Indigenous Rishis v/s Sayyid-Sufis from Central Asian Lands

Differentiations & Contradictions - II

--The guardians of the shrines, living easily with marvels, said the mosque had been built by Mohammad Bin Qasim who had conquered Sindh in 710 A.D. & that the tree was also from that time it would have been a tree Mohammad Bin Qasim knew. The tree might not have been as old as that; and the mosque was certainly later. But the mosque had been given the Mohammad Bin Qasim association to celebrate the conquest-the faithful no longer saw themselves as the conquered--also claim the ancient site for the new faith.      - V.S. Naipaul Nobel Prize Laurata from Beyond Belief

By Prof. M.L. Koul

The Sayyid-sufis of various orders (silsilas) failed to present a cogently structured teleological view of spirituality. Being poetical in their approach and premise the exponents of such orders (silsilas) stipulated varied positions in regard to the essential issue of ultimate destination of a seeker. The pull of concordance and conformity with the fundamental concerns of Islamic theology had the concomitant outcome of stunting the sovereign growth of the Sufi orders (silsilas) as thought-models based on theoretical constructs buttressed by lived praxes.

It is apt to state that Sufism holistically could not achieve recognition as a well-defined thought-system in keeping with its original nuances and motivations of heralding a thought-force in conflict with the rigidities of Islamic law and doctrine. Like the Kharigies (externalists), the outbursts of numerous sufis under the impact of neo-platonists and Buddhists and Vedantins were ruthlessly suppressed by denouncing them as rebellious and heretical, thus stilling the voice of dissent and difference.

The rebellious expression of Bayazid that his banner was greater than that of Mohammad and the stunning cry of Mansur that he was God/Truth rendered all hues of sufis suspect in the eyes of the dogma-ridden Muslim world. They were sternly censured and severely condemned. To the utter shock of religious liberals Mansur was physically eliminated after torture. The idea of 'fana' as the telos of spiritual journey stunned the hide-bound Muslim dogmatists as it devalued and belittled the observance of ritual obligations. Ibn-i-Arabi, was condemned as a heretic for his 'Wahadatul Wujud' formulation which not only contradicted but also negated the Quranic doctrine of 'tawhid' by confounding God with world. Zikr (remembrance of God), borrowed from the Hindus, was permitted as a tool for spiritual orientation. But 'sama' (dance and singing), equally popular with the Hindus, was denounced as 'heretical'. The Sayyid-Sufis, who came over to Kashmir carried with them the legacy of a perennial conflict between mysticism and theology and its rigours. Steeped in orthodoxy, they, donning the robes of sufis, made a cocktail of mysticism and theology and presented it as an intolerant and proselytizing faith and posited it against the native religious-cum-spiritual expressions, not only highly tolerant but also assimilative of dissent and difference.

It is well-known that love is the key motif of Sufism. In the domain of Persian poetry love has found artistic expressions and has been typified as a symbol to intensify mystical love. Theoretically love has not matured into an effective symbolism as to resolve the perennial conflict between mysticism and strait-Jacket of theology. The sufis for fear of persecution weakly accepted the Quranic dicta defining love and its parameters. They showed no intellectual boldness and spiritual independence which could have set them apart from the theological rigours thereby setting ablaze a trail of new development in the domain of sufism as a mode of thought. They could not establish a love-nexus with God for mystical heights. The Quranic injunction that God as the creator of man cannot have any love-bond with the created clipped the wings of their thought and spiritual conceptualisations. They could not  conceive of any meaning of love other than that of obedience or submission.

In sharp contrast to the semitic colour of love symbolism, the native visualisation about love is spiritually elevating and exhilirating. As a highly emotive state of human psyche it exponentially upswings a seeker to the condition of synthesisation as one with God. Music, dance and hymn-singing in ecstasy are recognised as pious accoutrements to heighten love and its allied states with the clear objective of attaining synergy with love i.e. God.

Mira as a seeker of love-nexus with Krishna, her destination of love, ascends to the state of total absorbtion into her love i.e. Krishna. In native parlance, love and God are interchangeable. Love is God and God is love. Unimpeded union with love is bliss and separation from love is pains. Love has spiritual contours and is suffused with spiritual content. To be exact, love is defined as spirituality incarnate. More than most, love is pregnant with humanistic content and has served as a source to renaissance stagnant societies to achieve new dynamism and flowering.

As models of ossified orthodoxy, the Central Asian Sayyid-sufis were stunned to find the natives harbouring a maze of beliefs strung together by love as an elevating elixir potent enough to push a seeker to the state of unity with God. Such a belief, to them, was sheer heresy controverting the Quranic position. That there is a yawning chasm between man and God and God leaves the world to its own fate after He creates it was what chilled their philosophical and mystical insight.

The Sayyid-sufis when in Kashmir were completely dazed to find the natives sticking to the concept of God as transcendental and immanent too. Even after crippling conversions the natives continued with the cultural inheritance of Shiva as the creator of cosmos. In manifestation mode He was Shakti which at mass level was known as 'She', an abbreviated form of Shakti. To dis-inherit them from their cultural treasure as a precious legacy the Sayyid-sufis devised a plethora of measures to re-baptize them after coercive conversions through Jazia (poll-tax) and levers of state power including army.

Absolutely deficient in arduous cultivation as inquisitive and enquiring minds the Sayyid-sufis made not even meagre efforts to have a casual peep into the native mind and its creative expressions in varied segments of human knowledge including aesthetics. As representatives of a civilisation that had long back frozen in time and place, they as hard-core missionaries embarked upon an insidious mission of ravaging, looting and arsoning the architectural heritage of the natives which they derisively called idol-houses, where devotees (bakhtas) prayed and sang in accompaniment with indigenous musical instruments for value enrichment and spiritual enhancement. Having inherited  legacy of boorish contempt for music, dance and hymn-singing as spiritual components, they as votaries of Shariat and Sunna carried the burden of responsibility for the imposition of barbaric ban on music, dance and hymn-singing that the natives were wedded to. At the prodding of a Sayyid-sufi of Kubrawi variety, Sultan Sikandar, launched a genocidal onslaught on the religious leitmotifs of the natives with a view to stamping them out. Temples of aesthetic and cultural import were brutally levelled. It is shocking to recall that Sultan Sikandar made use of gun-powder known as hard-ware of war to shatter the Martand Temple acclaimed as 'epitome of architecture', 'music in stone' and 'gem of Indian architecture'. Prior to the destruction of the temple he deployed a team of sadists who cruelly hammered its sculptural wealth of high artistic value and merit to smithereens. Mir Ali Hamadani, a Kubrawi sufi, said to be a Shia-Muslim by faith, was the first to write the iconoclastic chapter of Kashmir history. Baharistan-i-Shahi, a Muslim chronicle in Persian, applauds him for demolition of the Kali-shree temple, an icon of native faith and religion, to raise a Muslim prayer-place at the site. Mir Shams-ud-Din Araki, again a Sayyid-sufi of Shia faith was a highly motivated Vandal who fanatically destroyed numerous temples throughout the Valley.

As evidenced by Jonraj, the author of second Rajtarangini, Sultan Sikandar spared no effort worth the name to erase all traces of indigenous knowledge and learning as enshrined in books with the sole purpose of cleansing the land of infidelity. As a psychopath he added new chapters to the Muslim history of burning books. The Hindu houses were ransacked and looted and the treasure-trove thus got was pitilessly burnt or consigned to rivers, lakes and wells or buried down the earth. Records Srivar-

'Sikandar burnt the books the same way as fire burns hay. verse- 75

'All the scintillating works faced destruction in the same manner that lotus flowers face with the onset of frosty winter'. verse- 77

'The erudites of that period witnessing the enmass destruction of books by Muslims fled their land with some books through mountain routes'. - verse-76

With a view to eradicating the well-entrenched spiritual foundation of the natives the Sayyid-sufis drawing tremendous support from the ruling Muslim dispensation removed their sacred threads as a mark of their initiation, forced them to recite kalima, got them circumcised and thrust lumps of beef into their mouths. As most of their religious literature especially 'Yogavashisht' and 'Bhagvat Puranum' was destroyed, they were anguished to have hand-written copies of the Quran which they could not read or recite nor were there local pirs or mullahs who could have provided them the initial lessons. The natives placed under siege to an alien religion were huddled in groups to say prayers in the Islamic mode, but soon after dispersal they visited their destructed temples to bow to their gods of ancestors. After strictness was enforced the natives hid shiva-lingas under their sleeves before they were herded for prayers which they never considered of any spiritual essence. When the practice was detected, they were forced to raise and down their arms before they settled for prayers. Though converted to Islam, the natives were suspected of pursuing their instinctive practices and when most of them were decreed to say prayers in their homes in presence of Sayyid-sufis acting as moral and religious police, they placed their haunches on the sacred text and recited their old hymns and litanies. Shell-shocked by such defiance, they were stigmatized as apostates and put to the sharp blades of a sword on days sacred to Muslims. For such horrible details Baharistan-i-Shahi and Tohfatul Ahbab as the Muslim chronicles in Persian can be consulted for corroboration and gruesome details.

When in the highly fertile soil of Kashmir blessed with salubrious climate, the Sayyid-sufis  settled in the land of natives, practically as aliens, in fact, bewitched by its beauties taking it as the land of paradisal legend as they had read in the Quranic accounts, most of them married the native converts and acquired Jagirs through favours from the Muslim state. Their missionary zeal over the years evaporated as a result of better prospect of life which they could not have dreamt of in their native places. Mir Shams-ud-Din Araki as a purist of classical variety castigated the mullahs for following the ways of the kafirs (infidels) while giving send-off to their daughters at the time of their marriages. Over-lording the bands of new-found followers begging for ordinary doles the Sayyid-sufis drafted them on missions of demolishing temples housing the venerated gods and goddesses of the natives and temples of learning. As there were ethnic and cultural affinities between the neo-converts and the resilient natives the Sayyid-sufis drilled their de-humanised followers into the lessons of hate and contempt for the resilients for being 'kafirs' (infidels) and idolatrous. A handful of Sayyid-sufis continued with the mission of conversions by establishing langars (eating places) as a source of allurement for the new entrants to Islam and as a weapon to keep the converted to Islam. Such public-kitchens were financed by the government agencies through grant of Jagirs to the zealots donning the robes of sufis. The public-kitchen of Bulbulshah was financed by Rinchen, a Ladakhi born converted it Islam. Mir Mohammad Hamadani was heavily financed by Sultan Sikander for all his missionary enterprises including setting up of a public-kitchen for the converts. Mir Shams-ud-Din Araki was given gold, silver and jewels by Musa Raina, the Prime Minister of Sultan Mohammad Shah, for purposes of building worshipping places for his Shia followers at the sites where he had destructed Hindu temples and shrines. The Sayyid-sufis utilised the revenues accruing from the Jagirs granted to them by the Muslim rulers of all hues for subversion of the land in terms of politics and religion. The strong contradictions between the local converts and the alien Sayyid-sufis led to battles resulting in the expulsion of the Sayyid-sufis from Kashmir. The native converts coined 'Saad makar' or cunning Sayyids as a derogatory nomenclature for them when they practically took control of government machinery and turned it into an instrument of coercion and oppression.

If they are called terrible actors veering between belligerence and prietism it might not shock many.  

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