The relationship between attitudes to death and the social order is examined through a case study from Pakistan. In February 1983, thirty-eight Shiah Muslims entered the Arabian Sea at Hawkes Bay in response to revelations received by one of their number. Eighteen of them died. Various social factors which may help to explain the incident are discussed, including tensions arising from changing contemporary values, local attitudes to leadership and the kinship connections of the participants. The case also raises important issues about concepts of death, sacrifice and martyrdom among Shiah and Sunni Muslims, and shows how ideas about the status of the individual in the afterworld may affect social behavior in this one.
In this article I examine the relationship between attitudes to death and the social order. The anthropological literature on this subject is not extensive (Banton 1969; Bloch & Parry 1982; Evans-Pritchard 1937, 1965; Douglas 1970; Geertz 1969; Keyes 1981; forthcoming; Lewis 1971; Werbner 1977; Winter 1969) and information on Muslim societies is particularly scarce. I will raise some of the related issues through a recent case-study from Pakistan - the Hawkes Bay case.
In late February 1983, thirty-eight people - all Shiah-entered the Arabian sea at Hawkes Bay in Karachi. The women and children in the group, about half the number, had been placed in six large trunks. The leader of the group, Sayyad Willayat Hussain Shah, pointing his religious banner at the waves, led the procession. Willayat Shah believed that a path would open in the sea which would lead him to Basra, from where the party would proceed to Karbala, the holy city in Iraq.
A few hours later almost half the party had lost their lives and the survivors emerged in varying stages of exhaustion and consciousness. Pakistan was astonished and agog at the incident. Religious leaders, intellectuals and newspapers discussed the event threadbare.1 The discussions revealed almost as much about those participating in them as they did about the incident. Some intellectuals saw the episode as evidence of 'insanity' (Salahudin 1983) and the leaders of the group were described as 'mentally unbalanced individuals with twisted and deviant personalities, the source of death and destruction' (Irfani 1983). Sunnis dismissed the matter as yet another Shiah aberration from orthodox Islam. The Shiahs, on the other hand, pointed to the event as a confirmation of their faith (Qaffery 1983; Yusufzai 1983). Only the Shiahs, they argued, were capable of such extreme devotion, of such a sacrifice. It was, undoubtedly, a case rooted in Shiah mythology, which preconditioned the community to respond to, and enact, the drama. (The Shiah lived in Chakwal Tehsil, in the Province of Punjab.) 2 Man (N.S.) 21, 120-34
Chakwal Tehsil
Willayat Shah's family lived in a small village, Rehna Sayyadan, about ten miles from Chakwal Tehsil in Jhelum District. Jhelum, on the main Grand Trunk Road, is about seventy miles from Chakwal Tehsil. A population of about 250,000 live in the Tehsil. Chakwal and Jhelum are areas of rainfed agriculture, unlike the canal colonies, in the Punjab, of Lyallpur (now Faisalabad) and Sahiwal, with their rich irrigated lands. The population of the village itself is about 2,000, mainly consisting of Sayyads, the upper social group, and Arain, the lower. The latter are challenging the authority of the former through new channels of employment, hard work and frugality (Ahmed A. S. 1984b). The village is somewhat isolated from the rest of Pakistan. Electricity has only recently arrived and the road to Chakwal is not yet metaled. This is one of the hottest areas in the country. Winters are short and the rainfall (about 2011) is unreliable. Poor harvests have pushed people off the land to look for employment outside the Tehsil. Many have joined the armed services (Jhelum District is a rich recruiting ground for the Pakistan Army) and from the 196o's the Arab states offered opportunities for employment. Willayat Shah, after his service as a junior officer in the Pakistan Air Force, left to work in Saudi Arabia. He returned to Pakistan in 1981 after a stay of four years.
Rehna Sayyadan is self-consciously religious. Its very name announces a holy lineage, that of the Sayyads, the descendants of the Holy Prophet, and means 'the abode of the Sayyads'. Many of the Shiah actors in the drama bear names derived from members of the Holy Prophet's family: Abbass and Hussain for men, and Fatima for women. But there is tension in the area between Shiah and Sunni, a tension made more acute by the fact that their numbers are equally balanced.
The economic subordination of the Sunni by the Shiah reinforces the tension. Conflict between Shiah and Sunni easily converts into conflict between landlord and tenant. This opposition also runs through the local administration. The local government councilor, for example, is Sunni but the village lambardar (head man) is Shiah. Even families are divided along Shiah-Sunni lines and where individuals have changed affiliation, relationships have been severely strained. (There are at least four known cases of Sunni affiliation closely related to the main actor in the drama, Naseem Fatima). The tension is exacerbated by the current emphasis on Sunni forms of religion by the Government of Pakistan. The Shiahs, about 20 per cent. of Pakistan's 90 million people, resent this emphasis. The Jamaat-e-Islami, the major orthodox Sunni political party of Pakistan, is active in the area. In the background is the larger ideological tension between the Shiahs and Sunnis in Pakistan. From 1980 onwards this tension became severe and led to clashes between the two, especially in Karachi. Beyond the south-western borders of Pakistan, a vigorous Shiah revivalism in Iran has unsettled neighboring Sunni states allied to Pakistan, such as Saudi Arabia.
Willayat Shah was living in Saudi Arabia when Imam Khomeini returned to Iran at the head of his revolution in 1979. Being a devout Shiah, he would have been inspired by the message and success of the Imam, but Saudi Arabia was no place to express his rekindled Shiah enthusiasm. He would, however, have been dreaming dreams around the themes of the revolution: sacrifice, death, change and martyrdom. His first act on returning home was to begin the construction of a mosque.
The Hawkes Bay Case
On the 18th of February 1981, Willayat Shah had been engrossed in supervising the construction of the mosque. Late that evening Naseem Fatima, his eldest child, entered his bedroom and announced she had been visited by a revelation - basharat. She had heard the voice of a lady speaking to her through the walls of the house. The apprehensive father suggested she identify the voice. For the first few days the voice was identified as that of Bibi Roqayya, the stepsister of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Holy Prophet, buried in Karbala.
Some handprints next appeared on the wall of Willayat Shah's bedroom. They were made with henna mixed with clay. A handprint has highly emotive significance among the Shiah. It is symbolic of the five holiest people in Islam: The Holy Prophet, his daughter, Hazrat Fatima, his son-in-law, Hazrat Ali, and his grandsons, Hazrat Hassan and Hazrat Imam Hussain. The news of the handprints spread like wildfire in the area. The impact on the village was electric. One informant described it as follows: for the next fifteen days or so the usual business of life came to a halt. People gave up their work, women stopped even cooking meals. Everyone gathered in the house of Willayat Hussain to see the print, to touch it, to pray and to participate in the mourning (azadari) which was constantly going on (Pervez 1983: 8).
The azadari, a recitation of devotional hymns and poems in honor of, in particular, Hazrat Hussain, was a direct consequence of the handprints. It created a highly charged and contagious atmosphere among the participants.
Sunnis, however, were cynical about the whole affair. They would remain adamant opponents of Naseem's miracles (maujza). Opinion was divided among the Shiah. Established families such as the Sayyads scoffed at Naseem and her miracles and, at first, both Willayat Shah and his daughter had their doubts. As if to dispel these doubts Imam Mahdi, or Imam-e-Ghaib, the twelfth Imam, himself appeared in the dreams of Naseem. Earlier, Bibi Roqayya had announced that the Imam rather than she would communicate with Naseem. The Imam wore white clothes and was of pleasing appearance (Ansari 1983: 6). All doubts in her mind were now dispelled and he addressed her as Bibi Pak - pure lady.
The Imam, with whom she now communicated directly, began to deliver explicit orders (amar). One commanded the expulsion of the carpenter who was working for Willayat in his house (Ansari 1983: 7) and who had overcharged him by a thousand rupees, in connivance with the contractor. He was ordered never to work at a Sayyad's house again, or both would be losers in the transaction. To compensate Willayat, the Imam placed five hundred rupees in a copy of the Holy Qur’an and ordered the carpenter to pay the remaining five hundred. The orders increased in frequency. They soon included matters of property and marriage. The family, at least, no longer doubted the miracles.
They obeyed the divine orders without question. During the revelations Naseem would demand complete privacy in her room. Her condition would change. She would quiver and tremble. Noises would sound in her head beforehand and the trauma of the revelations often caused her to faint afterwards. The orders would come to her on the days the Imams died or were made martyrs. 'The Imam', according to her father, 'had captured her mind and heart' (Ansari 1983: 8).
Local Shiah religious leaders and lecturers (zakirs) acknowledged Naseem and visited her regularly. Of the three most regular visitors one, Sakhawat Hussain Jaffery, was particularly favored. Naseem claimed that she had been especially ordered by the Imam to single him out. They were often alone for long periods. Naseem began to organize azadari regularly. These meetings were charged with emotion and created devout ecstasy in the participants. They were held next to the local primary school; so many people attended, with such noisy devotion, that the school had to close down. Naseem now completely dominated the life of the village. Before moving to the next phase of the case let us pause to examine the effect of the revelations on some of the main actors in the drama.
Naseem was a shy, pleasant looking girl, with an innocent expression on her face, who had a history of fits. There was talk of getting her married. Although she had only studied up to class five, her teachers recall her passionate interest in religion, especially in the lives of the Imams. She had a pleasing voice when reciting nauhas (poems about Karbala), many of which she composed herself. After her revelations there was a perceptible change in Naseem. She began to gain weight, wear costly dresses, and use perfumes. She became noticeably gregarious and confident. In a remarkable gesture of independence, especially so for a Sayyad girl in the area, she abandoned the parda or veil. According to Shiah belief, any believer may become the vehicle for divine communications. Naseem turned to the dominant person in her life, her father, upon receiving communications and he interpreted them in his own light.
Willayat Shah now reasserted himself in village affairs after an absence of years. His daughter's religious experience had begun soon after his retirement from Arabia. He had an older brother to whom, because of the traditional structure of rural society, he was subordinate. His period in Saudi Arabia had enhanced his economic, but not his social position. Because of the miracles and revelations of his daughter, however, he gained a dominant position in the social life of the area. Sardar Bibi, Naseem's mother, was influenced by her husband and daughter and identified wholly with the latter. She was said to have been a Sunni before her marriage and this created an underlying tension in the family. In an expression of loyalty to her husband, she severed relations with her parents and brothers because they disapproved of her conversion. She unhesitatingly obeyed her daughter's revelations.
Another actor in the drama was Sakhawat Jaffery, a zakir of Chakwal. He was not a Sayyad and his father was said to be a butcher. He had thus risen in the social order. Willayat Shah rewarded him for his loyalty with gifts refrigerators, televisions, fans, etc. When he needed money for a new business, he was presented with about 20,000 rupees. With this sum he opened a small shop selling general goods. He was given such gifts on the specific orders of the Imam to Naseem. In turn he was the only one of the three zakirs who personally testified to the authenticity of the miracles of Naseem. Naseem was regularly visited by Sakhawat Jaffery and she visited his house. In a gesture of affection, contravening social custom, Naseem named Sakhawat's male child - a few months old - Rizwan Abbass. Such names, deriving from the Holy Prophet's family, were traditionally reserved for Sayyads.
Most people were cynical about the relationship between Naseem and the zakir. Sakhawat's own wife, who had complete faith in Naseem, said people had spread 'dirty talk' (gandi baten) about Naseem and her husband (Ansari 1983: 4). In spite of his belief in the revelations, Sakhawat Jaffery did not join the pilgrimage to Hawkes Bay. He had recently opened his shop and explained that abrupt departure would ensure its failure. Naseem was understanding: 'this is not a trip for zakirs. We want to see you prosper'.
After the visions, Naseem's followers bestowed on her the title already used by the Imam, Pak Bibi, or pure lady. The transformation in her appearance and character was now complete. She radiated confidence. Her following spread outside the village. In particular, she developed an attachment to the people of a neighboring village, Mureed, who were recently converted Muslims (Sheikhs) and who wholeheartedly believed in her. Most of them were kammis, belonging to such occupational groups as barbers and cobblers. Naseem, as a Sayyad, represented for them the house of the Prophet while her father, being relatively well off, was a potential source of financial support. Seventeen of the villagers of Mureed would follow her to Hawkes Bay.
The normal life of the village was disrupted by the affair. The Shiah, in particular, 'wholeheartedly accepted the phenomenon' but, not unnaturally, 'The regular routine life of the village was paralyzed'. In particular 'women stopped doing their household jobs' (Qaffery 1983: ro). Some placed obstacles in Naseem's path, teasing her family members (especially children on their way to school), and dumping rubbish in front of her house. Sayyads, who did not believe in her, ill-treated her followers from Mureed.
Meanwhile, a series of miracles was taking place which riveted society. Blood was found on the floor of Willayat Shah's bedroom. Naseem declared this to be the blood of Hazrat Ali Asghar, the male child of Hazrat Hussain, martyred at Karbala. On another occasion visitors were locked in a room and told that angels would bear down a flag from heaven. When the door was opened, indeed, there was a flag. On one occasion four children disappeared, to appear again later. But the greatest miracle of all remained Naseem's constant communication with the Imam. Supplicants would pray in front of Naseem's room, expressing their demands in a loud voice. The Imam would be consulted not only on profound matters but also on trivial ones, such as whether a guest should be given tea or food. Naseem, who received many of her orders during fainting fits, would then convey a reply on behalf of the Imam.
There came a time, however, when Naseem's authority was disputed. Doubts arose first from the failure of certain of her predictions and, second, from the public refusal of her kin to redistribute their property according to her orders. Naseem had been making extravagant predictions regarding illness, birth and death. Some of these came true, others did not. In one particular case, she predicted the death of a certain person within a specified period. He did not die. In another case, the elder brother of Willayat was asked to surrender his house for religious purposes which he refused to do. A cousin also refused when asked to hand over his property to Willayat. In yet another case Naseem, perhaps compensating for a Sunni mother in a Shiah household, ordered the engagement of her cousin to a non-Shiah to be broken; it was not. Naseem and Willayat responded to such rebellion with fierce denunciation. The rebels were branded as murtid, those who have renounced Islam and are, therefore, beyond the pale. Their relatives were forbidden to have any contact with them. In some cases, parents were asked not to see their children and vice versa. While taking firm measures against those who did not believe, the followers were charged with renewed activity, calculated to re-enforce group cohesiveness. The frequency of religious meetings increased as did visits to shrines. Participation was limited to believers.
Naseem's physical condition now began to correspond with the revelations: she lost weight and her color became dark when she was not receiving them; she glowed with health when she was. People freely equated her physical appearance with her spiritual condition. She lost noor -divine luminosity - in her periods of despondency and regained it when receiving revelations. For those who believed in her it was literally a question of light and darkness. But the crisis in Naseem was reaching its peak; so was the tension in the community.
Exactly to the day, two years after the first communication began, Naseem asked her father a question on behalf of the Imam: would the believers plunge into the sea as an expression of their faith? The question was not figurative. The Imam meant it literally. The believers were expected to walk into the sea from where they would be miraculously transported to Karbala in Iraq without worldly means. Naseem promised that even the 124,000 prophets recognized by Muslims would be amazed at the sacrifice (Ansari 1983: 3).
Figure I. Kinship chart of Naseem Fatima. Those who died at Hawkes Bay are shown by blacked out symbols, those who survived by asterisks.
Those who believed in the miracles immediately agreed to the proposition. Willayat was the first to agree: he would lead the party (Ansari 1983: 3). There was no debate, no vacillation. They would walk into the sea at Karachi and their faith would take them to the holy city of Karbala. Since the revelations began, Willayat had spent about half a million rupees and had disposed of almost all his property. He now quickly disposed of what remained to pay for the pilgrimage. The party consisted of forty-two people, whose ages ranged from 80 years to four months. Seventeen of them were from Mureed and most of the remaining were related (see diagram). Willayat, his brother and cousin, distributed all their belongings, retaining one pair of black clothes (symbolic of mourning) only. They hired trucks to take them to Karachi. With them were six large wooden and tin trunks. They also took with them the Shiah symbols of martyrdom at Karbala: alam (flag), taboot (picture of the mourning procession), jhoola (swing), and shabi (picture of the holy images).
Stopping over at shrines for prayers in Lahore and Multan, they arrived in Karachi on the third day. Karachi was in the throes of anti-government demonstrations and the police had imposed a curfew. The tension in the city directly reflected the rivalry between Shiahs and Sunnis in Pakistan. In spite of this, the party was not stopped as they made their way to Hawkes Bay. For them this was another miracle (Ansari 1983: 3). At Hawkes Bay the party offered two prayers (nafil) and read ten Surahs from the Holy Qur’an, including Al-Qadr, an early Meccan Surah, which states 'the Night of Destiny is better than a thousand months' (Surah 112, verse 3; Asad, M. 1980). The verse was well chosen: for the party, it was indeed the night of destiny.
The Imam then issued final instructions to Naseem: the women and children were to be locked in the six trunks and the virgin girls were to sit with her in one of them. Willayat was asked to hold the taboot along with three other men. Willayat's cousin, Mushtaq, was appointed chief (salar) of the party. He was ordered to lock the trunks, push them into the sea and throw away the keys. He would then walk into the water with an alam. At this stage four young people from Mureed, two men and two girls, became frightened. This fear, too, 'was put in their hearts by the Imam' (Ansari 1983: 3). Naseem, therefore, willingly exempted them from the journey. The remaining thirty-eight entered the sea. Mothers saw children and children saw old parents descending into the dark waters. But there 'were no ah (cries) or ansoo (tears)' (Ansari 1983: 4). Those in five out of the six trunks died. One of the trunks was shattered by the waves and its passengers survived. Those on foot also survived; they were thrown back on to the beach by the waves. The operation which had begun in the late hours of the night was over by the early morning when police and the press reached Hawkes Bay. The survivors were in high spirits; there was neither regret nor remorse among them. Only a divine calm, a deep ecstasy.
The Karachi police, in a display of bureaucratic zeal, arrested the survivors. They were charged with attempting to leave the country without visas. The official version read: 'The in-charge, FIA Passport Cell, in an application filed in the court said, it was reliably learnt that one Willayat Hussain Shah, resident of Chakwal, along with his family had attempted to proceed to a foreign country "Iraq" without valid documents through illegal route i.e. Hawkes Bay beach' (Dawn, March, 1983). The act came within the offence punishable under section 3/4 of the Passport Act 1974. The accused were, however, soon released.
Rich Shiahs, impressed by the devotion of the survivors, paid for their journey by air for a week to and from Karbala. In Iraq, influential Shiahs, equally impressed, presented them with gifts, including rare copies of the Holy Qur’an (Ansari 1983: 6). Naseem's promise that they would visit Karbala without worldly means was fulfilled.
Social change, leadership and kinship in Chakwal society
In an attempt to find a sociological explanation of the Hawkes Bay case I shall begin by putting forward a thesis based on the Dubai chalo, 'let us go to Dubai', theme in Pakistan society (Ahmed A. S. 1984a). Briefly, the thesis suggests that Pakistani workers, returning from the Arab lands with their pockets full of money, are no longer prepared to accept the status quo of the social order from which they had escaped. Those who return demand more social status and authority in society. In their own eyes they have earned the right to be respected by their long and usually hard periods abroad. But they may have little idea how exactly to go about changing society, or even whether they wish to move it 'forward' or back to older, more traditional, ways. Their new social confidence, backed by economic wealth and combined with frustration at the slow pace of change, may result in tensions and dramatic developments of which the Hawkes Bay case is an example.
Consider Willayat Shah. Belonging to the junior lineage of a Shiah family and with a Sunni wife, he escaped to Arabia determined, it may be assumed, to make good on his return. After four hard years there, he returned with considerable wealth, but society had remained the same and there was no perceptible change in his social position. Willayat's immediate family were acutely aware of his predicament. His closest child and eldest daughter, fully grown and intelligent, and herself under pressure to get married, responded to the crisis in their lives with a series of dramatic, divine pronouncements. In her case, social crisis had triggered psychological reactions. The revelations were calculated to disturb the social equations of the village forever. Naseem dominated not only the social but also, and more importantly for the family, the religious life of the area. Willayat Shah had finally arrived. Both he and Naseem now reached out towards the better, truer world that, for Muslims, lies beyond death. Through their deaths they would gain an ascendancy which would be final and unassailable. They would triumph through the Shiah themes of death, martyrdom and sacrifice.
For the actors in our case, society provided the stress but failed to suggest cures. We know that at least four individuals closely related to the key actor, Naseem, suffered from tension due to mixed loyalties in the Shiah-Sunni line up: her grandmother, her mother, her uncle and her aunt's husband were rumored to have been Sunni in the past. It was known that her grandmother's family were Sunni. By assuming the role of Shiah medium, Naseem was socially compensating for the Sunni connections in her family. Under such complex pressures, religion is the most convenient straw to clutch. The stress thus assumes a form of illness, but the illness is both mental and physical and 'in its expression culturally patterned' (Fox 1973: 180). One must look for cultural acts and symbolic forms which have local significance, including sacrifice and martyrdom. This case is certainly patterned by the religious sociology of Chakwal Tehsil.
Willayat Shah compared the sacrifice of his family to that of Karbala because 'he and his group had been assigned a duty to save the religion and the faith' (Pervez 1983: 22). In an interview given to Tariq Aziz on Pakistan Television he explained why Karachi was selected. He could have died in a pond in the village, he said. But the world would not have known of their faith. The prediction of his daughter had indeed come true. The world was amazed at the miracle of Hawkes Bay and people would talk of them as martyrs forever. Throughout the interviews he remained proud and unrepentant. His perception of those hours at Hawkes Bay are revealing. He 'insisted that he had been walking on the sea all the while like a truck driving on flat road' (Irfani 1983). He felt no fear, no regret. Most significantly, he remained convinced that the revelations would continue, even after the death of Naseem, through a male member of the family (Ansari 1983: 4). Willayat's wife. Sardar Bibi, reacted with a fervor equal to that of her husband. 'If the Imam tells us to sacrifice this baby too' she said pointing to an infant she was feeding during an interview, 'I'll do it' (Jaffery 1983: 27).
Willayat's eldest sister, Taleh Bibi, divorced and living with her brother, lost one daughter in the incident. She herself survived because she was in the trunk that did not sink. She, too, believes the miracle will continue through a male member of their family. In relation to the Islamic concept of death, it is significant that she had mixed feelings about her own survival. Although relieved to be alive, and although she gives this as another proof of the miracle, she is nonetheless envious of those who died and thereby gained paradise.
Was the psychological condition of Naseem cause or effect of her religious experience? We know that her peculiarities of temperament became acceptable after the revelations. Her fits, her rapture, her ecstasy now made sense. She was touched by the divine. Even her acts defying tradition in Chakwal - such as abandoning the veil or being alone with a man - expressed her transcendent independence. Examples of trance, spirit possession and ecstatic behavior have been recorded among Muslim groups from the Turkmen (Basilov 1984) to the Baluch (Bray 1977). It is a commonplace that highly gifted but disturbed individuals adapt religious idioms to consolidate their social position or to dominate their social environment. Women have heard voices before, all over the world. Joan of Arc's voices advised her to lead her nation into fighting the English. Naseem's urged her to lead her followers into the sea. In order to understand the motives of those involved in this case we need to combine an appreciation of religious mythology with an examination of certain sociological factors. There was more than just jazba (emotion, ecstasy, passion) at work in Chakwal. What did the followers think was awaiting them at Karachi?
Both local leadership and kinship helped to determine who would be on the beaches that night. The importance of a leader in an Islamic community, Shiah or Sunni, is critical. The group is judged by its leadership (The Holy Qur’an, Surah 5: ro9; and Surah T 6-7). In different ways Willayat, Naseem and Sakhawat Jaffery played leading parts in the drama, but we look in vain for a Savanarola figure in either Willayat or Sakhawat. Leadership was by consensus.
They were all agreed upon Naseem's special role in the drama. She led, as much as she was led by, her father and the zakir. The followers were responding not to one leader in their immediate community but to the concept of leadership in Shiah society. They were responding to symbols centuries old and emotions perennially kept alive in Shiah society. What is significant is the lack of ambivalence in the majority of the followers. Even the call for the ultimate sacrifice evoked an unequivocal response among most of them. Asad's interesting question, 'how does power create religion?' (Asad T. 1981: 252) may therefore be turned around. The Hawkes Bay case provides an interesting example of how religion may create power.
Willayat Shah was a forceful person who mobilized public opinion behind his daughter. The zakirs, especially Sakhawat Jaffery, supported him and he in turn assisted Sakhawat Jaffery financially. Apart from assisting the zakirs, Willayat also paid sums to a variety of other people. Among the beneficiaries were members of the traditionally lower social class - mostly artisans, barbers and blacksmiths. The seventeen people from Mureed who were prepared to walk into the sea were from this class. In fact, four of this group backed out at the last minute and although thirteen entered the sea, only three of them died. The people of Mureed were recent converts to Islam and, like all converts, they were eager to exhibit their religious fervor. They looked to Willayat Shah for religious and financial support. For them he was both a Sayyad and a man of means and they were enraptured by his daughter. Through him and his daughter they found access to a higher social level.
Whatever the levelling effect of religion, and the loyalties it created, the Sayyads rarely allowed their genealogy to be forgotten: the rural Punjab class structure was recognizable despite the experience at Hawkes Bay. Even in death class distinctions remained: three of the four men who held the taboot as they stepped into the waters were Sayyad, and the non-Sayyad was swept into the sea. Later, with a strange twist of logic, Willayat explained this by suggesting that his faith was weak (Pervez 1983: 37). His faith was weak because he was not a Sayyad, while the three Sayyads who survived did so because their intentions were pure. And yet he also argued that those Sayyads who died did so because of their purity. Sayyads, obviously, won whether the coin landed heads or tails. The Sayyads, of course, provided Willayat's main support and many of them were his relatives. Of those who walked into the sea, twenty-five were related (see Fig. 1). For these, Willayat was the elder of the family: father to one, brother to another and uncle to yet others. Of the eighteen who died, fifteen were his near relatives, while ten of his kin survived. Religious loyalty was here clearly buttressed by ties of kinship.
There was, however, structural resistance to Naseem and her revelations. The Sunni dismissed them out of hand and even the Shiah were not unanimous in supporting her. The Sayyads, senior in the Shiah hierarchy, ill-treated Naseem's followers, especially the poorer ones, and teased her family. The older, more established, Shiah lineages felt threatened by the emergence of Naseem since she challenged their authority. Willayat's own brother, Ghulam Haider, suspected of having Sunni affiliation, kept away from the entire affair. The zakir, himself a close confidant and beneficiary of Naseem, but worldly wise, chose not to accompany the party on some pretext. And at the last moment, by the sea, four followers backed out. But, although there was opposition and resistance at every stage, thirty-eight people were prepared to sacrifice their lives on the basis of Naseem's commands and revelations. The explanation for their behavior partly lies, I have argued, in the forces of social change, leadership and kinship in Chakwal society. But there are also other, more ideological and mythological dimensions to consider.
Death, sects and women in Muslim society
There is no substantial difference between the core theological beliefs of Shiah and Sunni. Both believe in the central and omnipotent position of Allah; both accept the supremacy of the Holy Prophet as the messenger of Allah. The Holy Qur’an is revered by both as the divine message of Allah and its arguments relating to notions of death and the afterworld are accepted by both. Discussion of death is indeed central to the Holy Qur’an, which has many verses on the theme that 'every soul must taste of death'.
Death in Muslim society is seen as part of a natural pre-ordained, immutable order, directly linked to the actions of the living and part of a continuing process in the destiny of the individual. It becomes, therefore, a means to an end, 'the beginning of a journey' (Abd al-Qadir 1977= 6). Humans 'transfer' from this to the next world (the word for death in Urdu and Arabic, inteqal, derives from the Arabic muntaqil to 'transfer'). The Holy Qur’an warns 'unto him you shall be made to return' (Surah Al-Ankabut: verse 21). On hearing of someone's death, a Muslim utters the words 'from God we come, to God we shall go'. For Muslims there is no escaping the consequences of death (Muslim 1981).
In Islam-both Shiah and Sunni-life and death are conceptualized as binary opposites. Al-akhira, the end, is the moment of truth, determining the future of a person. The individual is alone in that hour; all ties including those with parents and family are repudiated (Surah 82: 19). At that time all veils between man and 'the objective moral reality will be rent' (Rahman 1980: 106). Al-akhira is opposed to al-dunya, the here and now, which may mean base pursuits. Indeed, Alam-e-Uqba, a popular book in Urdu on death in Islam, has sections called 'Your death is better than your living' (Sialkoti n.d.: 50). Given the awesome facts of al-akhira, human beings must prepare for it in this life. Together, al-akhira and dunya are a unitary whole, the latter determining the nature of the former. Life after death is explicit in Islam and central to its theology. In a general sense this partly explains the attitudes to death shown both in the traditional religious war, jihad, and in contemporary events in the Muslim world. Those who killed President Sadaat in Cairo and, like Lt Islambuli, awaited death calmly, during the trials and those who died following Imam Khomeini's call in Iran, first against the Shah and later against the Iraqis, believed they were dying for a just, an Islamic, cause. Matters are complicated when jihad is freely translated as a struggle against any enemy, including Muslims (Ahmed A. S. 1983). But the problems between Shiah and Sunni lie in this world and are rooted in the history, not theology, of lslam.
Islamic history, Shiahs maintain, began to go wrong when Hazrat Ali, married to Hazrat Fatima, daughter of the Prophet, was not made the first Caliph after the death of his father-in-law. To make matters worse Hazrat Ali was assassinated. Hazrat Ali's two sons, Hazrat Hassan and Hazrat Hussain, following in their father's footsteps, opposed tyranny and upheld the puritan principles of Islam. Both were also martyred. Hazrat Hussain was martyred, facing impossible odds on a battlefield, with his family and followers, at Karbala. Among those killed at Karbala was Hazrat Hussain's six-month-old son, Hazrat Ali Asghar (who appeared to Naseem in Chakwal). The Prophet, Hazrats Fatima, Ali, Hassan and Hussain are the five key figures for Shiah theology and history. These are the panj tan pak, 'the pure five', of Shiahs in Pakistan, including those in Chakwal. Since five of them were martyred in the cause of lslam, death, martyrdom, tears and sacrifice form a central part of Shiah mythology (Algar 1969: Fischer 1980; Khomeini 1981; Schimmel 1981; Shariati 1979). Members of the Shiah community are expected to respond with fervor (jazba) to a call for sacrifice by the leadership. A sense of sectarian uniqueness, of group loyalty, faith in the leadership, readiness for sacrifice, devout ecstasy during divine ritual, characterize the community. It has been called 'the Karbala paradigm' (Fischer 1980) and would have been exhibited in Chakwal.
In Pakistan today, where about 20 per cent. of the population of 90 million are Shiahs, Shiah-Sunni differences can degenerate into conflict. This is especially so during the Muharram, the ten days of Shiah mourning for the events at Karbala. During this period Shiahs mourn, flagellate themselves, organize processions symbolic o fKarbala, and recite moving poems of the tragedy at Karbala which reduce those present to tears and quivering rapture. Conflict with Sunnis is often sparked as a result of overzealous Shiahs abusing figures respected by Sunnis, such as Hazrat Umar. It was one such riot which had paralyzed Karachi when the party from Chakwal arrived there on its way to the Arabian Sea. Chakwal society itself is riven with Shiah and Sunni opposition which has a long and bitter history. Local politics, marriages and economics are based on this opposition. Sectarian tension and loyalties also divide families. Some of Willayat's own nearest kin were either secret Sunnis or suspected of being sympathizers. These divided loyalties must have led to severe tension both for him and his daughter.
An appreciation of the five central figures of the Shiahs also helps us to understand the role of women in that community. The position of Hazrat Fatima is central. Her popularity among the Shiah in Chakwal may be judged by the fact that seven women in Willayat Shah's family carry her name. Two of these are called Ghulam Fatima, or slave of Fatima. Always a great favorite of her father, Hazrat Fatima provides the link between her father and husband and between her sons and their grandfather. The Sayyads, those claiming descent from the Prophet, do so through Hazrat Fatima. So do the twelve Imams, revered by the Shiah. In addition, Fatima's mother and the Prophet's first wife, Hazrat Khadijah, is also an object of reverence. Two other women feature in Shiah mythology, but neither is a popular figure. They are Hazrat Ayesha and Hazrat Hafsa, both wives of the Prophet. The reason for their unpopularity is linked to the question of Hazrat Ali's succession. Ayesha was the daughter of Abu Bakar and Hafsa of Umar, the two who preceded Ali as Caliph. Ayesha is singled out as she opposed Ali actively after her husband's death. Thus, one of the five revered figures of the Shiah is a woman. Among the Sunnis a similar listing - of the Prophet and the first four Righteous Caliphs consists entirely of males. In other matters, too, Shiah women are better off than Sunnis. Shiah women, for example, often inherit shares equal to that inherited by male kin, whereas among educated Sunni, women receive, at best, one half of what a male inherits. In the rural areas they seldom inherit at all. Shiah women also play a leading role in ritual. The organization of marsyas and azadari, the enactment of the death dramas of Karbala, all involve the active participation of women.
Of the eighteen people who died at Hawkes Bay, ten were women, a notably large number in view of the fact that only sixteen of the forty-two who set out on the pilgrimage were women. Willayat Shah lost both his mother and daughter. It may be argued that the women were unequivocally committed to sacrifice. By locking themselves in trunks they had sealed their own fates. For them there was no coming back from the waves. Their sense of sacrifice and passion for the cause was supreme.
The attitudes of the two communities to the Hawkes Bay incident reveal their ideological positions. Sunnis, as we saw above, condemned the entire episode as 'bizarre' and dismissed it as 'insanity'. This, they argued, was mumbo-jumbo and quackery and not in keeping with the logic and rationality which is Islam. For Shiahs all the ingredients of high devotion were amply displayed. Through it they felt they had once again established their superior love for Islam. Here there was sacrifice, persecution, death and martyrdom, the Shiah paradigm. Educated Shiah, who found it awkward to explain the Hawkes Bay case, nonetheless, applauded the jazba of the group. As one journalist concluded his report: 'There are millions who don't have the slightest doubt that they have demonstrated the highest degree of sacrifice by answering the call and order of the Hidden Imam' (Yusufzai 1983). The idea of sacrificing life and property for Allah exists both in Shiah and Sunni Islam and is supported in the Holy Qur’an. Sacrifice and its symbolism are part of Islamic religious culture. Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail, for example, is celebrated annually throughout the Muslim world at Eid-ul-Adha. But for the Shiahs, sacrifice holds a central place in social behavior and sectarian mythology. Here it is necessary to distinguish between suicide-throwing away life given by God-and sacrifice, or dedication of that life to God. Suicide is a punishable offence in Islam (Islam 1976: 267). Sunnis, therefore, seeing the deaths at Hawkes Bay as suicide, disapproved. They saw the episode as a throwing away of valuable lives, whereas Shiahs saw it as a sacrifice which would confirm their devotion. Willayat Shah was convinced his mission was divine and that he had proved this through a dramatic act of sacrifice. Reward, he was certain, would be paradise in the afterworld (Pervez 1983: 22). In interviews after the event he expressed his wish to be martyred (shaheed). There was no remorse; there was only jazba. To a remarkable degree Shiah tradition, and the practice of death and sacrifice, coincided in this case. For the Shiah in Chakwal, text and practice were one.
Suffering thus became as much an expression of faith as of social solidarity. 'As a religious problem, the problem of suffering is, paradoxically, not how to avoid suffering but how to suffer, how to make of physical pain, personal loss, worldly defeat, or the helpless contemplation of others' agony something bearable, supportable - something, as we say, sufferable' (Geertz 1969: 19). Suffering, martyrdom and death, the Karbala paradigm, create an emotionally receptive social environment for sacrifice. Death in our case, therefore, became a cementing, a defining, a status-bestowing act for the community. It consolidated the living as it hallowed the memory of the dead.
Notes
I am grateful for the interest shown in this paper by Professors Khurshid Ahmad, M. Ajmal, Z. A. Ansari, Ismail al Faruqi, E. Gellner, C. Keyes and T. N. Madan.
1 A committee was set up by Dr M. Afzal, the Minister of Education, to examine the problem. It was chaired by Dr Z. A. Ansari and included some of Pakistan's most eminent psychiatrists and psychologists. I represented the social scientists (Pervez 1983).
2 The organisation of Punjab Society into agricultural peasant groups, defined by ethnicity and occupation, is well documented (Ahmed, A. S. 1984c; Ahmed S. 1973; 1977; Alavi 1972; 1973; Balneaves 1955; Darling 1925; 1930; 1934; Eglar 1960; Ibbetson 1883; Pettigrew 1975).
3 See also Saeed 1982. In another popular book the author promises the reader, in the sub-title, 'glimpses of life beyond the grave'. One section in the book is entitled 'The depth of hell: if a stone is thrown into hell it will take seventy years to reach its bottom' Islam 1976: 284). For discussion of Jahannam, the Muslim hell, see Gibbs & Kramers 1981: 81-2. Maulana Maududi discusses the importance of death, the after-life and its relationship to man's life on earth, in a dispassionate analysis of lslamic society (Maududi 1968). See also chapter six, 'Eschatology', in Rahman 1980. - MAN
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(Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, School of International Service, American University, Washington DC. He is a Wilson Center Global Fellow. He was the former Pakistan High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland and in 1970-71 was Assistant Commissioner in East Pakistan.)
