The Polyvalent Qadamgāh Imām Alī In Hyderabad, Sindh – I

The cult of sacred footprints is indeed widespread among South Asian Muslims, and the places where they are kept bear different names. This paper intends to address several issues related to the qadamgāh by focusing on a site which is located in Hyderabad, in Sindh

By Michel Boivin

In the early twentieth century, scholars such as Goldziher reported that India was characterized by a large number of bodily relics relating to Prophet Muhammad that were venerated. But another issue was ignored: the worship of the footprints of the first Shiʿite Imam, ʿAlī. This contribution offers an analysis of the various political and social issues that the Qadamgāh Imām ʿAlī of Hyderabad, Sindh (Pakistan), has embodied since its installation at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

In a recent book on devotional technologies, Barry Flood has shown that the veneration of relics has been around since the beginnings of Islam. They were first centered around the representations of Mecca’s holy places, starting with the Ka’aba. Within the religious complex that it constitutes, one can find the Ibrahim Maqam, “the place of Ibrahim,” where the footprints attributed to the Prophet Ibrahim, who is also said to have built the Ka’aba, are kept in stone. Consequently, the veneration of footprints is tied to the most sacred place of Islam. The footprints of other sacred characters are also venerated, including those of the Prophet Muhammad.

The cult of sacred footprints is indeed widespread among South Asian Muslims, and the places where they are kept bear different names: the qadam sharīf (sacred footprint) usually houses the footprints of Prophet Muhammad, while the Mowlā jā Qadam (Footprints of the Lord), Shāh jā Qadam (Footprints of the Master) or Qadamgāh Imām ʿAlī (Imām ʿAlī’s Footprint Shrine) refer to the footprints of the first Shiʿite Imam, ʿAlī. The word qadam literally means “foot” in Arabic, and in Sindhi, by metonymy, “the place of print left by the foot.” Qadam sharīf thus means literally “sacred foot,” and by extension “sacred footprints.” The word qadamgāh used in Urdu comes from Persian, and it means the place where the foot (print) is kept.

While Prophet Muhammad’s qadamgāh has received academic interest, in a South Asia Muslim context, it is amazing that other footprints have been neglected by specialists, especially ʿAlī’s footprints. Nile Green was probably one of the first scholars to draw attention to ʿAlī’s footprints, which are venerated as relics in several areas of South Asia.1 He recalled that, in addition to the imāmbāṛās, these “secondary sanctuaries” have been key players in the rooting and “acculturation” of Islam in South Asia. They were able to play a fundamental role in the conversion of populations to Islam, like in Bengal. For him, the qadamgāhs have helped shape the sacred geography of Shiʿism in the Indian subcontinent. Because some qadamgāhs were directly imported from Arabia; they rooted the sacred history of Islam in Indian soil. They therefore played a leading role in the construction of the Muslim space.

This paper intends to address several issues related to the qadamgāh by focusing on a site which is located in Hyderabad, in Sindh Pakistan. Since the end of the eighteenth century, Sindh had been ruled by a Shiʿi dynasty, the Tālpūrs (1783–1843), and in the colonial period (1843–1947) a Shiʿite princely state had subsisted in the northeastern part of the province, the State of Khairpur. Working on the material culture of Shiʿism in Sindh requires dealing with several interwoven processes. The first one is probably the most intricate: it concerns the close intertwining of Sufi and Shiʿite cultures. In another publication, I have shown how this harmonious marriage has been elaborated in Sindhi Sufi poetry. Here I want to shift the issue to material culture through the study of the qadams.

This article is based on the argument that the qadams are a subcategory of bodily relics, whose functions are both similar and different. Thus, taking the Hyderabad qadamgāh as a case study, I intend to understand why this specific Muslim relic has spread in the area under study, how it manages to compete with other devotional sites hosting relics, in other words how it was located in the devotional landscape of Sindh, and what its place is in footprints worship that is so widely spread in the Indic religions, where the foot as relic is known as pāda, from Sanskrit, or pādukā. The polyvalence of the qadam comes from a number of characteristics that this contribution wishes to disentangle.

Furthermore, I intend to introduce the Qadamgāh Imām ʿAlī, the footprints of the Lord, who is ʿAlī, as a devotional site that transcends religious (Muslim, Hindu, Christian etc.) and sectarian (mostly Sunni and Shiʿite) affiliations. Many different words are used by scholars for the qualification of the interreligious use of sacred sites, such as “ambiguous”. I prefer the more neutral word “complex” because I consider that every case study shows many different processes of the intertwining of religious repertoires. Moreover, these sacred sites do not express any ambiguity at all for believers. The different footprints belonging to Muslim characters show a number of differences, in terms of size, drawing and carving. We can find three different types:  Absence of any trace, which does not prevent the devotees from worshipping at a place like Mowlā jā Qadam; A loose shape of imprint, usually roughly carved in stone; and 3. A clear imprint of feet. Such differences can be found in other religions.

The first and second parts focus on the Qadamgāh Imām ʿAlī, ʿAlī’s footprints, which are installed in Hyderabad, the former capital of the state of Sindh before the British conquest in 1843. I shall start with the historical pre-conditions that prevailed in the transfer of the Qadamgāh to Hyderabad, and how the Tālpūr Kings have sought to make them a new devotional pole in the capital and the state; an attempt that would be annihilated by the British conquest. In the second section, the present situation of the site will be explored, by highlighting the demographic change in Hyderabad resulting from the large influx of migrants from India from 1947 onwards, when it was renamed Qadamgāh Imām ʿAlī. It will also underlay how the rituals are interwoven with the Sufi repertoire, a conversation that is reinforced by the study of the processional pathways. Finally, the third part deals with the qadam as a religious object, the identification of the kind of relic. Emphasis will be placed on the experiences it causes, and for that last section, my main thesis will be that the object has a specific status, which I will describe as “liminal”.

The Mowla ja Qadam from Political Alliance to Shiʿi Devotional Pole

While most works on relics focus on their materiality, on their use in a process of recollection, this chapter is more interested in the changing socio-political roles that have been attributed to a specific category of relics: ʿAlī’s footprints. They are a very specific type of relics, as they refer to a main component: the body, which is absent. It is a fact that in South Asia all religions practiced have included the worship of footprints. If we confine ourselves to the Indus Valley, we find Buddha’s footprints in Swat or, closer to Sindh, Guru Nanak’s footprints in Hinglaj, proof that he must have stopped there on his way to Mecca. Furthermore, Sindh still hosts a number of Buddhist stūpas, whose main function is that of a reliquary.

A main characteristic is what Karen Ruffle calls the “presence of absence”, an expression she uses for different relics, including footprints that are used in the Moḥarram rituals in Hyderabad, the Deccan. I found this expression heuristic for the qualification of the footprints. I indeed consider that – unlike other types of relics that may have been, and usually have been brought from other places, be it a hair, or a shirt – footprints unambiguously indicate the passage of a sacred figure through a place. This mark of passage instantly produces the sacralization of a space. Having said this, it should be noted that some of the footprints can be moved, as in the case of the Mowlā jā Qadam in Hyderabad. But it remains that here again these footprints have an immediate effect on the believer who, by looking at them, finds himself in the presence of the sacred figure, despite his absence.

For Muslims of South Asia, the Qadam Rasūl shrine (1530) at Gaur, in Bengal, is the earliest extant state sponsored reliquary shrine of its type in pan-Indian regions, which as its name implies, was a commemorative structure that was devoted to the enshrinement of a footprint of Prophet Muhammad. Soon after it was erected, Sulṭān Ibrāhīm Quṭubshāh of Golconda built a sanctuary on the Koh-e Mowlā ʿAlī to host ʿAlī’s handprints in late sixteenth century, and the sultans used to perform the pilgrimage every year. The place was located near Hyderabad, the Deccan, and from 1687 onward, when it came under the control of the Sunni rulers the niẓāms have carried on with the yearly pilgrimage.

Relics as Political Alliance between the Qajars and the Tālpūrs

This section aims to contextualize the successive shifting, both physical and symbolic, of the Mowlā jā Qadam, from its installation in Hyderabad to its partition. For this reason, I must begin with the very particular period of the eighteenth century in South Asia. Indeed, it was a very turbulent period, for two main, but not unique reasons. On the one hand, it saw the gradual collapse of the Mughal Empire, which had been the dominant power since the sixteenth century. After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the Mughal order slowly began to break down, allowing its provinces to gain more and more autonomy. On the other hand, this decay of the Mughal Empire opened the territory to outside invasions, in particular those of Nādir Shāh in 1739, and, next, of Aḥmad Shāh Durrānī who invaded the Mughal Empire seven times from 1748 to 1764, the last corresponding to the very date that the Mughal emperor was also defeated by the army of the East India Company at Buxar. Buxar was the fatal blow, since it consecrated the defeat of the Mughal emperor, and, at the same time, consolidated British dominion over northern India.

Sindh was one of those territories that managed to take advantage of the break-up of the Mughal Empire, to become a successor state. The Kalhoṛās were the governors of Sindh, and Aurangzeb bestowed upon Miyyān Yār Muḥammad Kalhoṛo (d. 1719) the title of nawāb. The tribal organization of Sunni Muslims was coupled with Sufi brotherhood-like communities that created a spiritual bond between the tribesmen and the head (sardar) of the tribe (qabīlo). The Kalhoṛā army was defeated by Nādir Shāh and after Aḥmad Shāh Durrānī’s invasions Sindh was under the sovereignty of the Afghan emperors. For some time, a main part of the Kalhoṛā army was made of Baluchi soldiers, belonging to many different tribes.

These Baluchis were vassals to the Kalhoṛās, but they were quick to rebel if they felt they were being mistreated. A number of times, the Kalhoṛā rulers had to call on Tīmūr Shāh Durrānī, Aḥmad Shāh’s son, to help them restore order. Finally, in 1783, the Tālpūrs, a Baluchi tribe, defeated the Kalhoṛās at the Battle of Halani and since then, they became the new rulers of Sindh. Contrary to the Kalhoṛās, the Tālpūrs were Baluchis instead of Sindhis. While their predecessors had been supported by the Durrānīs of Afghanistan, the Tālpūrs had to find new allies, knowing that the Mughal Empire was under British control. Contrary to the Kalhoṛās who were Sunnis, the Tālpūrs were Twelver Shiʿites. They approached the rulers of Persia, the Qajars, who had acceded to power for their part in 1786. As we shall see, the Mowlā jā Qadam was originally the materialization of an alliance between the Qajars and the Tālpūrs, as well as the making of a sacred thread with the sacred Shiʿi sites from Persia, especially the Qadamgāh of Imām Reżā settled near Nishapur.

The Mowlā jā Qadam was brought from Persia to Sindh, when Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh was ruling the first country, and Mīr Fateḥ ʿAlī Khān the second, between 1786 and 1795, when Mīr Fateḥ ʿAlī Khān passed away. There are other traces that demonstrate that a rapprochement took place between Qajar Persia and Tālpūr Sindh. The first author, for example, who was specialized in writing elegies on the Karbala tragedy, known as marṡiyas in Sindhi, was S̱ābit ʿAlī Shāh (d. 1224/1810). He was born in Multan, in South Punjab, but settled in the holy city of Sehwan Sharif, in Sindh, with his father Madar ʿAlī Shāh. He was a Sayyid who wrote poetry in Persian, Urdu and Sindhi, and was patronized by the Ṭalpūrs. He lived at the court of Hyderabad. It was because of the patronage of the king that he was able to make a pilgrimage to Karbala, in Iraq, and the shrines of all the Imams (Boivin, 2020). In 1805, the new mīr (king) of Hyderabad, Mīr Ghulām ʿAlī Khān, sent him to the king of Persia, Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh Qājār (d. 1834) as an ambassador.

The Mowlā jā Qadam was brought to Hyderabad, a city that was built by the last Kalhoṛā king, and that the Tālpūrs had kept as their royal capital. The Tālpūrs lived inside the walled city, known as the Fort (Qila), itself divided into two parts: the Pakka Qila, or “the fort made of baked bricks,” and the Kacha Qila, “made of unbaked clay bricks.” The Kacha Qila was smaller and it was built around a shrine devoted to Makka⁠ʾī Shāh, a local saint. The Tālpūr princes lived in the Pakka Qila, with their courts and harems. The Pakka Qila also included several mosques, royal palaces, a cemetery and a park. After the fall of the Tālpūrs in 1843, many Hindu families settled in the fort. The main entrance of the Pakka Qila was located to the north, and it overlooked a large roundabout called Qila Chowk, where, during the riots of the 1990s, many would lose their lives.

Mīr Fateḥ ʿAlī Khān Tālpūr built a special room inside the Pakka Qila for these holy footprints, next to a mosque for minor pilgrimage (ziyārat). After the canonical prayer (namāz) on Thursday night, the women of the Tālpūr family used to worship these footprints. Consequently, the use of the sacred space was exceptionally private, and, apparently, the Tālpūr family considered them a private gift from the shāh of Persia. The common people were only allowed to see the footprints on ʿId of Nawroz. Nawroz, the “New Day” is an important festival among the Muslims of South Asia, for both Sunnis and Shiʿites. In Persia, it was a celebration of the renewal of nature and the coming of spring. In Qajar Persia (1779–1925), the shah received guests consisting of kinsmen, military and civil officials, leading religious figures, tribal chiefs, poets, heads of various guilds, and, increasingly, foreign notables. The same protocol was possibly adopted by the Tālpūrs in Sindh. Furthermore, the transportation of the Mowlā jā Qadam to the Tālpūr capital can be given a strong political meaning. From early on in the history of the Muslim world, sacred relics were seen as a determining factor in the process of legitimizing a new political power. (Continues)

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About the Author

Michel Boivin is the author and editor of fifteen books. His most recent book is entitled The Sufi Paradigm and the Makings of a Vernacular Knowledge in Colonial India: The Case of Sindh (1851–1929) (New York, Palgrave McMillan, 2020).

Courtesy: Brill

Originally published in Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World- Online Publication Date: 09 Feb 2021