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WITH Baber pushing the Arghuns down into Sindh, for the first time since the Arab days eight hundred years earlier, the province came under foreign rule After a while the Tarkhans also came in --- and the two foreign groups divided the province between themselves. During the next 180 years, Sindh faced all the ups and downs with the Mughals When Shershah defeated Humayun, the latter came running to Sindh. But the Arghuns were cool to him. Humayun ran from pillar to post. At one stage he even thought of retiring to Mecca and living there as a faqir. But his lieutenants persuaded him not to abandon them. ``What will become of us?'' they asked. They were not interested in going to Mecca and vegetating there. At this stage Humayun, 33, luckily fell in love with Hamida Banu, 14, an Arghun Sindhi girl, and married her in 1541 in village Patt, Sindh. Good Rana Birsal of Amarkot gave shelter to Humayun's party in his fort. Here, on 15 October 1542, Akbar was born. It was a great day for Sindh and for Hind.
When, however, Akbar tried to annex lower Sindh, the people resisted him under the leadership of Jani Beg Arghun who had been completely Sindhized by his Sindhi mother, and who had come to be known as ``Sindhi Bacha'' (son of Sindh). He became extremely popular with the people, in spite of his notorious homosexuality.
The first man sent by Akbar, Mohammed Sadiq Khan, was duly defeated. Akbar then sent a huge force under his prime minister, Khan-Khanan Mirza Abdul Rahim. Sindh had now come to be known as Wilayat Dil-pasand Sindh'' (the pleasant province of Sindh''). And Akbar attached so much importance to the expedition that he personally, with the entire court, came out to the banks of the Ravi in Lahore to see the Khan Khanan off. This time again the Mughal forces were reduced to sore straits, with their supplies cut off, leading to the situation of ``a loaf for a life''. At this stage the desperate Mughal commander went and prostrated himself before the influential
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| Arghun Tombs at Makli |
When Shah Jehan was fighting his father Jehangir, he spent some time in the safety of Thatta. Later when he became King, he built a huge mosque in the city called ``Asman ka Mahal'' (celestial Palace) Aurangzeb also spent some time as governor of lower Sindh.
When Aurangzeb defeated his brother Dara Shikoh, the latter too came running to Sindh. But the heartless Arghuns had the good prince Dara caught, blinded and sent in chains to Delhi. Shivaji in his letter to Jai Singh had 9aid that had Dara remained
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| Shah Jehan Mosque in Thatta |
Thatta had long become, in the words of De Laet, ``by far the largest trading centre of India . And Moreland said that it was one of the greatest centres of population and trade in the world. When Rana Pratap lost Chittor, for some time he sought sanctuary in Amarkot. Here he heard so much about Thatta that he wanted to occupy that city and rule Sindh. But the Rana of Amarkot persuaded him to concentrate on his ancestral, prestigious Mewar --- and not be diverted by any other thought.
In their internecine wars, Isa Khan Arghun in 1655 requested the help of the Portuguese. And that was a disaster. Seven hundred of them arrived in 28 ships. But Isa refused to pay them anything since his war ended sooner than expected. The Portuguese helped themselves by looting Thatta to the tune of ``two millions of gold, one of the richest booties ever taken in Asia''. In addition, they set fire to the local Jama Masjid on a Friday --- and roasted eight thousand namazis (those offering namaz) alive!
But even the Portuguese sack of Thatta did not much hurt the buoyant city. It continued to be a great centre of industry, commerce and culture.
It was not always darkness at noon, even in Arghun and Tarkhan Sindh. The great Sindhi episode of ``Suhni Mehar'' --- the same as Punjab's Sohni-Mahiwal --- pertains to this period. Suhni --- ``the beautiful one'' --- was the daughter of Tula, a potter of Shahdadpur. Izzat Beg, a merchant-prince of Bokhara, fell in love with her. He forgot his business and his Bokhara, settled down as a buffalo-herd (Mehar or Mahiwal) by the name of Sahir, across the river. Every night Suhni would pick up her pitcher and swim across the river to keep her trust. One day an angry sister-in-law replaced her baked clay pitcher by a kutcha (unbaked) one. As Suhni entered the river, the pitcher melted away. She was then adrift in a raging river. Needless to say that the Mehar followed her cries into the roaring waters and the two shared a watery grave together. However, what she said and thought and felt at the time has been immortalized by Shah in ``Sur Suhni''. ``If my taunting friends had seen my love, they would not be sleeping by the side of their hubbies...... What others think infamy, is, for me, the highest honour.... A pitcher is a burden for those who are intoxicated with love.... Here I have to face these taunts --- and there, I have a trust to keep (Hit thi waide ji waar, hut satoon diyanim sartiyun) .... The Lord has seen many aspirants drown, but I have drowned the sea itself --- with my tears (Sahsein Sahir boriyun, mundh boriyo mahran) Oh, you River, on the Day of Judgement, 1 will complain against you.... You have to leap into the deep to meet your Lord.... only the chicken-hearted stand on the bank and call for the Lord.''
Sindh during this period threw up five jewels --- Pancha Ratna. Abul Fazl and Faizi, originally of Sehwan adorned the court of Akbar. Indeed, Abul Fazl was the emperor's right-hand man. Abul Fazl and Akbar wanted Jehangir's son Khusru --- and not Jehangir himself --- to succeed Akbar. To prevent this happening, Jehangir got Abul Fazl murdered. And that broke the heart of Akbar, who died soon after.
Another person from Sindh in this period who made his mark in history was Sarmed Faqir. Sarmad was born a Jew in Armenia. He travelled all over West Asia, embraced Islam, and settled down as a prosperous trader in Thatta. Here one day he saw and heard in a mushaira a young Hindu named Abhaichand, whose company completely transformed his life. The beauty of Abhaichand and the melody of his voice captivated the heart of Sarmad. The two began to live together. Soon Sarmad was singing: ``I am a kafir and not a Musalman.'' Here was a classic case of physical love sublimating itself into spiritual ecstacy.
Later Sarmad shed all clothing --- like a Jain Digambar Sadhu. Crowds would collect to listen to his inspired talk. When he moved to Delhi, Dara Shikoh became one of his disciples. He was introduced to Shah Jehan, who requested him to put on some clothing, at least for others' sake. Sarmad was no more willing to oblige him than Churchill's ``Naked Faqir'' was willing to oblige the King of England three centuries later.
When Dara lost out to Aurangzeb in the war of succession, the latter kept a watchful eye on Sarmad. He first said that Sarmad could not be liquidated only for his nudity. But the thought that Sarmad had blessed Dara, kept rankling in his mind. And the fact that Sarmad had become a big centre of moral authority in Delhi, was more than the suspicious Aurangzeb could bear. He, therefore, decided that Sarmad's nudity, his miracles, and his refusal to read the whole Kalma, cumulatively made him a renegade, fit for death.
Like the Hindus probing for God with ``neti. neti --- ``not this, not that'' --- Sarmad used to stop at ``Il Illah'' --- ``there is no God but God'', -and would not add ``Mohammed Rasul Allah'' --- ``there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his pro- phet''.
On royal orders, Sarmad was beheaded in front of Jama Masjid, Delhi, where his grave stands to this day. However, his divine madness will be remembered for ages to come. Said Sarmad, ``Sarmad has no regrets over the defeat of deen (creed); I sacrificed this faith at the altar of those divine eyes.''
His classic lines were: .
``Sarmad, you got much name and fame when you switched from Kuffar [Judaism] to Islam. But what was wrong with Allah and the Prophet that you have now become a disciple of Rama and Lakshmana?''
In Urdu it reads:
Sarmad tera duniya mein bada naam hua; Jab Kufr se tu maele Islam huva; Allah wa Nabi mein burai kya thi Kyon phir ke murid-e-Lachhman wa Ram hua?
Another saint from Sindh to fall foul of Delhi was Enayat Shah of Jhok, near Thatta. He draped himself in geruva clothes. Orthodox mullahs, became jealous of the huge congregations he attracted by his saintliness. And since he treated the farmers on his charitable lands well, the zamindars in the area became apprehensive about infecting the masses with ideas of justice. The two reactionary forces combined to poison Delhi's ears against the Sufi saint, who was ``invited to Thatta'' and there beheaded. Earlier, Shah Enayat had blessed the Kalhora Yar Mohammed Khan for resisting the Mughals and their Arghun governors in Sindh. Later, two of Enayat's followers avenged his death by blinding Farrukhsiyar, the Mughal ruler of Delhi.
Another rare jewel was Mahamati Pran Nath. Son of a Gujerati father and a Sindhi mother, he spent his time in both provinces and wrote his poetry in both languages. When Aurangzeb imposed jeziya (head tax) on the Hindus in 1679, Mahamati went to Delhi, where his twelve disciples --- ten Hindu and two Muslim --- recited his poetry of love and peace in and around the Jama Masjid. One day they even intercepted Aurangzeb going on horse-back to Jama Masjid for namaz. When the king did not heed them, Mahamati led his group on a padayatra (walking tour) through the countryside, denouncing official highhandedness. His Sindhi Vani is his last and best writing. Later Mahamati Nath became the political guru of Chhatrasal, the Bundela hero.
It would seem that Gandhi drew his inspiration more from Mahamati Pran Nath than from either Ruskin or Tolstoy. His mother, Putli Bai, was a Pran Nathi. She bad taken young Gandhi and Kasturba, after their marriage, to the Pran Nath Mandir, which had no idols (nijanand sampradaya). Gandhiji's Satyagraha also ran parallel to Mahamati Nath's sadagraha in Delhi. His ``Dandi March'' ran parallel to the latter's padayatra from Delhi to Sindh and Gujerat. Even Gandhiji's prayer meetings were a replica of Mahamati Nath's joint prayer meetings for the Hindus and the Muslims.
History can repeat itself.