Between Brahman and Mullah Bashing

By Muhammad Khan - GreaterKashmir - Srinigar,India
Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Prof Muhammad Ishaq Khan responds to Rashneek Kher’s article about the legend and the history of Sheikh-ul-Alam

Mr. Rashneek Kher’s response (GK, Oct 2, 2006) to my article “Shaikhul-Alam: Between Legend and History” needs to be examined thoroughly in view of the relevance of Shaikhul-Alam’s religious thought to the collective concerns of contemporary Kashmiri society. While I admire and fully share his concern for building bridges of understanding between Hindus and Muslims, nevertheless, it is necessary to draw attention to some misconstructions.

First, Nuruddin Rishi needs to be studied within the contextual and conceptual framework of such titles as Shaikhul-Alam and Alamdar-i-Kashmir. How is it that Kashmiri Pandits, who revere Shaikh Nuruddin, do not remember him by such titles? Why do they prefer to call him Nund Rishi or Sahzanand? Is it that they perceive his role in a different socio-religious context?

Second, it is pleasing to learn from Mr. Kher that even “till this date all the books of prayers and hymns of Kashmiri Pandits have shruks of Nund Rishi.” However, we should not make a fetish of such selective verses in order to establish religious syncretism as a basis for Kashmiri identity. What needs to be emphasized is certain distinctiveness about the identities of Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims. The historical foundations of their identities rest on the evolution of their societies in symbiotic relationship through centuries past. While Kashmiri Pandits have always sought to trace their identity to pre-Islamic times, Kashmiri Muslims continue to invoke Bulbul Shah, Shah Hamadan, Shaikhul-Alam etc. for legitimizing their Islamic identity in the regional context. This does not, however, mean that Kashmiris as a whole do not have any affinity in cultural terms.

But history for revitalizing our centuries-old ties of proverbial friendship with the Pandit compatriots does not mean a garbled version of the past. We have lived together through centuries but only separately. We have respected differences. At the same time, we have reciprocated ideas in respect of veneration of the saints, but, only up to a certain point. However, we should not make a mess of our basic cherished religious beliefs by quoting verses of our spiritual teachers out of context.

Seen from historical perspective, three main stages are discernible in the religious career of Nuruddin Rishi: the first that of an orphan struggling to eke out his mundane existence; the second is that of an ascetic who withdraws himself from worldly affairs in order to know the religious truth; and in the third and final stage he gives up the life of a recluse to advocate ethics of dynamic and positive nature as a result of the ultimate absorption of his Rishi identity in Islam. This also explains why he regards the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as the first Rishi.

There is little doubt that during the first two stages of his spiritual career Shaikul-Alam’s religious thought was moulded by Lal Ded’s revolt against Brahmanic ethnocentrism. For that reason alone, several verses are attributed to both Lal Ded and Nuruddin. At the same time, the impact of Shaivite philosophy on a true seeker after the Truth like Nuruddin cannot be ignored during the formative period of his spiritual evolution.

But it would be naïve to aver on that account that Nuruddin sought to reconcile Shaivism and Sufism. As a matter of fact, there is enough evidence in the historical and hagiographical Persian sources to show Nuruddin not only as a rebel against the Brahmanic social order, but, also, against the rituals evolved by the Brahmans. In the entire subcontinent, Kashmir is the only region where Islam entered into a positive dialogue on such crucial issues as caste system and extravagant Brahmanic rituals. I cannot understand why Mr. Kher should describe this historical fact as “Brahmanical bashing”.

Nor should Shaikhul-Alam’s euologisation of Lal Ded as an avatara be understood in syncretic or synthetic terms. Lalla actually shot into prominence in an age of social ferment when Hinduism in Kashmir, as a result of its declining strength, was exposed to the radiant influence of Islam through the egalitarian spirit of the Sufis. That Lalla herself presents a dismal picture of the collapse of dharma is amply borne out by her numerous verses. That Lalla, as an ardent lover of Shiva, succeeded in reviving Shaivism is an argument belied by the very silence of our Shaivite chroniclers and poets of her near-contemporary and later times.
What is, however, of significance to emphasise from the viewpoint of social history is the historical dimension of her elevation to avatar by a devout Muslim like Nuruddin.

Avatars, as the Hindu scriptures tell us, are born for the purpose of re-establishing dharma, but as Bhagavat Purana repeatedly stresses they also emerge on the social scene “for teaching the mortals the wisdoms of the ages. They have taught and given right perspectives and direction to human beings. They have set through their lives an example of right conduct and instilled hope and courage.” It is obvious, then, why Nuruddin described Lalla as an avatar, since Lalla, in a true spirit of an avatar, assumed the role befitting the situational demands, and reshaped anomalies and derangements into a progressive adjustment and harmony. Lalla, in fact, wanted that man should become “more of a man” and swim across darkness into light. What has not been emphasized by historians so far is that Nuruddin described Lalla as an avatar of the exploited, oppressed and under privileged. Such eulogisation contributed to her romanticisation, so much so that in the Sufi literature of Kashmir she was called Maryam-i Makani, Rabia Sani, Arifa and so on. How is it that the Kashmiri Brahman chroniclers maintained an intriguing silence about Lalla for a greater part of history? Didn’t the Brahmans regard her as a renegade? Wasn’t she an avatara for the commoners undergoing the process of Islamic acculturation? Such questions are more important than modern attempts at resuscitating Lalla as a protagonist of Shaivism.

Mr. Kher rightly points out that Nuruddin was severe in his condemnation of “maulanas”. But this fact should not lead him to assert that the Shaikh was against the Shariah or the so-called established or institutionalized religion. Significantly, the Mullahs or the worldly ‘ulama were ridiculed by him for their deviations from practising the true spirit of the Shariah in daily life. It was, in fact, the ulamas’ failure to bring exoteric (zahir) and esoteric (batin) aspects of religious life into a harmonious, balanced relationship that determined the Shaikh’s attitude towards them. Their malicious mind, arrogance, hypocrisy and pursuit of material gains at the cost of spiritual benefits, not unlike the Brahmans, were so horrifying to him that he even urged his followers to seek the refuge of Allah at the sight of an alim obsessed with the world. In his view there was no more horrifying and utterly convincing representation of deadly evil than the ulama with factious spirit emanating from their false learning and pride. Addressing such ulama in the severest terms, Nuruddin warned that none of them would obtain salvation on the Day of Judgement. The knowledge of such ulama was not based on the true spirit of the Shariah; in his view it amounted to nothing short of a religious catastrophe. Thus, while rebuking a Mullah for his false pride in learning, Nuruddin remarked:

The true spirit of Al-Hamud, Qul-hu-Wallah and Attahiyyat,
If practiced in everyday life, is equivalent to learning the Quran;
See, is not it futile to learn like the Satan;
Who was doomed despite his learning.

As a cultural mediator of Islam in Kashmir, Shaikh Nuruddin made its egalitarian spirit intelligible to the commoners against the pride of both the Brahmans and the worldly ulama.