This is the first of a four-part series on Shah Inayat.Sufi Shah Inayat Shaheed (1655-1718) – whose 300th anniversary of martyrdom falls today on October 25 – symbolised tolerance, social justice, civil liberties and radical democracy at a crucial time in the Indian subcontinent when the Mughal Empire was crumbling and such values were non-existent.The majority of the Sufis of Sindh had abandoned the preaching and practice of social justice and had become purely worldly landlords. However, Shah Inayat was neither one of the traditional Sufis – who preach patience and contentment rather than change – nor was he amongst those religious scholars according to whom the equal distribution of wealth was the foundation of musawat-i-Muhammadi or ‘Muhammadan equality’. His slogan was ‘Jeko Khere So Khaye’ (He who tills has the right to eat) i.e. his firm belief was that the fundamental demand of equality is that farming should be done on collective principles, everyone should participate equally in the productive process and distribute the product amongst each other according to their need. Thus a full 100 years before the birth of Karl Marx, 150 years before the advent of the Paris Commune and 200 years before the advent of the Sindh Hari Tehreek, Shah Inayat and his movement symbolised the principles of radical democracy and social justice in practice, which became a threat to the ruling Kalhora rulers in Sindh when it successfully set up an agricultural commune in Jhok, and began to spread among many districts of Lower Sindh.Also read: Karl Marx: The Passing of a ColossusDespite the fact that Shah Inayat had tried to make collective farming a custom in the era of feudalism, which was far ahead of its time, the experiment ended in defeat. Given that today marks the 300th anniversary of the martyrdom of Shah Inayat, this is a timely endeavor to resuscitate and re-emphasise the legacy of Shah Inayat, a son of the soil, with regards to social justice and radical democracy for the new generation of Indians and Pakistanis in the 21st century. ‘Be it Mansur or Sarmad, sweetheart, or Shamsul Haq TabriziIn your lane O beloved, everyone was beheaded’(Sachal Sarmast)The Indus Valley is the guardian of our past and holds significance for our future. This area too is the birthplace and the resting place of the oldest civilisation of the subcontinent, which has seen many a great rise and fall in the history of the last three to four thousand years; and has been the arena for countless nations and religions. The Dravidians bound by their cult of Shakti-worship, the Aryans who followed the Vedic faith, the Iranians who followed the sage Zoroaster, the Greeks who worshipped Zeus and Apollo, the Buddhist Huns and Kushans, and the Arab, Iranian, Turk and Afghan adherents of Islam have all left their mark here one after the other. Sindhi culture is actually described by the beautiful mixture of all these civilisations.But a time also came when society lost the ability to move forward by sinking in the quicksand of the past and then centuries passed before a true leader of the people emerged who showed the way forward by establishing the significance of the collective mode of economy. He dreamed about the “yet uncreated garden” in this scarred land and in return for the realisation of his premature golden dream attained martyrdom. The name of this well-intentioned sage was Shah Inayatullah. In the town of Jhok, which is located 35 miles from the city of Thatta, his tomb is even today a pilgrimage site and people come from afar to shower flowers of devotion at his grave; but very few people know the reasons and dynamics behind his martyrdom.Shah Inayat’s birth year is unknown but this much can be said with certainty that he was born in a god-fearing family in Thatta in the 17th century during the reign of emperor Aurangzeb. His great grandfather Makhdoom Sadho Langah was a resident of Moza village in the Nasriya pargana of Bathora, Thatta district. Unlike other Sufis, he had not migrated from Iran or Turan, but had emerged from this very soil.Makhdoom Fazalullah, the father of Shah Inayat was an “unpretentious ascetic”. Mir Ali Sher Qaane is silent about the early education of Shah Inayat, but writes, ‘The pir who knows the truth, whose foundation is the sharia, the teacher of teachers, the vali of the age, the one who is popular in the assembly of God, Shah Inayatullah sufi initially toured and travelled a great deal in search of truth and after a long time met Shah Abdul Malik in the Deccan.’ After benefitting from his company, Shah Inayat turned to Delhi and obtained the revealed knowledge from a sage named Shah Ghulam Muhammad. But the teacher was so influenced by the personality of the student that he came to Thatta along with Shah Inayat. Shah Ghulam Muhammad preferred the path of tariqat (the path of sufis) over shariat (religious law) ‘therefore the ulema of Thatta presented him for penalization in the shariat court because the people of God have always been harassed by the ulema .’ Shah Inayat advised Shah Ghulam Muhammad to return to Delhi so the latter went back to Delhi and Shah Inayat settled in Jhok.Also read: The Changing Face of Sufism in South AsiaWhen Shah Inayat came of age, the sun of the Mughal Empire was setting swiftly. Aurangzeb passed away in 1707 in Aurangabad in the Deccan in a state of great disappointment. After him, civil war for the royal throne ensued and the chaos which spread in the country is known to every student of history. In 1713, Farrukhsiyar ascended the throne after murdering his paternal uncle; in the short space of six years, six claimants to the throne were killed and just one died naturally. This tumultuous period is also the period of Sufi Shah Inayat. He was also martyred during the reign of Farrukhsiyar.The movement of Sufi Shah InayatAt the time when Sufi Shah Inayat began educating and preaching in Jhok, most mystics, Sufis and syeds of Sindh had become purely worldly landlords, forgetting their professional obligations. When the light of Sufi Shah Inayat’s knowledge and wisdom, piety, empathy and selfless service to humanity, followers began to flock around him. But Sufi Shah Inayat was not one of those traditional Sufis who exhort patience and contentment rather than changing the circumstances and teach people to accumulate the wherewithal of the hereafter by saying that worldly life is of limited duration. He also was not one of those religious scholars for whom only an equitable distribution of wealth is the foundation of true equality. If the resources for producing wealth – land, workshops, etc. are the personal property of a few individuals, how is equitable distribution of wealth possible? Sufi Shah Inayat had decoded this secret of the law of economics that the real issue is the productive process and real equality is that which is established during the productive process rather than distribution, otherwise a band of thieves and looters too consume by mutual sharing. The reality is that the fair distribution of wealth in the productive process is not even possible without equitable participation, so Sufi Shah Inayat emphasised equitable participation in the productive process. It was his firm belief that the fundamental demand of Muhammadan equality is that farming be done on collective principles, everyone should participate equally in the productive process and should distribute the produce according to their need. The fakir devotees of Sufi Shah Inayat accepted this proposal and got busy in collective farming.Also read: Karl Marx: Flawed, Manic, and One of UsCollective farming was not the human invention of Sufi Shah Inayat but much before him, the custom of collective farming was prevalent too in the era of the tribal system. It is possible that during the period of the Sufis this method could be prevalent among some Kohistani nations especially the Baloch, and he might have felt its benefit. It is also not beyond speculation that he might have been influenced by the Mahdavi Movement of Syed Muhammad Jaunpuri (1443-1505) because the latter lived in Thatta for a year and a half during the period of the Samma ruler, Jam Nanda, and many people, including Mian Adam Shah Kalhora, became his adherents. Syed Muhammad who had claimed to be the promised Mahdi was a very learned sage. He had named his Mahdavi brotherhood as a daiyra (circle), which is a symbol of complete equality and eternity. There was no distinction between high and low, rich and poor in his circle. The devotees would live collectively in the circle and would equally divide basic necessities.Sufi Shah Inayat’s experiment was successful. The fakirs living in Jhok did not have to give their share of the produce, nor do forced labour or be part of the “partnership in tyranny” (sitam-shariki) ritual payment to the patvaari kanungo (district officer). So the fame of Sufi Shah Inayat soon spread far and wide and news of his experiment was everywhere. In addition, the fakirs of Saadaat Bulri, who had been devotees of their landlords until now, began to enter the devotional circle of Shah Inayat. So it is narrated in Tohfa-tul-Kiraam that: ‘The derveshes who were initially attached with the Bulri family upon seeing the growth of the order of Sufi Shah Inayat abandoned the saadaat to become a member of this new order.’So ‘the party of fakirs began to rankle like a thorn in the eyes of the hereditary pirs of Sindh.’Raza Naeem is a Pakistani social scientist, book critic, and an award-winning translator and dramatic reader currently teaching in Lahore. He is also the president of the Progressive Writers Association in Lahore. His most recent work is an introduction to the reissued edition (HarperCollins India, 2016) of Abdullah Hussein’s classic novel The Weary Generations. He can be reached at: razanaeem@hotmail.com