by SOHAIL HASHMI
There is a sudden spurt of interest in Sufism among a section of our population that did not have such an interest a decade or two ago. Some were introduced to Sufism and its spiritual philosophical moorings through interactions with those who knew something about it, and realised that the ideas of Wahdat-ul-Wujood had parallels in the Adwait philosophy and it was this consonance that intrigued many to an extent that they got interested in exploring Sufism a little more. There were others who discovered Sufism through the west. Just as many had discovered Hindustani classical music when George Harrison began to learn the Sitar from Pandit Ravi Shankar in the ’60s, there are those who discovered Rumi when there was a spurt of interest in Jalal-ud-Din Rumi in the west, particularly in the US, with several translations appearing within a short span. Rumi has been known for centuries in our parts as Maulana Room; his poetry was quoted by Persian-knowing Indians till the 1950s and early 1960s, in conversations and writings, almost as often as Mir and Ghalib are quoted by the Urduwallas. An introduction to Rumi in the last decade or so has led eventually and inevitably to Sufism and a kindling of interest in our own indigenous Sufis.
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On page 98 there is a quote from Hazrat Nizam-ud-Din and it runs along these lines: The sheikh maintained that ‘although many paths lead to God, none was more effective than bringing happiness to the human heart’. He emphasized that ‘looking after the destitute had greater value than formal religious practices’.
How does one reconcile this with the author’s insistence on adhering to formal Islam especially in the context of the present?
There are statements like, ‘He (Qutub-ud-Din Aibak) built the Qutub Minar and named it after Khwaja Qutub (Qutub–Ud-Din Bakhtyaar Kaaki)’ – parenthesis mine. This is patently wrong on several counts. The Qutub Minar is a victory tower, Qutub-ud-Din Aibak had started its construction but it was completed by the second Mumluk king Altamash (Iltutmish). One is not sure whether it was named Qutub Minar by Aibak, by Altamash or by the residents of Mehrauli and then became a commonly accepted name. The area of Mehrauli came to be called Qutub Saheb because of the association of Khwaja Bakhtyaar Kaaki with this area, just as Ghyas Pura became Nizam-ud-Din and the settlement where Khwaja Nasir-ud-Din built his Khanqaah came to be known as Chiragh Dehli after the sobriquet Roshan Chiragh-e-Dehli bestowed upon him by his preceptor Nizam-ud-Din Auliya.
Kafila for more
(Thanks to Robin Khundkar)