Islam, purely is a set of Beliefs and practices, while self established customs are only interpolations.
Neither the Islamic prophecy nor the Islamic economics stratifies the Islamic society in terms of job roles assigned to any group of people or dynasties and alike on the basis of Blood, nor has Islam ever assigned any special set of religious duties to be performed by the members of specific dynasty or lineage. There is direction to every single Muslim to read Qur'an, to teach Qur'an, follow, practice and propagate Islam. Had the assigning of religious duties been ascribed in Islam then all the descendants of Hazrat Bilal-e- Habshi (May Allah be pleased with him) would have been performing the same duty (Calling of Azaan) and that is not the case. So clearly and plainly Islam is against ascribing religious roles or other roles on the basis of blood, lineage and alike. There is no direction in Islam upon people to act as an intercessor. More importantly Islam has strictly forbidden making money in exchange of reciting verses of Holy Quran and propitiating Allah on behalf of the one from whom money is received for this purpose. Besides this, any source of income or the pool of income collected through religious institutions or in the name of religion has been adhered most strict and sensitive directions and sanctions for its collection ,preservation and usage by Islam. The concept of Baitul Maal has remained primordial, indispensable and colossal to Islam since its inception and true followers of Islam have maintained high standards of honesty and integrity while dealing with Islamic funds and have never used it's proceeds for personal expenditures. This is the reason that prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H), despite being the architect and founder of Islamic nation states and vast treasuries of Baitul Maal at his (P.B.U.H)disposal left the world penniless to the extent that the oil for the lamp had to be borrowed from a neighbor.
Islam, with this purity has been brought to the valley by the Sufi saints heralded by Mir Syed Ali Hamadani (May Allah be pleased with him ) to be followed by waves of Sufi saints and the indigenous Rishis who went into every nook and corner of the valley to spread Islam in its purest form. These saints lived an austere life in line with purest principles of Islam .Shunned their worldly comforts for the Divine bliss. They served the valley religiously without making it a source of commerce and money minting .Mir Syed Ali Hamadani (R.A) left kingship of Hamadan and delivered Islamic services selflessly .For economy he established arts and crafts in the valley which till date are the sources of livelihood to thousands in the valley. Same trajectory was followed by other saints as well They never sold Islam or verses from the Quran and Hadith for money nor made it commercial enterprise. The Sufis and Rishis established Khaneqahs to act as centers of knowledge, wisdom, spirituality, public help and alike. They converted these centers into multifunctional institutions and also organized public welfare programmes through them. The shrines were latter additions to revere these saints, Sufis, Rishis for their services.
These shrines and Khaneqahs were primarily established as schools for imparting knowledge and the highest test of our reverence to these saints would have been acquiring knowledge from these centers and making them more resilient in imparting same knowledge and offering same services for which these saints had established them. However, to our misfortune these shrines were turned into a commercial enterprise by the practice of what would better be called as "Commercial-cum Pseudo Sufism".
Practices were started at these shrines which had no reference even in the books, write-ups and teachings of these Sufis. Conversely these practices were antagonistic to the saintly teachings. One fails to trace any "Will" wherein these Sufis would have referred to make their lineal descendants as legal heirs and successors to inherit the shrines of these Sufis or to be entitled to proceeds of collections at these shrines or to be entitled to receive money from the pilgrims for any services or otherwise. Reason is simple, these Sufis had lived life for divine eternal bliss. They had shunned worldly acquisitions. They had disdain for worldly capital. So how could they choose that for their descendants which they disdained and avoided for themselves. Earlier the descendants offered free guidance and services at shrines for the pilgrims in realization of their religious duty but down the time line it got polluted through interpolations and ultimately took an ugly turn in the form of "Anwaar". A person, whether he knew religion or not would come, stake his claim as descendent of Sufi or descendant of companion of Sufi or a resident of the place which the Sufi had his last abode and get a license to be entitled to money from pilgrims for no logical reasons, whatsoever. Same would be the ones who took the self imposed job of propitiating the divine on behalf of pilgrims against a fixed price. Latter rate lists were also prepared. Even in cases where the children would be too far away from religion, some would be doing business, some a government job and would not be offering single time prayer but at the death of their father or retirement from their job they would join the chorus. Majority of them would be those who had no knowledge of religion and knew no verses of Quran but would mug up some sentences in local dialect and Persian language to impress the pilgrims and run their commercial enterprise. Further adulterations were made by those who had no lineage proofs but they visited the shrine, remained there for hours, slowly got into sight of pilgrims, corrupted those who could have resisted their joining the profession, started to yield client base and ultimately earned the much needed recognition and thereafter ran the enterprise. It is shameful as a Muslim to learn that even the beggars sitting around the shrines had nexus with these self proclaimed spiritual entities. They had their share in the beggar’s share as well. Any beggar who would deviate would lose the right to beg in the premises. Sufis never showed political alignments for achieving worldly luxuries. Contrary to this the ones running the commercial enterprises at the shrines got access to highest echelons of power, politics and authority and got undue favors by exploiting their positions. All these personal commercial enterprises damaged the sacredness of shrines on one hand and on the other rendered havoc on the exchequer of shrine collections as substantial portions of charity would go into the hands of a few who have turned millionaires by usurping the shares of poor for whom the charities were and are intended to be collected. So it was carnage on public good for personal benefit of a few and against Islamic principles and the principles of charity. This loot had its worst face in the shape of fraud of setting personal donation lockers inside shrines .People and devotees would offer charity into these lockers believing them to be the lockers of the shrine but the money landed into personal pockets of the fraudsters. Against this no contributions to the teachings of these Sufis were made by those who established money minting machines at these shrines. None of them tried to propagate message of these saints. No literary work was performed to exhibit the intellectual brilliance of these saints. Take for example sheikh Noor ud Din Noorani (R.A), who was an intellect par excellence, a writer, a literary genius, an administrator, an educationist and what not. But no work was done on that front by these entities to propagate the message of Sheikh (R.A).
All this crippled the Waqf spiritually and economically otherwise it would have turned into a vibrant and resourceful institute through which thousands of public welfare programmes could have been undertaken. As if this open plunder and organized loot was any less that the more damaging effects were cast on Waqf by allotting Waqf properties against peanut sized rents. A bhabu who would rent out his personal properties at commercial centers for lakhs of rupees annually would find no pain in heart in allowing Waqf properties to be rented out for few hundreds resulting in Waqf properties falling into hands of land mafia who, against rules not only sub-rented the premises against mouth watering prices but even sold them for hefty amounts as if they were the owners of these properties. As a Muslim one can't bring more shame to himself by accepting it as normal and by raising against any attempts to redeem the sacredness of shrines and economic vibrance of the Waqf by terming it an interference into religious affairs. The resistance from those whose commercial enterprise has received a jolt is normal but from general Muslim masses there must be a unison voice and collaborated endeavours to guide, help, co-operate Waqf Board in stripping off these menaces which have desacralized the shrines and mosques and have brought ruin to the Islamic exchequer of Waqf only for benefitting a few. In case, rather than making hollow criticism we come forward to assist Waqf Board in pulling the necessary and relevant strings and the board keeps up the stance and pace that it has gained under an able team and patronage of its present chairperson ,the days are not far when state of art schools, hospitals, diagnostic centers and many more projects would sprang from the fountain of Waqf to serve the masses ,in particular the poor. That would be the time when Waqf would achieve its objective of being, "Waqf Bara-e-Waqf Ast. Good luck to the team.

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