The Ruba'iyat-I-Sarmad, Sufism, and Sarmad's Concept Of

ROMAN GRUIJTERS

THE RUBA’IYAT-I-SARMAD, SUFISM, AND SARMAD’S CONCEPT OF MYSTICAL UNITY

SUMMARY — This article will analyze the religious and mystical identity and character of Muhammad Sa’id Sarmad (±1590-±1660) and his works – especially the Ruba’iyat-I Sarmad – within the context of hybridity and multiple religious belonging. Doing this, we will also consider that Sarmad was one of the many Sufi poets on the subcontinent, which is in fact the historical framework of Sarmad’s mysticism. Sarmad, who originally lived in the Kashan region in Iran seems to have bridged several cultures in Persia and India. Born as a Jew, he read both the Taurat (Torah) and the Injil (Gospel) before studying Islam, to which he converted. Sarmad also played a considerable role at the Mughal court (Delhi), during a regime of religious toleration, called Suhl-i-kuhl. Himself a talented poet and wealthy merchant, Sarmad first became known widely through his Ruba’iyat (a collection of epigrammatic verse quatrains) which rapidly became a sort of bestseller. Besides that he was drawn into the circle of students of religion from which emerged an important work in comparative religion, entitled Dabistan-i Mazahib (School of Religious Doctrines).

Muhammad Sa’id Sarmad (±1590-±1660), a wealthy merchant, came in 1654 to Delhi, at that time capital of the Mughal emperor Shah Jihan (1627-1659). He was probably of Judeo-Armenian origin. This appears to be the meaning of the statement that according to ‘one tradition’ (rivayati) he was an Armenian (arm- ani), which is given by Shahnavaz Khan (18th cent.) in his work Ma’asiru’l-umera, ‘The Deeds of the Emirs’, one of the few direct sources of Sarmad’s history.1 Born as a Jew, he read both the Taurat (Torah) and the Injil (Gospel) before studying Islam, to which he converted. No longer a professing Jew, Muham- mad Sa’id Sarmad (meaning Sa’id the Everlasting) played a considerable role at the Mughal court. Himself a talented poet and wealthy merchant, Sarmad first became known widely through his Ruba’iyat (a collection of epigrammatic verse quatrains) which rapidly became a sort of bestseller. Besides that he was drawn into the circle of students of religion from which emerged an important work in

1 F. Tauer, ‘Persian learned literature to the end of the 18th century’, in: J. Rypka, History of Iranian literature, Dordrecht 1968, 454.

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comparative religion, entitled Dabistan-i Mazahib (School of Religious Doctrines). This book, which did not become known in the West until 1787, included a chapter on Judaism, mostly derived from information supplied by Sarmad. When we want to trace back Sarmad’s spiritual path as it meandered between Judaism, Islam, Christianity and Hinduism, as recorded in his poetry and in the hagiographical (Urdu: taskara) traditions which surrounded him, we have to explore both Sarmad’s apperently contradictory religious self-identification and the complex religious context which Sarmad found in 17th century North India.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

This article will analyze the religious and mystical identity and character of Muhammad Sa’id Sarmad and his works – especially the Ruba’iyat-I Sarmad – within the context of hybridity and multiple religious belonging. Doing this, we will also consider that Sarmad was one of the many Sufi poets on the subcontinent, which is in fact the historical framework of Sarmad’s mysticism. This research objective can be translated into the following question: In which way did the practice of dual/multiple religious adherence and hybridity give shape to the mystical identity of Sarmad and the Sufi doctrines on the subcontinent? For this purpose, I will make use of hermeneutical methods and do research after some of the Sufi lodges in India and Pakistan during the 17th century, the historical context of mysticism in India and Pakistan during that age. This will shed light on Sarmad’s mystical identity and his own confessional identity. The historical context can be considered as the ‘circumstance’ of Sar- mad’s writings. Doing this, I will make use of some direct and historical sources, like Sarmad’s own writings in the Dabistan-i Mazahib, the Persian history of religion widely-known particularly in Northern India, and Khan’s Ma’asiru’l- umera from the 18th century. Shahnavaz Khan’s Ma’asiru’l-umera (‘The Deeds of the Emirs’) is a direct source of Sarmad’s history. Here we can find information about his Judeo-Armenian origin and further life. Furthermore, I will try to put Sarmad’s Ruba’iyat in its literary and cultural context. My second aim is to analyze the rubais from a specific perspective, namely their relevance for modern scholarly debate in regard to the concepts ‘mystical unity’, ‘multiple religious belonging’ and ‘hybridity’. After explaining these concepts, I will relate them to my research question.

SA’ID SARMAD ACCORDING TO THE HISTORICAL SOURCES

Sa’id Sarmad, starting as a sober, single-minded scholar well-versed in the language and religion (Judaism) of his forefathers, continued searching, and

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allowed himself to be thoroughly initiated into the teachings of Islam by famous savants such as Sadru’ddin Shirazi and Abu’l-Qasim Findariski. At a certain moment he converted to Islam and – probably inspired by the Sufi order of the qalandars – became a Sufi, a dervish who walked around naked, Sarmad-i- barahne,2 ‘the naked Sarmad’, a majzub; that is, according to Steingass’s definition,3 one who is ‘drawn, attracted by Divine grace and renouncing all worldly concerns, to give oneself entirely over to piety and contemplation’.4 The great cataclysm that turned the prosperous merchant into a possession- less dervish occured on Indian soil near the present-day Karachi, where Sarmad had gone to trade. He was so seized with a violent passion for a Hindu boy – Abhi Chand – that he thought of nothing else and gave away all he possessed. In the tradition of the great mystics like Jalaladdin Rumi and Fakhruddin ‘Iraqi the boy’s beauty was a witness (shahid) of the Divine beauty and the worldly love towards a handsome youth was a pedagogical experience, a train- ing in obedience toward God, since the human beloved, like God, has to be obeyed absolutely.5 It is possible that Sarmad learnt the lesson of dissolving his self in the self of Abhi Chand as a prelude to his final annihilation in the Absolute. Later – still according to Shahnavaz Khan – he arrived at Delhi where he formed a friendship (suhbat) with crownprince Dara Shikoh (eldest son of Shah Jihan and Queen Mumtaz Mahal, for whom the famous Taj Mahal was built), who had the greatest confidence (husn-i i’tiqad) in ‘those mad with love (maja- nin, plural of majnun).6 The Dabistan also mentions that Sarmad saw in Abhi Chand a manifestation of God. Chand himself became a loyal disciple who expressed in verse the Mas- ter’s pantheistic mysticism, as we can see in the following verse: I submit to Moses’ law; I am of thy religion, and the guardian of thy way; I am a Rabbi of the Yahuds, a Kafir, a Muselman.7 But it is in poetic development itself that he had the ideal teacher. The Dabistan justly underlines that Sarmad was ‘a good master of poetry’ and gives several examples of his ability, including:

2 J. Marek, ‘Persian literature in India’, in: J. Rypka, History of Iranian literature, Dordrecht 1968, 728. 3 F.J. Steingass, A comprehensive Persian-English dictionary including the Arabic words and phrases to be met with in Persian literature, London 1998, 1176. 4 J.P. Asmussen, Studies in Judeo-Persian literature, Leiden 1973, 110. 5 A. Schimmel, History of Indian literature. Vol. 7: Islamic literatures of India, Wiesbaden 1973, 291. 6 Asmussen, Studies in Judeo-Persian literature, 111. 7 D. Shea & A. Troyer (ed. & transl.), The Dabistan or School of Manners, London 1901, 299.

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Sarmad, whom they intoxicated from the cup of love, Whom they called exalted, and depressed, Asked for wine, worship of God, and wisdom: [But] they intoxicated him, and made him a worshipper of idols. O thou, by whose cheek is wounded the mind of the red rose, Internally is the whole blood of the heart, externally the red rose; Thou camest so late after Joseph, who was in the garden expecting thee That the rose [of his cheek] became first yellow [from vexation] And at last [from pleasure] a red rose.8 The close friendship with crown prince Dara Shikoh was an epoch-making event in Sarmad’s life. It brought him unexpected greatness, and it also brought him a tragic downfall. In the circle around the crown prince, Sarmad found precisely that tolerant atmosphere in which he could thrive, since he was con- scious of his legitimacy as a religious personality. Jews, Hindus, Christians and Zoroastrians flocked around Dara Shikoh on an equal footing with Islam’s – the state’s religion’s – own men. This was a natural consequence of his efforts to bridge the gap between the religions and to create an universal religion, Din-i ilahi. This policy of religious toleration was initiated by his great-grand- father Akbar. Under Dara Shikoh also the policy of Suhl-i-kuhl was re-established. How- ever, although crown prince, he was forced to watch the throne slip away from under him to the advantage of his brother Aurangzib, in whom the religiously and politically orthodox muslims found a willing tool. After many conflicts about the throne, Shikoh was executed in 1659.9 Sarmad, who had compro- mised himself both politically and religiously to the prince, was executed in 1661.10 According to the accusations Sarmad was also a disbeliever, who when the Islamic creed was demanded of him, wished only to utter the negative part (‘There is no God’) and refused to continue with the positive (‘…but Allah’).11 Furthermore Sarmad was Dara Shikoh’s favourite, ‘an atheist much liked by the Prince’ says the Venetian traveller Niccolao Manucci in his Storia do Mogor.12 That is to say, the religious and political motives united in perfect harmony. Sarmad’s story quickly found it’s way into folk literature. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, the story of the life and execution of Sarmad was told in a legend:

8 Ibid., 300. 9 W.J. Fischel, ‘Jews and Judaism at the court of the Moghul emperors in medieval India’, in: Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 18 (1948-49), 170. 10 Ibid., 172. 11 N. Katz, ‘The identity of a mystic: The case of Sa’id Sarmad’, in: NUMEN: International Review for the History of Religions 47 (2000), 151. 12 Fischel, ‘Jews and Judaism at the court of the Moghul emperors in medieval India’, 171.

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Sarmad was a noted wandering Faqir in the days of Aurangzib. One day he met a Mullah or Muhammadan priest, who asked him if he could repeat the Musal- man Confession of Faith. Sarmad professed utter ignorance of it. The Mulla began to teach it to him, and Sarmad got as far as to repeat the first half of the formula – ‘There is no deity but God’; but he could not say the latter half – ‘Fur- ther, Muhammad is the apostle of God’. Sarmad was brought before the Emperor, and there also he refused to repeat the second sentence of the Creed. Aurangzib ordered him to be executed, and as he bared his neck to the sword, he cried: ‘In whatsoever shape Thou comest I know that thou art He’. Still he would not repeat the words dictated by the Emperor: ‘Muhammad is the apostle of God’. But his head, when it was severed from the trunk, called out: ‘There is no deity but God; and, further, Muhammad is the apostle of God’. Aurangzib at once understood that he himself had omitted the ‘further’ in the formula. As Sarmad died he placed his severed head on his hand and walked away, saying that he would dash it against the walls of the palace of the unjust Emperor. But his Pir met him and warned him not to rash. The head fell from his hands and he died just before the Great Mosque of Delhi, where he was buried and his tomb stands to this day.13

SARMAD AND MULTIPLE RELIGIOUS BELONGING

Sarmad has been quoted as declaring: ‘I obey the Quran, I am a priest and a monk, I am a Rabbi Jew, I am an infidel, and I am a Muslim’.14 In the Ruba’iyat we can find at least twenty quatrains that illustrate Sarmad’s relationship to religions – Islam mostly, but also Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and Atheism. This quote of Sarmad raises questions about his religious identity, whether in his own mind he remained a Jew, or became something else, whether Sufi and/or Muslim, Hindu, Atheist or ‘Idolater’. However, we can view him against the cultural background of India, his adopted home. In the Dabistan-i Mazahib we can find more information about Sarmad’s importance in the culture of Mughal times. And this information places him in remarkable milieu. On one hand, on the popular level, there were the interreligious, mystical teachings of Kabir, Ramananda and Nanak. On the public level, we can view the changes of Mughal policy considering tolerance toward religions, which resulted in the syncretistic, mystical Din-i-illahi of Akbar the Great (1542-1605). Din-i-illahi was a synthesis of differing religious elements. Akbar hoped to introduce a completely new religion which would demonstrate that all religions had fundamentally one common source, namely oneness (Tauhid) between God and Men.15

13 K.H. Lodi, Folk traditions of the Mughal emperors, London 1907, 431-432. 14 The Dabistan or School of Manners, 299. 15 E. Wellesz, Akbar’s religious thought reflected in Mogul painting, London 1952, 19.

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In fact we can understand Sarmad within this context. Sarmad studied the sacred texts of other religions and he translated the Torah into Persian. In the syncretistic milieu of the Mughal court he introduced his own views of the Hebrew Bible and Jewish ideas. Soon they would be adopted as an integral part of the Indian heritage. During interreligious debates these scriptures were discussed and in the Dabistan we find a reflection on these discussions. The Dabistan-i-Mazahib says the following about Sarmad’s religious belonging ‘…he was originally from a family of learned Yahuds [Jews], of a class they call Rabbanian (…); after an investigation into the faith of the Rabbins and the perusal of the Mosaic books, he became a Muselman’.16 However, according a quote in his own Ruba’iyat, Sarmad is ‘a follower of the Furqan (a Sufi name for God), a (Catholic) priest, a (Buddhist) monk, a Jewish rabbi, an infidel, and a Muslim’. It is hard to imagine a mystic with a more complex confessional identity.17 Another difficulty in the research after Sarmad’s religious belonging and non-belonging is found in the only extant quatrain by Sarmad’s lover and disciple, Abhi Chand, found in the Dabistan: I submit to Moses’ law; I am of thy religion, and a guardian of thy way; I am a Rabbi of the Yahuds, a Kafir, a Muselman.18 Sarmad claims in his quatrains, that he simultaneously was a rabbi and that he abandoned Judaism. The same is true for his Muslim identity. Other quatrains portray him as an idol-worshipper and a devotee of Hindu gods, which is in contradiction with his opposition against the Brahmins and the Sadhus. On the other hand, he also opposes the Mullah and the Sufi, although he frequently visited mosques and wrote mystical poetry, which was very much in the Sufi tradition. This contradictive attitude, however, can be explained by the search in Sufism for a common religious origin or meeting point between religious traditions focusing on ultimate religious experience, namely the unification with the Divine Being.

Sarmad wandered from synagogue to masjid to ashram, was claimed by each group as one of their own, and claimed by modern followers of certain mystical traditions to have transcended all categorization. However, we will see that his mysticism, his writings and way of life were not uncommon to many of the most important Sufi traditions in Persia, Pakistan and India.

16 Dabistan, 299. 17 M.S. Sarmad, Rubaiyat-I-Sarmad, ed. & transl. Fazl M. Asiri, Santiniketan 1954, 50. 18 Dabistan, 299.

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SUFISM

Given the fact that according to the historical writings and hagiographical com- mentaries Sarmad became a Sufi after his conversion to Islam, it is necessary to study several Sufi doctrines in India. Without this historical Sufistic framework, it is impossible to correctly understand Sarmad’s literary works and his own religious way of life and mystical identity. This socio-religious context, however, was not homogeneous and quite complex, since in many Sufi doctrines and lodges on the subcontinent hybridity and multiple religious belonging were common. Sufism in its early stages was what Nathan Söderblom calls persönlichkeitsmystik, a personal relation between God and man, Creator and creature, Lord and slave, as grounded in the Koranic teachings.19 It was voluntaristic mysticism, aiming at the complete unification of man’s will with the Divine will, not yet a Gnostic approach as it became later, partially under the influence of Neoplatonic-gnostic ideas. These mystics were constantly preoccupied with the Koran, the uncreated word of God, even in such way that the mystic finally saw everything in the light of the Koranic revelation. The Sufi took his inspiration in every moment from the Koran, and applied its images to his own experience. The constant recurrence of Koranic images and figures such as Abraham, Moses, or Jesus in the work of later Persian and Persianate Sufi poets, like Sarmad, can be explained by this central position of the Koran in the life of the Sufis. Simple lines in any Islamic language can obtain allusions to a Koranic verse which the Western reader may detect only much later.20 So, if Sarmad according to the Dabistan says ‘I submit to Moses’ law; I am of thy religion, and a guardian of thy way; I am a Rabbi of the Yahuds, a Kafir, a Muselman’,21 this is not in contrast with the Koranic teachings or the Sufi lore. Even Sarmad’s statement of being a ‘kafir’, a disbeliever, is not in contradiction with Sufism. Sheikh Yaqub sufi of the Kubravi Order, for instance, proudly calls himself a kafir of Ishq (Divine Love) and yearns to burn himself in the fire of love. He challenges the ulema (preachers) who find fault with the love of idols, to tell him if anything else is more meritorious in the world than the crime of loving idols. He asserts repeatedly that his faith is the love of idols.22 This life in and through the Koran helped the mystics shape both their experiences and their languages. The experience of the love that exists between God and man was found expressed in Sura 5, 59: ‘He loves them and they love

19 A. Fischer, ‘Vergottlichung und Tabuisierung der Namen Muhammads bei den Muslimen’ (1924), in: R. Hartmann & H. Scheel (Eds.), Beiträge zur Arabistik, Semitistik und Islamwis- senschaft, Leipzig 1944, 328. 20 A. Schimmel, As through a veil: Mystical poetry in Islam, New York 1982, 16. 21 Dabistan, 299. 22 Y. Sikand, Kashmiri Sufism: Theological resources for peace-building, Mumbai 2006, 2.

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Him’. The Koranic story of God’s speaking with Moses in an ineffable speech in which the person of the prophet disappeared from in between, formed the first step to the Sufi theory of the shathiyat, the theopathic locutions, which were to become an important and much-discussed feature of classical Sufism, containing the most daring expressions of loving union (Tauhid) or Vergottung.23 At the beginning of mystical poetry another problem posed itself. The mystic is basically a solitary wayfarer; his goal is to be in the company of God, and in the loving intimacy with the Divine Beloved. According to Schimmel the poet, however, is also a sociable person, the mouthpiece of the society whose dreams, hopes, aversions and ideals he reflects and expresses, praising or blam- ing the rulers and always being in contact with people, even if only in court circles.24 How then could a Sufi be a poet? Yet the Sufis also wanted to attract people, wanted to tell them of the marvelous experiences on the way to God, and were often compelled by an inner urge to do so. Although the Sufis often professed to abhor books and bookishness, the amount of literature produced by them is certainly as great as that written by those theolo- gians and jurisconsults whom they liked to attack for their lack of spiritual insight. Furthermore, Sufism soon developed into a social movement. Even during its formative period, the ninth and tenth centuries, when Sufi fraternities had not yet developed, it was common to discuss mystical problems among initiated friends.25 The earliest mystical verses are ascribed to Rabi’a († 801 AD), who sings for her love of God, a love which is absolute and does not grow or diminish by the thought of Paradise or Hell. The Absoluteness of devotion which she introduced in her poetry and which reminds the western reader of sayings of medieval Christian women mystics is echoed later in innumerable Arabic and Per- sian songs. And even more typically, she takes refuge with God, the only goal of her life, whom she loves to the exclusion of everything else, even to the exclusion of the Prophet. This attitude we can also find with Sarmad. When he was once asked to say the Islamic Confession of Faith, Sarmad only professed the first half of the formula – ‘There is no deity but God’; but he could not say the latter half – ‘Further, Muhammad is the apostle of God’.26

South Asian Sufism in the Written Word As we have seen, the earliest literature of Sufism was composed in Arabic by Sufis writing in regions as widespread as Baghdad and Tirmiz on the banks of the Oxus. However, by the time of the spread of Sufism in South Asia itself and the great

23 Schimmel, As through a veil, 16. 24 Ibid., 17. 25 Ibidem. 26 Lodi, Folk traditions of the Mughal emperors, 432.

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flourishing of Sufi writings in the region, Persian had already begun to be adopted as the suitable medium for Muslim religious literature by Sufis writing in Central Asia as well as Iran.27 Although important contributions to the Arabic literature of Sufism were certainly made in South Asia through the centuries, it was overwhelm- ingly in Persian that the greatest contribution of the region was to be made.28 If we want to have an impression of the spirituality and way of life during the time of Sarmad in South Asia, it can be enlightening to look to one of the ‘Sufi manuals’ of that time. These didactic manuals were by no means always concerned with primary questions of good behavior and shared spiritual exer- cises. Some didactic works promoted more esoteric practices, whether they be meditational techniques, prayers for the summoning of visions or practices that were more clearly magical in character, as in the Jawahir-e-Khams of Muhammed Ghaws of Gwalior († 1562-63 AD).29 Shah Kalimullah of Delhi († 1728 AD) described in his Kashkul-e-Kalimi, for example, a graveside meditation (zikr-e-kashf-e-qubur) that was capable of revealing to its practitioner the spiritual states of the dead saint beside whose tomb it was performed. Kalimullah also discussed the merits of yogic practices amid a wider description of the ‘zikrs’ (meditations) of different groups of Sufis. The Nizam al-Qulub of Kalimullah’s disciple, Nizam al-din of Aurangabad († 1729 AD), took up these themes in greater detail and described a whole series of meditative practices (zikrs) belonging to almost every known Sufi order, as well as assessing the benefits of techniques explicitly adapted from yoga.30 The two meditational handbooks of Kalimullah and Nizam al-din point to what is probably the most important factor in the discussion about Sarmad’s religious belonging, hybridity and accusations of syncretism. This is the influence of the Sufi networks themselves, of the ‘tariqa system’, on the creation and transmission of knowledge. Now this can be easily overstated. The influence might simply be one of master and disciple, the straightforward matter of a teacher shaping tastes of his students. But there was often more to it than this and it is no coincidence that these two manuals discussing in detail and with considerable admiration the meditational techniques of non-muslims are composed by two Chishti, a Sufi lodge originating from the town Chisht (Afghanistan, near Herat), which was founded by Hazrat Khwaja Abu Ishaq Shami

27 See J. Baldick, ‘Medieval Sufi literature in Persian prose’, in: G. Morisson, History of Persian literature, Leiden 1981, 83-109. 28 See M.Y. Kokan, ‘Language and literature: Arabic’, in: H.K. Sherwani & P.M. Joshi (Eds.), History of Medieval Deccan (1295-1724). Vol. 2: Mainly cultural aspects, Hyderabad 1974, 1-15; Schimmel, History of Indian literature. 29 N. Green, ‘Emerging approaches to the Sufi traditions of South Asia: Between texts, territo- ries and the transcendent’, in: South Asia Research (2000), 127. 30 Ibid., 128.

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† 941 AD).31 Through the work of such Sufis as ‘Abd al-Rahman Chisti († 1683 AD) who translated the Bhagavad Gita into Persian, the Chistiyya were the most open to non Islamic traditions of all of the literate traditions of Indian Sufism.32 Yet when posing such questions of cultural exchange (whether addressed through the language of syncretism or hybridity) one needs always to bear in mind the differences between such exchanges in literate, non-literate and partially literate contexts. For while the written world of texts offers the possibility of distinctly separate religious models that may therefore be combined in genu- ine acts of hybrid exchange, the living world of embodied religious knowledge and cultural behaviour rarely offers the same monolithic distinctions as writing. The processes at work in the creation of hybrid texts may therefore be perfectly distinct from those involved in the creation of cults too easily classified by the same criteria as texts.33 This also means that caution is needed when we want to relate Sarmad’s writings to his personal (religious) life, especially in respect to the concepts of hybridity and openness toward other religious traditions.

The Wandering Saints and Sufi Cults in South Asia On the other hand, in South Asia there were quite a lot of saints and mystics who did not belong to any tariqa, and who spent their entire life on the jour- ney. The most common name for them was the word qalandar (literally a rough unshaped block).34 The term qalandar was historically applied to various cate- gories of mystics. Up to the fourteenth century it was synonymous with the concept of dervish – Sarmad was a dervish – and denoted a wandering mystic- ascetic, who did not have personal property or a definite place of residence. In early mystic poetry qalandar is a wanderer who has renounced everything tem- poral and is absorbed only in love for God. The Persian Sufis of the eleventh century, Abu Sa’id Maihani, ‘Abdullah Ansari and Baba Tahir ‘Uryan, called themselves qalandars in precisely this sense. The last-mentioned said: I am mystic gypsy called Qalandar; I have neither fire, home, nor monastery. By day I wander about the world, and at night I sleep with a brick under my head.35

31 Ibid., 131. 32 C.W. Ernst, ‘Sufism and Yoga according to Muhammad Gawth’, in: Sufi 29 (1996), 9-13; R. Vassie, ‘’Abd al-Rahman Chishti and the Bhagavadgita: “Unity of Religion” theory in practice’, in: L. Lewisohn (Ed.), The heritage of Sufism. Vol 2, Oxford 1999, 367ff. 33 T.K. Stewart, ‘In search for equivalence: Conceiving the Muslim-Hindu encounter through Translation Theory’, in: History of Religions 40 (2001) no. 3, 260ff. 34 A. Suvorova, Muslim saints of South Asia: The eleventh to fifteenth century, London-New York 2004, 178. 35 S.A.A. Rizvi, A history of Sufism in India. Vol 1, Delhi 1986, 301.

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And finally, the word qalandar denoted a member of the mystic-ascetic movement in Khurasan, which in the course of time took shape as the Qalandariyya fraternity and by the thirteenth century reached the borders of India. The teaching of Qalandariyya differed from the doctrines of other Muslim fraternities by virtue of the serious influence of Hindu and Buddhist practices on it.36 Its fundamental tenets were: the rejection of the mystic-ascetics practice of seclusion and life together in a cloister; an indifferent and negligent attitude towards the mandatory injunctions (fara’id) and rituals of Islam; the avoidance of participation in common prayer and public worship, a refusal to observe the fast obligatory for all Muslims; subsistence by means of collecting alms; the absence of any property; and a nomadic way of life. Most members of the Qalandariyya fraternity also used to make a vow of celibacy.37 In fact, the qalandars ignored or even deliberately disobeyed the shari’a (Islamic Law). This is because the qalandar considers himself in opposition to ordinary men and their concern for the external world. Because ordinary men are involved in the external world, they must, in order to demonstrate their submission to God, follow the shari’a, which regulates the external, visible aspects of daily life. Central among those areas of life that the shari’a regulates are relations between men and women and economic relations among men. The qalandar, in contrast, is concerned only with the interior life. Having rejected the external world, he needs not to worry about or adhere to the shari’a. He does not see it as being relevant to him. His relationship to God need not be mediated by external rules. By putting himself totally outside the social world, the qalandar puts himself totally ‘inside’ the spiritual world, the House of God. This state of transcendence is achieved in a state of intoxication. One activity that most Muslims consider to be in violation of the shari’a and which is regularly engaged in by qalandars is the smoking of hashish and drinking of bhang, a drink with marihuana in it. This ‘qalandar-way-of-life’ is most likely the reason that Sarmad was called a majzub, one who is drawn, attracted by Divine grace and renouncing all worldly concerns, to give oneself entirely over to piety and contemplation.

HISTORICAL SOURCES

When we look for historical writings about the life of Sarmad, we discover that they are very rare and not objective. For one thing, the saints and sages of that time chose to remain under cover, to protect their spiritual secrets. For another, accounts of Sarmad’s life (available from different tadhkiras, hagiographical traditions) are by no means satisfactory.

36 Suvorova, Muslim saints of South Asia, 179. 37 Ibidem.

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In the case of Sarmad, the Moghul Emperor Aurangzib was bitterly hostile to him for his close personal relationship with his elder brother, Dara Shikoh, whom he had executed in 1659. Therefore the historians of the time of Aurang- zib, like Mirza Kazim who recorded the events of the early years of Aurangzib’s reign are silent about Sarmad’s execution.38 However, although many accounts on Sarmad’s life are incomplete and sub- jective, references about Sarmad’s life are given in several historical sources, which I will name here: Shahnavaz Khan’s (18th cent.) Ma’asiru’l-Umera. Fuller information as to Sarmad’s importance in the culture of Mughal times is given in the Dabistan-i Mazahib, the Persian history of religion. The author, Mohsin Fani, received the material for his account of Judaism from Sarmad. Mu’tamad Khan, author of the well-known Iqbal Namah Jahangiri, tells in the Majma’ul Afkar about his encounter with Sarmad in Lahore and his stay in present-day Pakistan. An account of Sarmad’s stay at the Mughal court and his execution under Aurangzib’s reign, we can find in the Storia do Mogor of the Venetian traveller and writer Niccolao Manucci (1639-1717). Furthermore crown-prince Dara Shikoh mentions Sarmad in his Sakinatul Awlia, a biography of saints, which he completed in 1049 A.H. Sher Khan Lodhi writes about Dara’s and Sarmad’s execution in his Mir’atul Khayal. Walih of Daghistan writes in his Riyad ush Shu’ara about Sarmad’s influence after his death.

SARMAD’S WRITINGS

Two literary works are attributed to Sarmad: a collection of 23 letters, Ruka’at- I-Sarmad and the Ruba’iyat-I-Sarmad. This collection of letters is mentioned in the Encyclopaedia of Islam,39 but the original, a copy or a translation are lost. Furthermore Sarmad edited, together with Moshan Fani, the chapter on the Jews in the Dabistan and Abhi Chand’s Persian translation of the first 8 chapters of the Pentateuch. These chapters are also cited in the Dabistan.

The Ruba’iyat-i-Sarmad and the Mystical Way Rubai or Quatrain, as its name suggests, is a short poem of four lines. The first, second and fourth rhyming together, the third also rhymes with the other three lines but mostly remains blank. This arrangement of the rhymes has a very singular effect, as the rhyme of the first two lines, which seemed to be lost on the appearance of the third, returns as an echo in the fourth and closes the little poem in a manner at once graceful to the ear and satisfying to the aesthetic sense. Occasionally the third is also rhymed, but then the result is less happy as the effect just mentioned is absent.40

38 Sarmad, Rubaiyat-I-Sarmad, ii. 39 Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1965. 40 Rubaiyat-I-Sarmad, xx.

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There is a series of twenty-four metres, all derived from the Hazaj (Mufa’ilan, eight times) peculiar to the rubai, in one of which it must be written.41 Take for example the following rubai of Sarmad: Ta nist nagardi rah-i-hastat nadihand Win martaba bá himmat-i-pastat nadihand Chun sham’a basukhtan tá nadihi Sar rishtá-i-raushni badastat nadihand [Unless you annihilate yourself, you cannot get life This position is not granted to one with a weak will Like candle if you do not burn yourself out and out The thread of light will not be given to you.]42 This rubai is rhymed at the end in the first, second and fourth lines, while the third has been left out unrhymed to break the monotony of the quatrain. The rubai was and is a form of verse which has ever been popular among the Persians and it was often called tarána (song) by many poets.43 The man, however, who made the rubai really a ‘rubai’ was Abu Sa’id Abul Khayr (967-1049 AD).44 Sa’id was a great poet and a true mystic. He adopted the rubai for the expression of his mystic experiences. This introduction of the tasawwuf (mysticism) in poetry has been adopted by the sufi’s. Sa’id’s rubais have been a source of great inspiration for the novices in the path of mysticism. Furthermore they were and are a prototype for the writers of rubais. So, after him all the great writers of this form of verse regarded him as their preceptor, in style, diction and subject matter. Rubai as stated above is a form of verse which was adopted by Sarmad as the vehicle of his mystical experiences. According to Asiri, Sarmad’s mystical path was borrowed from the Greeks and Indians (known as wahdat-ul-wajud, unit- ism or pantheism) and was made adaptable to his own convictions.45 Sarmad’s pantheism strictly speaking imports nothing but existence of God in everything present in the world. So anything beautiful or pleasing to the eye was according to it a symbol of divine beauty. This view is supported by Sarmad’s own writings. In the Dabistan he writes, that according to the ‘Yahuds’, God, ‘the Almighty’, is corporeal and that ‘his body is after the image of mankind, and similar to it’.46 This is confusing, since Jews and Christians believe that man is created after the image of God. Sarmad, however, says that God adopted the

41 Ibidem. 42 Ibid., 23. 43 M. Th. Houtsma (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of Islam: A dictionary of the geography, ethnography and biography of the Muhammadan peoples. Vol. 3, Leiden 1934, 1167. 44 Ibidem. 45 Rubaiyat-I-Sarmad, xxii. 46 Dabistan, 301-302.

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image, physical and mentally, of human kind. Sarmad moreover said ‘that it is mentioned in the Mosaic book [Thora/Pentateuch] and in the holy writings [the other books of the Hebrew Bible], that the Spirit of the divine body is beauty itself, and manifests itself under human form…’.47 Furthermore Sarmad places the concept of reincarnation within the context of the Bible and Jewish religion: Life lasts one hundred and twenty years [Gen 6:1-4]; after that, man’s whole life may be considered as one day, which, when he dies, is followed by night (…) When one hundred and twenty years have elapsed, night comes to an end, and the morning appears again; if an atom of his bodily dust be in the east and another atom in the west, they unite in one place, and life is renewed to last again one hundred years, as we have said, when night returns.48 In contradiction to traditional Jewish thought, Sarmad also claims that in Juda- ism ‘punishment and recompense are solely for this world. They [the Jews] maintain that whatever is, bears eternally the form of mankind, composed of water and earth’.49 Here Sarmad has presented his own mystical ideas as authentic to Judaism, but I agree with Asiri that his interpretation of God and religious beliefs have more in common with Greek and Indian mysticism and philosophy than with Rabbinic Judaism. Sarmad shows us that he possessed the talents to express the most dif- ficult ideas in the briefest possible manner. He avoids as far as possible the use of uncommon allusions, far-fetched similarities and metaphors, and words. In fact, Sarmad tried to explain his former Jewish beliefs by the known religious and spiritual concepts of the sub-continent.50 Furthermore, I doubt that Sarmad, as a Persian Jew, knew much about the kabbalistic tradition, which was influenced by Greek philosophy and flourished in France and other parts of Europe. Other themes in his poetry are: the renunciation of the world, quietism, submitting ones will to the Will of God, etc. This way of life was an integral part of Sarmad’s tasawwuf and was also preached by other mystics.

THEMES OF SARMAD’S QUATRAINS AND THEIR RELEVANCE

Analysing some of the important features of Sarmad’s poetry, I will make use of hermeneutical, literary and historical methods. The purpose of my hermeneutical interpretation is to find out in which way Sarmad’s life and Ruba’iyat will shed

47 Ibid., 301. 48 Ibid., 301-302. 49 Ibid., 302. 50 Rubaiyat-I-Sarmad, xxvii.

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light on the relation between religions and on the question of the relation of the mystic to a religious tradition, and in a larger sense on the relationship between mysticism and religion, or between the esoteric to the exoteric. Is there a harmo- nious integration of different world-views?

Non-belonging The Ruba’iyat of Sarmad is a work with a critical approach, focusing on the esoteric elements of Islamic, Jewish and Christian literature and practices. These elements belong to a genre that the French designate littérature fantastique. The intention of this type of literature is to liberate the reader from the constants making up the ordinary world on behalf of a higher class of reality and to initiate the reader into a true form of mysticism. The Ruba’iyat helps to free the reader from conventional reading.51 In quatrain number 5 (in Ezekiel’s numbering) we can read: All search for happiness in worldly wealth or in temples, mosques and churches. O my Lord, save me from these, I pray these most earnestly.52 And in quatrain 313, we read this enigmatic words: O Sarmad! Thou hast worked havoc in attacking organized religion. Thou hast sacrificed Thy religion for a Man whose eyes are red with intoxication. All thy wealth hast thou thrown at the feet of the Master, who is an idol-worshipper.53 And, for example, quatrain 17 reads: I care not for the rosary or the sacred thread. Am I pious? I care not. Nor do I wear the long woolen robe, it is so heavy. My concern is with my Friend [Master] alone. What do I care for the world’s opinion.54 In quatrain 54, both the Ka’aba and the temple are objects of scorn: The Lover and the Loved, the idol and the idol-worshipper, Who is the cheat among them? Darkness prevails in the Ka’aba and the temple. Come into the Happy Valley of Oneness, Where only one color prevails. Think deeply. Who is the Lover and the Beloved, the flower and the thorn?55

51 J. Faur, Homo mysticus, New York 1999, xi. 52 I.A. Ezekiel, Sarmad, Jewish saint of India, Beas (India) 1966, 295. 53 Ibid., 378. 54 Ibid., 298. 55 Ibid., 308.

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And in quatrain 238: Repeat not stories about the Ka’aba and the temples, O Sarmad, For they are not the Way.56 Muslim piety and learning, as well as the emblematic cloak of the Sufi are objects of scorn in quatrain 275: O men of piety! What sweet deliciousness Hast thou tasted in this hypocrisy? It is so insipid. Thou hast many flowing woolen mantles to show off thy piety, But don’t forget that from the thread of thy rosary, Thou hast made a strong rope with which to bind thyself. As for myself, O Master, I can only pray for thy protection.57 Furthermore we find intimations about Sarmad’s confessional identity in his mystical poetry, many conflicting. In quatrain 218, for example, Sarmad affirms Islamic practice but denies Muslim identity: True, I am an idol-worshipper; I am not of the faithful flock. I go to the mosque, But I am not a Muslim.58 Surveying his quatrains (to follow Ezekiel’s text and numbering), we discover that Sarmad expresses disdain for organized religion in general, also Islam – to which he converted – and other religions, like Hinduism and Judaism. Especially his critical remarks about Sufism are remarkable, since he is regarded as a Sufi saint. Though this may seem paradoxical, we must not forget that there were many Sufi lodges and doctrines, which had often total different ideas about the right mystical path. Many Sufi pirs (mystical masters or teachers), for example, looked down to the qalandars or the Chishti Sufis and they didn’t consider them as being true Sufis. Sarmad with his unorthodox mystical ideas, which resembled a mix of a qalandar way of life and a Chishti doctrine, was for sure not accepted by the orthodox Sufi lodges and their pirs. This can explain his disdain for mainstream ‘orthodox’ Sufism.

Hybridity in Sarmad’s Quatrains Words like ‘self’ and ‘identity’ are mostly used on a quotidian basis, often refer- ring to the process of ‘finding one’s self’. Yet scholars now recognize that to speak of the self as a singular unity is fallacious. Academics across a variety of

56 Ibid., 357. 57 Ibid., 367. 58 Ibid., 351.

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disciplines recognize that the individual person constructs his ‘self’ or selves from a variety of separate sources. This approach we call hybridity.59 Identity, in other words, is a construct of plurality even within the singular individual. Furthermore, scholars recognize that the selves with whom we iden- tify are constructed in dialogue with the other. Charles Taylor notes that ‘one is a self only among other selves. A self can never be described without reference to those who surround it’.60 For Taylor, selves only emerge from what he calls a ‘web of interlocution’.61 The self is defined in terms of background frame- works against which the individual makes moral judgments.62 For example, Islam prohibits the consumption of wine (which is required in both Judaism and Christianity), but Sarmad and a number of Sufi’s have ele- vated drunkenness into a metaphor for mystical union. In accord with this antinomian trend, Sarmad wrote many quatrains which not only praise wine but demean prohibitions against wine, as quatrain 197: O men of piety, thou sayeth that wine is forbidden by religion; I tell thee that it is most sacred, and not unlawful.63 And quatrain 124: Who cannot tell the difference between true piety and hypocrisy? Not by hypocrisy, teaching and deceit is God realized. You [religious men] say, ‘Don’t drink wine, but become pious like me’. ‘Go and tell this to those who don’t know you’, I reply.64 Here it looks like Sarmad considers himself, like the qalandars, in opposition to ordinary men and their concern for the external world. Deliberately he disobeys the shari’a and seeks to live perpetually in contact with the sacred, in this case by intoxication. Studying Sarmad’s life, his ‘selves’ are ever-evolving, constructed from a variety of sources, interpersonal histories and identifications. His selves are, in fact, constructed through an on-going process of dialogue and narrative. Especially the way of life of the qalandar Sufi’s and the interreligious teachings of the Chishti Sufi’s influenced Sarmad’s religious beliefs and belonging.

Tauhid, Mystical Unity and Sufi Belonging Like Akbar and Shikoh, Sarmad believed that all religions had fundamentally one common source, which is Oneness (Tauhid) between God and Men. This

59 B. Horowitz, Connections and journeys: Assessing critical opportunities for enhancing Jewish identity, New York 2003, 76. 60 C. Taylor, Sources of the self: The making of modern identity, Cambridge 1989, 35. 61 Taylor, Sources of the self, 36. 62 Ibid., 26. 63 Ezekiel, Sarmad, 345. 64 Ibid., 325-326.

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concept of Oneness or Unity is very important in Sarmad’s mystical thought and can be understood within his Sufi spirituality. Sufism offers a vision of Tauhid based on unveiling, firmly grounded in the Qur’anic revelation, and in many of its manifestations, respectful toward rational investigation. Ibn Arabi, whose teachings were quite influential on the subcontinent, considered that Sufism is to assume God’s character traits as one’s own (takhalluq bi akhlaq Allah).65 His doctrine of wahdatul wujud, ‘Unity of Being’ is a Sufi philosophy emphasizing that ‘there is no true existence except the Ultimate Truth (God)’. Or in other words that the only truth within the universe is God, and that all things exist within God only. Although the phrase refers to a subjec- tive state or direct, inward experience attained by Sufis, it has also been understood and discussed as a philosophical concept. This philosophical doctrine claims that in different ways all of God’s creations emerge from ‘adim (non-existence) to wujud (existence) out of His thought only. Hence the existence of God is the only truth (Haqq), and the concept of a separate created universe is falsehood (Batil). In short, the doctrine of wahdatul wujud asserts that everything that exists can only exist because it is an aspect of Divine Reality, hence an aspect of Divine Unity itself. However, Sufi scholars assert that although wahdatul wujud may be interpreted as Sufism seeing the face of God everywhere, it does not mean that it has reduced God to everything. God remains supremely transcendent, even though everything which arises and exists resembles him (tash- bih). He resembles nothing but himself (tanzih).66 Those who uphold the teaching of wahdatul wujud distinguish three modes of tauhid:67 (1) Tauhid al-af’al (oneness or unity of the Agent): Meaning that, of every act, the sole and only, the absolute, Agent is God. It follows from this view that there is no need to look for any cause for whatever exists or happens in the universe; everything everywhere is directly the work of God. Those who argue for tauhid al-af’al cite the following verses to support their view: ‘But God has created you and what you do’ (Saffat 37:96); and ‘All is from God’ (Nisa 4:78). (2) Tauhid al-sifat (oneness or unity of the Subject): Meaning that of all pred- icates the sole and only Subject is God. According to this view, all volition, all forces and powers, all knowledge and faculties, even all religions belong to God only; they are an intelligible expression, or a work, or a realized state of Him.

65 W.C. Chittick, ‘Notes on Ibn Arabi’s influence in the Indian subcontinent’, in: Muslim World 82 (1992), 218-241. 66 S. Murata & W.C. Chittick, The vision of Islam, New York 1994, 236ff. 67 The seven dignities (martabat tujuh) is a concept that has been applied and developed by the sufis, followers of Ibn Arabi in understanding tauhid, God, and creation.

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Like Ibn Arabi and other Sufis, for example Hallaj, Sarmad believed in the immanence of God. According to him the existence of the essence of the Haqiqat (Truth) could be perceived in everything and be found in all religions, although many don’t see this. No place is without Him. As we can see in quatrain 68 (Asiri’s numbering), God takes a different shape and manifests Himself in a different form at every place. Quatrain 68: He [God] does not live outside this World; He is a Person who lives in and out of all, The Truth is also untruth, but untruth is not truth. There is no other origin of the creation except Himself.68 Quatrain 39: Every one looked about the world’s garden passionately and passed away Collected nothing but thorns and faded flowers This form of existence which is all Truth, Woe to him who understood it not and passed away! (7) (3) Tauhid al-dhat (also, tawhid al-wujud; oneness or unity of Essence or of Being): Meaning that in essence all existence is One; and everything visible or knowable around us, other than Him, is a manifestation and disclosure of Him in certain states. Everything is in this way connected to God. According to Sarmad, He appears everywhere, in all religions, in many forms. Quatrain 6: Thou art invisible and visible everywhere. (2) And quatrain 9: To the penetrating eye which can see Thee, Thou appearest in hundreds of forms every moment. (2) And in quatrain 142: Take me, my friend, as a man of philosophy and learning And perfect in affection, fidelity and love. I’m possessor of Truth and of magnificent form Like a book, look into me in both ways. (25) Ibn Arabi claimed that the view of tauhid, as noted above, was the result of an inward state or direct, inward experience (dhawq). However, scholars speculate that the concept of wahdatul wujud could be a product of Islamic interaction with Hindu mystics and literature, specifically in reference to the non-dualistic teachings of the Upanishads, which preaches very

68 Rubaiyat-I-Sarmad, 12. In the following, citations from the Rubaiyat in the main text will be followed by the page number in Asiri’s edition in parentheses.

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similar concepts in regards to reality being an illusion and the only true existence being Brahman.69 Furthermore, there are some scholars, who argue that wahdatul wujud is similar to pantheism. Within this context, we can also understand Sarmad’s notion that all existence is relative, except for the origin of Creator and creation, which is Oneness. Religion without the wealth of Thy vision is a bondage; I long for Thy Union and there lies the rub; One word suffices if He is inside.70 Quatrain 103: Though hundreds of my friends turned foe to me, Yet the friendship of One solaced my heart. Giving up diversity I adopted unity, And at last I became attached to Him and He to me. (18) And in quatrain 157: Take me and Him (inseperably attached) as word and its meaning; Two different entities like eye and sight but one and the same; The one never gets seperated from the other, They go together like flower and its smell. (27)

Mystical Sexuality There are also other arguments, that suggest Sarmad’s Sufi belonging. As we have seen in the former quatrains, sexuality is a central symbol in the expression of the relationship between Sufis, especially qalandars, and God. The ordinary man has two aspects, outer and inner, which are expressed in several ways. The outer aspect is the visible, the action of man in the world. The inner aspect is the invisible, the relationship of the interior man to God. The ordinary man also moves between two realms in the exterior social world. These realms are the public and the private, the world of the street and the world of the home. In Pakistan and Mughal India, as in most Muslim societies, women ideally are secluded in the home. Strange men must remain totally excluded from this interior of the home, the zanana, the women’s world. A curtain (parda) shields the women from all contact with these outside men. Traditionally, the ideal was that women need not enter the street at all, but rather spend their entire

69 John L. Esposito, for example, declared that ‘Sirhindi […] enthusiastically declared Ibn ’Arabi a kafir’ (Islam: The straight path, Oxford 1988, 124); Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Literatur.Vol. I, Leiden 1996, 119. 70 Quatrain 46 in Asiri’s numbering, p. 9.

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lives inside. When it was necessary to violate this ideal, it was done by creating a portable inside space: formerly, the enclosed palanquin, now, the burqa (veil). The men in a family had acces to their own women but to no others. They thus moved between the interior world of the zanana and the exterior world of the street. Qalandars and some Sufi poets like Sarmad, in contrast to ordinary men, strive to eliminate this duality, this movement between exterior and interior, in their lives. The first step in doing this is to put themselves totally outside the normal social world. This position is symbolized in several ways, most literally in the fact that qalandars do not live in houses. The utter incompatibility of the world of the qalandar, however, is expressed in the vow of celibacy that the qalandar takes. Like Sarmad, qalandars don’t marry. In placing himself totally outside the social world Sarmad becomes analogues to and yet totally in opposition to that of the woman. An analogy emerges in the symbolic system, that quite explicitly equates the mystic poet with a woman. Directly stated, the analogy implies that God is to Sarmad and the qalandars as man is to woman. Just as a woman is married to a man, a Sufi marries to God. At death, the Sufi achieves his life goal: marriage with God. The soul of a deceased Sufi saint unifies with the Supreme Spirit.71 This betrothal to God implies that a Sufi is the bride of God, just as a woman is the bride of her husband. The saint will be unveiled by God and be one with Him. The betrothal is the explicit reason that qalandars give for their ascetism. As several qalandars expressed it, their sexuality is bound to God. By putting himself totally outside the social world, by becoming ‘like a woman’ in his marriage with God, Sarmad puts himself totally ‘inside’ the spiritual world, the House of God. This inside world, the House of God, is veiled or unknown to others. Unveiling or kashf is an important term in Sufism. In Sufi terminology it means to expose the heart to metaphysical illumination or ‘revelation’ and the experience of visions unattainable by reason. There is supposed to be a stage beyond kashf which is called al-tajalli, or Divine manifestation: the appearance of God’s light to man. Quatrain 4: O Thou living behind the veil, come out and be visible, How I have searched where Thou couldst be! I want to press Thee hard in my arms How long wouldst Thou keep Thyself concealed? (1) Quatrain 5: (…) Teach me to love Thee, that’s what I desire; Come out of the veil and be visible! (1)

71 K. Ewing, ‘Malangs of the Punjab; Intoxication or Adab as the path to God’, in: B.D. Metcalf, Moral conduct and authority: The place of adab in South Asian Islam, Berkeley 1984, 360ff.

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And quatrain 298: O wrecked soul thou art ignorant of God! O wave of mirage thou art ignorant of God! O life unreal thou art like the writing upon the water, O rising of the bubble thou art ignorant of God. (51)

Absolute Relativity and Multiple Religious Belonging Another important theme in the Ruba-iyat is the universal experience that nothing is absolute. Everything in our world is relative and nothing will last forever. Because we are all mortal beings, all our possessions in this world are worthless. Furthermore Sarmad says that this world is just a mirage, it’s an unreal illusion, and because of this we should give up our worldly desires. Here Sarmad is con- structing his religious thought, taking aspects of Buddhism and Hinduism as one part of that confessional thought. However, this was – as we have seen with the Chishtiyya, Qalandars and Ibn ‘Arabi – quite common within Sufism. This realization of relativity should be the main focus in every person’s life, as we can read in de following Quatrains. Quatrain 58: To worry about the World for this short life is bad; Attachment to towns and desert is bad Each moment flies swiftly like the wind; So this greed, avarice and false hopes are bad. (11) Quatrain 91: Everyone is obliged to turn to dusk at last, In spite of the great heights of eminence he may have achieved. (16) Quatrain 321: O dear soul, by God, thou art ignorant of the fact that Thou art to stay for a moment or two in the body Even though thou reachest heaven and attain the position of the sun, Thou art yet a particle which is quite insignificant. (55) In quatrain 227 Sarmad writes about our illusionary World: Be not swayed by the sufferings of the World, I have told you! Be not happy in hills and deserts, I have told you! Just see, this World is unreal like a mirage, I mean, the ebullition of the bubbles and the waves of the Ocean. (39) And in quatrain 243: This unreal life is nothing but a bubble; And this seemingly stormy ocean is only a mirage

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With the eye of heart it’s visible This World is all mirror and reflection, just see. (243) In the Dabistan, however, we can find a rubai in which Sarmad writes that all existence, including God, is relative or even an illusion. Only the source from which everything originated is real. God is only God for the creature and with reference to it. God is not ‘God’ for himself. Without us and apart from our relationship to him, God would not be ‘God’. God is not God by himself; he or ‘it’, according to Sarmad, adopted the image, physical and mentally, of man.72 This existence has, without the azure sphere, no reality This existence is confined; for, except the absolute being, nothing has reality Is God ever in vain? No! God is not in vain This existence is real only with respect to its origin, but whatever is derived has no reality.73 With this quatrain we arrive at another feature of Sarmad’s rubais, namely his speculation about the nature of God and reality itself. In these quatrains Sar- mad also expresses his thoughts about the relation between God and reality and man. I already mentioned before that he believes that God is a Person, after the image of man. Also the idea that God’s existence is present in everything in the world, we can find back in his rubais. In fact, we can find here a mixture of Jewish, Hinduistic, Islamic, Sufi, and Sarmad’s own religious ideas. More important, however, is the meaning these rubais have for us, since many of these and other religious themes in Sarmad’s Ruba’iyat can be translated to our own religious and mystical context. A key quatrain in the ruba-iyat is, in Asiri’s numbering. 68. Here we can find Sarmad’s mystical ideas about God, reality and Truth, which are, according to me, heavily influenced by the doctrine of wahdatul wujud, which itself is a product of Islamic interaction with Hindu mystics and literature: He (God) does not live outside this World; He is a Person who lives in and out of all, The Truth is also untruth, but untruth is not truth. There is no other origin of the creation except Himself. (12) And quatrain 207: The beauty of flower, I collected from the garden of creation And understood the significance of sins and forgiveness. At the mode of his manifestation I’m much confused. For what I saw was like the reflection of a mirror. (35)

72 Dabistan, 301. 73 Ibid., 300.

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Within this context Sarmad also considers Abhi Chand as a manifestation of God: I know not in this spherical monastery Abhay Chand is my god or some one else. (xxiv)

Texture In some quatrains Sarmad also reaches out to us with some advices, which are true for all times. One advice is to take life and all the worldly worries and desires not too serious. We are all on a religious quest, but the ultimate religious goal we cannot grasp, since this reality is just a mirage. It is this mystical experience and the mystical quest for Oneness itself that unites us and which triggers dialogue and debate. Religion is in this way a language, that tries to define these feelings, experiences and emotions. Sarmad has done this in his Ruba’iyat, because a poem can catch the essence of our experiences, emotions and feelings. Since Sarmad, being influenced by many religious traditions, transcends the ‘language’ of one particular religion; he knows how to incorporate many different religious concepts into his own mystical language and system. In this way he speaks an universal language, that is still valuable for contemporary debate and dialogue. Here the meaning of the text emerges from an ever-elusive horizon. In the following quatrains some of Sarmad’s advices. We can read, for example, in quatrain 147: Surrender your will to the will of God, And extricate yourself from grief and burden! This dear life is an embodiment of passion; Pass it in the company of the Beloved and waste it not in idleness! (25) Quatrain 189: O Sarmad, as I opened upon myself the magic door of secrets, It was as if I opened a window of dawn in the evening, Although I drove away all of my sleepiness, Yet, as I became wide awake, I found all was a dream. (32) Quatrain 308: O heart! In vain thou fearest the house-of-eternity, Just imagine what thou art afraid of. On the path of death there’s no trouble but all comfort That house is one of this [World] why thou fearest. (53) And in quatrain 206: With God’s mercy I ever feel comforted; I’m contended with a barley bread and posses magnanimity. I care for neither the World nor the Faith And live freely in the corner of a tavern. (35)

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After having studied the context in which we must place Sarmad’s mystical writings – the ‘circumstance’ of Sarmad’s literary works – and the ‘world of the text’, we also have given an interpretation, which encompasses both the world of the Ruba’iyat and our context, the world of the interpreter.

CONCLUSION

In my conclusion I will try to answer the main question of my article, namely: In which way did the practice of dual/multiple religious adherence and hybridity give shape to the mystical identity of Sarmad and the Sufi doctrines on the subcontinent? Sarmad was a Jew, both by birth and affirmation. He was also, according to his Ruba’iyat, ‘a follower of the Furqan (a Sufi School), a (Catho- lic) priest, a (Buddhist) monk, a Jewish rabbi, an infidel, and a Muslim’. In other quatrains, however, he rejects the religious practices of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Christianity. In short, it is hard to imagine a mystic with a more complex confessional identity. Following Sarmad’s train of thought is like moving at a vertiginous speed along a labyrinth, branching up and down in all directions. Throughout the Ruba’iyat are concealed ideas affecting the ebb and flow of moods and thoughts. Stark emotions and religious/mystical opinions insinuate themselves into the reader’s consciousness. Gupta74 explains these contradictions, as follows: ‘Sar- mad was a mystic saint of the highest order and had rejected the traditional faiths – Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism and had no use for idol-worship, rituals, canonical laws, scriptures, mosques and temples’. Is this true and how must we understand Sarmad’s Ruba’iyat? A rubai – the Ruba’iyat exists out of hundreds of rubais – is a form of verse which was adopted by Sarmad and the Sufis as the vehicle of their mystical experiences. Studying the Ruba’iyat, we can say that it is a work with a critical approach, focusing on the esoteric elements of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Christianity. According to Sarmad and the Sufi doctrine of wahdatul wujud all religions had fundamentally one common source, which is Oneness (Tauhid) between God and Men. This concept of Oneness or Unity was very important in Sar- mad’s mystical thought, as we can read in his Ruba’iyat. In fact, Oneness of God and man, Creator and Creation, is the ultimate goal of everything. However, since Reality is relative and God is hidden by a veil we are all on a religious quest, but the universal religious goal is not reachable. It is in the mystical experience itself that we, for a short moment, experience the fundamental

74 M.G. Gupta, Sarmad the saint: Life and works, Agra 1991, 21-22.

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oneness of everything. In these passionate moments God, Truth or the ultimate being is being unveiled. This experience and the everlasting religious quest for oneness unites us and triggers dialogue and debate. Sufism or all other mystical traditions are in this way a language, that tries to define these mystical feelings, experiences and emotions. With reading Sarmad’s Ruba’iyat, the most important task comes afterward: the reader will spend the rest of her/his life writing his/her own Ruba’iyat. The aim is not to prove or to demonstrate or to establish some ultimate truth, but to point out as a signpost. It is a search for Truth, that can be perceived in everything and be found in all religions. The Ruba’iyat is truly a living text, linking both the world of Sarmad and our world.

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