Hani and Sheh Mureed

Hani and Sheh Mureed or Murid (Balochi Hanee-o-Shay Mureed or Hero Šey Murīd) is a beloved epic ballad of Balochi folklore. In Balochi culture the tale is equivalent to Romeo and Juliet in English-speaking lands. The hero, Sheh Mureed (or Shaih Moreed) and the heroine Hani are symbols of pure and tragic love. The story mirrors the national life of the Balochi people and their emotions and philosophical ideas (God, evil, predestination).[1] The story dates back to the 15th century, which is considered to be the heroic age of Balochistan and the classical period of Balochi literature.
Sheh Murid
Sheh Murid was the son of Sheh Mubarak, the chief of the Kahiri tribe. At that time when a man was known for his arts, Murid was famous as having mastered the art of swordmanship, horsemanship, and archery. For his skills and braveness he was ranked the highest in the army of Mir Chakar Khan Rind, the chief of the Baloch army. Murid’s bow made of steel was so heavy that he was known as the “Lord of the Iron Bow”, because none but he alone could draw and shoot arrows from it.
Hani
Hani was the daughter of the Rind noble Mir Mandaw; some say she was Murid’s cousin. Hani was a paragon of loyalty and devotion. Everyone knew her for her good character and chastity. Hani was engaged to Sheh Murid and had been a childhood friend of Murid.
Story
The legend is that one day when Mir Chakar and Sheh Murid were returning from a day of hunting, they stopped at the town where their fiancées lived. Since a Baloch woman never appears before her betrothed before the wedding, Mir Chakar and Sheh Murid decide to visit each others’ fiancées. Sheh Murid went to Mir Chakar’s fiancée, who brought him clean water in a silver bowl. Murid, dying of thirst, drank the entire bowl in a single gulp and became sick. However, when Mir Chakar went to Hani, Sheh Murid’s fiancée, she brought him clean water in a silver bowl in which she has placed dwarf palm leaf, properly washed. The chief was surprised by the pieces of straw, but he drank the water with care in order to avoid swallowing the straw. When he departed he found Murid vomiting and sick. Murid told him that the water had made him ill because he drank a lot of water on an empty stomach. Now Mir Chakar realized that Hani had acted wisely by putting pieces of straw ino the water.

Some time later, Mir Chakar organized a party where everyone became drunk while musicians played music and sang heroic songs. At the height of the drinking and revelry, Mir Chakar asked the nobles to make vows on which they must pledge their lives. Every chief at the gathering made a vow. Mir Jado swore that he would chop off the head of anyone who touched his beard at the assembly of nobles. Then Bibarg vowed that he would kill anyone who kills Hadeh. He was followed by Mir Haibitan who vowed that if anybody’s camel joined his camel-herd he would never give it back. At last came the turn of Sheh Murid, who, striving to outdo all the rest, swore that if anyone came to him in supplication, he would grant anything he wished. Later on, Mir Chakar tested Mir Jado’s word by asking his maidservant to put his baby son upon his lap. When the son is placed in his lap he grabbed his father’s beard. Full of wrath, Jado unsheathes his sword and smites the head of his baby in the presence of all the Rind nobles. Mir Chakar also tested Bibarg and Haibitan, finding them true to their word. Now it was time to test Sheh Murid. Murid hosted a festive gathering and invited renowned musicians to entertain the audience. The musicians played to the best of their art and at the close of the fetivities, Sheh Murid, dead drunk, in an ecstatic mood vowed to bestow whatever they demanded. The musicians, in accordance with a premeditated plan conceived by Mir Chakar, asked him to renounce his engagement to Hani. The unexpected demand distressed him greatly, and Murid realized that he had lost his bet. If he did not keep his vow he would be mocked and future generations would have contempt for his name. So he then and there announced the end of his engagement with Hani. Soon after the annulment of Murid’s engagement with Hani, Mir Chakar sent messengers to Hani’s father demanding her hand in marriage. She was soon married to Mir Chakar. But Murid was so shaken by this turn of events that he abandoned his former life and passed the days and nights roaming around the palace of Mir Chakar, composing poems eulogizing Hani’s beauty and openly expressing his passionate love for her. The scandalous news of Murid’s love for Mir Chakar’s wife became the talk of every household in Balochistan.


[edit] Departure and return
Murid’s father, Mir Mubarak, learned that the wandering of his son about the palace of Mir Chakar Rind had brought a bad name to the Chief and that his bodyguards may harm him. Mubarak tried to convince Murid to refrain from his actions but Murid explained to his father that he had no fear of Mir Chakar. Upon hearing these rude remarks concerning the mighty chief of the Baloch, his father pulled off his shoe and beat Murid in the assembly of the Rinds [a grave insult in Middle Eastern culture]. Murid then decided to leave the country and visit unknown lands across the seas. He followed a group of mendicants going to perform their pilgrimage at the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Arabia. As tradition has it, Murid remained in Arabia for 30 years during which time he truly became a mendicant and lived the life of an ascetic.

After spending 30 years away, he returned to Sibi in shabby clothes with his hair hanging down to his waist. His once-curly mustache had grown so long that it was indistinguishable from his beard. In the company of a band of beggars he passed himself off as an anonymous mendicant begging for alms at the palace of Mir Chakar Khan Rind. The maidservant gave bowls filled with grain to each mendicant, but when she presented this food to Murid, she saw that Murid’s eyes were fixed upon Hani. The maidservant grew suspicious when she saw Murid placing his attention upon lady Hani. She rebuked him and sent him away.

Hani, who had not forgotten her first and only love, decided to speak with one of the band of mendicants to learn whether they had seen Murid at Mecca. So she stopped Sheh Murid and asked him about her love, but he hid his true identity and replied that he had not seen Murid.


[edit] Recognition of Sheh Murid
As a favorite pastime of the Chakarian age, the Rind nobles gathered for an archery competition. During the contest, the nobles noticed the curiosity and interest of Murid, the leader of beggars. At first the Rind nobles treated him with a certain amount of disrespect on account of his shabby appearance, laughing at him and asking how a mendicant clad in tattered clothes could bend a bow and hit a target. They gave him a bow and arrow. He bent the bow but it could bear the power of his arms and broke into pieces. They gave him another one, which he also broke. After he broke the third bow the Rind nobles grow a bit suspicious that he might be Sheh Murid. They sent someone to fetch Murid Khan’s bow, which was made out of steel and was called jug (yoke) because of its form and weight. The epic tells us that this famous weapon had been tossed in a pen for sheep and goats after the “master of the iron bow” had departed and it had no owner to care for it. Because of its weight and toughness, it was useless in the hands of anyone else. When it was turned over to him, Sheh Murid caressed and kissed it, gently touching the strings as if they belonged to a sacred instrument; he scrutinized every inch. Then, as a master archer, he rolled up his beggar’s mantle, bent the bow with great skill, and shot three arrows from it, passing one through the hole left by the previous one. The Rind’s suspicion that this beggar was in fact Sheh Murid was confirmed after the trial of the bow. The Rind nobles stopped Murid and a servant was sent to ask Hani for Murid’s distinguishing signs and marks, which she would know because they had played together as children. Hani told of a sign on the upper left thigh, which her bracelet had made, and another one behind the eyebrow. When the Rinds checked the signs, they at last recognized Sheh Murid.

Union and departure to unknown world
The Rinds asked Mir Chakar to divorce Hani so that she may be married to Sheh Murid. Mir Chakar did so and gave Hani an immense quantity of gold and other bridal gifts at her marriage to Sheh Murid. Murid’s bath occurred at his marriage to Hani, when she called her people to bathe him and dress him in new clothes.

They spent a single night together. On the following day Murid visited his father’s camel herd, chose a white she-camel, mounted her, and disappeared from mortal eyes. He has become the immortal saint of the Baloch, and the common belief among the Baloch is that: ta jahan ast, Sheh Murid mast (Until the living world, Sheh Murid remains immortal intoxicated in love.)