The Pashtun King
The Pashtun King is thought to be Qais Abdur Rashid Pithon who lived around the 5th century AD. According to post-Islamic lore, he is the legendary founding father of the Pashtuns. Their genealogy can be traced back to the Bronze Age[1] ( 3000 – 1200 BC) and there are several conflicting theories on their origin. Present day Pashtuns are largely native to Afghanistan and provinces of Pakistan. But significant communities of the diaspora persist in the Sindh, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. Historical Indian connections are corroborated through language.Pashtuns speak Pashto – an Iranian language, but the majority of Pashtuns also speak Dari (a variant of Persian)[26] or Hindi and Urdu as a second language. This can be explained by what is known as the as the Greek and Rajput theory. According to the British physician and authority on oriental languages, Henry Walter Bellew, who wrote the first Pushtu dictionary in colonial India, Pashtuns (also known as Pathans) are a mixture of Greek and Indian Rajput peoples. This assertion comes from the fact that most Pashtun tribal names derive from Greek and Rajput names, suggesting a great mixing of Greeks with the ancient border tribes of India thousands of years ago. And as you will see, it is this Indian heritage that tantalizingly links the Pashtun King with Marco’s icon and its idolatry by the biker community.
Like his ancestors the Pashtun King, is said to have been a great traveller, making his way from modern day Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush to Mecca and Medina in Arabia. These Indo-Middle Eastern routes have long been favourites of the more adventurous bikers, endearing them to Qais as their spiritual guardian of the road. Furthermore, his broad appeal is owing to fact that Islam was only in its early years and Qais’s lineage is diverse and complex. It is therefore impossible to assign any particular faith to Qais and therefore his idolatry in the biker community remains agnostic.
But what has all this got to do with an icon in a café and its apparent ability to weep tears of oil? Well some ancestries list Qais as the 37th descendant of King Talut (or Saul, who reigned c. 1050 BC–1010 BC) through Malik Afghana, a legendary grandson of Talut. No one is quite sure, but for many the vagueness of Qais’s heritage infers that perhaps he is not of this earth after all. And a celestial or interplanetary origin might lend itself to the fact that Qais, The Pashtun King, was around at a time that India was demonstrating unparalleled and inexplicable scientific advancement. For example, the 5thcentury Indian mathematician and astronomer Aryabhatta was the first to use ‘zero’ without which modern and complex maths as we know it today would not be possible. Using his maths he insisted correctly that the movement of the stars was owing to the rotation of the Earth and not that the stars and planets revolve around our planet – something Copernicus would not confirm for another 1000 years.
Another example of inexplicable advancement is the mysterious Qutub Minar, an iron pillar made around the time of Qais in the 5th century AD, during the dynasty of Chandragupta.
Situated in the Qutb complex in Delhi this iron pillar is 23ft-high and weighs 6 tons (3000kg). But inspite of being exposed to the humidity of India for over 15 centuries it has never rusted. Todays metallurgists now know that the rust prevention is a property resulting from a complex amalgam of phosphorous acting as a catalyst to form a protective film of Misawite, an amorphous iron oxyhydroxide that forms a corrosion-resistant barrier.
The pillar is mentioned in Erich von Daniken’s book Chariots – Unsolved Mysteries of the past and used as evidence of extraterrestrial influence.Otherwise, it is impossible to explain how 5th century smelters would have known about Misawite let alone have the technology to smelt such a large single piece of wrought iron.
It is well documented that some elements and compounds are not naturally found on Earth nor can they be made here. Gold for example, is made in the heart of exploding stars – the only conditions capable of creating such dense atomic structure. Similarly, meteorites also contain unique compounds. The best example is the Wedderburn meteorite named after the Australian town where it was discovered in 1951. Weighing 210 grams scientists have spent the last 70 years analyzing its composition. The rock contains traces of gold, iron and rarer minerals like kamacite, schreibersite, taenite and troilite. But in December 2019 it was confirmed that the meteorite contained another mineral – a rare form of iron carbine never before found in nature. It has been called Edscottite after the renown meteorite expert and cosmochemist Edward Scott of University of Hawaii.
According to planetary scientist Geoffrey Bonning from the Australian National University the meteor, and thereby the mineral inside, could be an example of those made in the heated and pressurized core of an ancient planet. The planet might then suffer a fatal cosmic collision with another heavenly object, blasting the planet apart into fragments that get flung across space for millions of years. On encountering the Earth these fragments would burn up in our atmosphere leaving only remnants to finally embed in the ground. Remnants that might one day be dug up by a passing biker perhaps?
Marco’s oily metallic compound was discovered in the Sanskaar valley near Bhopal. He was nearing the end of one of his many bike trips with the late and venerable long distance biker , Nelson Suresh Kumar. They had just stopped for the night to camp and rolling out his sleeping bag something caught Marco’s eye. Something metallic, barely protruding from the red earth and glinting in the last rays of the setting sun.
Digging at the ground with the toe of his boot, Marco unearthed a peculiar lump of metal which was oily to the touch. Despite being an accomplished metal worker he had never held anything quite like it and so careful put the curiosity in his Mötorbike satchel. The next morning a puddle of oil could be seen under his bike. When the bike was found to be mechanically sound it was evident that the oil could only be emanating from his satchel and the object inside.
Having verified his bike was road worthy Marco and Nelson continued their road trip but were struck by how calm and uneventful the rest of their ride was. Gone was the stress of the perilous Indian roads and maniacal traffic. All that remained was a serene tranquility as they cruised on through Himalayan foot hills enjoying the views and the cool pine-laden air.
On returning to Dubai and feeling that the oily compound had somehow conveyed a protective aura around the remainder of his travels Marco fashioned the strange metal into a figure head, the Piston King icon now mounted in the café shrine. Little did he realize how visiting bikers would be endeared to its speculative Pashtun and celestial connotations and now make pilgrimages to pay homage at the shrine believing this will somehow engender safety and security on their long travels.
