Muslim Saints of South Asia: The eleventh to ... - blog blog blog

THE MENDICANT SAINTS
Recognition of Beauty is a step leading to the understanding
of the Beloved. This made the lover and the Beloved identical.
Beloveds were created in the form of human beings in order
that they might lead people to the righteous path. Both
heaven and hell were born of the beauty of the Lover and
none of these were meant for any one but lovers. Heaven
was the stage of union; hell was the station of separation
and was intended for enemies.
(Rizvi 1986: 305)
Even from this short passage it is obvious how vulnerable Bu ‘Ali
Qalandar was to the imputation of zandaqa. By asserting that the
Beloved (i.e. God) may be personified in a human being, he verges on
hűlūl, which from the point of view of normative Islam, is a heretical
concept of personification of the Divine (i.e. eternal) in something
mortal and ‘transient’. H˛ulūl together with ittih˝ād (union with God)
was the most common accusation on the part of the Muslim
theologians against Sufis in general and in particular against Mansur
Hallaj, although in his discourses and works he avoided this term.
The Chishti mystic Mas‘ud Bakk was pronounced guilty of hűlūl and
executed in 1387; even kinship with Sultan Firoz Shah Tughluq could
not save him from death. That is why ‘moderate’ Sufi authors (for
example al-Hujwiri, Muhammad Gesudaraz and Ashraf Jahangir
Simnani) criticized this dangerous concept in every way possible.
Gradually the main fraternities absorbed qalandars. Thus, for
example, Hamid Qalandar, compiler of the malfūz.āt Khair ul-majālis
was already a typical Chishti mystic, who had spent the greater part
of his life in Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dihli’s khānqāh. The head of the
Surkh-Bukhari fraternity, as we will recall, was one of the most
widely-known wandering dervishes – Makhdum-i Jahaniyan
Jahangasht from Ucch. Although he himself can in no way be
reckoned among qalandars on account of the conservation and
Puritanism of his views, the Jalaliyya sect of his followers which is
under discussion is quite in line with groups of deviant dervishes.
The Suhrawardis’ connection with qalandars can be traced back
to Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, the patron saint of Sehwan, whose tomb
is one of the most fascinating sanctuaries of the subcontinent. The real
name of this wandering poet, dancer and musician was Mir Sayyid
‘Uthman. According to the legend he always dressed himself in red
(as did Jalaluddin Surkhposh Bukhari) and hence his nickname Lāl
(Red). Baha’uddin Zakariya supposedly gave the other part of the
nickname Shāhbāz – royal falcon – to him at the time of his initiation.
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