82-year-old Baloch shepherd Qadir Baksh gets Hajj offers after viral videos

SAKRAN, HUB: Attired in an expressly white dress, further adorned with a white muslin cloth draped across body and a white turban, the 82-year-old baloch Nomad, Abdul Qadir Baksh, sits on a chair under scorching April sun outside his autaq —a place where village people in Balochistan and Sindh welcome their visitors; in his case an unwalled shanty– as people come to greet him after his return from Saudi Arabia late Ramzan.

The kind of a welcome he received, not just from locals but from people across Pakistan and from Muslim world, was prompted as his newly built reputation preceded him: his videos of saying salam and prayers at the shrine of the holy prophet went viral for the unique dressed he adorned. Many Saudis, as would their tweets show, likened the herdsman’s attire and demeanor with that of sahaba — companions of the holy prophet for their simplicity and devotion, as inferred from Islamic traditions.

Soon after Saudi social media got peppered with his videos, it took hardly days before the waves turned to Pakistan. Some admired his devotion, some his plain but particular dressing, and some went on to seek out for him.

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While he got famous in just a short span of time, his story of pilgrimage is a tale comprising decades of struggles fraught with miseries and dejection. Just to realize his dream of paying a visit to the shrine of the prophet and Makkah, the octogenarian went from pillar to post to get his passport made and renewed, sold his assets and goats, and secured loans to amass a minumum sum that would afford him nothing more than just the airfare to Saudi Arabia.

“I am still indebted to the tune of about Rs56,000,” he noted while sharing he incurred the expense of about Rs256,000 for his Umrah pilgrimage.

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The elderly Baloch lives a nomadic life settling at one place after another, where he and his four sons could till the lands of the landlords and sardars and rear sheep. Origianally from Marri tribe of Kohlu, Balochistan, Baksh has spent over 50 years of his life in local migration and for more than 30-years, he has lived in Sakran, where his sons toil and sell eggs, fuelwood and do menial labour work to get through the day.

 

Voiceover of Qadir Baksh was performed by ARY staffer Ali Abbas Haidary; post production assistance was rendered by Nawabzada Danyal

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