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

THE ASCETIC OF PAKPATTAN
However, these are all nothing but effusions of Sufi proselytizing
rhetoric, which, as has been already mentioned above, should not
deceive us and serve as the basis for inferences about the suprareligious
mode of life of mystics and saints. Thus, contrary to their
own assertions, Sultan Bahu, Bullhe Shah and Sachal Sarmast were
pious Muslims, regularly visiting the mosque and observing all the
injunctions of the Sharī‘at. What is more, even while assimilating
the vernacular and aspects of folklore, and accommodating regional
and ethnic traditions, as well as going through the process of the
‘adoption of simplicity’ and naturalization, Sufis never deserted
the mainstream of tașawwuf. This refers to the teachings of the
Qur’ān and Sunna. It must also be said that old legends and modern
speculations notwithstanding, Sufis rarely became mu’ah˝h˝ids, i.e. the
Unitarians, for whom it is all the same, which one and only God –
Ram or Rahman – to worship. 5 In their turn, the people amongst
whom the provincial awliyā lived and preached venerated them
to the best of their ability – in accordance with the laws of their
ancestors, painting their cult in the gay colours of local rites and
rituals, so far removed from the precepts of Islam.
Nevertheless, the powerful wave of Indo-Persian Sufism, which
had risen so high in the imperial capitals, became divided, spread
across the boundless expanses of the subcontinent, merged with the
water of already existing springs, filled dried-up riverbeds, was
absorbed by the local soil and fantastically changed the South Asian
cultural landscape. One of the most striking examples of such a deep
penetration into the indigenous layers of the Indian substratum is
the literary and mystical activity and cult of the eminent saint of the
subcontinent, Shaikh Fariduddin Mas‘ud (Baba Farid). Third in
succession among the great shaikhs of the Chishtiyya order, he spent
the greater part of his life in the desolate uninhabited Ajodhan, named
Pakpattan (‘the Ferry of the Pure’) in his honour – the semantics of
this toponym is extraordinarily similar to the literary meaning of the
Hindu tirtha. Shaikh Farid, almost literally, became the ‘passage’ of
sainthood, having passed on the baraka of his outstanding murshid,
Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki, to his own no less famous murīd,
Nizamuddin Awliya. Having significantly transformed the respectable
conduct of the moderate, ‘sober’ mystic and drawing inspiration from
the tradition of ‘intoxicated’ majdhūbs, he is also the people’s ideal
intercessor and a model world-renouncing ascetic. He has himself
formulated his credo in the following Persian verses:
Khāham ki hamīsha dar hawā-yi tu ziyam
Khākī shawam wa ba-zīr-i pā-yi tu ziyam
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