Muslim Saints of South Asia: The eleventh to ... - blog blog blog

THE INDIAN TOMB
the mazār with flowers and coloured shreds and distribution of alms.
However, in India, with the influence of local cults, superstitions and
rites, the ‘price-list’ of services, rendered by the pilgrim to the saint,
had considerably expanded.
Often these rites and rituals were of an occult nature, running
counter to Islam, and in them connection with the pagan beliefs of
popular Hinduism of the lower strata was perceptible. In particular
the cult of saints had borrowed from the practice of Hinduism specific
offering of fruits, sweets and rice, part of which after prayers and
invocations was returned to the faithful in the form of consecrated
food and was distributed among the pilgrims (a version of Indian
prasād). 14 Sometimes such a distribution had quite an extravagant
form: thus during the ‘urs of saint Qadirwali Sahib in Tanjore the
attendants of his tomb smashed earthen pots with sweetened rice
(k’hīr) on the ground and pilgrims, seeking to get hold of a morsel,
crawled in the dust.
It is partly due to the influence of Hindu tirtha that the veneration
of reservoirs has become a part of the cult of saints. Thus, in the
ponds, dedicated to the already referred to Mangho Pir and the
Persian mystic Bayazid Bistami (Chittagong), ‘sacred’ crocodiles and
tortoises are to be found. Kids are offered in sacrifice to the former
even up to the present time, which bears an obvious resemblance to
Durgāpūjā, and until the offering is eaten up, the wish of the pilgrim
is not granted. Till recently pilgrims performing ritual ablutions in
a pond with crocodiles were subjected to real ordeals. Bathing in a
reservoir together with gigantic centenarian tortoises (it was considered
that vicious jinns were turned into these tortoises by the saint)
the faithful supposedly acquired their longevity. There even existed
a definite connection between the saint and natural sources of water:
tombs of Mangho Pir, Pir Ghaib (Baluchistan) and Shah Saddar
(Lakhi, Sindh) are situated between two sulphur springs.
The influence of Hindu rituals has imparted an unusual element in
Islamic rites, that of a matrimonial or erotic nuance to the numerous
ritual activities relating to saints. Thus there are numerous variations
of celebration of the saint’s ‘wedding’, offering him ‘nuptial bed’,
trays with henna, sweet dough balls (pind’ī), and other matrimonial
symbols (in Ghazi Miyan’s veneration rituals). The tombs of Loh
Langar Shah in Bangalore, Shaikh Saddu in Bengal, Shah ‘Abdullah
Ghazi in Karachi were places of convergence for prostitutes and
transvestites, and individual rites of veneration of these saints evidently
went back to erotic cults. The cult of seven righteous women, popular
in the Northwest of the subcontinent, was also of an esoteric nature.
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