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

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THE MENDICANT SAINTS However, he went mad with passion for the young man. As if the hero of a romantic mathnawī, in the daytime Husain followed on Madho’s heels and at night wandered near his house. Madho, like the heroine of the same genre, in the course of several years ignored his ardent admirer. Since adherence to different religions prevented companionship with Madho, Husain, wishing to see the beloved more often, participated in Hindu festivals holī and basant, sang the Hindu devotional hymns (bhajans), and wore the clothes of a sādhū, thereby showing how porous was the dividing line between a vagrant Hindu ascetic and a wandering dervish. Finally, having experienced fanā, he transformed his personality, merging himself totally in his beloved, and, having combined his name with his own, started calling himself Madho Lal Husain. In the tradition of the great mystics like Jalaladdin Rumi and Fakhruddin ‘Iraqi the boy’s beauty was a witness (shahīd) of the Divine Beauty and the ‘worldly love’ toward a handsome youth was ‘a pedagogical experience, a training in obedience toward God, since the human beloved, like God, has to be obeyed absolutely’ (Schimmel 1975: 291). It is clear that Shah Husain learnt the lesson of dissolving his self in the self of Madho as a prelude to his final annihilation in the Absolute. The kāfīs, in which the suffering Shah Husain, speaking on behalf of Hir, the heroine of Punjabi folk legends, pined in separation from the handsome youth Ranjha, were sung everywhere on the streets of Lahore: Let me be called, by each, By the name of ‘Ranjah’, dear And none address me as ‘Heer’. I have become the ‘Ranjah’, By calling so oft on Him. (Fakhar Zaman 1995: 70) Madho, on recognizing himself in the image of Ranjha, at last condescended to pay attention to his adorer, and then even shared his passion. As to how this love affair proceeded and how the people in the vicinity reacted to it can be judged from a passage from the Persian poem by Shaikh Mahmud of Lahore ‘True Essence of Faqirs’ (H˛aqīqat al-fuqarā, 1662), which is an account of Shah Husain’s life in verse: Qaum-e ū shud pas az do sāl āgāh k-īn pisar az hűsain shud be-rāh 195
THE MENDICANT SAINTS Ki chu pesh-e hűsain bishtābad shab dar āghosh-e ū hamık¸hwābad Ham may-e nāb mīk¸hwarad ba-hűsain ‘āshiqāna basar barad ba-hűsain Pas badīn sīrat-o badān sānash chi ‘ajab gar kunad musalmānash . . . His kin in two years saw the truth – Husain had quite misled the youth E’er to Husain he’d swiftly race To spend the night in his embrace, With him he’d even drink pure wine And as his lover spend the time – This way of life must surely lead Him to embrace the Muslim creed. (Shackle 2000: 55–73) Indeed the culmination of this amorous relationship between Shah Husain and Madho was conversion of the latter to Islam and this fact transformed the heroes’ deviant behaviour (the homosexual relations and drinking of wine) into a manifestation of ‘true love’: Hama-rā tark dāda dar pay-e ū gasht mast-e muh˝abbat az may-e ū Ba-ţufail-e hűsain shud dīndār badar āmad zi zumra-e kuffār For him all things aside he laid On his love was he drunken made, Joining the faithful through Husain With infidels not to remain. (Shackle 2000: 55–73) A Muslim’s love for a Hindu girl and her conversion to Islam, symbolizing the annulment of the ‘Turk–Hindu’ opposition, is the main theme of a large corpus of Indo-Muslim texts, the so-called ‘ballad-like’ mathnawī, or poems about the mystery of love, which were analysed extensively in my book (Suvorova 2000: 29–43). These poems in Persian and Urdu had an obvious proselytizing orientation and in the descriptions of obstacles in the path of the Muslim hero and the Hindu heroine, of which the most insurmountable was the opposition of the social environment represented by the girl’s relatives, they ‘codified’ the social and psychological trials faced by a missionary Sufi and a neophyte. Shaikh Mahmud’s poem is unique 196
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MUSLIM SAINTS OF SOUTH ASIA This bo
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MUSLIM SAINTS OF SOUTH ASIA The ele
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IN CHERISHED MEMORY OF MY FATHER, A
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FOREWORD Christopher Shackle In man
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FOREWORD keen literary sensibility
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1 THE INDIAN TOMB Everyone who has
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THE INDIAN TOMB deviation of an ind
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THE INDIAN TOMB an active syncretis
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THE INDIAN TOMB saints’ cult in I
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THE INDIAN TOMB Probably the most o
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THE INDIAN TOMB another saint of De
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THE INDIAN TOMB indication of the c
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THE INDIAN TOMB 1276. 9 Hagiographi
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THE INDIAN TOMB form with a dome in
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THE INDIAN TOMB Some of the saints
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THE INDIAN TOMB A powerful religion
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THE INDIAN TOMB They were known by
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THE INDIAN TOMB cenotaph of Sayyid
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THE INDIAN TOMB Mazhar Janjanan, he
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THE INDIAN TOMB The cult of saints
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THE INDIAN TOMB As a scholarly prob
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THE INDIAN TOMB realized. The form
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2 THE HERMIT OF LAHORE Everywhere a
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THE HERMIT OF LAHORE These examples
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THE HERMIT OF LAHORE difference bet
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THE HERMIT OF LAHORE almost every c
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THE HERMIT OF LAHORE in the practic
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THE HERMIT OF LAHORE condemned them
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THE HERMIT OF LAHORE response to th
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THE HERMIT OF LAHORE have composed
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THE HERMIT OF LAHORE that I have su
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THE HERMIT OF LAHORE in particular
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THE HERMIT OF LAHORE The saint of H
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THE HERMIT OF LAHORE and order, the
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3 THE OLD MAN OF AJMER A pious erud
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THE OLD MAN OF AJMER silsila, Iraqi
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THE OLD MAN OF AJMER was at the hea
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THE OLD MAN OF AJMER this hall of p
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THE OLD MAN OF AJMER Prithviraj’s
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THE OLD MAN OF AJMER he unreservedl
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THE OLD MAN OF AJMER During Akbar
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THE OLD MAN OF AJMER on the saint
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THE OLD MAN OF AJMER and estate man
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THE OLD MAN OF AJMER former, but ri
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THE OLD MAN OF AJMER 7 One should c
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4 THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN There is
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THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN In the ear
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THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN Maqșūd-i
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THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN the newcom
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THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN pebbles, w
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THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN respectful
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THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN in good ti
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THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN told him:
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THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN This, for
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THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN in 1604) a
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THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN landscape,
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THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN days of
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5 THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI It is dif
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THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI There are t
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THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI dervishes,
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THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI At the same
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THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI In contrast
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THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI (k’hićar
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THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI Hasan 1992:
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THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI not prevent
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THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI in Sufi kh
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THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI Sultan’s
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THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI ‘God’s
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THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI I have hear
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THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI melodies, a
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THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI generous do
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THE SPIRITUAL SOVEREIGN OF MULTAN o
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THE SPIRITUAL SOVEREIGN OF MULTAN A
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THE SPIRITUAL SOVEREIGN OF MULTAN i
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THE SPIRITUAL SOVEREIGN OF MULTAN i
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THE SPIRITUAL SOVEREIGN OF MULTAN I
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THE SPIRITUAL SOVEREIGN OF MULTAN I
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Page 168 and 169: 7 THE WARRIOR SAINTS When Hindus an
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Page 192 and 193: THE MENDICANT SAINTS And, finally,
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Page 212 and 213: EPILOGUE As I have tried to show in
Page 214 and 215: EPILOGUE An equally important role
Page 216 and 217: EPILOGUE elephant ride. It exaspera
Page 218 and 219: NOTES 5 The profusion of relics in
Page 220 and 221: NOTES 2 THE HERMIT OF LAHORE 1 The
Page 222 and 223: NOTES His feet were firmly planted
Page 224 and 225: NOTES 4 THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN 1
Page 226 and 227: NOTES despair and would come to me
Page 228 and 229: NOTES 6 In the last year of ‘Ala
Page 230 and 231: NOTES life). Here his opponent lost
Page 232 and 233: NOTES in his creative writings. Aft
Page 234 and 235: NOTES 5 The Hyderis of Khurasan der
Page 236 and 237: GLOSSARY bārahmāsa poems that dea
Page 238 and 239: GLOSSARY ī mān faith, creed inkā
Page 240 and 241: GLOSSARY nafs-i ammāra unregenerat
Page 242 and 243: GLOSSARY tarāwih˝ supererogatory
Page 244 and 245: BIBLIOGRAPHY u’d-dīn Chirāgh-i-
Page 246 and 247: BIBLIOGRAPHY Delvoye, F., ‘Nalini
Page 248 and 249: BIBLIOGRAPHY —— (1965) ‘Malf
Page 250 and 251: ‘Abdar Rahim 164 ‘Abdul ‘Aziz
Page 252 and 253: cenotaphs (fake graves) 23-4 Chanda
Page 254 and 255: Jhelum 12 Jinnah, Muhammad ‘Ali 3
Page 256 and 257: Pir Badr 13, 165-9, 177, 201 Pir Bu
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Muslim Saints of South Asia: The eleventh to ... - blog blog blog

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