SCENE THREE Friendship ۸

The World Is as Insignificant as the Wing of a Fly

Sattar Shah’s reputation precedes him. Those who know him always refer to him by his full name: “Sattar Shah,” to point him out in his unique singularity. I met him through Dur-e-man, another resident who used to head a local community group formed during the humanitarian drama of the earthquake. While we were having tea in his home, Dur-e-man suggested: “Let me introduce you to this old man. He lives further up [the pahars]. Despite his delicate condition, he never asks anyone for help. His iman (faith) is so strong that he relies only on Allah, even if he needs a cigarette” (woh cigarette bhi sirf Allah say mangta hai).

My time with Sattar Shah was one of strange acclimatization. My words seemed to miss his world, and his mine. I would ask one question, and he would respond with another or offer a resolution that appeared to exceed the considerations of what was being asked. Mubashir, my research assistant, suggested that perhaps because of old age, Sattar Shah was a bit senile. Or was Sattar Shah being generous, inviting us into his world—but on his terms?

Omer (O): Who else lives here with you?

Sattar Shah (S): No one, only my Rabb,⁶ Him alone (koi nahin, mera Rabb hai, bas aik Rabb ki zaat hai).

O: Doesn’t it get lonely?

S: But I am not alone! There is someone who keeps me company, and that is my Rabb. Indeed, He is the only one who looks out for me. That is my agreement with Him. When the earth shook [earthquake], so many houses toppled over. But Allah didn’t allow mine to fall. Only Allah can protect us, am I correct? But that is the truth [regardless of what you think].

O: But what about those around you? Are people kind to you?

S: Only Khuda⁷ is. Not many people in the village go out of their way.

O: What about the NGOs after the earthquake?

S: You know Khuda brought them here, so they came. They gave me some flour and CGI sheets [corrugated galvanized iron sheets for roofing]. But I didn’t go to them or seek anything from them. If they came, they came.

O: How about those from the village, did they also help?

S: Do these villagers have the power to invoke earthquakes? [in a scolding voice] Only Khuda can take away life; can anyone else? You can’t even move from this charpoy without Allah’s command. Only my Rabb can fulfill all tasks (jo kaam hai, meray Rabb ka hai).

O: But then, how do you get by?

S: I invoke Allah (Allah Allah karta hun). Allah is responsible for my sustenance.

O: But what if you need some tea?

S: Doesn’t Khuda exist? [again, scolding me] Allah provides for me. Allah can send provisions through you or somebody else. The point is that Allah is the one who provides. Then why should I ask anyone else for assistance? Allah is the only trustworthy provider (denay wali zaat to woh hi hai). Honestly, the world is as insignificant as the wing of a fly (dunya hai makhi kay par ki tarhan).

At the time, a man’s severed head and mangled body were found in the surrounding forests, possibly attacked by a hungry bear or leopard.

O: Are you worried about getting attacked by a leopard or some other hungry animal?

S: Without Allah’s permission, how can the leopard eat me (Allah kay hukum kay siva woh kis tarhan khaye ga hamein)? [laughing]

Sattar Shah was firm that it could only be on his terms if he were to be engaged. His pushback to my intrusions suggests that my questions missed their mark and that their superficiality was intertwined with my lack of understanding of Allah. Or that my knowledge of how the world is nurtured, protected, and sustained was, at best, deficient. The bluntness of his responses was humbling. This was his hospitality; this was his graciousness.

Divine Gifts

Like most people in the village, Sattar Shah, a tenant farmer, is at the mercy of the local landlord. As per the agreement, rent must be paid annually to the landowner in exchange for the right to live and farm: “If I don’t pay the rent, I will be evicted.” He continued: “Over the year, I save maize or collect grass, which I sell to pay rent. Other times, I take a loan from my elder brother, who lives in the city. I am thankful to Allah; He provides for me [one way or the other].”

Sattar Shah resides in the same modest kacha house⁸ that his father built many years ago when they first moved into the village: “I have been living here for more than fifty years. My father died a long time ago. My sister also used to live in this house, but she is also dead. Their graves are nearby.” The mud walls are unpainted, and there are cracks everywhere. A small window lights the living room, which doubles as the kitchen. There is a fireplace in the corner, used for cooking and heating. There is soot everywhere. The living room opens into a small adjoining enclosure full of hay and broken furniture—a stool missing a leg, a cracked plastic chair, unopened boxes. It seems as if someone just moved in and has yet to unpack. I am told that the house is structurally sound; it even survived the earthquake. Sattar Shah recalled: “It was a severe earthquake; the trees swayed, and the earth trembled. The ground was shaking like this [moves his hands rapidly]. The pots and pans fell, but Allah saved the humans and the animals too. But many also died. I was frightened. It was every man for himself, but invoking Allah was the best protection.”

According to Sattar Shah, the earthquake revealed Allah’s displeasure but also His kindness. We walked to a location where the earth was split open, and I could see traces of white marble. The quake formed the site. According to Sattar Shah, the gleaming marble was a gift from Allah for people to beautify the graves of those who died. Sattar Shah sighed: “My father made this house with his own hands; he is long gone, but the house is still standing. That, too, is Allah’s gift.”

Allah Loves the Humble

Landslides caused by the quake cut off the village from the rest of the pahars. The situation was so dire that the Pakistani army resorted to airdrops: “They dropped lots of stuff, such as tents and plastic sheets [from helicopters].” As the Pakistani military eventually cleared its way into this village, more emergency relief trickled in: “I didn’t approach them for anything. Some people came to my house once, and they handed me some goods.” Sattar received several CGI sheets. They were given on the condition that recipients rebuild their homes following preapproved “earthquake-resilient” designs and standards.⁹ These came to be known as the pakka houses.¹⁰ Sattar Shah also began building a new house, approximating the mandatory housing design, but he never entirely completed construction. Now Sattar Shah has two places: the one his father made (the kacha house) and the mostly finished “earthquake-resilient” cemented structure constructed after the earthquake. The newer house looks grand compared to the one his father built; it is taller, sturdier, and exudes an aura of permanence, its tin slopes shimmering in the sun.

Both houses are only a few meters apart. The kacha house is in far worse shape and requires urgent maintenance, yet Sattar chooses to live there. He explained: “I prefer this house [the kacha house]. You can hear the snow falling on the tin roof in the new house; it also gets very noisy when it rains.” He continued: “When my sister died, I stopped looking after the new house. I have decided to spend my remaining years here [in the kacha house]. The new house is furnished with my things, but I feel more content here. You know my father built this house with his own hands. I feel more at home here. My temperament is also such. Allah loves the humble” (Allah ko aajizi bohat pasand hai).

A Most Joyful Youth

Sattar Shah never married or raised a family; this was a source of contention for the villagers. The anxiety created by his sexually viable yet reproductively unattuned body seemed to have calmed down over the years because of his now “senior” age and godly reputation. Sattar Shah chuckled:

When my father was alive, life was good. I was mesmerized by my youth and its possibilities (jawani ki ayashi mein tha). Allah bless my father—he tried [to get me married]. To ward my parents off, I told them, “I will only marry someone extraordinarily beautiful; I can’t marry just anyone.” But I couldn’t argue with my father; how can one argue with their parents? So, I would just run away from home every time they would bring up the issue of marriage. When my father died, I fell into a deep state of grief. Time just flew by, and here I am today.

I wondered if Sattar Shah regretted his decision not to marry: “Na ji (No way)! I have to present myself to Allah [be accountable to Him]. Allah has the power over all matters; even if I am alone, He helps me. Na ji! I don’t have any regrets.” He offered the following verses:

Guzra hua zamana ata nahin dobarah,

Hafiz Khuda tumhara.

Lay aayi phir kahan qismat hamein dobarah?

Yeh woh jagah thi, guzray thay hum jahan say.

Time only passes but never returns,

Khuda is your guardian.

Where has fate brought us once again?

To the same place where we passed through before.

Sattar Shah remembered his youth with much fondness: “My youth is long gone; now, I can’t even remember where I place my things! When it was my time [I was young], I could do anything. If someone asked for my assistance, I would respond kindly, lift large loads, patch a leaky roof, and remove rocks from their fields. These days it is difficult for me to get by and complete my daily chores. But I am thankful to Allah. The universe only matters if you have health” (jaan hai to jahaan hai). He sighed in gratitude:

Those were such good times (woh bohat pyara zamana tha). There was more love between people, and the food tasted so much better! We had abundant milk, butter, and ghee; we would freely share with our neighbors. But now, I only have one goat; I am forced to purchase these items from the bazaar. But only when I have money. Ghee is over Rs. 1,000 per kilo! Can you believe it? Even moat (kidney beans) are Rs. 150 per kilo! [Thoughtful pause.] But life is still good; I am grateful to Allah (Allah ka shukar hai). I don’t take matters to heart. Whatever Allah provides, I eat; if He doesn’t, then so what? I persevere in hunger.

Makayi ki Roti

Makayi ki roti, or roti made from ground maize, is a staple in the pahars. Maize is a generous crop, well suited to the mountains’ rain and soils. I wanted to know who cooks for Sattar Shah. He responded curtly: “Do you see anyone else [in this house]? I cook for myself!” He continued: “I live on two things: makayi ki roti and boiled rice. Sometimes I stay hungry for as long as three days. No problem! Allah is present! He takes care of me, even if no one else does.”

We decided to make the roti together. It was a bit unusual for men to be making roti in the village, but as Sattar Shah reminded me: “Hunger teaches one to do everything—even how to make roti.” The roti has only two ingredients: ground maize and water. Sattar Shah grew his own maize: “We are a people of the land [farmers]; this is our job. I learned to farm by watching my father, who learned it from his. But it is Allah who creates and cultivates the maize; we do the weeding.” To grow maize, first, the land must be plowed. As there are no tractors, this must be done manually. Sattar Shah can no longer do this himself; sometimes, his neighbors assist him. Otherwise, he does what he can. Once the land is ready, the seeds are sown and fertilizer is added. Most people use cow dung in their fields, but Sattar Shah does not have access to any. “I rely on Allah for my maize,” he told me. Since maize is a rain-fed crop, no irrigation is required. Several months later, when the crop is ready, Sattar Shah collects the maize. It is then cleaned and left in the sun to dry.

Once the maize is dry, Sattar Shah loads manageable quantities onto a donkey, which he rents from a neighbor. He walks the donkey to the chakki (mill), where for a small fee the maize is ground between two large spinning rocks into a coarse flour. Occasionally, someone from the village will help transport the maize, but he usually has to do this himself. When he has no money for the donkey or no one offers to help, he makes repeated trips, carrying whatever he can manage on his back. Once brought home, the ground maize is stored in a large karand (wooden canister) for use throughout the year (or as long as the supply lasts).

Maize yields are low and unpredictable; Sattar Shah supplements the maize with rice or wheat bought from the bazaar. It is customary to collect fodder and hay in preparation for the winter when all life freezes. Sattar Shah does not have the strength to do so anymore: “But things fall into place,” he reassured me. “Allah provides for me, one way or another.”

As I scooped out the maize from the canister, Sattar Shah added: “I like my roti to be thick, so it is soft and easy to chew.” While the steps to make the roti seem straightforward, precision is required at each interval. The flour is first kneaded with water to form a dough. Small balls are formed and rolled out using a rolling pin; the dough is then ready to be cooked on the hot tawwa (flat metal pan). Wood was needed to start the fire: “I collect fallen branches, twigs, whatever I can find in the forest.” More wood is required for heating during winter: “Even then, I collect my own wood. But people also sell firewood in the village. It costs about Rs. 800 per batch. Who can afford that?”

Sattar Shah cooks the roti on a pan over an open flame at home. But when he is out with his goat in the grazing pastures, the roti is cooked on a hot stone: “I heat a round stone on the fire till it starts to smoke; I cook the roti on it. Usually, the stone does not explode [from the heat]—but sometimes it does.”¹¹

Loyalty

Sattar Shah often talked about his sister: “She was my companion and a friend.” They lived together till she died. He shared: “She died shortly after the earthquake, just around the time when disaster aid had tapered down. You can say as the relief provisions died, so did she.” I inquired whether a cause of death was known. He did not appreciate the question: “Does death have a name [need to be named to be valid]?” (maut ka koi naam hai jo batayen?) He shook his head: “No one knows when they will die. You are young, but when your time in this world is finished, you can’t do anything to stay standing. Such is life in this world” (dunya yahi hai). He quietly added: “She was sick. Humans are mortals; you can never truly predict the time of death.”

He was very fond of his sister:

Her name was Zainab bibi; she was married but then returned home. [She was divorced or separated from her husband, or perhaps her husband died; I didn’t ask.] She insisted that one only ask Allah instead of asking people for help. She believed it is self-deception to give in to the allure of the world (dunya ki lalach). People tried to persuade her to ask for more relief, that NGOs would be more inclined to help her since she was alone. But my sister refused; she would say, “If I can get food to eat, then there is no need for me to go out [to ask for help]. I also must give my account to Allah.”

Sattar Shah’s voice softened: “But then she went to the grave.… She had a daughter, but she, too, died.”

To lighten the mood, I jokingly inquired if they ever argued, as siblings often do:

Not as such. Once after the earthquake, I also told her to go and get relief supplies from the NGOs; she became angry with me and said, “But Allah will provide for me; I don’t need to go out and ask anyone for help. My pact is with Allah” (mera muahida Allah kay sath hai). She was Allah’s possession. He took her back; the world would also end like this.

When I first met Sattar Shah, he had two buffalos. The following year when we saw each other again, the buffalos were gone. I inquired what had happened to them. Sattar Shah explained: “They weren’t mine, to begin with. They belonged to my sister. I donated them to charity in Allah’s name.” Sattar Shah sold the two buffalos and gave the money to the local madrassa:¹² “That is Allah’s house [the madrassa]. My sister entrusted me with her property. I was afraid of not doing justice by her side [by being unable to tend to her buffalos]. What if I harmed them? What if they got sick? How would I then make up for the loss? My heart feels content with this decision. This way, the reward will reach my sister [the (spiritual) rewards of the donation will go to her as they were her property].” For Sattar Shah, this was the best way to acknowledge and reciprocate Zainab bibi’s loyalty to him and his to her.

An Open Secret

Sattar Shah has two brothers; one lives not far from him, and the other in the city. His relations with his brother in the village are a little strained. He clarified: “There is love and affection between us and resentment and bitterness. But this is what being a brother means.”

Since donating his sister’s buffalos, Sattar Shah’s only source of milk is the single goat. I asked if his brother ever sends him any milk, and he responded in the negative: “Even he doesn’t have much milk. Occasionally, he sends me some when he has extra [which is rarely the case].” Sattar Shah’s second brother moved out of the village shortly after the earthquake. Every year before the Eid festivities,¹³ the brother in the city sends him clothes and shoes. He expressed some closeness to him: “I occasionally visit him in the city, usually during winter. I give my goat to a neighbor to look after when I am away. But I don’t stay for more than four days at a time. While he goes out of his way to accommodate me, I only feel content at home.”

Sattar Shah’s material poverty is an open secret. He does not rely on his family; their support is sporadic in any case. During one of my visits, his nephew was also present. He encouraged Sattar Shah to say more about his “destitution.” “Why don’t you tell them more,” he urged. “Ever since we were kids, we have seen him [Sattar Shah] suffer. Why don’t you tell them more about your condition?” This irritated Sattar Shah: “Don’t you already know how I live? Sometimes, I eat; other times, I stay hungry. Don’t you already know this? Except for Allah, I don’t ask anyone for anything.”

No One Seeks the Traveler

Sattar Shah does not make much effort to connect with others: “What will I achieve by talking to people? Allah is the only one; ask Him, and He will provide.” Sensing that I was puzzled by this detachment, Sattar Shah explained: “People only gravitate toward the powerful [someone who can benefit them]. I am weak: who in their right mind will come to me? No one seeks the traveler” (musafir ko kon puchta hai?).

Sattar Shah invokes the metaphor of the musafir (traveler) to describe his situatedness within the community. A traveler is in a compromised state of power, having left their belongings, importance, power, capital, and influence back home. A traveler is in a constant state of need (directions, food, shelter, advice) and can seldom reciprocate. He continued: “My uncle used to say, ‘When someone needs something from you, then even a stranger will claim to be your relative.’ ”

He trailed off:

Sab rishtedar ban jatay hain, jab kuch paas hota hai,

Toot jatay hain gharibi mein jo rishte khaas hotay hain.

People claim to be your relative when you have something they need,

But in poverty, even the most special relations break.

I inquired if he had any friends. This annoyed him tremendously:

Pay attention to what I am saying! Khuda is my only friend. Who makes friends with the musafir? The poor have no friends (gharib ka koi dost nahin hota). People come to me only when they need something; only Allah looks out for me unconditionally.

Sattar Shah believes that any affinity with people dilutes his bond with Allah. Disengaging oneself is integral to this Divine union. While this detachment can be interpreted as an extension of Indic or Muslim forms of world renunciation, I cannot help but wonder whether this disengagement is also a response to the community’s (including his family’s) indifference to his material poverty. He lives alone, is elderly, and often goes hungry, yet those around him only selectively and inconsistently look out for him. Perhaps this is why he is adamant about relying on Allah, the only constant. This offers a possibility to consider Sattar Shah’s friendship with Allah as also reflecting the limitations of the social and a further clue to how the spiritual and the social are intertwined.

I inquired if Sattar Shah felt any resentment toward people. He shrugged:

Toot gaya gharibi mein jo rishta paas hota hai,

Gharib aur aajiz ka koi nahin hota hai.

In poverty, all close relationships break,

The poor and the humble don’t have anyone to call their own.

The Urdu word I am translating as “poverty” is gharibi, which refers to poverty in all its forms: material, social, cultural, political—an all-encompassing depth of poverty, linked to the inability to reciprocate in material terms or benefit someone in return.

Sattar Shah inquired: “Now do you understand what I am saying? Suppose a king is walking alongside the pauper. Will people seek the king or the pauper?” I wondered if Sattar Shah had ever tried to make amends with his relatives. He disliked the suggestion: “Why shall I try? They are the ones who are rich. They should approach me and ask how I am. I am the one who is poor.” He paused for a moment: “I don’t go out and seek people. You called me, so I came. I didn’t come to you asking for anything. If you hadn’t called me, we would have never met.”

A Pact with Allah

Sattar Shah boiled some rice for us over an open fire. As the water started to boil, he grabbed the hot pot with his hands, exposing them to the flames. I grew alarmed: “Baba ji,¹⁴ why don’t you use a cloth—you will burn your fingers!” Sattar Shah laughed at my concern: “Do you see the dancing flames? Sometimes they jump out; other times, they don’t. Allah stops the fire when He wants.” He continued to smile: “The wind also blows with Allah’s permission; we met because of Allah’s command; every action in this universe occurs with Allah’s permission. He can do absolutely anything. He can block furious storms. Remember that earthquake? Some faced death and devastation, while others were unharmed. Surely, Allah will also protect my hands from getting burned.” He added: “I have made a pact with Allah alone” (mera muahida Allah kay sath hai sirf).

While we were seated in Sattar Shah’s home, eating the rice with our fingers, a little girl shyly knocked on the door, leaving behind a silver container. No words were exchanged. The container had milk, and she was from the neighborhood. “See, Allah provides!” Sattar Shah beamed.

An Uncontainable Existence

The scene gathers fragments of Sattar Shah’s intimacy with Allah. I have chosen friendship to describe this bond that I have witnessed as an attachment of love and gratitude and less so an attachment of fear or reprieve. One can also readily draw from the Islamic tradition to describe this relationship, such as the dearly held concepts of tawakkul (reliance on Allah) or iman. Sattar Shah possesses a most beautiful bond with Allah, one steeped in the comforts of certitude that only a deep connection with the Divine can provide. At the same time, Sattar Shah’s friendship with Allah is also very much fashioned by a lifeworld that offers little or no guarantees. Everything is uncertain, from having enough food to eat to receiving support to get his land ready to what his body can achieve. Even the roti stone can explode.

Sattar Shah’s profound ruralness and relationship with the landscape, aging body, and declining abilities are intertwined with his unwavering reliance on Allah, which is particular and situated, and shapes and is shaped by the social. Sattar Shah allows us to consider his point of departure from the world as a lifelong accumulation of strength and fierceness throughout his time in the world. His unshakable bond with Allah manifests in the multiple ways he orders all his other relations.

Sattar Shah shows us how the very project of Islam is made one’s own. Handling a hot pot of rice without protection, not collecting fodder, not asking others for food despite hunger, donating his sister’s buffalos to the madrassa, choosing to live in a deteriorating house (even though he has better options) are some examples of Sattar Shah’s many devotions to Allah. His dedications cannot be fully corroborated by common theological discourses of Islam. A focus on Islam’s generalities as a collective category obscures the particularities of Sattar Shah’s experiences.

Instead of understanding Islam as a set of presanctioned guidelines meant to contain behavior, Sattar Shah’s varied work to nurture his relationship with the Divine also enables us to understand Islam as generative—a personal, collective, and social site of striving. Tawakkul and iman are learned and approximated. While we might consider such a commitment incremental work within Islam’s normative folds, its radical potential lies outside what is understood as a conscious, reactive, and highly personal project of ethical improvement. By drawing attention to Sattar Shah’s deeply and richly expressed tawakkul and iman, I shed light on spiritual subjectivities and metaphysical yearnings through a Divine attachment that builds on the renunciation of all else. In this sense, the terms religious agency and ethical improvement commonly used to contain religious subjects are insufficient.

Sattar Shah’s insistence on life, whether understood as within or exceeding the normative folds of Islam, is worthy of attention. The ethical capacities and world-making entailed in strengthening his friendship with Allah are not detached from the daily tasks of routine living. At the same time, he is not so much concerned with the more ritualistic aspects of faith, the ones he inherits as a Muslim, such as those of namaz; as he told me, he does not even know how to “properly” pray or recite the Quran. Instead, he is set on molding how he lives in the world, in a relation of negation with others, as the ultimate standard of piety and godliness. As imbricated within the modalities of everyday life, Sattar Shah’s friendship with Allah invites us to move away from Islam as an interpretive tool or framework and toward the uncontainable existence of Divine attachment and friendship.

Allah’s Friend

Sattar Shah resides in what felt like the farthest mountain range. I did not want to burden him by staying at his house. I decided to visit him frequently over my time in the pahars. Mubashir and Shoaib, two of my research assistants, took turns accompanying me on these incursions. On our first trip, Shoaib started to experience altitude sickness; his face turned a deep crimson, accompanied by shortness of breath, a sharp headache, nausea, and dizziness. We had not yet realized how far away Sattar Shah resided or how much altitude we had to scale to get to him. There was a material dimension to his isolation.

The air in the pahars was already so fresh, but the air en route had a further remarkable quality. I guess there is always fresher air. Shoaib’s symptoms gradually faded, but the headache only grew in intensity. When we finally arrived at Sattar Shah’s home, Shoaib felt the need to lie on the earth to ground himself. Sattar Shah kneeled next to him, gently placing Shoaib’s aching head on his lap. He read something under his breath and blew on Shoaib’s head. Moments later, Shoaib started feeling much better.

Sattar Shah had just performed a dam—a spiritual healing practice used to cure an affliction or ward off evil. It can be thought of as a request made to Allah to cure an ailment by invoking Him in special ways. “This is another gift I have from Allah,” Sattar Shah smiled. Many people around him know that he is Allah’s friend and hence blessed. They approach Sattar Shah to make dua to Allah on their behalf for urgent matters, believing that Sattar Shah can make a special request for them because of his proximity to Allah. They also come to him for dam when they are sick or fear black magic. Over the years, word has spread, and people travel considerable distances to visit him. Sometimes they bring small gifts as a token of appreciation, such as a bottle of freshly harvested honey, some milk, a pair of shoes—whatever they can afford. Sattar Shah usually accepts these offerings, but he has not made this a precondition for his assistance: “I do not ask for anything in return. I make a request to Allah on their behalf.” In this way, too, Sattar Shah remains tethered to those around him, despite his rejection of them. This is also one other way Allah looks out for him.

Friendship as Sovereignty

Jacques Derrida famously said that the intimacy of friendship lies in the sensation of recognizing oneself in the eyes of another.¹⁵ Aristotle elevated friendship “at its best to an ethical ideal, declaring that only good people could be friends in the fullest sense.”¹⁶ C. S. Lewis argues that friendship is the highest ethical achievement,¹⁷ noting the burdens of true reciprocity have also been elaborated by moral philosophers such as Emmanuel Levinas.¹⁸ Sattar Shah has firmly concluded that only Allah provides for him, sustains him, and comforts him. His devotion to Allah—an ethical bond—is the accumulation of a lifetime of experience and contemplation. Sattar Shah noted: “I have spent more than fifty years in poverty, but I only ask Allah.” Allah offers the only certainty; not even his body can provide this: “I am growing weak. I never go to the doctor, not that I can afford the doctor’s fees. Allah nurtures and sustains; He will surely do the same for me.” No other relationship can match this bond; his now-deceased sister came close, but from the little we know, that relationship, too, played out in the shadows of the Divine. For example, his donation of her buffalos can be understood as devotions to her, as well as to Allah, and without contradiction.

Tom Roach describes friendship as shared estrangement, a relation of being alone together.¹⁹ He notes that friendship “bespeaks the anarchical contingency of all relationality.”²⁰ Roach also elaborates on the “anti-institutional” nature of friendship: “[Friendship] cannot congeal into an epistemological object known as ‘society.’ … [It is] structurally incapable of grounding social forms. I find it nonetheless necessary to run the risk of seeking out communal and political forms that approximate friendship: ones that acknowledge the impossibility of the social as such, ones that embrace the contradiction of relation at the point of unrelatability.”²¹

Sattar Shah’s friendship with Allah is a demand for sovereignty. By sovereignty, I mean a stance of nonadjudication that refuses external standards and expectations—where a different relation to coherence can be maintained, and a sort of freedom is achieved. There is an abruptness and abrasiveness to Sattar Shah and how he calibrates his relations with others. While he may need other people to survive, he does not seek them. People, for him, are conduits for Allah’s mercy. He can be careless and dismissive: why should he invest in them when they do little to reach out to him? In his interview titled “Friendship as a Way of Life,” Michel Foucault alludes to friendship as the becoming of queer relationality.²² Sattar Shah exists in queer relation with others, an affiliation of multiplicity and variance, an embrace of possibility, where the ultimate adjudicator is Allah, as is the destination.

What can we learn about repair from someone who exceeds the social? Sattar Shah seems to exist outside of the social, or his “social” is his relationship with Allah. He is engaged with others—but on his terms. Sattar Shah acknowledges others (their imperfections and limitations), accepts their assistance, but does not revere them. In many ways, Sattar Shah takes charge of his life through his determination not to need others and his selective refusal of their assistance. In this reworking of sociality lies a paradox. Rejecting the social or engaging with it on one’s own terms constitutes a site of the social in itself, one that is needed for Sattar Shah’s sustenance. The irreconcilability of his aloneness with both the limits of his agency and the dangers the world poses is his queerness.

Sattar Shah’s rejection of the social, marked by the profound contingency of everyday existence and the absoluteness of Allah’s presence in everything, helps us understand that a turn away from the social is also a turn toward. Or in other words, Sattar Shah’s reliance on Allah and rejection of others is also sustained by the social and constitutes its own moral communities. He helps us consider that repair is not merely synonymous with “repairing the social,” that is, putting relations back together to enable coexistence, as increasingly elaborated in the literature on violence. Rather, repair can also be understood as efforts to find one’s own particular situatedness and grounding. Repair serves a very practical purpose: to enable the continuity of life on one’s own terms. This way, Sattar Shah’s queerness is integral to understanding repair—how someone so far removed from community can still be a part of it, create their “own social” in the very rejection of the social, and blaze a pathway for a kind of life they are compelled to live.

In scene one, I wrote about Niaz, who is still reeling from the betrayal of his best friend and must constantly adjust to social letdowns at every corner. A contrasting stance in a nonredeeming world is taken by Parveen in scene two, who seeks to enhance her presence in the community by way of her midwifery skills. She chooses to engage and benefit as many people as possible so that her Mir sahib is spiritually rewarded. Sattar Shah takes a further different approach; he rejects both visions of the social—he has no expectations from anyone, nor does he owe anyone anything. For Sattar Shah, the quest is not just for a repairable and breathable world but finding a world worthy of breath in the first place.

Sattar Shah’s friendship with Allah is freedom from the disappointments and letdowns of others: spiritual citizenship that trumps community citizenship. His bond with Allah does not adhere to commonly held social rules—it is a form of sovereignty. This entails freedom from the push and pull of others, as well as from the neoliberal ordering of humanitarian agencies, such as their mandatory housing designs and “resilient” homes.

Sattar Shah confided in me one morning after we had run out of things to talk about: “The feeling of loneliness that all humans feel, Allah hasn’t created that longing so that we go find people, make friends, marry, raise children—but it was put in us so we can find Him.” This made me think further about why Sattar Shah chooses to go through life on his own. He has uncovered the void beneath our illusionary sense of connection with each other and the world.

Sattar Shah sincerely believes Allah will provide for his remaining time on earth: “Allah will arrange for my life. I don’t need to plan.” Mubashir, who had a rough few years with a family to feed and no stable employment, asked Sattar Shah, almost pleading: “Baba ji, can you please tell me of a strategy, so Allah also provides for me?”

Making Room for Allah

Amira Mittermaier reminds us that Allah has two images in the Islamic tradition: as close/intimate and distant/unknowable, marking Allah’s “ultimate withdrawal from knowability.”²³ Sattar Shah is content with this oscillation. Many of his provocations are invitations to think about Divine agency beyond ontology—and a request to make room for Allah in our ethnographies, instead of closing ourselves off to what exceeds the human horizon. Peter Berger has recognized this as methodological atheism.²⁴ Jon Bialecki writes that by overlooking how God [Allah] operates in the lifeworlds of our interlocutors, we neglect a crucial element of people’s lives.²⁵ Samuli Schielke notes that, in the current climate, it “is easier to talk about religion than about God when secularism is the hegemonic political framework.”²⁶

My time with Sattar Shah was an invitation to sit with him in the impossibility of knowing Allah, dismantling any certainty about Allah and His actions. It was also an opening to the possibility that this uncertainty is far more nourishing and stable than the consistency others so readily claim to bring to the world. Sattar Shah offered the following: “I come from a lineage of people who are close to Allah. In olden times, there was this wise man. Allah always listened to him. He prayed to Allah for fire. Allah listened. Immediately, there was an explosion, and his house caught fire. In those times, people lived in jhonpriyan (huts made from twigs and dried grasses, which are easily combustible). The wise man requested Allah for fire, and his house caught fire. I am his descendant.” With this story, Sattar Shah draws attention to how those seeking to enter in relation with Allah must be prepared to bear the consequences of their incomplete knowledge of Him. “It takes a lifetime to come to know Allah,” he said on another occasion, signaling that one can perhaps piece together some description of Allah as they experience Him in the world, but only if one is perceptive and patient.

Decolonizing the Divine

What does it mean to take the sacred seriously? For M. Jacqui Alexander, it means to “shake the archives of secularism” by understanding the spiritual as epistemological and not as “lapses outside the bounds of rationality.”²⁷ Taking the sacred seriously is the work of repair, restoring what colonialism has fragmented and dismembered—a task made that much more urgent as spirituality is increasingly interiorized, away from the institutionalized, social, and collective forms of relations and expressions.²⁸ Alexander writes: “The Divine knits together the quotidian in a way that compels attunement to its vagaries, making this the very process through which we come to know its existence.”²⁹ She continues: “Experience is a category of great epistemic import to feminism. But we have understood it primarily as secularized,” and in “shifting the ground of experience from the secular to the Sacred,” we can propose the “personal as spiritual.”³⁰ At the same time, she argues, “the spiritual is no less social than the political, which we no longer contest as mediating the traffic between the personal and the political.”³¹

Leela Fernandes makes a case for “decolonizing the [D]ivine,” untangling spirituality from institutionalized religion.³² Taking the sacred seriously means to make space for the Divine more fully, beyond the hegemonic lens of monotheistic religions, in favor of spiritual longing, sacred subjectivities, and metaphysical yearnings in their complete affective saturations—the exuberance of the Divine.

As we were conversing, bari amma (“elder mother,” a status of endearment and respect) interrupted me. She was visibly annoyed: “Why are you asking him all these questions? You should talk to me. After all, I am the one who manages the kitchen and makes sure everyone has enough to eat. What does he know? I run the kitchen.”