The emerging trend
of fake spiritual healers in the country
As she walks towards the graveyard,
crushing her dignity under her feet, she looks at the surroundings with despair.
With a throbbing heart and perspiration on her forehead, she fights with her
veil. She could have walked easily if she did not intend to hide from the
surroundings at the same time, a bright student and a devoted working woman. She
was a girl with thousands of ambitions. The only ‘sin’ she committed was of
being unmarried in the society that still finds a 25 years old girl a burden. She
is being taken to a pir baba(saint) that
will end up all the black magic and curse that has become an obstacle in her
marriage. Afterwards the humiliating story of getting an offer to commit a sin
if she is to get married is something that this society is still not willing to
listen as they find it shameful. Ironically, where mention of such things is
embarrassing to them, they seem to be very less concerned of such happenings in
their surroundings.
Let
us not waste the words on mere one instance as we have thousands of unheard
aching screams that demand us to SPEAK UP. Chiniot on April 21, 2012 witnessed a dreadful
day when a woman entered into a room of a pir
baba to get healed and faced a disrespect that could never be healed up
again. An innocent girl in Bahawalpur faced a living death when she found the pir’s room locked from inside and
guarded by two men who witnessed the barbaric assault. Another day, newspapers
published about the arrest of fake pir
Ali from Bharakahu who used to invite the ‘patients’ to an alone room. A woman
in Samandari, Faisalabad with lesser trust on Almighty reached a pir baba and after losing her respect to
him lost her trust in the entire humanity.
One more Pir named Liaqat Ali of
the same city ruined a life of a mother and a daughter who were visiting him
from quite a time. After all, this ill will of a pir was a guarantee of removal of bad spirits from them. Another
woman in Okara had to ask for some prayers from pir baba named Abbas. Can’t say if those prayers reached Almighty
or not but her screams really did. Bhakkar, a district of Punjab province could
not listen to the excruciating cries of another respectable lady who lost
herself to pir Javed Shah. When
thinking about the case of the girl who got assaulted by a pir baba for 18 years, I get confused about the culprit of the
assault. Who is more on fault, the actual culprit or the victim by herself or
maybe the society who has shut its eyes to the reality?
There is no Islam that tells to
commit a sin to get rid of your worries. There are no orders for any pir in Islam to lift up the veil that
has been set upon by Allah Almighty between the two genders. If a person
proclaims of attaining that hidden knowledge then he must, first of all, be the
servant of Allah. He must be a true follower by himself. If he says something
that is in conflict with the message of God then he no longer deserves the status that he claims. The concept
of Sufism does exist. This word comes from Arabic word ‘suf’ which means white
wool. How much mud spots these fake saints
have brought to this white wool is beyond imaginations. Sufi as defined in 'The Rise of Islam
and the Bengal Frontier 1204–1760', is a charismatic holy man believed to possess magical powers and
to have intimate contact with the unseen world. This concept roots back to
Ummayad Dynastay that was from 661-749. The traces of the inscription that
support the existence of the concept of pir(master)
and murshid (disciple) have been found that date back to year 1221. Spiritual healers are a blessing
but the distorted form of them is a curse. It not only is polluting the name of
the religion but also playing with the lives of the people. According to a
survey conducted by special branch of police in May 2015 there were 25 fake saints that got identified. What is of
grave concern here is the lack of strong legislation in this regard. There must
be complaints filed against them to initiate an action. But people are afraid
to do it so. The voices against these saints
have also been raised in the Parliament of Pakistan but there mushroom growth has
become a bigger challenge.
If media, bound by PEMRA rules to show 10% of its
content in the public interest, start following this rule, if the government
institutes become strong enough to take the initiative, if our seminaries start
preaching the truth in a better way, if our educated people start understanding
the ground realities and if our uneducated get the best education via the
required community work only then we’ll be able to fight back this evil.
Published in DAILY THE PATRIOT on Nov 25,2018
http://dailythepatriot.com/faith-dealers-and-fake-healers/
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