Abstract
The eighth chapter examines the successive developments of the paradigm, once it has spread beyond the Shah jo risalo. The first devotional text published after the Shah jo risalo is Sami’s work, in 1885. Sami was a Hindu devotee who is said to be a modern interpreter of the Bhakti, the path of devotion in Hinduism. Nonetheless, his poetry is full of Sufi terms, and he shares most of the components of the Sufi paradigm. Later on, another significant expansion of the paradigm occurred with the publication of Sachal Sarmast’s poetry in 1902. With him, the paradigm was renovated and enlarged by incorporating new features. Sachal’s poetry was followed by the publication of Rohal Faqir’s one in 1903. Rohal Faqir also belonged to Northern Sindh, and he was contemporary of Sachal. Many similarities can be found in their poetry, especially regarding the use of Hindu gods as a metaphor. The Sindhi Sufi paradigm expanded well beyond Islam to non-Sufi, non-Muslim, and even non-Sindhi authors, from which they draw inspiration. Non-Sufi poetry was also included in the Sufi paradigm, such as the qisso, a popular narrative usually classified as folklore by the British. This chapter concludes with a discussion on how a renovated Sufi paradigm came about and was exported through print capitalism.
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Notes
- 1.
Qazi Qazan’s poetry was known only through a few verses quoted by Shah Abd al-Karim, before Hiro Thakur discovered in the early 1970s his kalam kept in a Dadupanthi monastery near the Himalayas, in India (Boivin 2016: 256–257).
- 2.
According to the Gul Hayat Institute (gulhayat.com), a first edition of Shah Abd al-Karim’s work had been published as early as in 1876 in Bombay. Since I was not able to find it out, nor have cross-checked this information, I consider the 1904 edition to be the first one.
- 3.
For a comparative perspective on Shah and Sachal, see Matlani (2003).
- 4.
On this aspect of Sachal’s poetry, see Boivin (2019).
- 5.
Al-Husayn b. Mansur Al-Hallaj (c. 857–922) was a Sufi who was hanged down because he was considered as a heretic, after he had said “Ana al-haqq,” I am the Truth, truth being a name of Allah. Hallaj is the symbol and best exponent of ecstatic Sufism. On the figure of Hallaj in Sindhi Sufi poetry, especially in Sachal’s verses, see Schimmel (1985: 96–149).
- 6.
In his book devoted to Shah Abd al-Karim, Jotilal Motwani speaks of a first edition completed by one Makhdum Abd al-Samad ibn Haji Muhammad Muquim Nawrangapota in 1874 in Bombay (Jotwani 1979: 14).
- 7.
Makhdum Nuh Halai (1505–1589) was an influential Sufi belonging to the Sohrawardiyya. According to local tradition, he was a descendant of Abu Bakr al-Siddiqui, the first caliph of Islam. As a Sufi, he considered zikr to be a high priority. A main achievement of his is the first translation of the Quran in Persian, although it is spuriously ascribed by many scholars to Shah Wali Allah.
- 8.
The qubba is the name given to a small mausoleum with a dome that serves as the tomb of a saint.
- 9.
Two Ismaili preachers who would have come from Iran in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and converted Hindus to Ismailism.
- 10.
There is a lack of academic studies devoted to Sami’s work, with the exception of a PhD prepared at the University of Mumbai. See Ramwani (2010).
- 11.
I use the word “ translates,” because Khilnani only provides a word as synonymous for the one used by Sami, while Sindilo provides an explanation throughout a sentence. I have used Khilnani’s lexicon which has been reprinted at the end of the 2002 edition of Sami’s slokas , located after Sindilo’s one (Sami 2002: 314–322).
- 12.
It is noteworthy that the activities of the Society stopped after the assassination of the president in 2007, late Dara Feroze Mirza (1937–2007).
- 13.
On the figure of Mansur in Sindhi poetry, see Schimmel (1985).
- 14.
See the last section of the eighth chapter.
- 15.
It is very difficult to find concurring dates for the foundation of these societies. For the Sindh Muslim Adab Society, Ajwani gives the date of 1931 (Ajwani 1970: 201).
- 16.
Ajwani claims that Parsram “founded Ruh Rihan to keep the flame of Sufism burning” (Ajwani 1970: 197). He forgot to mention it was the review of the Theosophical Society.
- 17.
The expression sant bani, or the songs of the saints, designates the devotional literature composed by saints who were mostly belonging to the Bhakti movement in Medieval India, such as Kabir (c. 1440–1518).
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Boivin, M. (2020). The Deployment of the Sufi Paradigm. In: The Sufi Paradigm and the Makings of a Vernacular Knowledge in Colonial India. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41991-2_8
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