DCM Haidari Delivers Keynote Remarks at International Sufi Conference

Patiala:- Deputy Chief of Mission M. Ashraf Haidari was invited as Chief Guest at the 4 ^th International Sufi Conference on “Relation between Sufism and Sikhism,” hosted by the Punjabi University Baba Farid Center for Sufi Studies in Patiala, Punjab, on December 9-10, 2014. In his keynote remarks, Mr. Haidari discussed “Towards a Peaceful Afghanistan in a Harmonious South Asia: Lessons from Sufism & Sikhism,” highlighting the history of development of spiritual relationship between Islam and Sikhism in the context of Indo-Afghan relations.

“I wish to note that in order to achieve a peaceful Afghanistan in a harmonious South Asia today, we do not need to look much far afield. We simply should revisit the basic precepts of Sufism and Sikhism for lessons to be learned,” Mr. Haidari argued. “Indeed, in a fast shrinking, interdependent world, nations should tear down walls of hatred, hostility, and self-defeating, zero-sum designs to undermine each other,” he added.” “These artificial human obstacles to our collective progress should be replaced by honest, results-oriented efforts to achieve regional integration for peace and prosperity for all,” Mr. Haidari appealed to Afghanistan’s neighbors. That is what the great Sufis and Gurus of Central Asia and South Asia preached and promoted so that human tragedy was replaced by human harmony through universal human service and fraternity under one beneficent, merciful God and its many different, beautiful manifestations,” he added.

Moreover, Mr. Haidari discussed the recent Summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Kathmandu, Nepal, which debated the many common challenges, which confront the nations of South Asia. He highlighted extreme poverty, weak governance, a lack of connectivity, a lack of energy, and security threats (posed by state-actors through their proxies) as some of the key problems that continue to cause large-scale human suffering throughout “our otherwise naturally endowed and civilizationally rich region.”  He said that “to address the root-causes of these problems and to exploit our region’s vast potential of natural and human resources for the collective security and prosperity of all our nations, Afghanistan’s new President, H.E. Dr. Ashraf Ghani, called on his fellow SAARC leaders to ‘change the rules of the game and the playing field among the nations from confrontation to cooperation.’”

Following his participation in the Conference, Mr. Haidari met with Punjabi University Vice Chancellor Dr. Jaspal Singh and suggested the establishment of student and faculty exchange programs between Punjabi and Kabul Universities. The Vice Chancellor welcomed the proposal, and also suggested that joint research be undertaken on the travels of Guru Nanak Saheb to Afghanistan. Professor Nashir Naqvi, Director of the Baba Farid Center for Sufi Studies, was tasked to take the necessary steps to do so.

The full transcript of Mr. Haidari’s remarks is below:

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Keynote Remarks on "Towards a Peaceful Afghanistan in a Harmonious South Asia: Lessons from Sufism & Sikhism" by M. Ashraf Haidari, Deputy Chief of Mission of Afghanistan to India; Chief Guest at the 4th International Sufi Conference on "Relation between Sufism and Sikhism" at Punjabi University Baba Farid Center for Sufi Studies, December 9-20, 2014

Patiala-Punjab

Vice Chancellor Dr. Jaspal Singh,

Dr. Nashir Naqvi,

Dr. Devinder Singh,

Distinguished Scholars of Sufism & Sikhism,

Dear Students,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am truly honored by the invitation to speak at this spiritual International Sufi Conference. Our gathering today and tomorrow is timely hosted by the Baba Farid Center for Sufi Studies, which I greatly appreciate.  Indeed, there are very few academic institutions of higher learning in South Asia, which provide and facilitate, in a devoted manner, research and scholarship on the lives, achievements, and legacies of the great Sufis and Gurus of our shared, glorious past with much relevance to our common, evolving civilization today.

The establishment of the Baba Farid Center in 2010 by the Punjabi University in Patiala is to be highly applauded. And, of course, this much needed academic endeavor should be both supported and emulated by other serious universities in the world in order to share with students of humanities and social sciences the many timeless, universal values and principles, which Sufism and Sikhism have commonly espoused and promoted over the past centuries.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The relationship between Sufism and Sikhism dates back to the time of Baba Nanak Saheb, who led a modest life of profound, spiritual devotion, which focused on building bridges of love, tolerance, co-existence, and harmony among peoples of diverse faiths and socio-economic status. He was so immersed in piety and teaching his disciples to live spiritually, honestly, and harmoniously that many of his Muslim contemporaries, especially Sufis, called him a true Muslim.

Baba Nanak Saheb extensively traveled—including to Mecca for Haj, different provinces of Afghanistan, and Baghdad—in search of divine knowledge and mystic scholarship. This exposed him much more to Islam and its various mystic schools of thought than to any other religion. And, of course, for 64 long years, one of Baba Nanak Saheb’s closest companions and servants was Mardanda Saheb, who remained a Muslim until he died. According to the custodian of the shrine of Miyan Mir Saheb in Lahore, the descendants of Mardana Saheb still live there, and they refer to themselves as Sikh-Muslims.

Upon his death, Baba Nanak Saheb left behind a large number of Hindu and Muslim disciples, each side claiming him as theirs for he had lived with them so harmoniously and treated them so equally, so respectfully, and so sincerely that neither side was willing to give up his body to the other.  Today, the shrine of Baba Nanak Saheb is not only visited by Sikhs but also by Hindus and Muslims, each seeking his blessings in their distinct ways.

It was in such mutually reinforcing spiritual relationship, which had been evolving between Sufism and Sikhism, that Guru Arjan Dev Saheb invited Miyan Mir Saheb, a leading Sufi of his time and Pir of the Qaderi Order, to lay the foundation stone of the Golden Temple. Indeed, the commonality of the values and principles, which the Gurus and Sufis had been teaching their followers, was so deep with a focus on humanism that Guru Granth Saheb includes 112 couplets and 4 hymns by Baba Farid.  This signifies the deep relationship between Sufism and Sikhism, and the influence they had on one another.

Over the course of history since the emergence of Sikhism in the 15 ^th century, the differences between the Sikh and Muslim communities have been traced to realpolitik. Such differences have hardly emanated from the shared path, which the Sufis and the Gurus followed to reach truth by serving the vicegerents of God on this earth, while inviting them to love, tolerate, and help one another.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Afghanistan is the birthplace of many great Sufis of the subcontinent, including the sultan-ul hind : Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti. He was born in Chisht, Herat, sometime in 1141, and eventually settled down in Ajmer, following a dream in which Prophet Mohammed (PBU) blessed him to do so. I am delighted to tell you that we have recently proposed to establish a sister-city relationship between Chisht of Herat and Ajmer of Rajasthan both to honor the legacy and contributions of the great Sufi and to further strengthen cultural ties between Afghanistan and India, based on our shared past.

The Chishti Order--which influenced the thinking and teaching of Baba Nanak Saheb—interpreted religion in terms of human service, inviting its followers “to develop river-like generosity, sun-like affection, and earth-like hospitality.”  The highest form of devotion, according to Chishti Saheb, was “to redress the misery of those in distress, to fulfill the needs of the helpless, and to feed the hungry.”

To implement these universally good deeds, the followers of Chishti and other Orders set up khanaqas , community centers with feeding and lodging facilities, which were built in rural, poor areas throughout India. The Chishti Order khanaqas welcomed anyone, regardless of faith, race, or caste, and offered them food and shelter, spiritual guidance, psychological support, and counseling. By creating egalitarian communities within a stratified society, Sufis successfully spread their teachings of love, spirituality and harmony. Indeed, it was this example of Sufi brotherhood and equity that drew people to Islam.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish to note that in order to achieve a peaceful Afghanistan in a harmonious South Asia today, we do not need to look much far afield. We simply should revisit the basic precepts of Sufism and Sikhism for lessons to be learned. Indeed, in a fast shrinking, interdependent world, nations should tear down walls of hatred, hostility, and self-defeating, zero-sum designs to undermine each other. These artificial human obstacles to our collective progress should be replaced by honest, results-oriented efforts to achieve regional integration for peace and prosperity for all. That is what the great Sufis and Gurus of Central Asia and South Asia preached and promoted so that human tragedy was replaced by human harmony through universal human service and fraternity under one beneficent, merciful God and its many different, beautiful manifestations.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The recent Summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Kathmandu, Nepal, debated the many common challenges, which confront the nations of South Asia. Extreme poverty, weak governance, a lack of connectivity, a lack of energy, and security threats (posed by state-actors through their proxies) continue to cause large-scale human suffering throughout our otherwise naturally endowed and civilizationally rich region.  To address the root-causes of these problems and to exploit our region’s vast potential of natural and human resources for the collective security and prosperity of all our nations, Afghanistan’s new President, H.E. Dr. Ashraf Ghani, called on his fellow SAARC leaders to “change the rules of the game and the playing field among the nations from confrontation to cooperation.”

In effect, H.E. President Ghani maintained that so long as South Asian nations remained locked up in a zero-sum mentality, undermining one another, they would hardly develop and advance together on a sustainable basis.  The President noted that to change the status was “the test of leadership.”  For inclusive, transformational leadership, which our region direly lacks, we need to draw inspiration from the kind of leadership, which Baba Nanak Saheb exhibited during his lifetime. As I pointed out earlier, Baba Nanak Saheb had been leading his Hindu and Muslim followers by example, so much so that he had erased in his followers’ minds the differences of their ethnicity, faith and caste. In other words, he had unified them around a set of ethos that promoted the general well-being all humans.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

My beautiful country, Afghanistan, where many of this region’s Sufis, Gurus, poets, and scholars were once born and made remarkable contributions to our shared, rich civilization, has been a target of the so-called Muslims that daily terrorize our innocent people, burn down our schools and madaares , and increasingly carry out suicide terrorist attacks inside of our mosques where the innocent and the poor pray and worship God. They ruthlessly kill civilians—including children, women, and men—in the name of a religion of peace, tolerance, harmony, co-existence whose true message the great Sufis of Afghanistan—like Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti—spread throughout South Asia.

Indeed, the Sufis’ was the real Jihad, the Greater Jihad, whose message of universal brotherhood naturally resonated with and attracted believers of different faiths and social castes. Theirs was the straight path, the path of Prophet Mohammed (PBU), from which today’s killers of innocent Muslims and non-Muslims have long and far deviated, increasingly serving the political, short-sighted interests of states in the international system.

Because of this deviation from the noble teachings and traditions of Islam—whose image they have awfully harmed—the extremists, including the so-called Taliban and their sponsoring masters that often kill and destroy, under the guise of Jihad, would never, ever succeed in their worldly zero-sum designs, at the cost of innocent human lives. Afghanistan didn’t succumb to their brutal, inhumane atrocities against our people in the 1990s, which eventually spelled their own downfall. Nor would our deeply religious and yet moderate people ever cease our Greater Jihad for securing and rebuilding our country, in partnership with the international community.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish to remind the enemies of humanity in our region and beyond of what Islam really stands for, as communicated by another great Sufi-poet of our region, Saadi Shirazi:

Translation:

Human beings are members of a whole,

In creation of one essence and soul.

If one member is afflicted with pain,

Other members uneasy will remain.

If you've no sympathy for human pain,

The name of human you cannot retain!

I wish you a very productive Conference today and tomorrow. Thank you again for the opportunity to share with you my thoughts on the theme of this year’s International Sufi Conference.