Mushtaq Soofi

It is an intriguingly interesting coincidence that the rich classical literary tradition of Punjab started with a Farid (Fariduddin Mas’ud, fondly called Baba Farid) and almost ended with another Farid (Khwaja Ghulam Farid). Both celebrated poets and mystics belonged to the famous Chishti Sufi Order which played a key role in creating spaces where the people- friendly literary, cultural and spiritual practices could strike roots and flourish from 12th to 19th century.

Khwaja Farid (1845-1901) was in fact named after Baba Farid, his distant predecessor and fiercely anti-establishment, larger than life poet/saint who, like his contemporary Saint Francis, opted to live among the poorest of the poor ‘graced with blissful poverty’.

Chachran, Khwaja Farid’s home town, was a part of the princely state of Bahawalpur that had already come under the influence of British colonialists due to the treaty signed by the ruler with the agents of East India Company. Because of the untimely death of his brother, emotionally shattered Khwaja was compelled to don the robe of the spiritual head of his Order.

Some of the significant factors that shaped his personality included he being forced by circumstances to be the custodian of a spiritual Order at a young age, his association with the ruler of princely state of Bahawalpur and the phenomenon of British colonialism. As the spiritual guide he inherited what was the best in the Chishti Order; compassion, openness and ‘inclusivism’. And this was precisely what had made the Order spiritually influential and culturally popular in the large swathes of the subcontinent. Being ‘Pir’(Guru) of the Nawab outwardly raised his social status but more importantly made his access to books easier that helped him grow intellectually. The presence of British agents in the court introduced him to a different world not known to him before. All such factors helped him develop a multi-dimensional personality we rarely find in the Punjab of 19th century which was on the cusp of transformational change.

His spiritual vision, free of constrictions of religious correctness, had a universal character defined by his acceptance of myriad mystical and religious experiences as authentic that he found in different cultures. ‘Maqabilal Majalis’ by Maulana Rukunddin that chronicled the daily activities of Khawaja, is a treasure trove for anyone interested in understanding the personality and the worldview of Khawaja Farid. “— someone asked him whether Lord Krishna and Lord Ram Chandra were saints or not? He (Khawaja) said that all the avatars and rishis were prophets of their times. They all had scriptures. -- Each one of them came to demolish evil practices. But when the Brahamans came to be excessively venerated among Hindus, they spread the notion that people could not achieve the unity with the Divine except through them. To debunk such a false belief appeared Lord Buddha on the face of the earth---,” says the chronicle. It may look incredible in today’s world of bigotry that a saintly intellectual such as Khwaja, not in a distant past, could accept the truth of religious and spiritual experiences coming from various non-Islamic traditions. He proudly owned what was the best in the sub-continental civilization. His knowledge of non-Muslim spiritual practices reinforced his belief in the universality of mystical experience.

Music posed no threat to his faith; rather it stirred his imagination and transported him to an ethereal world full of aesthetic and spiritual joy. He frequently talked of music with a view to explain its origins and the aesthetic impact. “He came to participate in the session of ‘Sama’ –. Qawaals (Singers) started with the ‘Dohra’ (four liners). “--- the verses moved him to tears. As usual he wiped his tears with his kerchief till it was fully soaked. ---- At the end musicians sang Hazrat Bulleh Shah’s lyrics; monh aai baat na rehendi a (I cannot help uttering what rises to my lips). The ‘Kafi’ (lyrics) put him again in a state of ecstasy—,” the chronicle tells us. It was not just the ‘Sama’ that touched his heart. The instrumental music too had a magical effect on him. Can you dare to listen to a Raga played on Shenai while sitting in a mosque? He did. “He together with other people performed his early evening prayer. He sat in a corner of the mosque and asked the musicians to play Raga Behag on Shenai,” reports the chronicle. Remember, between him and the musicians there were nothing but the low height boundary wall of the mosque.

The presence of all powerful British agents in the court of Nawab of Bhawalpur caused him much anguish. In one of his famous verses he exhorted the ruler to throw off the yoke of colonial masters.

‘Dismantle the English posts lead your country to prosperity yourself’.

But he had nothing to do with ignorant Mullahs who hated everything English. As a creative person he had an inquisitive mind and was keen to know what had made the alien colonialists such a formidable force. And the key to understand the secret of their power was to know their language. ‘Today he wrote on the paper the rules of Sanskrit, English and Gurumukhi (one of the scripts of Punjabi) and taught the same to his chosen disciples’ writes Maulana Rukunuddin. Another interesting small episode shows the premium he put on learning new things. “Once he looked at Barkat Ali Rubabi -- and asked him whether he had written anything? He nodded and took out of his pocket two or three pages written in English. He (Khwaja) had a look at the pages and appreciated--,” says the chronicle.

Khwaja Farid was a renaissance man. Like Karl Marx ‘nothing human was alien to him’. He loved all the things that could enrich him: poetry, music, dance, languages, human beauty, nature and meditation. He was always keen to experience the experiences; mundane and sublime alike. In his search of knowing what was knowable, he developed a distinct holistic vision of life which celebrated all the phenomena; human and Divine. — soofi01@hotmail.com

From : DAWN 2014-03-17

Part II

Our apparently educated but superstitious scholars generally treat the great poets of Punjab as saints turned poets. There is no doubt about their saintliness but what has inspired the people generation after generation is their creative expression, not the miracles attributed to them by their hagiographers. Whenever critics and interpreters wax eloquent about these personalities what they offer is little more than the detritus of worn out metaphysics dressed up as spiritualism. Sufism for them is something amorphous. Anything laced with exotic, esoteric, seemingly spiritual and religious tinge falls in this category. Poets with different, at times contradictory, world views are lumped together and branded as Sufis.

In order to get the perspective right whenever one refers to Sufism one must define the specifics of what it implies. Otherwise, surfeit of discussion on Sufism will cause nothing but intellectual nausea and spiritual inertia.

Khwaja Farid can safely be termed a Sufi while keeping in mind that he was foremost a poet. The salient aspects of his poetry for the sake of analytical understanding can be subsumed into a general statement that it combines sublime and mundane in an effort to grasp the holistic view of human situation. His poems with spiritual bearings have a metaphysical ring underpinned by philosophic concept of the divine which is absolutely free of duality and all pervasive. He is inspired by the ideas of Islamic monism and Vedantic non-duality. “That (Divine) is one and only one / whosoever seeks duality in that one is infidel indeed” testifies to his belief in the absolute monism.

Monism for him is not an abstraction, a mere concept or a metaphysical construct that negates the diversity and synthetic fabric of the material world. The divine presence, though light shrouded in light, in no way denies the empirical reality of our material world. It rather reveals the mundane reality by illuminating what lies beneath the appearances. Appearance, when seen as a pointer of ultimate reality, turns into a mirror reflecting what Khwaja Farid calls ‘real beauty and eternal light’. And where can one see the real beauty and eternal light except in the material phenomena one lives surrounded by day in day out. How can one discover the ultimate reality if it is completely removed from the materiality of our world? Matter is the veil of what lies behind. So the veil and what lies behind it are an inseparable unity that constitutes reality. Such are the origins of both mysticism and science. Matter is problematic for genuine mystics not in the sense of being unreal but being transitory because of its ever-changing nature.

Matter in all its forms affords us glimpses of the divine that has no other medium than the material one for its presence to be grasped and comprehended by human beings. Phenomena are masked manifestations of the divine. “My friend appears in forms innumerable with all the alluring charms—at times a beloved graced with beauty / and at times a passionate lover / in each manifestation animated by his presence he sees his own image.” The material for Khwaja Farid is an unmistakable signifier of the spiritual.

One feels that at times in his lyrics he looks more of a scholar/intellectual than a poet. He seems to be inclined to explaining the theoretical side of mystic vision rather than delving into the experience itself. He takes the notions from the tradition and changes them into philosophical concepts in a poetic fashion.

Khwaja Farid is at his best when it comes to love poetry. He employs the feminine voice to express the anguish of lovers adding poignancy to the experience. The legendry female characters like Heer, Sassi and Sohni stand as metaphors/symbols of what love entails and promises. They while graphically portraying the sufferings of lovers in a class-based patriarchal society that denies the freedom of choice to men and women in terms of forming relationships also epitomise the ideal of love at an abstract level.

But another female character sneaks into his poems whose significance has not yet been fully realised. It is local Cholistani woman; woman of flesh and bones with the dazzling ambiance of her habitat, the desert. This simple working woman, tending herds of goats and cows, does not expect what is not possible. Small gifts from her lover like ‘bangles from Jaisalmir’ and ‘red blouses from Ajmer’ can make her day. The most precious gift could be a new ‘Tobha’ (water pond) prepared by her lover where she would take her flocks to drink water in the hostile world of dry sands.

In Khwaja Farid’s poetry the image of this working woman opens up new vistas of vast but little known mysterious world of Cholistan desert. The desert with its ever shifting sand dunes, whirlwinds, herds, rain-ponds, shrubs, bushes, wild animals, reptiles and unbearable stillness sets readers imagination on fire.

The desert, a burning hell in summer and a natural arboretum in monsoon, in a process of destruction and regeneration emerges as a symbol of magical expression of life. “The Rohi desert, haunting and desolate, mesmerised my heart with its charm” says Khwaja Farid. Thus the physical landscape of Cholistan desert becomes an integral element of his poetry.

There are two poets in our classical tradition, Damodar Das and Khwaja Farid, who employ physical landscape as an aesthetic and literary device to enhance the impact of their poetic expression. The Damodar was fascinated by the river and Khwaja Farid by the desert.

From : DAWN 2014-03-14