“Karkul defines us”
Bashir Ahmad Khan from Peshawar has not given up on
the craft of karkul-making that earned him
prestige and bread all his life
By Naeem Safi
Karakul hat, popularly known as Jinnah cap in Pakistan, was much in use, if not in vogue, till the late 1980s. It stood for ‘an image’ due to its symbolic association with the founder of Pakistan and was used by high officials and common citizens alike.
Now its representation is left on the currency bills where a stereotypical Jinnah adorns it. In its heydays, there were more than 50 master craftsmen making various types of karakul hats in the Qissa Khawani and Ghanta Ghar bazaars of Peshawar. Today, against all odds, only a few are left seen preserving the craft.
Bashir Ahmad Khan, in his late 50s, is one of those few who haven’t given up on the craft that has earned him prestige and bread all his life. How he ended up in this trade is an interesting narrative and an inspiration for many.
Living in a small village in Dir, Bashir was only eight when he got a chance to go to Peshawar and with his elder brother, and ustad, Haji Anwar Khan.
“I remember the day when I left my village along with my elder brother. Those were the times when Dir was a princely state where the only public transport was a bus owned by the Nawab, and one’s leaving to the city would be quite an affair. My brother was leaving for Peshawar and I along with my parents were going to drop him,” says Bashir.
“I created a scene there demanding to go with him. He fell for it, and my mother immediately washed my clothes in the nearby stream and I boarded the bus in that single wet outfit and a pair of shoes.“My brother was a master craftsman at Baghdad Cap House with Haji Sabzaali (father of Sen. Haji Ghulam Ali), but he got into a conflict with Haji for taking me along and we left Peshawar. We arrived in Karachi on a steam train and started working with a wholesale karakul hat-supplier on Bandar Road. For six years we worked for 50 paisas a day — eating daal-chappati and sleeping on a wooden bench outside the shop—before moving to Peshawar.
It was 1965 war days, and as a little boy from the mountains, I used to marvel at the red fireworks in the sky that my brother had explained were antiaircraft guns firing at the enemy planes.
“In Peshawar, I started my apprenticeship at Peshawar Cap House, with Habbibullah, running errands and learning the skill for around eight years. But it was with Haji Bashi — at Bukhari Cap House in Ghanta Ghar — where I mastered the karkul making, learning it from my brother who was employed there. Later he parted ways with him and opened his own store by the name of Sarhad Cap House.”
Suffering from arthritis and a plunge in sales, Bashir recalls how leaders like Z.A. Bhutto and Wali Khan had visited his humble store and that how almost all of the heads of the state wore his caps from Auyb Khan and Yahya Khan to Zia ul Haq, Naseerullah Babar, Aftab Sherpao, Nawaz Sharif and Qazi Hussain Ahmad. “Gen. Fazl e Haq was a great admirer of our work. And he would order around half a dozen caps every month for as long as he was the governor,” he says.
Unfortunately, none of Bashir’s three sons knows the skill and has a couple of learners running the business for him. “Nothing can match the experience, and respect that it earns for you. It is my advice to my children to master the skill of karakul-making despite other occupations, as this is something that defines us. It has earned a name and respect for my family and me. This is what made heads of the state, governors, and ministers visit our shop.”
Since ages, the fur of the karakul sheep is imported from northern Afghanistan into Peshawar. Karakul (or Qaraqul) is a breed of sheep raised mostly in Central Asian and some African states for their fur that is valued for its unique textures, patterns, and colours. The fetuses or the newborn lambs are slaughtered before the tight curls of their fur begin to unravel with time or the mother’s tongue.
Contrary to the popular notion that the fur is obtained from the aborted lamb fetuses, Bashir says that only the newborn male lambs are slaughtered and the females are left to mature for further propagation. The skins are plastered with hop flour for basic curing by the farmers in the mountains; however that makes the skins very brittle.
The price of these skins have soared ten times in the last decade or so due to their high demand in Europe, Japan, USA, and Canada. Jinnah version of the Karakul hat is the most liked one in Pakistan and the non-Pashtun Afghans, which has both ends peaked and is usually packed flat in a box. However, it is the Peshawari cap, also known as Ayub Cap that is more popular amongst Pashtuns on both sides of the border. It has only the front end peaked and the back side is round, hence packed in a round box and cannot be folded. The fully rounded version, Garda, is popular in certain parts of Afghanistan.
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