Syed Afzaal Hussain Shah Reg.

Number:

Punjabi Sufi Poetry

May 6

2011
MR.

Punjabi Sufi Poetry

Punjabi poetry has its own charm. Its language is more archaic than Hindi or Urdu; its imagery is drawn from country life and simple crafts. One might make a comparison with the Provencal poetry of Southern France. Provencal also is more old-fashioned than French. Its poetry belongs to the countryside, to the farm, and tiny market town, and is instinct with a simplicity and sincerity that is rare in the more classical language. Panjabi poetry sings mainly of Love and God. By the Sufis these two themes are interwoven, as is explained in the Introduction. They begin with the second of the fifteenth century and end with the nineteenth. In this period of some four centuries we find half a dozen famous saints beginning with Farid, twelfth in spiritual succession from Shakar Ganj of Pak Patan, and leading on to several others not so well known. The greatest of them all was Bullhe Shah (1650- 1758).

Punjabi is a language written in three different scripts, i.e. Persian, Hindi and Gurmukhi. The Muhammadans who employ the Persian script give a Persian or Arabic character to the language, and the Hindus who employ Hindi somewhat sanskritize it. The Sikhs, though they sometimes insert Sanskrit words and phrases, on the whole try to write the language as it is spoken by the masses. By a judicious selection of extracts, carefully transliterated and rendered in a literal but pleasing translation, the author brings out the main characteristics of each poet in turn, both as regards verse and style and as regards the doctrine or mystery he teaches. They vary from the orthodox, with a strong spiritual urge towards mysticism, to the lees orthodox and to those who so far transcend the barriers between sects and creeds that they can hardly be designated by the conventional man-made labels. The history of the Punjab during these four centuries has seen many storms and also peaceful interludes. These vicissitudes are reflected in the Sufi poets though faintly. Yet for the comprehension of the period an understanding of this religious development is of great importance. In Punjabi poetry the Beloved is a man and the Lover who seeks him is a woman. So in the Sufi sense Heer is the soul that seeks and Ranjha represents the Divine Beloved. The Sufis of the Bayazid School were tolerant towards all and attached little importance to Islamic dogmas. They were, therefore, considered heretics and were often hanged or exiled. This alarmed the adherents of the new Sufi thought and induced them to retrace their steps and reenter the fold of the old Sufi school The Sufis in general were not popular with the powerful orthodox. To avoid

the fury of the orthodox and to save their lives, all the Sufis thence forward recognized Muhammad as their ideal and tried to deduce their thought from the allegorical sayings of the Quran. Punjabi Sufism, evidently, is a branch of the great Sufi movement which originated in Arabia, during the second century A.H. (A.D. 800). It differs a good deal, however, in details, from the original, being subjected to many modifications under the influence of Hindu religious and philosophic thought. Before following up the evolution and the final trend of Sufi thought in the Punjab, it is necessary to review briefly the outstanding features of this Islamic sect as it developed outside India. Sufism was born soon after the death of the Prophet and preceded on orthodox lines. Its adepts had ascetic tendencies, led hard lives, practicing the tenets of the Quran to the very letter. But this asceticism soon passed into mysticism, and before the end of the second century A.H. (A.D. 815), these ascetics began to be known to the people as Sufis. The name was given to them because they wore woolen garments. The term, labisal-suf, which formerly meant he clad himself in wool, and was applied to a person who renounced the world and became an ascetic, henceforward signified that he became a Sufi. The early mysticism was essentially a product of Islam, and originated as a consequence of the Islamic conception of God which failed to satisfy many persons possessing spiritual tendencies. The two striking factors in the early mysticism, as Goldzi her has stated, were an exaggerated consciousness of sin and an overwhelming dread of divine retribution. They feared God more than they loved Him and submitted unreservedly to His Will. But in the beginning of the second century A.H

(A.D 815) the Sufi thought began to develop under the influence of Greek philosophy of Ashrakian and Dionysius. Christianity, itself enveloped by Neo-Platonist speculations, exercised a great influence in monastic organizations and discipline. Hebrew philology, to a certain extent, helped the progress of the technical vocabulary. But the Greek influence seems to have been the most powerful, because, besides philosophical ideas, the Sufis borrowed from the Greeks the medical science which they named yunani or the Greek system. Neo-Platonism developed intellectual tendencies. The civil wars and dry dogmas of the ulama soon drove the intellectual Sufis to skepticism. They searched else where for truth and knowledge. The search was not in vain; and soon a new school was established, different from the one already existing. It was greatly influenced by Persian religion and Indian thought, both Buddhist and Hindu.

Hereditary singers or musicians often attached to the tombs of the Sufi saints, who recite compositions of the mystics and their own poems Pease of the saints.