Abstract
Sarmad (eternal, inebriated) was born a Jew in Kashan, around 1590.2 He became a trader and acquired knowledge of mystic traditions and of Arabic and Persian poetry. Before he arrived in the port city of Thatta in 1632, he had converted to Islam. In Thatta he met a Hindu boy named Abhai Chand. The attraction was mutual and soon after meeting him, Sarmad abandoned his trade and became a naked faqir.3
Poems translated from Nawab Ali Saulat, nted., Rubiyat Sarmad Mahmud (Delhi: Shahjahani Press, 1921).
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Notes
Poems translated from Nawab Ali Saulat, ed., Rubiyat Sarmad Mahmud (Delhi: Shahjahani Press, 1921).
Biographical details from M. G. Gupta, Sarmad the Saint (Agra: M. G. Publishers, 1991).
I. A. Ezekiel, Sarmad, the Jewish Saint of India (Beas, Punjab: Radha Soami Satsang, 1996).
Other naked faqirs were Shaikh Badhni and a eunuch named Rahat (M. Mujib, The Indian Muslims, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1967), 157–59.
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© 2000 Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai
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Kidwai, S. (2000). Sarmad (Persian). In: Vanita, R., Kidwai, S. (eds) Same-Sex Love in India. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05480-7_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05480-7_20
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