Queen Noor Jahan, the most celebrated female royal of the Mogul era in India, was an eminence grise during the reign of her spouse, Emperor Jahangir. She not only wielded power in the domain of political decision-making but also proved to be a trendsetter in the matters of art, culture and haute couture. She was a gifted poet too. In one of her verses she says: “barr mazaar-e-ma ghariban nai chirage naai gule… (Neither the lamp and nor the flower for the tomb of someone alien like me). The tombs of Noor Jahan and Jahangir across the river Ravi in Shahdara are a forlorn sight as presciently expressed in the verse. In sharp contrast this side of the Ravi, we have a modest shrine where people light lamps daily and the annual Festival of Lamps (Mela Charaghan) is celebrated by the lowly for the simple reason that the man who lies buried there in eternal peace called himself a lowly fakir (an ascetic, the resigned one) and was ‘eminence rouge’ among the mystics of his times.

The man despite being Rajput, high in the caste hierarchy, identified himself with the lowly all his life. He was a scholar of great depth but liked to mix with the illiterate. He, while having all the knowledge of a high priest, shunned clerics and while being saintly never shooed away hapless fallen women. He in fact greatly empathised with women not only in his poetry but also in real life. This clean shaven and red robed man who fearlessly danced and sang in the streets of Lahore emerged as a symbol of defiance and compassion that helped build the literary, spiritual and cultural landscape of the medieval Punjab.

This poet-saint who happened to be a contemporary of the great Mogul Akbar in the sixteenth century was Shah Hussain who is fondly remembered by common folks as Madho Lal Hussain. Why the prefix of Madho Lal was tagged on? Madho Lal was a young Hindu of Shahdara for whom Shah Hussain developed such affection that people came to conceive them as one in such a mystical way that the former’s name became the integral part of the saint’s nomenclature. It also reflected a pluralistic society that Punjab was and expressed the zeitgeist of the era: Emperor Akbar was making concerted efforts to separate faith from state with his unique vision to create unity in diversity based on the notion of citizenship that transcended the narrow constraints of faith.

Shah Hussain opposed the oppression people suffered under monarchy but gladly shared Akbar’s pluralistic vision of society as it was not something new for the mystic tradition that he was product of.

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Mullah Abdullah Sultanpuri, the high priest of Akbar’s times, once entering Lahore spotted Shah Hussain in the street who appeared to be totally unimpressed and indifferent to the cavalcade of ‘Shaikh-ul-Islam’. The unusual sight of defiance annoyed him immensely. He summoned Shah Hussain and warned him that he [Hussain] would be punished for violating Islamic tenets in public. Hussain challenging his authority said: “Let me enumerate the five tenets; believing in the oneness of God, offering daily prayers, fasting in the month of Ramazan, paying Zakat [tithe] and going on the Hajj pilgrimage once in a life time if affordable. Both of us believe in the unity of God. I don’t offer prayers. Nor do I fast. Being a man with no resources, I am not obliged to pay Zakat and undertake Hajj pilgrimage. Of course you offer prayers and fast. But despite being a man of wealth, you don’t pay Zakat annually. Nor have you performed Hajj. You like me violate two tenets. How come that you would issue decree against me? How can a violator judge other violators?”

The grand Mullah could take no more and rode away. After some time when Emperor Akbar got reports about Mullah’s shenanigans, he sacked him from his official position and dispatched him on a journey to Mecca. He cried and pleaded with the Emperor who didn’t relent. He was never seen again in India. Immediately after his forced departure, his house was thoroughly searched and officials discovered number of gold bricks buried underneath the floors of the house apart from other valuables.

But how did Shah Hussain know about the Mullah’s ill-gotten wealth? It had nothing to do with his miraculous power. Mystics well-connected with their Orders had their channels of information that kept them well-informed about the wrongdoings of the clergy.

Shah Hussain was a poet, rebellious mystic, musicologist, singer, dancer and above all a man of the people. As a poet he was the first to create a new poetic genre called “Kafi” which was ideally suited for expressing socio-spiritual and existential experiences. The lyrical structure of Kafi became hugely popular with the mystically inclined poets that came later. He was also the first to evolve a poetic diction that shaped standard literary language. Following in the footsteps of Baba Guru Nanak, the seer, he composed his lyrics in classical Ragas that helped enhance the moods and ambiance of his poetry. The major theme of his poetry is evocation of life’s playfulness which is denied to the people in the name of hard work which triggers a process of alienation in a class based society.

Shah Hussain, the mystic, was absolutely non-conformist, a denier who rejected the givens; mundane and sublime. He didn’t marry. He didn’t get enamoured of household comforts either. He belonged, it’s generally believed, to the Malamati Sufi Order that willfully defied the norms and earned the apparent indignity of being outcasts with a view to fighting the urges of their egotistical being. When a famous cleric from Sialkot city came to him with a request that he be accepted as his disciple, he is reported to have made a cryptic remark:” come on, gentleman, you are a cleric. Why do you want to add to my infamy in the city by being my disciple”?

Madho Lal Hussain, the greatest son of Lahore, has been as accessible as an open book and yet an undecipherable mantra. “Look, there goes Hussain/ He was neither engaged nor married/ For him no get-together and no celebration/ He was neither a family man nor a vagabond/ Neither a man of faith nor an infidel/ He was what he was”. Does anyone among us know ‘what he was’. He wasn’t just anyone, we can be sure. — soofi01@hotmail.com