The three weeks I spent at Nafees Shah Saheb's place proved to be
the most uplifting time of life.
Let me share some memories of a period in my life that
stands out for its enduring consequences. That "fateful" December, I set out for
Lahore with Iftikhar Sb by Karachi Express. Iftikhar Sb had visited Nafees Shah Saheb,
the preceding year's Ramadan (1998) on his Sheikh's (Maulana Abdul Rasheed Naumani rahimahullahu ta'ala) recommendation. Shah Saheb and the late M. Naumani, were
both khulafa of M. Abdul Qadir Raipuri, whose spiritual line goes back to the
great Haji Imadadullah Muhajir Makki rahimahullahu ta'ala, the moving spirit
behind the foundation of Darul Uloom Deoband and of all the Islamic movements
that germinated there.
Why was I going to Shah Saheb? Perhaps I wanted to
streamline my affairs: private, social, religious, intellectual; to bring the
matters of the heart to one final rest. In 1997, my younger mamoon, Fareed Hyder, had taken me
along on a tour to Gilgit in the company of the late Nazim of Darul Uloom
Korangi, Mufti Sehban Mahmood rahimahullahu ta'ala who was out to inspect the madaris
of the region. For one week, I had eaten and slept, walked and talked in the
hallowed company of a saint. I had known and felt the company of a saint once.
So I knew how salutary and purifying the experience is. There is a certain kind
of learning that takes place even in the silent company of a friend of Allah.
In his presence, one feels 'hopeful', no matter how wretched one is. I was
aching for a way out of the slime amd grime I had caught over all the preceding
years.
Here was my chance.
'Nafees Shah ' was but a name for me. He was not, Iftikhar
told me, an alim (Islamic scholar) as such— which was I must confess
strangely consoling. We left on the evening of 7 Dec 1999 by Karachi Express and
reached Lahore the next morning around noon. Iftikhar Sb had a faint idea about
where Karim Park was, but he did know it was near Minar-e-Pakistan, and that we
could walk up to Shah Saheb's place from there. We got off from the taxi at the
Minar-e-Pakistan crossing.
From there we were on our leggies. I had a big suit-case in
one hand, and a hand-bag, plus a sleeping-bag, in the other. Iftikhar Sb was
travelling light. We walked and walked straight in the direction of Dataa Darbar.
The traffic on the main road was insane. Rickshaws and ' chungis' , bicycles and
tongas. Dust and smoke in the air, horse-shit and garbage on the service road,
with vehicles honking from behind and before, we kept walking until we reached
a mosque with a large, blue tiled dome. Iftikhar conjectured, we should turn
right. Again, we kept going straight, then turned left. After every hundred
metres, we would put our luggage down and catch our breath. Now at last we
seemed to be in a residential area. Small 200sqr yd double and triple storey
buildings. The long road winded to a sewerage pond, over which there was a
bridge that had to be crossed. Certainly one of the filthiest places I had ever
seen. The pond was dangerously deep, with garbage refuse strewn by its sides.
Apparently all the gutters of the locality pooled here.
And the smell! Boy! Was it nasty? An attar would have been
knocked unconscious dare he came here and inhaled. The bridge is about a
hundred metres long .You can't hold your breath and cross it. The putrid stink
of dung mixed with the stench of rotten leftovers must entertain your nostrils.
There is no escape. Across the bridge was what appeared to be a lower- middle
class mohallah. The road was broken, with puddles of gutter water and small
trenches. Modest grocery shops on the right and left.
By now I was at the brink of losing my patience. Remember it
was Ramadan. Where the heck are we going? How much further do we have to walk?
If this is where this buzurg dwells, I have had it. This would be the
last place in the world where one could find spirituality. Have I travelled all
the way from Karachi to experience this filth and ugliness? Such were the
demoralizing doubts that prodded me in the head. But I kept quiet. We turned
left, then right and then Iftikhar Sb pronounced, "Bus- aa gaya"! A sign
board on the boundary wall at the end of the road read " Jamia
Madaniyyah". The road swerved to the right. Past the gate of the Jamea, we
went a little further. There was an ironsmith chopping up iron rods with
clangourous hammer strokes. Some other machine was grunting aloud inside the
workshop. As we plodded on, I turned my head and watched with interest.
Suddenly Iftikhar stopped before two blue gates- a bigger
two panel gate and an adjoining smaller single panel. He rang the bell. The
house was just next to the workshop. The brick wall wasn't plastered. There was
a small patch of fenced ground outside the boundary wall bearing some
ill-attended plants.
The door opened. A bearded young man asked who we were.
Iftikhar Sb said something to him; he immediately asked us in while he disappeared
into a room. Now we were inside the house. I looked around. We had entered
through the smaller gate. To the left of it was a curtain made probably of
bedsheets hanging down a long railing. To the immediate right was an iron stair
case. A small veranda lay right before us, on which were spread two rows of
bamboo straw prayer mats. The veranda opened into a room which was closed.
There was another room to the right near the staircase into which that
gentleman had vanished. A certain languor hung about the place. A listlessness,
as if time had slowed down. A cat was stroking its head with the paw. It
yawned.
At the foot of the stair-case stood a steel shelf. A water
cooler, a few empty bottles, and some plastic plates were all it held. An
artless bareness filled the whole place. All that I saw were necessary items.
Nothing decorative about anything around.
The fellow came out in a while and invited us inside. It was
a small room and stretched longitudinally entirely to the right of the
entrance. As I looked right, I saw a bed placed in one corner. Two of the four
walls were covered with book shelves.
Shah Saheb , yes, that was the gentleman, sat reclined on
the bed, with several pillows supporting his back. At the mention of M. Naumani
(his Pir Bhai), he sat up and warmly hugged Iftikhar. Then Iftikhar
introduced me as a colleague. Shah Saheb gave me a hug as well.
He called out "O- apna- Iftikhar-a"!
It was that bearded fellow (his khadim, we learnt later) he
was asking for. Shah Saheb said a word about our lodging. His khadim escorted us upstairs into the guest room. Two sagging charpoys lay perpendicular to each other.
Heaps of discarded books, papers, and card-sheets buried in dust sat idly in
the steel shelves. We put down our luggage. Home at last!
But it was zuhr time. We made wudu and went down to the
Jamia Madaniyyah mosque. Upon return we went straight to Shah Saheb's room. Shah
Saheb sat on his bed with a couple of visitors sitting around him on the
carpeted floor. A queue of madrasa boys stood each one holding a wooden pen and
a sheet. Shah Saheb was correcting their writing work. He raised his eyes after
a while from the work he was checking and spotted us among the people."
Don't you feel tired", he softly asked. We took leave of him and hit the
beds upstairs.
As I lay on the sagging charpoy, the figure of Shah Saheb
resurfaced in my imagination. He was of large frame, with a long overflowing
beard white as snow, his voice - soft and sleepy -echoing the languid
atmosphere. When somebody visits a person with a reputation for saintliness,
one eagerly looks for some signs of spirituality in the person's face. In the
first encounter with a saint one doesn't so much look AT as try looking into the saint. I remember my first glimpse of Shah Saheb's face; but my curiosity-ravished eyes searched in vain for any dazzling signs of spirituality. (I would
learn with time, what one discovers in the other is a measure of
one's own self).
Except that he was extremely clean and extraordinarily
handsome. A large forehead, eyes deep-set but not sunken, and a prominent,
authoritative, well- shaped nose. There was a mildness, a babyish innocence
about his looks.
We were tired and it did not take us long to doze off. But
soon, within an hour we were aroused by the call for Asr prayers. After Asr,
when we returned home, we learnt Shah Saheb would be holding a majlis in the
room behind the small veranda.
It was a small, squarish room, with a bed on one side, and the
white floor sheet (chandni) spread on the floor. A wood- coloured
plastic table cover lay longitudinally on the floor with a pile of dried date
seeds in the centre. Already the room was full with people. We squeezed inside
anyhow.
Then Shah Saheb came and sat on the bed. We recited the
durood shareef first for some seven/eleven times, then a particular formula was
to be repeated on the seeds, followed by the recitation of Al-Inshirah,
and so on. It was the Khatm-e- Khwajgan. It took us about 10 minutes
after which Shah Saheb raised his hands for dua. There were some 15-20 people
packed in that room.
Most of them left after that. Now there was just Shah Saheb
and some 6-8 persons in the room. Each of them individually started the jahri
dhikr, as instructed by the Shaikh (Shah Saheb). It went on till about ten
minutes to Iftar. The two khuddam then came in, quickly spread out the dastarkhwan
and put some dates, and two plates containing orange slices, apple pieces, some
pakoras and jalaybi. Tiny mugs with one sip measure of water were put
before all the people. It was zamzam water we learnt later. When we returned
from Maghreb prayers the dastarkhwan had already been laid.
Some kind of potato gravy. There were more people now. We
saw that the food came from inside the house. Tea was served right after the
meal. Shah Saheb kept asking us to eat properly. His khuddam were even more
insistent. But I recall we ate less than our quota of hunger. Shah Saheb had
many other guests as well. There was a gentleman from India, one from
Faisalabad, and some who were there just for an overnight stay.
We went up to our rooms after a while and lay flat to psyche
up for the coming marathon. The taraweeh was held at Shah Saheb's place, we
were told. Following that two rounds of nafilah taraweeh would be held.
We were too exhausted for that, to be sure. Anyway, after the Isha prayers ,
Shah Saheb's murids —some 30 odd people from close by—gathered in the same room
where we had the dhikr majlis. The twenty rak'aa of taraweeh took less than an
hour. Green Tea was served afterwards. This was an intermission.! Half an hour
later the first of the two nafilah taraweeh sessions was to be held. But I
sneaked out, returned to my room, and jumped into my sleeping bag. At 4 0'
clock there was a wakeup call. The third nafilah session, I learnt the next day
was conducted (of course by the third hafiz ) before the suhur (sehri).There
used to be some 6-8 persons including Shah Saheb who attended all of these
sessions. After sehri and the fajr prayers Shah Saheb took a small stroll on
the streets. We went along. Then he returned to his room. A handful of people
entered his room with him. He sat on his bed and a khadim started massaging his
shins and ankles. Somebody started reading the headlines of the newspaper. Shah
Saheb sometimes asked for details and the reader would read out the whole
story.
Half an later we were in our beds once again, for a couple
of hours of sleep.
This was the first day at Nafees Shah Saheb's place.
All the days after this day followed exactly the same
routine. Shah Saheb did not speak much. No counsels of unsolicited guidance. No
pearls of metaphysical wisdom. Over the next three weeks that I stayed there I
developed in me something which stayed with me for more than a year. I had long
been in search of a spiritual master. I wanted to be certain that this was MY
master. So I made Istikhara for a week and then on the morning of 19 December
1999, I approached Shah Saheb for bay'ah- the oath of allegiance. He expressed
pleasure at my request. Could I wait till the afternoon or should he make wudu
right now? Of course I could wait.
My hands sandwiched between his hands, I took the oath. It
was a moment out of time. I knew this but somehow I did not feel this to be so.
We - Shah Saheb used " we " in the formula for the initiate and the
master- made tawba from all the sins and then he exhorted me about
congregational prayers and the good deeds and gave me some adhkar. What
I felt in the cleansed state is a private feeling perhaps too subtle for words.
Himself Shah Saheb was grace incarnate. Unruffled like a
rock and serene like the sea, Shah Saheb consistently remained a model of composure
There was never a note of displeasure or anxiety in his voice. He never spoke
except in the softest possible way. How I yeaned to hear him discuss something
or counsel us to do something! I recall if there used to be something with
which he personally disagreed, he would go quiet. Every day scores of people
came round the clock for his blessings, for a taweez, for counsel. They
came from all over the country, though mostly from Punjab. At his dastarkhwan
the wealthiest of merchants or the most distinguished of ulama would receive
the same ikram as the paupers and the masons present at that time. For almost
all his public hours we used to be with him. The only time I recall that he
scolded a person was when his khadim- the one closest to him -did not let a
caller talk to Shah Saheb on the phone. The khadim's concern for Shah Saheb's
ill- health that day made him do so. Shah Saheb reprimanded: "Do you know
why that fellow had called? Shah
Sahab would pick up the phone himself from then on.
Three weeks later, we announced we would now take leave of him. He sighed and recited the following couplet, his eyes cast down:
کہہ
گئے الفراق یارانے
تار ٹوٹا بکھر گئے دانے
In view of our departure Shah Saheb had all the Quran khatms- the sunnah tarawih and the nafl- completed by 27 Ramadan, instead of the 29.
On the eve of 28 Ramadan, just after Asr prayers we took
leave of him. He hugged us once again and gave us Eidee. I should still have
the hundred rupee note he gifted me. It was the hour of sorrow, the moment of
inconsolable grief over the imminent separation. The whole evening on the
previous day I had wept at the thought of it. The holiest sounds I have heard
in my life were heard in that room where he held the dhikr majlis. I would hear
them no more. I felt like walking out of the Garden of Eden.
It was a cold winter evening as we sat on an open tonga—Iftikhar and myself—and took to the Cantt Station to ride the Karachi Express
train. What happened after that until our arrival in Karachi is one heck of a
drama. I save it for another time.
