When the shrine of Baba Farid Ganj Shakar in Pakpattan was attacked last year, the real significance of the incident was not fully understood. Baba Farid is a leading figure of the Chishti Sufi order that has played a major role in developing Sufi establishments ( khanqahs) as inclusive and multifaith spaces of spirituality and meditation in medieval India.

Tanvir Anjum’s book is an elaborate treatise on how the Chishti Sufis could create and sustain those spaces, sometimes in the face of opposition and suppression from the state.

It is rare to find Pakistani scholars or writers exploring Sufism, which is central to belief systems and worship practices in Pakistan and is perhaps a socially-embedded bulwark against exclusivist ideologies that have flourished of late due to state patronage. Anjum’s work, therefore, is a welcome addition to the meagre body of Pakistani writings on Sufism. The book is based on her doctoral dissertation and, therefore, its tone and structure are academic. (more…)

I grew up watching an Amaltas (Cassia fistula) grow in our side-garden in Lahore. Each spring would bring flowers on the creepers and shortly thereafter the Amaltas would start blooming with yellow flowers setting fire to the little garden adjacent to my room. Lahore’s roads would also glow in the summer adding much zest to a loveable, hot summer. Heat would make one yearn for the rains. So the cycle of seasons would continue with Amaltas at the centre of transitions and unforgettable for the colour and unfathomable beauty…

In Dhaka, Delhi and so many South Asian cities I have watched Amaltas trees in full bloom. The picture above (taken in Islamabad by a newspaper correspondent) today brought back all those muddled memories. Luckily, where I live now, Amalatas exists with a different local name.

Comforting, like an old acquaintance, it is still there in my life. It has not abandoned me.

More on the Amaltas tree, its properties… (more…)

Rather than harping on the divisive rhetoric of tribe, sect and political persuasion, we have a theological and teleological imperative to green our society

In a remote part of Central Java, Indonesia’s most populous island, there is a rather unusual form of environmentalism taking root. Shadowed by the great Merapi volcano and surrounded by fertile fields of rice and sugarcane, a small school is graduating environmentalists whose commitment to the earth is not based on Western conservation texts but rather predicated in values derived from Islam. The head of the school, Nasruddin Anshari, frequently uses the refrain “one earth, for all”, just as much as he does the usual Islamic invocation of Allah-u Akbar (God is Great). (more…)

I was introduced to this photo taken by Khanpride by Jami Sirhandi.

His plea was to stand up to the ‘development mafia’ and stop this vandalism.

Across Pakistan, rampant and unplanned urbanisation is taking its toll on green spaces and the trees. As it is our forest cover has denuded to alarming proportions; and now we are creating urban wastelands of dubious impact in the name of development.

The image on the right, again shows how trees have vanished and there has been no re-plantation despite the usual lip-service that is paid on these occasions.

Saving trees is not just a romantic notion: it is vital to our future and involves the right of our next generations to survive on this planet.

Stand up and be counted, as they say…