Fri, Apr 06, 2018 page5

• FEATURE: Crocodiles guard secrets of Pakistan’s lost African past

  • AFP, KARACHI, Pakistan
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  Dancing and chanting in Swahili at a crocodile shrine outside Karachi, hundreds of Pakistani Sheedis swayed barefoot to the rhythm of a language they no longer speak — the celebration offering a rare chance to connect with their African roots.

  For many Sheedis, the swampy crocodile shrine to Sufi saint Haji Syed Shaikh Sultan — more popularly known as Mangho Pir — is the most potent symbol of their shared African past, as they struggle to uncover the trail that led their ancestors to Pakistan.

  Many, like 75-year-old Mohammad Akbar, have simply given up the search for their family’s origins.

  

  Sajjad Burfat, right, the custodian of sacred crocodiles, feeds frankincense-smoked meat to a crocodile next to a pond at the shrine of Sufi Hasan-al-Maroof Sultan Manghopir, during the crocodiles festival on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan on March 4.

  Photo: AFP

  The descendants of Africans who have been arriving on the shores of the subcontinent for centuries, the Sheedis rose to lofty positions as generals and leaders during the Mughal Empire, which ruled swathes of South Asia.

  However, actively discriminated against during British rule, their traditions began to fade, and they found themselves wholly shunned when Pakistan was created in 1947, absent from the nation’s elite political and military circles.

  Figures are scant, but it is generally accepted that Pakistan holds the highest number of Sheedis on the subcontinent, upwards of about 50,000 people.

  However, their history has been scantily written, making it difficult if not impossible for Sheedis — including those like Akbar whose ancestors arrived in Pakistan relatively recently — to trace their antecedents.

  “I came to know in the 1960s that my grandfather belonged to Zanzibar, and we contacted the Tanzania embassy to find our extended family,” Akbar said outside his home in Karachi.

  “We were told that we can never reach them until we can identify our tribe, which we don’t know,” he said. “I never tried again.”

  His plight is common, with little in the way of documentation or scholarship on the community.

  What is available suggests many arrived as part of the African slave trade to the east — a notion rejected by many Sheedis, most of whom now reside in southern Sindh Province.

  “We don’t subscribe to the theories that someone brought us as slaves to this region, because Sheedis as a nation have never been slaves,” said Yaqoob Qanbarani, chairman of Pakistan Sheedi Ittehad, a community group.

  Others say the community’s origins can be traced back to the genesis of Islam, claiming a shared lineage with Bilal — one of Prophet Mohammed’s closest companions.

  As the knowledge of their origins has faded, so too have many of their traditions, including the vestiges of Swahili once spoken in parts of Karachi.

  “Swahili has been an abandoned language for some generations now,” said Ghulam Akbar Sheedi, a 75-year-old community leader.

  “I remember that my grandmother would extensively use Swahili phrases in our daily conversation,” said 50-year-old Atta Mohammad, who now struggles to remember even a few sayings.

  With so many traditions lost to the past, the Sheedi mela, or festival, at the Mangho Pir shrine has assumed rich significance and been the epicenter of the community in Sindh for centuries.

  They no longer know why it is held there; they are simply following in the steps and repeating the words of their ancestors.

  “It attracts the Sheedi community from all over Pakistan,” Qanbarani said.

  “We celebrate Mangho Pir mela more than Eid,” he added.

  The celebration features a dancing procession known as the Dhamal, with men and women in trance-like states — a rare sight in conservative, often gender-

  segregated Pakistan.

  “The Dhamal dance... is done with great devotion and much delicacy,” Atta Mohammad said. “Some of us are captured by holy spirits.”

  Mehrun Nissa, 65, prepares a sacred drink during the mela while translating from what she says is a Swahili dialect.

  “Nagajio O Nagajio, Yo aa Yo .... means now we are leaving to have a drink from the bowl,” she said.

  Mangho Pir is also home to more than 100 lumbering crocodiles that waddle between the devotees near a swampy green pond where they have lived for generations. Legend holds that lice on the Sufi saint’s head transformed into the reptiles who now live at the shrine.

  The oldest crocodile — known as More Sawab, and believed to be anywhere between 70 and 100 years old — is feted at the festival’s climax with garlands and decorative powder while being fed chunks of raw meat.

  However, even this tenuous link to the community’s past is in danger of being severed.

  The celebrations last month were the first time the festival has been held in nine years, after rising extremism saw Sufi shrines come under threat across Pakistan, with repeated gun and suicide bomb attacks.

  “The situation was not suitable for us as children and women also participate in the mela,” Qanbarani said, as heavily armed police commandos flanked the crowd.

  However, with dramatic improvements in security in recent years the community hopes to continue the mela, celebrating traditions that have survived slavery, colonization and modernization.
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Napoli’s title hopes shaken by late Genoa equalizer

  • 2

    Privately owned city in Kenya taking on corrupt officials

  • 3

    MOE to encourage foreigners to work in Taiwan

  • 4

    Kane tastes first title as Bayern bid farewell to Mueller

  • 5

    Taiwan celebrates V-E Day for first time