In the sphere of Pakistani folklore, Balochi folk tales are not given much limelight but they are attention-worthy as each is magical and soul-touching. Today, we voyage into the world of the Balochi folktale of Hani and Sheh Mureed. It is a ballad that sheds light on different forms of love that arise in the life of Sheh Mureed or Hero Šey Murīd.
Hani was an admirable Balochi woman who was adorned with an enriched personality and one characteristic that marked her apart was her chastity. In the poems, her loyalty and piety were praised and are a defining point of the ballad. She was the daughter of Mir Mandow, a Rind noble. She was Mureed’s childhood friend and was later engaged to him.
Sheh Mureed, the hero of the ballad was famous in the region for his skills in different arenas like swordsmanship, horsemanship, and archery. He was well-known even before he conquered all these art as he was the son of the chief of the tribe called Kahiri. Mureed, proven himself to be invaluable on the battlefield, rose through the ranks of the Kahiri army and became part of the top tier of the army of the chief Mir Chakar Khan Rind.
The hero of our folktale was known as the Lord of the Iron Bow. Mureed’s unmatched archery skills were of the level that he was the only one who was able to use a very special bow that was made fully of steel. This bow was so heavy that it could not be used by anyone else in the tribe except for Mureed who had mastered drawing and shooting arrows from it.
One day, after hunting, Mir Chakar and Sheh Mureed took the route to the town where both of their fiancées resided. Then, Muslim Baloch women were not to meet their fiancés before the wedding ceremony which is why Mir Chakar visited Mureed’s fiancée and vice versa. Each woman presented the men with water to drink but Mureed drank the water in a single gulp which made him sick. On the other hand, Hani was smart and placed a clean dwarf leave in the bowl of water. The pieces of straw perplexed Mir Chakar which is why he slowly and carefully drank water. Later when the two men met up and Sheh Mureed relayed his story of drinking the water too quickly, the chief of the army realized that Hani was intelligent to put the straw in the water so that he would not drink the water in one go like Mureed.
At another time and place when the army was carousing in a gathering with poets there, Mir Chakar asked each noble present there to proclaim vows for which they could give up their lives. The ballad relays the vows of five chiefs which included Sheh Mureed and Mir Chakar too. Each vow was as galvanic as the other. One vowed that if anyone was to touch his beard, their head would be separated from their body, another pledged that if anyone’s camel joined his herd, he would not return it and this continued. When the time came for Sheh Mureed to make his vow, he was high on love for Hani so he vowed that if anyone was to ask him for anything on his wedding ceremony, he would grant it. At last, Mir Chakar vowed to never tell a lie from that point forward.
The ballad takes a dark turn as Mir Chakar tests each of the noblemen who had made vows that night but those vows were only made as they were drunk on the festivities? Would they uphold them? The ballad tells us that each of them did do so; one killed his son when he touched his beard on the provocation of Mir Chakar and no one was left untested.
To test Sheh Mureed’s vow, Mir Chakar arranged for a festive wedding ceremony for him and Hani. During the ceremony, Mir Chakar tested Mureed by asking him for Hani. Sheh Mureed was shocked and heartbroken. He was madly in love with his beloved Hani but would he break his vow? With a heavy heart and slowly deteriorating mind, he annulled his marriage with Hani who was married to Mir Chakar.
Mureed, who expected to be asked for his unique bow, lost the love of his life. He started writing about the beauty and love of Hani. The news of Mureed’s love for the chief’s wife spread like wildfire through the region. Shah Mubarak, the father of Sheh Mureed advised him against openly expressing his love for Hani. Mureed beautifully comprised the advice and his answer into a poem in Balochi language which translates to:
My Shai mubarak says,
O Mureed leave your aloofness,
Aloofness without purpose direction(purpose),
For chakars beautiful wife,
In the assemblies you are not amongst your friends,
You are like a walking corpse,
Hani’s love has blinded you,
How will you carry on in this way,
I replied,
I advised my elderly father,
I advised my respected father,
O most honoured father,
O most esteemed,
If you were in my place likewise,
You would have left all your friends,
And stopped going to assemblies and noble gatherings,
You would have lost your mind,
And not be aware of how you dressed,
You would have clapped your hands,
On your lap and be,
In your own world,
At least I am sometimes with it
And sometimes not with it.
To forget his pain and distance himself from the emptiness within, Mureed started spending his days and nights praying to his God, Allah. Soon, he left his country to escape his life and agony and traveled to the holy land of Arabia. It is said that he said that he spent around 30 years in the cities of Mecca and Madina where he lived according to asceticism.
Years and years later, when Mureed returned to his land, his people failed to recognize him as he was dressed as a beggar and lived like one too. In the mind of Mureed, the worldly objects and desires meant nothing as he had spent more than half of his life in servitude of God. He started spending his time around the palace of Mir Chakar where he could glance upon the face of his former love, Hani. Upon seeing him from afar, she recognized him but did not acknowledge his presence as she was the wife of someone else.
One day, an archery competition was held for the nobles of the tribe as that was one of the hobbies of the chief, Mir Chakar. During the competition, the Rind nobles took notice of Mureed but dismissed him and even made fun of him based on his poor appearance. They doubted his ability to even hold a bow but observing his intensity, they gave him a normal wooden bow. When Mureed tried to draw an arrow, the bow broke into pieces due to his strength. After Mureed broke two more bows, the nobles got suspicious and brought out the iron bow of Mureed. Upon seeing his beloved bow jug, Mureed caressed it gently, once again reunited with his passion. Since Mureed had left, nobody had touched the bow because no man can bend it. Mureed, the master of the bow, drew three arrows and shot them in a single hole. Now the nobles were sure of his identity but they still called Hani over and asked her to tell of Mureed’s identifying body marks as she would be aware of them since Mureed and Hani were best friends since childhood. Hani told of two scars, one on his thigh that her bracelet had made and one on his eyebrow. When both of the scars were found on inspection, it was proclaimed that Sheh Mureed had returned.
Mir Chakar had never been able to consummate the marriage and once he heard of Mureed’s return, his conscience troubled him till he told Hani to go back to Mureed, emphasizing that only Mureed was the right man for her. Exuberant at the prospect of returning to her only love, Hani went back to Mureed after separating from the chief. When Hani expressed her love and wish to be with Mureed, he surprisingly denied her. He explained that he has transcended from the level of indulging in mortal love and cannot choose her as she was his way to find his God. He departed the village, mounted on a white she-camel from his father’s herd, and was never to be seen.
For the people of Balochistan, Sheh Mureed is immortal as they say “ta jahan ast, Sheh Murid ast” or “Until the living world, Sheh Murid remains immortal.” It is one of the most famous Balochi epic ballads and the story of Hani and Sheh Mureed is still repeated in the households of Balochistan. Also, read about baloch customs and traditions.
The tale is soul-touching because unlike conventional love stories, the tale ends where the hero of the story leaves his one true love forever even when she returns to him. The love that Mureed had for his God trumped over the love that he felt for Hani.
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