Bullhe Shah and His Veil of “Meem”

By Mohammad Gill - Chowk - Santa Clara, CA, USA
Thursday, February 21, 2008

Meem dey ohlay buss da, mera dohlan mahi. (Bullhe Shah)

The first time I came across a description of meem was in one of Iqbal’s verses which is as follows: “Nigah aashiq kee dekh latee haiy parda-e-meem
ko uthaa kar, Woh bazm-e-Yasrab mein aa kay baithai’n hazaar mun’h ko chhupa chuhpa kar.”

I did not quite understand what it meant. Many years afterwards, I came across a book, “Tasawwuf kee Haqiqat,” by Ghulam Ahmad Pervaiz. He has severely criticized Sufism and Sufis by providing ample quotes and quotations.

In the sixth chapter of this book (Musalmaan Sofia aur uun kay Aqaa’ed), there is a section entitled “Meem ka Pardah (The Veil of Meem).” I read this section and understood the meaning of the afore-quoted verse of Iqbal.

One of the attributes of Allah is “Ahad,” meaning “One.” This is the spirit of monotheism. Ahmad is the name of prophet Muhammad. The only difference between Ahmad and Ahad is that of m or Arabic “meem.”

If m is removed from Ahmad, it becomes Ahad, that is, by doing so prophet Muhammad becomes God. The sufi poets played upon this point in their poetry with repetitive frequency and with beautiful constructions and phraseology.

Pervaiz quoted one of the Punjabi verses of Bullhe Shah discussing the veil of meem. The verse reads as follows: “Ahad, Ahmad wich farq nah BullyaIkk ratti bhar marodee da” (There is no difference between Ahad and Ahmad but of a nominal ‘rounding’ [meem}.)

After reading Pervaiz’s book, a completely new chapter opened up in front of my eyes. I also learnt that Bullhe Shah was nothing exceptional in this respect, several other sufi poets also played upon this theme.

Some time later, I found a qawwali tape which contained some qawwalis based on Bullhe Shah’s kafees (Rang-e-Bullhe Shah) sung by the immortal Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and his group. I bought this tape and played it on the disk player in my car.

First couple of times, I couldn’t make much of it because I couldn’t figure out what Nusrat was singing. However, I kept playing it every time I went out in my car. Gradually, I was able to comprehend the actual words.

The latter half of the first qawwali (Bey hadd ramza’an duss da, mera dohlan mahi) is devoted to the veil of meem. The veil of meem is mentioned in other qawwlis too.

Some lines (verses) from the first qawwali are as follows: “Assa’n (we) dekh kay soorat dilbar (beloved) dee, ajj be-soorat noo’n jaan gayeBina ain (a letter of Arabic alphabet) Arab, bina meem Ahmad, assa’n yaar noo’n khoob pehchaan gaye.” (By seeing the face of the beloved (Ahmad), we came to know of the Faceless One (God).

By removing ain (a) from Arab and meem from Ahmad, we uncovered the reality of God).

Jay Oh (He) nah hun’dan, nah Rabb und’an, Lolak Khuda farmaya ayEh (this) gull (saying) yaar khata bhee naee’n, jay Khuda Oh (Muhammad) naee’n, tay judaa bhee naee’n. (If Muhammad did not exist, God wouldn’t exist……. This saying is nothing wrong because if he (Muhammad) is not God, he is not separate from Him either).

In this qawwali, a repeating burden is “Meem dey ohlay buss da, mera dohlan mahi.” It means that “He (God) resides behind the veil of meem.”

These qawwalis are beautifully worded and adroitly sung by Nusrat. If one pays close attention to the meaning of the verses quoted above and many others, it becomes clear that Bullhe Shah was guilty of an extreme degree of “poetical excess.”

Effectively, he said that Muhammad and God are one and the same. Many religionists would rightly consider it ‘kufr’ and ‘shirk’ and condemn him.

(...)

Another verse of Bullhe Shah is “Sajday kar kar ghiss gaye mathhay. Nah Rabb teerath, nah Rabb makkay.” It translates approximately as “The foreheads have worn out by frequent prostrations. God is neither in the holy places of Hindus nor is He in Mecca. Then where is He?

Bullhe Shah answers as follows: Masjad dha dey, mandar dha dey, dha dey jo kuchh dhai’n daPar kissi da dil na dhai’n, Rabb dilaa’n vich rehnda (Demolish the mosque, demolish the temple and demolish what else you can, But do not break anybody’s heart because God dwells in there).