Zikris under attack in their own home land Balochistan

AWARAN: There is complete silence around the Khana-i-Zikr in Teertej, Awaran, on a cloudy afternoon last week. The fresh paint on the structure of the praying area makes it stand out among the straw and mud-houses scattered across it. A woman, Naz Zaitoon, sweeps the main entrance leading towards the Khana-i-Zikr with her two young daughters in tow. Soon it will be time for the Zohr prayers and men will start gathering for Zikr, she says.  In a chapter titled Zikris of Balochistan in the book, Oxford in Pakistan Readings in Sociology and Social Anthropology, historian and writer Dr Inayatullah Baloch writes: “The principal Baloch sub-groups belonging to the Zikri sect are the Sajdis, Sangurs, Rais, Darzadas, Meds and the Koh Baloch. Some followers of the Zikri faith are also found among the Baloch nomads in the Khuzdar and Kharan regions of eastern Balochistan.” About the sects’ persecution, he adds: “Zikris faced persecution in the eighteenth century by Mir Nasir Khan the Great, the Sunni Muslim ruler of the Khanate of Balochistan in Kalat. At that time nearly all of the sect’s religious and historical records were destroyed, and the information which survives is from the few religious works which were preserved through oral traditions and the writings of non-Zikris.
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