07/11/2024
Recalling Asmatullah Mushfiq
By Habib Sulemani
(1)
I first came across the name of Asmatullah Mushfiq in the Gulmit of my childhood.
It was a time when the devotional Burushaski poetry of Allama Nasir Hunzai had nearly replaced the Persian ginans of Nasir Khusraw and others in jamatkhanas.
(Burushaski is the language of Burushal, the central part of Hunza, but the Wakhi-majority Gojal, Upper Hunza, and Shina-speaking Shinaki, Lower Hunza, also sang Allama Nasir's poetry in respect of the Father of Burushaski Language.)
So far, the Wakhi people had offered ritualistic prayers and recited the Holy Quran in Arabic, and sung ginans in Persian.
Now, they sang Allama Nasir's Burushaski poetry alongside Arabic and Persian ritualistic material, without fully understanding its meanings.
The people's ears, eyes, and minds were attuned to Arabic and Persian languages for performing religious rituals.
In such an environment, how did Allama Nasir carve out space for Burushaski as a literary language?
I’m not exactly sure.
However, I do have a sense of how Asmatullah Mushfiq created space for Wakhi as a literary language in Gojal, and emerged as the Father of Wakhi Literature.
Baqrabaqo hamizanam!
(2)
One day in my childhood, someone sang a Wakhi devotional poem at Dalgiram Jamatkhana, the oldest one in Gulmit, built in the 1930s.
It raised the eyebrows of some men and made the boys giggle.
In our semi-literate Wakhi society, Burushaski had been accepted as the third language of Islam and Ismailism, after Arabic and Persian.
Hence, Wakhi, once the language of Ismaili preachers from Central Asia, faced silent resistance in the jamatkhanas in the latter half of the twentieth century.
I still remember a line some boys sang afterward in jest:
"Moulayi Karimjon, Odami parishon!"
Later, I learned it was written by Asmatullah Mushfiq, a khalifa from the remote Chipursun Valley.
(The self-styled guardians of Gulmit often dismissed people from smaller villages, as if Gulmit were a world unto itself.)
Despite this, Asmatullah Mushfiq became an iconic literary figure when I read a Persian poem of his in the now-defunct monthly Ismaili Bulletin.
The Urdu translation of Mushfiq's Sufi poem was by none other than Allama Nasir himself.
Both were self-taught scholars with primary schooling.
At that time, Mushfiq was unpublished, while Allama Nasir was a published author with famous works, including Dewan-e-Nasiri, the first anthology of Burushaski poetry.
Tazim ka salam!
(3)
In the ninth grade, I met Asmatullah Mushfiq's talented son, Rehmat Ali, who became my classmate and hostelmate in Gilgit.
Rehmat Ali would occasionally speak of his iconic father's literary life but was more interested in mathematics than literature.
One day, Rehmat Ali announced that his father planned to open a bookstore in Gilgit City.
It surprised me more than it impressed me.
Still, I appreciated the book business plan of a villager in the capital city of Gilgit-Baltistan.
(I did so because I worshipped books and admired bookstores of the city, especially the Pirzada & Sons.)
Mushfiq had named his bookstore after Al-Biruni, the eleventh-century Muslim polymath known as the Father of Comparative Religion.
I would see Mushfiq sitting and reading at his small bookstore, but neither did Rehmat introduce me to his renowned father, nor did I, a star student, bother to approach him.
Sadly, the bookstore closed sooner than expected.
Yet Mushfiq continued writing in Wakhi, Persian, and Urdu.
However, instead of publishing, he kept writing and piling manuscripts.
Minavis-o-minavis!
(4)
After school, I parted ways with Rehmat Ali.
I went to Lahore, the cultural and literary capital of Pakistan, while he opted for Karachi, the financial capital and favored destination for people from Gilgit-Baltistan.
In 1992, I heard that Rehmat Ali, along with his eldest brother and other relatives, had tragically lost his life in an avalanche.
Going to traditional condolence gatherings and weddings in Wakhi society has always been a heck-in-the-neck for me...
So, I couldn’t visit Mushfiq and his wife, but I wrote a poem for their beloved son and my late classmate, Rehmat Ali.
Later, I learned that Mrs. Mushfiq, remembered as an angelic lady, was hurt by my absence, as our third classmate, Rasheed Ali, Rehmat’s bosomfriend, had gone to Chipursun to pay respects.
If only Mrs. Mushfiq had heard my poem before her passing, she might have felt her son’s presence, as if he were still playing his flute in Shersubz...
Hey khudoy!
(5)
In 1999, my soldier brother, Ajaz Rehman, gave his life in the Kargil War between Pakistan and India.
When I returned to attend his funeral in Gulmit, Asmatullah Mushfiq honored us by visiting our house to offer condolences.
(This was the first and last time I spoke with the Father of Wakhi Literature, although I’d talked about him with many people in Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Islamabad.)
When I told him about my poem for his beloved son, Mushfiq said:
"I’ve written so much about my beloved Rehmat Ali that it could fill an entire book."
Despite losing two sons tragically at once, Mushfiq spoke of life and death with a Western realism, rather than Eastern fantasy.
Zu Bodur Bech!
(6)
During my incarceration in Rawalpindi, I occasionally watched television.
One day, I saw Asmatullah Mushfiq on screen, dressed in traditional Wakhi attire and dancing with a Wakhi troupe on a low-budget TV channel.
It disheartened me to see the Father of Wakhi Literature reduced to a mere dancer by financially corrupt and intellectually bankrupt culturalists.
However, near the end of my eight-year incarceration, I read online about the launch of Mushfiq’s Urdu book on Baba Ghundi, a Sufi saint of Gojal.
The chief guest was the Chief Secretary of Gilgit-Baltistan.
I felt Asmatullah Mushfiq’s stature rising in Gilgit, rather than from the dance floor in Islamabad.
This gave me hope that his real work — poetry in Wakhi and Persian — might finally receive attention from government-run publishing companies.
Alas, Mushfiq’s literary work still waits to be widely published, while he passed away last month.
Shom dunyo!
(7)
Decades of colonial attitudes from Pakistani rulers have reduced Gilgit-Baltistan to sports, music, and dance—a familiar tactic inherited from the colonial era.
That’s why Pakistanis see only mountaineers, boxers, singers, and dancers from Gilgit-Baltistan, not poets, writers, artists, intellectuals or scientists.
Locals often complain that no journalist, poet, writer, artist, intellectual, or scientist receives due recognition from the administration of Gilgit-Baltistan and Government of Pakistan.
After Mushfiq’s death, this culture of neglect is evident again as culturalists focus on his social and religious contributions rather than his literary legacy.
Tuf lanet!
(8)
It’s unfair to claim Asmatullah Mushfiq’s ideas were merely shaped by Nasir Khusraw, Allama Nasir, or others.
Out of Mushfiq's 60,000 verses, only a few are public, and it will take time to fully assess his work.
But even a single verse or poem of Mushfiq’s is rich enough to inspire analysis or even a book.
This should begin now in cyberspace.
Bismillah!
(9)
Recently, the National Book Foundation published a book by Mr. Nisar Karim, a respected Wakhi-speaking author from Hunza.
It’s a promising step that suggests a policy shift in Pakistani publishing houses toward recognizing indigenous writers from Gilgit-Baltistan.
If just a hundred of Asmatullah Mushfiq’s Wakhi poems were translated into Urdu, it could greatly enrich Pakistani literature.
If his family, literary organizations, or patrons funded the translation, it would cost about Rs.100,000—a sum recoverable through royalties.
Masters of Wakhi and Urdu, like Ghairat Shah and Noor Muhammad, could complete this translation quickly.
Pakistan became the first country in history to launch a radio program in the Wakhi language in the 1990s.
In addition to helping integrate Pakistani Wakhis, Radio Pakistan also won the hearts of Wakhi speakers in neighboring Afghanistan, Tajikistan, China, Russia, and beyond.
The Pakistan Academy of Letters, National Book Foundation, and other publishers can take this progress to the next level by publishing the work of Asmatullah Mushfiq, the Father of Wakhi Literature.
If this happens, the world will echo with the slogan "Pakistan Zindabad."
Payindabad!
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November 7, 2024.
