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

NOTES
6 For detailed description of this rite in nineteenth-century Northern
India, see (Meer Hassan Ali 1975: 154–5).
7 The story of the false prophet Muqanna was given a romantic
interpretation in Thomas Moore’s short story in verse, included in his
poem ‘Lalla Rukh’ (1812–17). Later in the short story ‘Hakim from
Merv, a Masked Dyer’ Borges presented his own, as always, paradoxical,
interpretation of Muqanna’s story, according to which his
mask concealed the face, disfigured by leprosy.
8 The influence of Naths’ deified religious preceptor Gorakhnath on Sufi
tradition has been most comprehensively reflected in the works of
Chishti theologian ‘Abdul Quddus Gangohi (died in 1538). His book
Rushd-nāma (The Book of Right Guidance) consists of sabads (´sabd),
hymns and invocations, popular amongst Naths, where their teaching
is identified with the doctrine of wah˝dat al-wujūd. The yoga practice of
Naths is typical for Sabiriyya, a filial branch of the Chishtiyya, founded
by ‘Ali Sabir (who died in 1291), Baba Farid’s khalīfa. Some wandering
dervishes, often be-shar‘, not connected with any particular silsila, identified
with Gorakhnath the semi-legendary Baba Ratan of Bhatinda,
a senior contemporary of Prophet Muhammad, who supposedly passed
on the esoteric teaching of Naths to the Prophet. After that Baba
Ratan, this record-holder in longevity, lived another six hundred years
in the god-forsaken village of Punjab. According to this incredible and
preposterous legend it turns out that the Prophet of Islam, who passed
away in 632, was the disciple of a Hindu, who lived not earlier than the
eleventh century!
8 THE MENDICANT SAINTS
1 In literary Indo-Persian tradition qalandars are called ‘perpetually
intoxicated’ (damādam mast qalandar) for they drove the ‘intoxication’
(sukr) trend of Sufism to extremity.
2 Al-Hujwiri cites as an example of malāmatī’s typical behaviour an
event from Ibrahim b. Adham’s life, as narrated by him: ‘On one
occasion I was in a ship where nobody knew me. I was clad in common
clothes and my hair was long, and my guise was such that all the people
in the ship mocked and laughed at me. Among them was a buffoon,
who was always coming and pulling my hair and tearing it out, and
treating me with contumely after the manner of his kind. At that time I
felt entirely satisfied, and I rejoiced in my garb. My joy reached its
highest pitch one day when the buffoon rose from his place and super
me minxit [urinated on me]’ (al-Hujwiri 1992: 68).
3 The other ancestor of the Qalandariyya movement is considered to be
Hasan al-Juwaliqi (died 1322) who established the first cloister
(zāwiya) of qalandars in Egypt.
4 In spite of great loss of blood, Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dihli survived. In
accordance with the moral principles of the Chishtis he forgave the
qalandar who had made the attempt on his life and even paid him
twenty tankās in compensation for the ‘damage’, since the clumsy
murderer had got wounded with his own knife. At the saint’s urgent
request Sultan Firoz Shah did not take any measures against Turab,
confining himself to his banishment from Delhi.
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