Bhulley Shah

Posted on Posted in Arts, Great Pakistanis

Year 1758 AD. Syed Abdullah Shah, a
member of the distinguished Muslim
Syed family dies in Kasur, and his body
is denied a burial in Kasur’s graveyard and is
left without funeral proceedings out-side the
town for some days until a non-native stranger
arrives their to perform Syed Abdullah Shah’s
funeral. Commonly known as Bulleh Shah, the
sufi had a long list of charges against him by
the prominent relatives and citizens of his town
to deserve this treatment, relating to his outright revolt against the prevailing interpretations
and rituals of Islam at that time !


Sometime before his death, the sufi said:
1)
(Bulleh Shah will never die, it is some-one else
who lies in this grave !)
And that has proved right for the remainder of
249 years after his death. The very descendants
of the people who denied the burial, crave for
their own burial after their death nearest to
bulleh Shah’s shrine today. A great sufi poet, the
prevailing face of classic Punjaab, the poetry of
which scores parallel to Rumi and Tabraiz, has
left a tremendous legacy of love for humanity
and moderation for all of us to follow which
most of us are found to seen attempting to
import form west these days !
The word urs means the day of celebration, a
festival, a death anniversary which masses
celebrate to their maximum delight. In sufi
school, it marks the very day when that
particular sufi left this material world and met
his God, when a river vanished into the sea
………..to become the sea !
2)
( Say the prayer of departure and pray o
people …………. Abdullah lost himself in his
Beloved !)
It is agreed that Bulleh Shah was born at Uch
Sharif (Distt. Bahawalpur, Pakistan) in the
learned Gilani family. He was formally taught
all the Islamic formal education to excellence.
During his childhood his family shifted to
Kasur. The extensive formal education couldn’t
bring peace for Bullah’s internal world ….. and
he kept seeking for his Murshid ( the spiritual
elder ). After years of drifting, he found one,
as a single gaze of Anayat Qadri ( a sufi elder
from Lahore ) changed Bullah’s world .
Murshid’s company made Bulleh see things
NAME : Zaheer Sattar
Nick Name My mom and father
gave me : Baboo
Official Age : 35
Profession: Doctor (well I keep
wondering 🙂
City ( I physically belong to:) :
R.Y.Khan, Pakistan.
Me and My Photography : I DO
NOT cherish the moment i picked
up the camera first time in 1991.
Still unable to justify my presence and purpose with camera
or other-wise in the world, a
person in violent transition. I
dont control my viewfinder,
rather its the other way round !
I guessed I would be a nature /
landscape photog-like-thing
some day , but for that one
needs to have some ground beneath one’s feet ! For me the
hardest thing to shoot are ……
people and faces ! I do collect
all types of camera if found for
free ! My biggest short coming
………. I still have to learn how
to lie !


My Dream List :
1) Canon 1 Ds Mark 2 which
comes with 3 ‘L’ lenses of my
choice free of cost !
2) Shooting Pakistan my way !
3) Shooting infarred on a panorama camera !
4) I dont mind if Canon comes
out with a digital analogu of F1n
…………. Or Nikon with FM2n
…….Or Pentax with K-1000. I
keep dreaming of shooting with
Fuji 6×17 along-side SHIRO
SHIRAHATA in Karakorams
………. and facing the bitterly
cold stretches of the Snow Lake
in full moon ……. alone !
RELIGIOUS
Towards Pakistan
www.towardspakistan.combeyond worldly constraints as his internal flame
flourished.
3)
(The chief Murshid of ours resides at Baghdad,
and the immediate Murshid at the throne of
Lahore ….. they and we are all the same
……..for they are the kite and they are the thread
!)
But this surrender of Bulleh Shah before a nonsyed sparked anger in Bullah’s family, and he
was not forgiven this even after his death.
4)
( My sisters and folks come to me to back off
and say being the descendant of the prophet
Muhammad (PBUH) and ALI ( R.A.), you have
let the family down. Pay attention to what we
say and leave your murshid who is Araeen by
cast !)
During the spiritual journey under his murshid
Anayat Qadri (R.A.), Bulleh Shah was hit by a
spiritual disaster. Murshid became deeply
annoyed over something and decided to punish
Bulleh Shah physically and spiritually. Bulleh Shah
was not allowed to see Murshid and he was left
to face spiritual drought for many many
months. Bulleh’s poetry took a sharp turn here
as is evident in his lines such as this :
5)
( what the havoc my beloved has done to me
…….. oh , I was struck with no one but a
mugger of Lahore!)
During this mentally and spiritually splintered
phase, Bullah joined nomad singers and dancers
and lived a nomad life in the quest of reenrollment under his lost murshid. After a long
time Bullah found his murshid in a social
Towards Pakistan
www.towardspakistan.com
Bulleh Shah will
never die, it is
some-one else
who lies in this
grave !gathering while he was singing and performing
there as the nomad singer. While all the singers
and dancers were finished with their job,
Bulleh’s dance and his song kept on and on and
on . His famous kaafi goes like this :
6)
( Your love is really planted inside me, it is me
who is the culprit of drinking from this
poisoned cup, run towards me and save me oh
my clinician as ‘m facing certain death, your love
keeps driving me to dance forever !)
We are back in our times at the urs . Rizvi sb is
shooting in his own way and I am attempting to
be original in myself. Here we have countless
drummers who are drumming continuously in
small groups of dancing people. Here we have
colourfully but elegantly dressed sufis who are
offering their attendance at the sufi’s grave. Here
we have followers reciting holy Quraan in large
numbers around the grave peri-meter. Here we
have a huge gathering of men, woman and
children of all sorts and all sects who are sitting,
eating and walking on the floor with a festival at
their hands but with a certain respect which
cannot be seen but can be felt all across ! The
Qawaal party is presenting the famous ‘tere ishq
nachaya’ …. and all of us are witnessing a
dancing man in trance !
It’s a spiritual hospital where all of us are
welcome regardless of our sect or faith, a place
which doesn’t promise us hell out of our
intentional and un-intentional wrong-doings, a
premises which treats us as humans and nothing
else . Here people perform their rituals out of
shear love and faith. But scattered amongst
these celebrating masses are the very eyes which
can literally see through me and recognize me
……. not to harass me of hell …….. but to
make me question my self, to make me strive
towards internal tranquility and to lead me to
the journey of truth !
7)
( Neither ‘m a muslim standing in a mosque,
nor ‘m a tradition of infidelity
Neither ‘m a dirty being amongst the cleanest,
nor ‘m Moses or ______
O Bullah, what do I know about who am I ???
)

Leave a Reply