The recent ISIS attack at the dargah of Shahbaz Qalandar, erroneously confused with the Sindhi Hindu deity Jhule Lal, has seen many odes to the ‘syncretic culture’ of Sindh in its wake. This prompted us to delve deep into the karamat (miraculous powers) of this Shahbaz of Sehwan (formerly Siwistan), whose dargah was constructed on the ruins of a destroyed Ardhanarishwar temple and fort dating to the era of Alexander. (c. 4th century BCE ).

Who exactly was Lal Shahbaz Qalandar?

According to his traditional biography, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar was born as Syed Muhammad Usman Marwand in 1177 in Iran. His ancestors were from Baghdad and had migrated to Afghanistan. He was initiated into the Suhrawardy order of Sufis in Azerbaijan and settled in Sindh. He started teaching at the Fuqhai Islam madarsa and also wrote his treatises Mizna-e-Sart, Kism-e-Doyum, Aqd and Zubda. He played a vital role in converting kafirs (non-believers) to Islam. He had his own place destroyed, in his lifetime, so that nobody would worship his grave after his death, as it was against the tenets of Islam.

However, it was rebuilt by his devotees, many of whom included Hindus. Ironically, this Sufi pir (a Muslim saint), who has been hailed as the champion of syncretic culture of Sindh against extremist forces such as IS, held the same views himself. His traditional biography says that when he first came to Sindh, he found that the natives were all kafirs and he despised them and their traditions. He used his (supposed) karamat to assert superiority over them.



Sehwan, back in the day

As already mentioned above, Sehwan, originally Siwistan, was inhabited by the Sivi tribe in the Vedic period. (Raja Sibi whose legendary tale of sacrifice and kindness is widely known, is said to have ruled this region itself). The region became very strongly associated with Shaivism by the early medieval period and was home to the Pashupata sect. In the early seventh century, the Chinese traveller Xuanzang found over 235 Shiva temples in upper Sindh along with a large one housed in Sehwan. It is generally agreed by modern scholarship that while lower Sindh had an even presence of Hindus and Buddhists, upper Sindh was predominantly Hindu. The Shiva Purana refers to the Indus River as a place where the holy ascetics can divest themselves of all their impurities. Al Beruni stated that Shiva is most frequently venerated in the south of Sindh.

The entire Indian sub-continent used to be, and still is, full of temples and sacred objects and places of pilgrimage. Anna Sururova in her book Muslim Saints of South Asia writes: