“Bring me two kilo’s of ‘masoor ki daal’, five kilo’s of ‘rice’ and if you want my dua’a to be more effective, hand out a kilo of meat to each of my helpers. Oh, and don’t forget to give some money to the old man sitting outside... his prayers are known to be very effective. Go to the Urs of Bari Imam and feed the poor out there. Insha-Allah will bless you with a child.”

The well-known words of well-known pir’s, our local “Allah-waley”. Every locality has got one of them. Everyone goes to them for help. Every student goes to them for good grades. Every businessman goes to them for a flourishing business. Every parent goes to them for a ‘rishtaa’ for their children. All they’ve got to do is to slip in some thousand rupees into their piggy bank, pay their children’s fees, supply them with food enough to feed their family for a month and go to some Sufi’s tomb for ‘Chadar-Poshi’. Welcome to the neighborhood’s version of Islam.

Pirophobia has taken all over the country and nothing is being done to prevent these un-Islamic acts in the ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’. Try stopping a person who frequently visits a pir and actually believes in him from doing so. You won’t be able to, because to an average person who believes in them, this is ISLAM.

We shall never be able to wipe such a disease from our society when the government itself promotes it. I recently visited the Pakistan Tourism Board’s official website in which they have mentioned (quite proudly, I must say) about the Urs of Bari Imam, which is celebrated in the first week of May. Even worse, the prime minister of Pakistan, Mir Zafar Ullah Khan Jamali officially inaugurated the Urs with the custom of ‘Chadar Poshi’ this year. When the death anniversary of the Prophet (PBUH) has not been ordered to be celebrated, why shall some other sufi’s death anniversary be celebrated? These Urs-like festivals are nothing but bliss for drug addicts who get money from the people who visit these sites and use them to buy and sell drugs and whatnot? What is to become of an Islamic nation whose leaders promote such fairs, festivals or whatever one may want to call them, when they are simply prohibited in Islam? Where did the Islamic principles and beliefs (which incidentally is what Pakistan was established for) go? When was the Islamic Republic of Pakistan taken over by the ‘Bari Imam’s Republic of Peeristan’? Instead of spreading awareness that such things are ‘bidaat’, the PM officially launched it. Bravo, Mr. Jamali!

Bidaat (or Bidah)– that’s what it is. So, what does this word ‘bidaat’ mean after all? Any new innovation in religion is a bidaat. It’s quite simple. When anything is practiced in the name of a religion even though it’s not a part of it, it’s a bidaat. And for those who still don’t get it, bidaat is wrong... not acceptable in Islam.

Before, this disease was limited to the illiterate population of Pakistan, but now it’s becoming more of a fashion for literate and well-known people to be seeing some Pir or Sufi. It’s the latest new trend.

“Hey, dude what’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“Yo! There’s this new Pir in town. I’m gonna check him out. Wanna come with me?”

Yup, that’s what they’re talking about nowadays in the “Bari Imam’s Republic of Peeristan”.