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Fluid Identities

 


The audience goes into raptures as Amir Khusro’s Chaap Tilak Sab Cheen Li fills the air. The qawwal Fareed Ayaz sings with great tenderness:  “My fair, delicate wrists with green bangles on them, You have held my wrists tightly with just a glance.” The audience, and the all-male qawwals find nothing strange about a man singing personified as a woman.

The Sufi path to pure love and devotion to God is often symbolised as a woman yearning for the Beloved.  The feminine voice represents the journey from worldly or majazi love to Divine or haqiqi love expressed as yearning and surrender to God.

Gender fluidity is a recurring theme in Pakistani cultural traditions. Few notice that the scriptwriters and song writers of early blockbuster Pakistani cinema were men, who seemed to understand the emotions, and desires of women.  A ghazal written by a male poet sounds equally natural if sung by a man or a woman. The power of the poem lies in its emotional authenticity rather than the author's gender.

This convention is rooted in Urdu literary tradition where it was natural for a male poet to express longing, vulnerability, helplessness - emotions normally associated with the feminine emotions. The male poet writing in a female voice is not claiming to be a woman. Rather, he creates a meeting place of identities by crossing the boundaries of social and physical boundaries for a true understanding of the human experience.  

The Urdu language itself has unexpected gendered nouns that reflect these crossings: Fauj (army) darhi (beard) and mouch (moustache ) are feminine. Fauj is masculine in Arabic, and both Turkish and Persian do not have gendered nouns - the three languages that most influenced Urdu vocabulary. Instead the Urdu fauj reflects the feminine Sanskrit word for army, sena. Talwar (sword), bandook (firearm). hukumat (government) sultanat (empire), riyasat (state) and taaqat ( power) are also surprisingly feminine.  Yet dupatta (scarf) , a singularly female dress, along with ghunghat (bridal veil) and kajal (kohl) are masculine.

Some connected word sets establish a relational gender: Darwaza (door) is masculine while khirki (window) is feminine. A kaman (bow) is feminine while the teer (arrow) is masculine. Fitrat (disposition) is feminine, while fayl (action) is masculine.  In some linked words like maal-o-daulat: maal(property), is masculine while daulat (wealth) is feminine.  Or 'aab-o-havaa where aab (water) is masculine and havaa (breeze) is feminine. There would be a wealth of symbolic meanings to uncover.  

South Asian cultural traditions have always contained spaces where gender boundaries are symbolically crossed. Many South Asian male film stars have appeared as women from Amitabh Bachan to Moin Akhtar. The film Aurat Raj (1979) produced at the height of General Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization drive, is probably the most overt exploration of gender through role reversals.

Until the British Colonialists declared cross dressing a crime under the Criminal Tribes Act (1871), Khawajasaras had a position of great respect.  Itibar Khan, confidante of Emperor Babar, became the Governor of Delhi under Akbar, Khwaja Agah, commander of Agra, and Basti Khan a high-ranking official during Aurangzeb’s reign. Pakistan is one of six countries that officially recognize a third gender.

Gender fluidity in Pakistani culture, is more nuanced than the obvious third gender identity. A man can be masculine relative to his household, but feminine in his spiritual journey, intensely patriarchal yet deeply respectful of women. These multiple layers co-exist comfortably without merging into a single fixed identity.

The same fluidity of identity extends beyond gender. It may be reflected for example, in the co-existence of national, ethnic and religious identities or relational identities of biradari (kinship), rishta (relationship) and wasta (connections) with their accompanying loyalties.  Politicians are less likely to be ideologues than someone's relative, disciple, patron or rival.

Perhaps Pakistan’s unexpected role as a salis (mediator) in the recent Middle East conflict, negotiating peace with Iran, the Arab world, USA and China, springs from the same cultural tradition of bridging and negotiating multiple identities. Amir Khusro perhaps best expresses the challenge of navigating complex negotiations, through the voice of a female persona: “Please protect the honour of my veil; The path to the well is extremely difficult”.

 

Durriya Kazi

June 29, 2026

Karachi

durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

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