CONTRIBUTION OF SUFI SAINTS

Punjab is not only great but is also vast and varied. Punjab, the land of five rivers, is very fortunate in having developed and cherished, since centuries, a long and glorious tradition of a composite culture. It seems to have been evolved and enriched by a galaxy of God-intoxicated men who belonged to various faiths and creeds, such as Hindu saints, Sikh Gurus and Sufi fakirs. Their mystical songs, in particular, are the pride of the whole Punjab and form a common and invaluable heritage of all Punjab’s.

The lyrical effusions of those blessed men, incidentally, gave birth to a distinct stream of the poetry of this land, called Sufi Kavya-Dhara, which inherits a rich and long literary tradition. The content and form, scope and standard as well as the flow of masterly beauty of Farid Bani, which has come down to us through the grace of Guru Granth Sahib, is a proof of this ‘Dhara’ having been in vogue about seven centuries ago.

It was developed by Shah Hussain during the sixteenth century and raised to its pinnacle by Bulleh Shah during the eighteenth century. Its downfall began after Hashim Shah during the second half of the nineteenth century. It was, however, kept flowing by Maulvi Ghulam Rasul, Syed Miran Shah and Khwaja Ghulam Farid during the next few decades.

Most of all major poets of Punjab have, more or less, been influenced by it. Its influence on the Non-Muslim mystic poets of the first half of the twentieth century viz. Sant Rein, Sadhu Daya Singh, Paul Singh Arif, Man Singh Kalidas and Kishan Singh Arif is quite evident. Even the poets of the modern period, including Bhai Vir Singh (1872-1957), the father of modern Punjabi literature, have also imbibed its impact.

Sheikh Farid-ud-din, (1173-1265) was the first Sufi poet who "sang of his insatiable hunger for the love of the Lord in works of immortal beauty".

Farid’s message had a wide humanitarian base and a broad human approach. In an age marked by the great brutality, he brought the touch of humanity and fellow feeling to all.

Farid was also the first poet of Punjab and Punjabi who used the symbol of human relationship between wife and husband to express his longings for union with the Divine.

The kafis (lyrics) of Shah Husain (1538-1599), the popular romantic Sufi saint of Lahore added to Sufi poetry its peculiar element of masti (rapture) and introduced enraptured dancing and passionate signing.

Hussain was also the first Sufi poet of Punjabi who adopted the popular measure of Kafi to express his mystic ideas. The credit of introducing the element of the popular love-legends of Punjab (Heer Ranjha and Sohni Mahiwal) to Sufi Verse and utilizing their persons, places, motifs and incidents as images, metaphors and allegories etc. also goes to him.

Sultan Bahu (1629-1691), one of the greatest mystics of India, who belonged to district Jhang, adopted the verse-form of Shiarfi (arostic) for the expression of his sentiments, ending every line of his verse with a lyrical tone of exquisite charm, pronounced as hoo. It was he who, preferring ‘Ishq’ (love) not only to ‘Aqal’ (wisdom) but also to ‘Iman" (faith).

Syed Bulleh Shah (1680-1758), was the most famous Sufi poet of Punjab. Bullah asserted his commitment forcefully and longed for his visit so feelingly, as under :

You are just a herdsman for the folk,
People call you by the name of Ranjha.
But for me you are my religion and my faith.
O come and do enter my courtyard.

Bhullah’s earlier verses expressed theological ideas of Islam. But when he turned a pantheist under the influence of Vedant and Sikhism, he became so convinced of God’s omnipresence and "integrity of the universal soul" that he began to experience and express that sort of "cosmopolitan joy which knows no limits and divisions".

Bullha had also taken then the path of reconciliation and talked of peace and unity among the adherents of various faiths and denominations.

Syed Ali Haider (1690-1785) of Multan, was the first Sufi who poetized Heer Ranjha in the form of a Qissa (long narration), entitled Qissa Heer va Ranjha, and added thereby a new tributary to the stream of Punjabi Sufi poetry.

His Abyat (verses) are known for their grace, poetic flow and play with words. The first letter of the alphabet, viz. Alif, stands for God and the letter Meem for Muhammad, the prophet. While Bullha talked of the agony of Punjab in some of his verses, Haider grieved over the lot of Hindustan.

Referring to the invasion, slaughter and plunder of Nadir Shah in 1739, he reproached and cursed all those who were responsible for the loss and distress suffered by India and Indians.

Fard Faqir (1729-1790) who lived during the same time in Gujrat, also reproached the rulers of the day. But he did so, in verses as the following, for their ill treatment of laborers and workers belonging to various professions

Being rulers they sit on carpets
And tyrannize the people.
They call the workers ‘menials’
And keep on even sucking their blood.

His kasab nama broke a new ground by describing the process of wearing cloth for expressing his Sufistic ideas and beliefs. In his Siharfi, Fard did not spare even the ever hostile Ulama (doctors of law and religion) by expressing their hypocrisy and observing that "it hardly avails if an ass is loaded with books". Punjabi Sufi Poetry got a new fillips with the advent of Syed Hashim Shah (1735-1843), a highly learned, prolific and multilingual writer who flourished during the Sikh supremacy in Punjab and who has been mentioned in terms of esteem even by eminent Western scholars.

In Punjabi, he versified the popular love-tragedies of Punjab to describe and acclaim the ‘Kamal Ishq’ (perfect love) of their heroes and heroines (viz. Sassi & Punnu, Heer & Ranjha, Sohni & Mahiwal, Shirin & Farhad).

Among the later Sufis of Punjab, Syed Ghulam Jilani Rohtaki (1749-1819), gave a deep Vedantic touch to his verses. Maulvi Ghulam Rasul, (1813-1874), took refuge under the tragic romance of Sassi Punnu to sing his own emotions and pangs of separations.

Sayed Karam Alim Shah (19^th Century) contributed musical Khayals (thoughts) and loris (Lullabies) of Sufi effusions to this lore. "The musical tunes in which he expressed his sentiments of Divine Love, are popular all over Punjab and more so in Sikh circles. Sometimes he employs even the works peculiar to the Sikh social and religious literature".

Syed Miran Shah (1830-1913) of Jalandhar like Sayid Hashim Shah also symbolized his mystic experience through love legends, his ‘Guldasta’ contains a large numbers of Kafis, Ghazals, Baramah & Satvara.

Syed Mir Hussain of Dinjwan, (Gurdaspur) best conveys the allegorical interpretations of Sassi Punnu, in his version entitled (Bagh-e-Mohabbat, that is, the garden of love. He interpreted almost all the characters, motives, sites, and situations of the tale in metaphorical and metaphysical terms. For his Sassi, instead of being the daughter of someone named Adam Jam was in fact, the human soul itself, and Punnu as the object of union of divine love, herdsmen as mediators of this union etc."

Sain Yatim Shah, another popular Sufi of the Punjab (Distt. Gurdaspur) had versified the same love relations, "In order to convey its purport to the lovers by presenting in it’s the struggle between body and the soul, Yatim Shah in this Qissa has woven the beads of mysticism, preached virtuous and moral values to all communities and has explained the way of ignoring worldly things and coming into living contract with the almighty."

The Sufi poets of Punjab, in the similar way, utilized only those poetical modes and verse-forms, for the expression of their emotions, experiences and yearnings which were quite popular and familiar to the people of the land. They composed Shloks, Dohe, Shabads, Kafis, Khayals, Baramahs, Athwaras and Sinarfis, etc.

As a matter of fact, the Sufi saints and poets of Punjab contributed so much and so well not only to the linguistic, literary and cultural heritages of Punjab, they also identified themselves, intrinsically, with its land and people.

Source: punjabstate.com

Back to Literature Index