Friday, March 5, 2009 was the day when the mausoleum of the 17th-century Sufi poet Rahman Baba was bombed by militants. Disciples of the saint and mendicants around the shrine were busy making preparations for the three-day urs celebrations.

The horrible incident is still fresh in the minds of Baba’s followers, and visitors continue to feel reluctant to pay their respects at the resting place of their favourite Sufi poet. Rahman Baba (1653-1711) is considered the undisputed Pashto bard and has been respected by all segments of society from his own time till today.

Read: Suburban nightmare

“Being tired after a day’s work, I soon sank into deep sleep and saw a black cloud billowing out of Baba’s mausoleum. It was in the small hours when I heard a big bang. After I woke up, I rushed towards the shrine and all we devotees gathered at the site. The unscrupulous militants had bombed our hearts,” Mastwali Khan Baba, an octogenarian devotee, recalls.

This year’s urs celebrations began on Friday.

Also read: Rahman Baba’s urs begins in Peshawar

The shrine of Baba, once an abode of peace and spiritual solace, could never be the same again for devotees and visitors after the bombing six years ago. For centuries, followers thronged his grave and paid respects to him. In the early 1950s, Zahir Shah, then king of Afghanistan, sent a stone tablet to cover the mazaar of Baba; the Pakistan government built a complex around his shrine in the 1980s.

Markazi Naukhar Adabi Jirga, a literary society formed in 1934 under noted Pashto author the late Abdul Khaliq Khaleeq, had arranged the first-ever grand Pashto poetry session at the mazaar in 1938. Since then the mausoleum became a great source of inspiration for local poets.

Also read: Thousands expected to attend Rahman Baba Urs

The organisers would offer a couplet of Baba, and poets would practise their creative talent by trying to compose verses in Baba’s style. Seminars would highlight various aspects of the Sufi poet while rubab players and qawwali singers would present the mystic’s poetry. The tradition went on uninterrupted for almost 70 years.

Located in the rural Hazarkhwani area on the outskirts of Peshawar, a broken and bumpy road leads to the shrine of the Sufi poet, where before the militants’ attack 1,500 people showed up every day. But now, it has dismally trickled down to around 300 daily visitors.

“People from far and wide would throng Baba’s shrine. Around 30,000 to 50,000 visitors would turn up on the occasion of Baba’s urs. The three-day urs celebrations used to provide Peshawarites a spiritual experience. Fear now keeps them away. Women especially feel reluctant to visit the shrine,” Kachkol Kaka, 68, another devotee, says.

Sherin Gula Bibi, 70, says she used to regularly visit Baba’s mazaar along with her family members but is now scared to do so. “Baba’s shrine was a source of solace for me. I would get mental relief. But now due to the fear of militants I cannot dare go there.”

Soon after the militants’ attack in March 2009, the Rahman Baba complex, spread over 40 kanals and comprising Baba’s mausoleum, library hall, an auditorium, mosque and cafeteria, was rebuilt at the cost of Rs39 million. A team of 10 policemen was deployed at the site to ensure its security.

The previous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government reopened Baba’s shrine for the public in 2012. Kachkol Kaka adds that half of the police force was withdrawn from the shrine six months ago while the maintenance of the mausoleum is also not satisfactory. He says the lights illuminating the premises of the shrine are broken.

Mohammad Iqbal, chief of Rahman Baba Khakrob Union, a union of 400 volunteers serving Baba’s shrine, says every Friday night between 300 and 500 fans gather to participate in a Sufi musical concert around the shrine, but this number has lately risen to 3,000 visitors which, he adds, used to be 30,000 during urs celebrations. “We are allowed only to lay a wreath and do Khatm-ul-Quran over Baba’s grave and conduct qawwali at night. We still fear the militants.”

Yousaf Ali Dilsoz, general secretary of Rahman Baba Adabi Jirga, says that for the past two years his organisation has been conducting grand Pashto mushaira and seminars at the Khana-i-Farhang Iran in Peshawar’s Saddar bazaar.

“Our application is rejected every year by the authorities concerned without giving us any reason. We used to launch budding poets and research scholars from the platform of Rahman Baba’s shrine but we are barred from this fruitful activity,” he says.

An official in the KP police explains that Baba’s shrine is still under observation. Full security clearance could not be given under the current situation, he says, adding that the number of security personnel will be doubled this year. “Policemen guarding Baba’s shrine have not been withdrawn permanently. However, we want to keep a low profile of such public sites,” the official clarifies.

The authorities have also promised to look into maintenance issues at the mausoleum. Zahirullah Khan, director of the archives and libraries department, says: “Our department has released Rs3m for necessary repair and renovation work at the shrine. Work on this will be started in the last week of April. Its main library is being expanded while new books will be added to it.”

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play