sell flowers outside the shrines, the mosaic tile work at the shrine falls into disrepair as donations shrink, and the beggars who once lived off visitors’ alms have dispersed. The shrine’s caretakers are concerned that eventually there may be no crocodiles left. Currently, they say, there are an estimated 200 crocodiles at the shrine, though the actual number appears to be smaller.
“Every so often we’ll sacrifice a goat and cut it up and feed it to the crocodiles, but these animals live off the donations of shrine visitors,” says Mahmood, who has watched over the reptiles since he was a young boy.
Each year since 2010, citing imminent threats by Islamic fundamentalists, the Sindh government has canceled the Sheedi Mela, an annual festival that long honored the culture of those responsible for caring for the shrine — all descendants of African slaves brought to Pakistan by Omani traders. Proceeds from the festival could often feed the crocodiles for months.
Muhammad Saleem Shaikh, the public-relations manager for the province’s charitable-giving department, which oversees shrines, mosques and historic religious venues, says he saw no choice but to cancel the festival again this year. Manghopir has become one of Karachi’s no-go zones, where violence and crime are so rampant that security forces refuse to enter. These pockets of lawlessness within Pakistan’s largest city have become safe havens for the Taliban, say analysts. In early November, five tortured bodies were found in the area; police have no leads or pending investigations into the crime. Says Shaikh, “Elsewhere in Karachi, homeless men seeking refuge in various shrines are found beheaded simply for practicing their religion.”
In January, at another shrine in the city, police found a scroll of paper inside the mouth of a man who had been beheaded. The note, signed by the Pakistani Taliban, said that worshipping Sufi saints was blasphemy and forbidden by Islam.
Baba Mohammad, an elder patron of Manghopir’s shrine, says he believes the Taliban consider the local Sufi community a threat. The Sufi culture that thrives in Sindh is one reason the Taliban haven’t made bigger inroads in the province, he says.
But more and more people are drawn to the Taliban’s brand of Islam. Mohammad’s grandson, Mohammad Bilal, began taking classes three years ago at a local madrassa. According to Baba Mohammad, his grandson was alarmed to learn how fundamentally opposed Sufism was to the Wahhabi Islam he was learning at the madrassa. He’s now stopped going to the shrine where he grew up, but his grandfather and uncles still visit almost every single day.
Iqbal says she saved for months to make the journey. She points to the face of her only son, partially paralyzed after an insect bite. She doesn’t have any money for doctors, she says; working as a maid in a middle-class neighborhood, she earns the equivalent of $50 a month. Even if she did have enough money, Iqbal says, she doesn’t believe that medical care could help her son. Instead, she came to pray to God, to feed the crocodiles and to wash her son in the hot springs, hoping for a miracle.
“My husband said, ‘Don’t go. The Taliban will kill you,’” she says. “But I had to try.”
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