Daily Times

The shrine of the great Sufi saint has been bathed with the blood of his devotees. A suicide bomb blast ripped through the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan,Sindh at the spot where dhamaal (Sufi ritual) was being performed, which took 88lives with 342injured on Thursday evening. The damaging blast is the bloodiest of all the ten attacks taking place in space of a week and one of the horrendousand heartbreaking seriesof attackson Sufi shrines in Pakistan.The occurrence of spate of ghastly attacks shows that Pakistan seems to be facing a fresh resurgence of terrorism.The well planned deadly attacks occurring in a span of daysare a very deliberate attempt to shake up the spirit of the state and are the concrete evidence of security and intelligence failure.

The Islamic State group (IS) has claimed responsibility for the attack. Though this is not the first attack carried out by the Islamic State yetunfortunately several high profile assaults on shrines in Pakistan have been made by the group.It had targeted Sufi shrine of the Shah Noorani in Balochistan province in November last year killing as many as 52 people. Despite this tangiblefact, the Pakistan government has been denying the existence of the IS in the country.

Viewing the dreadful experience of the devastating incidents of twin suicide bombings at the shrine of Hazrat Data Gunj Bukhsh in central Lahore on July 01, 2010, which had left 42 people dead and 180 wounded on Thursday night and the deadly attack on Sufi shrine of the Shah Noorani in November last year, the security arrangements at the shrine of Qalandar Lal Shahbaz were to be made adequate and foolproof, especially during annual Urs and Thursday Nights but regrettably, neither a sufficient number of security personnel were deployed nor walkthrough gates installed to scan people. The negligence resulted in the inconceivable loss of lives.Like Data Darbar, the Qalandar’s shrine is frequented by thousands of devotees especially on Thursday nights when the Dhamaal is performed while devotees remain present at the shrine throughout the night.

The fact is that Sindhi culture is an output of the mystic preaching of the leading Sufis and Saints like Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, Shah Inayat, Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, Sachal Sarmast and others whose essence of the spiritual teachings encircled love, tolerance, politeness, honesty, harmony and coexistence with people of all religions and sects peacefully. It is the Sufis and Saints who spread the teachings of Islam in the Sindhi Society through their preaching. This is why a great majority of Sindhi people are the staunch followers of the Sufi and mystics teachings of Islam.

Steeped in centuries of Sub-Continental folklore, poetry, hypnotic rituals, ancient mysticism and spiritualism, Sufism is a form of Islam which has been practiced in Pakistan which is believed to be a powerful antidote to extremism in the province of Sindh. At Sehwan Sharif, the fervent devotees both men and women beating drums perform dhamaal, a devotional dance performed as an expression of love in a trance-like state, together. For the religious fanatics, who believe music is unlawful (haram) in Islam andit should be banned and women put at home, these Sufi rituals and devotions are unaffordable and infuriating things. They seeSufism as agreat threat to their radical brand of Islam and Sufis as irredeemable heretics, who deserve to be killed. This is why Shahidullah Shahid, a spokesman for the TTP had said some years ago, “Women and men dance together, and that is totally against Islam. We have a large number of fighters in Sindh. We will target everything which is against Sharia (Islamic law).” Despite this clear warning, nothing concrete was done to safeguard shrines. If viewing the precarious state of affairs, adequate security measures were taken, the catastrophic incident would not have occurred.However before this appalling attack in Sehwan, several Sufi shrines in Shikarpur, Jacobabad and Mirpurkhas districts in rural Sindh were attacked in which a number of Saints, Sufis and their followers were killed and injured.

The deplorable fact is that in the rural Sindh, extremism has been spreading with fast pace and around1300 to 1500 madressahs run by violent extremist groupshave been established. Enrollment of children in these madressahs, where only religious education is being imparted to students, is growing rapidly. The madressahs have been trying to influence the social, political and economic aspects of people and have got somewhat a success. In fact, the emergence of extremism in Sindh is a terrifying onslaught on the secular structure of Sindhi society and a serious setback to the spirit of Sindhi culture that is deeply rooted in Sufism. A report reveals that the TTP, Al Qaeda and their various offshoots have enlisted around 25,000 new fighters across the northern Sindh.

To achieve a success in the war against terrorism the strenuous and constructivepre-emptive actions under National Action Plan (NAP) are to be taken collectively by the federal and provincial governments. The initiatives that address the root causes of extremism are desperately needed to be introduced with coordinated efforts of all the responsibledepartments and ministries.Moreover, it should be made sure that simply making of resolves and condemnation would not enable us to exterminate terrorism.The stringent and reinvigorated strategiesagainst all terrorist groups should be taken indiscriminatelyafter the NAP has been reviewed with objective to make it feasible to bring about peace and stability in the country as peopletakinga sigh of relief can live their lives according to their way of life and beliefs.

The writer is an academic, and can be reached on Twitter @ARShykh