THE death of Pir Pagara, one of the icons of Pakistan's politics, brings to an end an eventful, often controversial political career characterised by the absence of a coherent philosophy whose roots perhaps lay in his traumatised youth.

The chief of the Sufi Hur order, held in esteem as much for his lineage as for his crucial role in some of the country's major political controversies and movements, Pir Pagara used his temporal and spiritual powers in ways that aroused both admiration and criticism, even ridicule.

While he excelled in Byzantine politics and was considered one of Pakistan's most well-informed politicians because of his links with the establishment, Pir Pagaro was also involved in street agitations, but changed loyalties with a rapidity that added to his image of apolitician enigmatic to the point of absurdity. Often he donned the mantle of an opposition leader and took part in at least two anti-government stirs, but had no qualms of conscience in brazenly working for GHQ. For instance, he bailed out Ziaul Haq after the 1985 election.

Legislative business cannot be carried out even in a fake parliamentary democracy without the government having a parliamentary party. So the pir formed a party out of nowhere and named it Muslim League, which became the majority party in the National Assembly as MPs vied with each other to jump on his bandwagon. He also had the satisfaction of seeing his protégé, Mohammad Khan Junejo, become Zia's prime minister. Later he fell out with both. He revived his 'functional' Muslim League in 1991, but by then the days of politics of thepalaces were over. Yet he had the powers of political persuasion, for Kingri House often became the media's focus of attention as politicians from all over the country made a beeline to his palatial Karachi home to seek help and advice from a man who was known to have access to a reservoir of classified information others did not have. The pir flaunted this asset without inhibitions and developed around him the aura of a master politician and soothsayer who had his finger on the nation's pulse.

Sometimes he could be cynical, as when he demanded that the 1973 constitution be scrapped and said there was no such thing as a Kashmir problem. His flippancy, his frequent warnings about the fall of governments in a vein that was all his own, repeated references to the 'Ides of March' and his predictionsthat went wrong were a source of endless amusement for newspaper readers and triggered rumours whose falsity seemed to make no difference to the oracle-like image of Syed Shah Mardan II, the seventh Pir of Pagaro.

Born in 1928, the young Mardan's youth was traumatised by the execution of his father, Syed Sibghatullah Shah II, who was hanged by the British for his anticolonial struggle in 1943. Taken to Britain, along with his brother, by his father's executioners, Mardan had anything but what could be called a British education. All along his 'education' at Major Davis School, Liverpool, he was a virtual prisoner, being one among the 1213 students whose families had rebelled against the British.

He had no option about what he could study, and was made to learnChristianity, French and Latin.

From the benefit of hindsight we can see that this traumatised youth and the kind of 'education' he had in Britain left a destabilising effect on the young mind and perhaps deprived him of the ability to develop a coherent life philosophy as seen in the kind of politics he pursued.

After Pakistan came into being Liaquat Ali Khan, the first prime minister, asked him to return to the newly created country, and on Feb 4, 1952, Mardan Shah had his Dastarbandi a ceremony marking the formal assumption of the spiritual office as Pir Pagara.

There was one achievement Pir Pagara never grew tired of boasting that it was he who had made Bhutto Bhutto, for he claimed to have recommended the young and brilliant barrister to IskanderMirza. But then Mardan Shah the Second was not the only one to have made this claim. Most records agree that it was Fatima Jinnah who introduced ZAB to Mirza.

In return perhaps Pir Pagara expected Bhutto to kowtow to him.

ZAB was not that kind. No wonder the pir was in the PNA's top leadership and led the movement that paved the way for Zia's tyranny and Bhutto's murder.

The pir had some progressive streaks, too, for he told his followers at Pir Jo Goth in 2004 to give education to their sons and daughters, to avoid outdated customs and do not marry off their daughters against their will. He had the Islamic spirit of philanthropy in plenty, and that was one reason why his disciples were prepared to lay down their lives for him, as they did for his father.