Sufism, Medieval Poetry and Painting

- By Smita Dalvi

Sufism is the spirituality or mysticism of Islam, where mysticism can be understood as an inward
dimension of a religion. The original word in Arabic is tasawwuf, which translates as
‘mysticism’ and ‘esoterism’. It is based on an intense devotion of a personal God.

A Sufi is someone who has mastered his or her ego and attained a higher state of consciousness
and union with the Godhead. The goal of the Sufi Path is for the drop (the individual self) to
merge with the Ocean of Being from whence it came. The spiritual path (tariqah) encourages a
soul to make that transition consciously while still in the body: ‘Die before you die’. The Arabic
word Islam means submission or the surrender of oneself to the Divine Unity, to the oneness that
is God. In Sufi terms, it is the surrender of the drop as it becomes one with the ocean.

Unlike the Ulemas, who administered the formal structure of Islamic law and dealt with the
practical requirements of social and political life, the Sufis penetrated the very root and spirit of
Islam. Scholars have described Sufism as ‘the attempt of individual Muslims to realize in their
personal experience the living presence of Allah’.

The Sufis generally led a life of asceticism and poverty. Over a time, this evolved into an
organized system of silsilas or tariqahs (orders), each with its Pir (preceptor) or a Shaikh or a
Khwaja, as a guide/ guru for the disciples. A khanqah (hospice) was the center of the Pir’s
activity and of the Sufi rituals of sama, zikr and qawwali- devotional singing with whirling dance
movements, leading to spiritual ecstasy. Poetry and stories played a key role in Sufi expression,
employing parable, allegory and metaphor. The tales of Mulla Nasruddin are good examples of
these as are the masnavis of Rumi, the most celebrated Persian Sufi poet.

Hujwiri (d.1088) was the first Sufi to have settled in India, where Sufism came into contact with
the Nath Yogis whose concept of the ultimate reality was very similar to their ideas of tauhid.
The Sufis were also influenced by ‘Amrit kand’, treatise on the hath-yoga. The Punjab, Sind and
Bengal became important centres of Suhrawardi order whereas Delhi became the center of the
Chisti order. This order spread in other centres in the North and in the South as well.

The central Sufi theory is Wahadat ul Wajud- the Unity of Being, or oneness of existence- this
summarizes the Sufi quest of not just seeking a union with the Divine Being, but the realization
of the truth that the mystic is one with Him. To teach this, the Sufi poets used symbolic imagery,
one among them was that of the lover and the beloved and was conveyed through romantic
poetry. One such classic tale is of Layla and Majnun in Persian poetry. According to Hujwiri,
‘He who is purified by love is pure, and he who is absorbed in the Beloved and has abandoned
all else is a Sufi’.

Sufi poets in India during the medieval period shared many features with Vaishnava bhakti poet
saints. They were a part of syncretic sufi-bhakti poetic tradition. They wrote mystical love poems
in vernacular languages. The Sufi romantic tales synthesized the tradition of folklores and
romantic literature in Sanskrit with the tradition of Persian masnavis. The nayaka of these
popular romances became the parable of the seeking soul, separated from the divine beloved,
who in his quest must undergo great tribulation and a painful purification process.
The Sufi poets like Mulla Daud in ‘Chandayan’, Malik Muhammad Jaisi in ‘Padmavat’,
Kutuban in ‘Miragavati’ or ‘Megavat’, Manjhan in ‘Madhumalati’ popularized the Sufi
message. Some of these, particularly Chandayan, a story of Laurak and Chanda became a
popular subject of illustrated manuscripts and remain a vital part of the Sultanate period of
miniature paintings in India. One of the known manuscripts of Chandayan is in the possession of
the CSVSM (Formerly Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay).

Glossary of Terms
Barakah: grace, spiritual influence
Dervish: follower of the Sufi Path, a faqir- poor man
Dhikr: recollection, remembrance- repeatation of one of the 99 divine names of Allah
Fana: passing away, annihilation (of the self). The final stage is ‘fana al-fana’) the
passing away of passing away)
Haal: spiritual state
Haqiqah: inner reality, the ‘Truth’ or the ‘Reality’
Khanqah: ‘a corner’- Sufi meeting place
Maqam: spiritual station
Masnavi: rhyming couplets
Nafs: soul, mind, self or ego
Qawwali devotional songs in praise of Allah or Muhammad or Sufi saints
Sama hearing music which can produce an ecstatic state in the mystical listener.
Shariah: the sacred law of Islam; ‘outer reality’ as opposed to ‘inner reality’ of haqiqah
Shaykh: a Sufi spiritual master
Simurgh Persian mythical bird akin to a Phoenix
Sufi Path: the number of stages on the way to seeking a union with Allah
Tariqah: the spiritual path leading from Shariah to haqiqah
Tasawwuf: Sufism, Islamic mysticism
Tauhid: affirmation of the Divine Unity

Note: This glossary is adopted from Baldock (2006)

Bibliography
1. Baldock, John; The Essence of Sufism; Arcturus; London, 2006.
2. Baldock, John; The Essence of Rumi; Arcturus; London, 2006.
3. Khandalavala, Karl and Chandra, Moti; New Documents in Indian Painting, a reprisal;
Bombay, 1967.
4. Pandey, Shyam Manohar; Madhyayugin Premakhyan; Mitra Prakashan; Allahabad,
n.d.
5. Prasad, Vishwanath; Chandayan; Agra, 1962.
6. Shah, Idries; The Sufis; Doubleday; New York, 1964.
7. Schimmel, Annemarie; Islam in India and Pakistan; E. J. Brill; Leiden, 1982.
8. Schimmel, Annemarie; As Through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in Islam; Columbia
University Press; New York, 1982.