Archive for July, 2008
by Farid al-Din ‘Attar (1142-1220)
1
We are the Magians of old,
Islam is not the faith we hold;
In irreligion is our fame,
And we have made our creed a shame.
2
Now to the tavern we repair
To gamble all our substance there,
Now in the monastery cell
We worship with the infidel.
3
When Satan chances us to see
He doffs his cap respectfully,
For we have lessons to impart
To Satan in the tempter’s art.
4
We were not in such nature made
Of any man to be afraid;
Head and foot in naked pride
Like sultans o’er the earth we ride.
5
But we, alas, aweary are
And the road is very far;
We know not by what way to come
Unto the place that is our home.
6
And therefore we are in despair
How to order our affair
Because, wherever we have sought,
Our minds were utterly distraught.
7
When shall it come to pass, ah when,
That suddenly, beyond our ken,
We shall succeed to rend this veil
That hath our whole affair conceal?
8
What veil so ever after this
Apparent to our vision is,
With the flame of knowledge true
We shall consume it through and through.
9
Where at the first in that far place
We come to the world of space,
Our soul by travail in the end
To that perfection shall ascend.
10
And so shall ‘Attar Shattered be
And, rapt in sudden ecstasy,
Soar to godly vision, even
Beyond the veils of earth and heaven.
Translated by A. J. Arberry
Tags: Fariduddin Attar, mystic, mystical, Persian, Poetry, sufi, Sufism, veil
Writing about the textbook enemy, the ‘other’, is but a daunting task. Facing the grandiose Humayun’s tomb on a chilly January morning this year, I decided to write a book on Delhi.
It was not before I had visited the ancient city that I knew what it symbolised. In Pakistan, we were influenced by the glories of Lahore, my beloved city. Reconstructed histories had kept Delhi invisible. The seat of the Sultans, Mughals and the Raj, precursor of the modern united In
dia and originator of the Indo-Islamic civilization was a mere phantom, best ignored.
Over several visits to Delhi, I realised that invisibility was also a shared curse. A good number of Delhi wallahs I met, had no clue where they lived or crossed the streets. Erasure, blank spaces in textbooks had rendered their own city a mythical other-world existing only in erudite books, rare cultural soirees and among the fading memories of old-Delhi.
When I looked for the house where Urdu’s legendary poet Mir Taqi Mir lived, no one knows it. Those living in Hauz Khas are unaware of what it was. There are thousands, perhaps more, who have never visited Nizamuddin Bastee let alone the dargah there. Tracing history through books resembles a two-dimensional vision. Lived histories add other dimensions to the inner kaleid
oscope. But there are so few who can help me.
I am pained when I am taken to the tomb of India’s first female ruler Razia Sultana (1236 - 1240). Only centuries later another woman Indira Gandhi was to rule the Centre. Razia’s grave languishes on an abandoned, filthy cul-de-sac. Many don’t care. I wonder, should I?
As I have ventured out to write, the enormity of Delhi — the idea — haunts me. Where do I start? The layered construction of Indian, and Muslim identities in the subcontinent emanate from the ridges and Hades of Delhi. The saints buried under Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: book, Culture, Delhi, Ghalib, heritage, History, India, Mir Taqi Mir, Nizamuddin, pakistan, Razia Sultan, South Asia
Moving beyond the colonial-era understanding of the history of the Subcontinent gives us a whole new way of looking at the Subcontinent’s past. This now includes not just the usual explorations of politics and economy, but also of social, cultural and religious issues – as well as the writing of history in the first place.
By : Romila Thapar (courtesy Himal Magazine, July issue)
Sixty years ago, at the time of Indian Independence, we in the region inherited a history of the Subcontinent shaped by two substantial views of the past: the colonial and the nationalist. Both were primarily concerned with chronology and with sequential narratives. The focus was on those in power, a focus that has been basic to much of the writing of history. There was information on the action of kings and dynasties, on governors-general and viceroys, and on various national leaders. On these, there was broad agreement. What was contested, although only partially, was the colonial representation of early Indian society. The colonial view was a departure from earlier Indian historical traditions, and drew on European preconceptions of Indian history. The use of history to legitimise power had changed from the rule of dynasties to colonial and nationalist definitions of power. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: History, Romila Thapar, South Asia
The newsitem below is remarkable. The earnest desire of an Indian blogger (who happens to be my friend as well) to understand Pakistan led him to blog on Pakistan. His series has been now recognised and it is quite a feat. Good luck to him and hope keeps on writing. Incidentally, I had also contributed to this series - my post can be found here: http://www.razarumi.com/why-i-love-pakistan-top-5-reasons/
Islamabad, July 23: An Indian blogger’s write-ups on five things Pakistanis love about their country may soon be included in a Pakistani school text book.
The Oxford University Press in Karachi, which is working on a Class 11 text book, has sought Mayank Austen Soofi’s permission to print the series he ran on his blog pakistanpaindabad.blogspot.com last year.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: blogging, Oxford University Press, pakistan
Sometimes I am most touched by such messages concerning my blog. I am posting this message not because I want to beat my own drum but to share the beauty of this email and how Sufism connects the world and humans estranged from each other:
Subject: The Birth of the Spirit out of the Agonies and Yearnings of the Flesh
“You have no idea how hard I’ve looked for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right. What’s the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean. Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It’s no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. So- I’ve brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me!”
Salaam, Peace & Blessings Dear Brother,
My name is Felix and I’m from Israel. My journey brought me to Sufism some many years ago, as a direct result of my interest in Dervishes, Sadhus and Wandering Mystics. As a Humanist, I was amazed to find out how rich and infinite the spirit of Sufism is…
Life is not easy where I am right now. The middle-east is burning in fire of hatred and disillusions. But - One day, this dark age will be over & I truthfully hope to see the world become a much better place to raise our children based on values of Love, Respect and Brotherhood.
I’ve found your outstanding blog + photographs on the web the other day, and would like to kindly thank you for your priceless & beautiful deeds. Wonderful & Kindhearted people like you give me great hope for a much better & brighter future for humanity.
Your journey is an inspiration - may peace, love and light be upon you.
While our background is very different, I humbly feel as if we are all interconnected - we are all brothers, come what may - the whole world is connected through an infinite life line. The human spirit is eternal.
“We are the flute, our music is all Yours;
Your wind invisible sweeps us through the world”
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: human, humanism, mystic, Mysticism, Rumi, sufi, Sufism
Rumi’s lilting chant..
Let us fall in love again
and scatter gold dust all over the world.
Let us become a new spring
and feel the breeze drift in the heavens’ scent.
Let us dress the earth in green,
and like the sap of a young tree
let the grace from within sustain us.
Let us carve gems out of our stony hearts
and let them light our path to Love.
The glance of Love is crystal clear
and we are blessed by its light. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: poem, Poetry, Rumi, sufi, Sufism
BOOK REVIEW
Unimagined is the growing-up story of Imran Ahmad, whose parents migrated from Pakistan to England in the early 1960s when Imran was a year old. The story, told in the first person in very simple and elegant English, consists of a series of anecdotes from Imran’s life, which get more and more mature as Imran gets older. Most of the early vignettes are set in Imran’s school, after which the cameos are taken from his college and later his work place.
Imran’s parents are shown as hardworking migrants who came to the UK with the hope of fitting into middle class England, only to find that they are at the lowest rung of society, just below the Irish. However, they work hard and slowly move up the social and economic ladder. Those were days where racism was rife in the UK and Imran experiences his share of it. Imran is academically bright and does well at school, even though a few teachers and students don’t like him on account of his background. Imran is one of the few coloured pupils in school and he knows he is very different from other students. For example, unlike other children, Imran’s parents take him to Pakistan for vacations. Imran tells us how once as he walked past a classroom full of senior boys, a few started shouting ‘Enoch, Enoch.’ The reference here is to Enoch Powell, a politician who sought the compulsory repatriation of all coloured people from the UK. A teacher saw what was happening and did nothing other than apologetically tell Imran, ‘Sorry about that.’
Read the rest of this entry »
I wasn’t sure if I had posted this old piece here. Just found it in my records and thought I should share it….
The end of year vacation is peculiar: it lets one sum up the changes -planetary and otherwise - of a year and muse on the year to come. This year’s finale had to be calm as the year was exhausting; and it had to be close to the sea since I had recently finished reading Iris Murdoch’s fabulous novel, The Sea, The Sea (not to be confused with John Banville’s Booker-winner The Sea, which, as the title suggests, is only half as impressive).
Murdoch’s writing and the right constellation led me to a relatively unknown beach resort at Luzon on the shores of the South China Sea. The area south of the Taiwan Strait all the way up to a point near the equator, including Hainan Island, comprises South China Sea. This was historically the beginning of the ‘oceanic silk route.’ Silk trade during the Han dynasty took place on this route that began at Southern China, crossed India and Ceylon, the Red Sea and finally, like all roads, led to Rome. I wasn’t going for the history, I must admit, I was inspired by Murdoch again, who wrote “All artists dream of a silence which they must enter, as some creatures return to the sea to spawn.” Apparently even non-artists can dream of silence, so forgive my pretensions. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: beach, EM Forster, Iris Murdoch, John Banville, Pagudpud, Philippines, sea, South China Sea, The Sea, Travel, Wordsworth
My piece published by the Himal Magazine
The limitations of Southasia’s historical record can be seen in the indifference towards two notable Mughal princesses, Jahanara and Zebunnissa.
History – that mosaic of tales and fables that is generally, though not entirely, agreed upon – will always be contested and debated, often in the blood-lined bazaars of power. Indian history, which serves as the broad banner for the histories of Southasia, is certainly no exception in this. After all, Indian history has largely been one of power laced with the force of religion. In addition, during the course of this history, the rulers, ministers, clerics and soldiers have, with rare exceptions, all been male. Indeed, the annals of the sultanate and Mughal history, both medieval and modern, are largely tales of powerful and quarrelsome men vying for power and patronage. The local patriarchal society, influenced by the zeal of West Asian Islam, ensured the almost complete invisibility of women.
The brief reign of Razia Sultan (1236-1240) was an exception, though her ascension to the Delhi sultanate throne and subsequent dethronement and exile, as well as the continuous resistance of clergy and nobles to her political persona, only reinforced the predominance to patriarchy. Other than Razia Sultan and Queen Nur Jahan, who both gave up purdah and participated in the brutal politics of men, rarely did a woman rise to a position of authority or influence. For her part, Nur Jahan (1577-1645) experienced particular success, but her precedent was not the norm – she was Persian, after all, and was considered a particularly wily player of power politics. And Nur Jahan is demonised as a power-hungry monster, who supposedly subjugated the masculinity of her emperor husband to assume charge of the Mughal Empire. Indeed, in the words of that husband, Jahangir, the kingdom had been ‘sold’ to his wife for a cup of wine and a bowl of soup. Nur Jahan has also been accused of misdeeds that were common to powerful men of that age: bribery, nepotism and the weaving of court intrigues. Such faint praise aside, all the while her lasting contributions to the Mughal court – the cuisine, lifestyle and trends of that age – have been largely overlooked, to appear as little more than ‘feminine’ footnotes in the main narrative of Southasian power.
Lahore is where Nur Jahan and Jahangir married, and where they established their royal home. As a Lahorite, the childhood memories of this writer are inextricably mixed with those of many visits to Jahangir’s tomb. But the name of this much-celebrated monument is also particularly symbolic: it is not just the final resting place of Jahangir, but also that of the queen who lovingly designed the buildings and surrounding gardens, to their very last detail. Many of the architecturally significant additions made to the Lahore Fort, such as the zenana (female) quarters, have never been attributed to her. The irony, of course, is that Nur Jahan was the only queen who actually spent the majority of her royal life in Lahore. Other Mughal Emperors and Empresses lived in Agra or Delhi, save a few years of Akbar’s sojourn in Lahore. However, the histories of Lahore inevitably reduce Nur Jahan’s era to a brief footnote or an unread appendix.
Rilasa-i-Jahanara
But there is more to this story of the neglected women of the Mughal court than Razia Sultan and Nur Jahan. Buried within the folds of history is the tale of two princesses who have always remained well out of sight of the mainstream historical narratives of the Mughals. In recent decades, historians and novelists have indeed begun to explore the lives of princesses Jahanara and Zebunnissa, but the scanty primary sources available have largely thwarted these endeavours. Nonetheless, the stories of these extraordinary Mughal women dazzle through the mists of time, and their central paradox cannot be overlooked: the princesses were royal, and hence noteworthy, and yet they are almost completely invisible in what Southasians know as ‘history’. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Agra, Aurangzeb, clergy, Delhi, History, Jahanara, Jehangir, Lahore, Mughal, Nizamuddin Auliya, Nur Jehan, patriarchy, princesses, Razia Sultan, sufi, Zebunnissa
Two poems of Ali Sardar Jafri found here
MY JOURNEY
Such a day will arrive again
[when] the lamps of the eyes will get extinguished;
the lotus of the hands will get withered
and each butterfly of speech and voice
will flee from the leaf of the tongue.
All faces that blossom like buds,
chuckle like flowers,
the circling of blood, the beats of heart,
all [such] symphonies will go to sleep
on the bed of a dark ocean.
And, this grinning diamond particle,
this paradise of mine, this earth
that is laid out on the velvet of the blue environ,
its morns, its evenings
will, unwittingly, unconsciously,
pass on shedding the tears of dew
[on the demise of] a handful of dust of a man.
Everything will be forgotten;
everything will be removed
from the exquisite idol-house of memories.
Then no one will ask:
Where is Sardar in the congregation?
Yet, I’ll come here again;
[I] will talk with the mouths of the tots;
will sing in the tongue of the birds.
When seeds will grin beneath earth
and the sapling, with its fingers,
will vex the crusts of earth,
I’ll open my eyes
in leaves and buds;
will take, in [my] verdant palm,
the dew drops.
I’ll turn into the colour of henna, the tune of ghazal
[and] the style of poetry.
[I], like the hue of the cheek of a bride,
will filter from every stole.
When the winds of winter
will bring along with them
the season of autumn’
my laughter will be heard
from the dry leaves that will
be trampled under the robust feet of the passerby.
All the golden rivers of the earth;
all the azure lakes of the sky
will get filled with my being.
And the world will see
[that] every tale is [in fact] my tale;
here every lover is Sardar
[and] every beloved is Sultaanaa
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Ali Sardar Jafri, India, Poetry, poets, Progressive Writers Movement, Urdu
Meena Alexander’s poem Rites of Sense’ concerns the fundamental question of freedom . The poem was published in Meena Alexander’s book, Illiterate Heart (TriQuarterly Books/ Northwestern University Press, 2002)
Rites of Sense
In twilight as she lies on a mat
I rub my mother’s feet with jasmine oil
touch callouses under skin,
joints upholding that fraught original thing–
bone, gristle skin, all that makes her mine.
All day she swabbed urine from the floor,
father’s legs so weak he clung to the rosewood bed.
She rinsed soiled cloths, hung them out to dry
on a coir rope by a vine, its passion fruit
clumsy with age, dangling.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Meena Alexander, poem, Poetry, Ries of Sense
SAJA Forum has this interesting post:
Bangladesh, India and Pakistan ranked 64th, 68th and 81st in the latest World Values Survey published by the United States National Science Foundation which surveyed people from 97 countries to discover who is happiest.
Denmark became the happiest country with a 4.24 mean score. The United States ranked 16th with a 3.55.
Bangladesh scored 1, India scored 0.85 and Pakistan scored -0.30, a negative score which indicated “predominantly unhappy or dissatisfied publics.”
Click here to see the full list(PDF version). Watch political scientist Ronald Inglehart talk about how economic growth, democratization and social tolerance lead to happiness.
Also, I should mention how Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Commission, which was the subject of a WSJ article this past March, is making an attempt to gauge its citizens’ happiness and boost their morale as the country heads towards a new direction.
Tags: Bangladesh, Bhutan, happiness, India, pakistan, Ronald Inglehart, South Asia
What an alamring statement coming from a Minister in the UK.
LAHORE: Britain’s first Muslim minister has attacked the growing culture of hostility against Muslims in the UK, saying that many feel targeted like “the Jews of Europe”, The Independent reported on Friday.
Shahid Malik, who was appointed as a minister in the Department for International Development by Prime Minister Gordon Brown last summer, said it has become legitimate to target Muslims in the media and society at large in a way that would be unacceptable for any other minority, according to the British newspaper.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Europe, Islamophobia, Jews, Muslims
The inscription on Ghalib’s tomb-stone in Arabic and Persian followed by translation:
a hai’yii ya qaiyuum
rashk-e-’Urfi va faKhr-e-Talib murd Asadullah Khan Ghalib murd
kal maiN Gham-o-andoh meN baa khaatir-e-maHzuuN
tha turbat-e-ustaad pe baiTha hua Ghamnaak
dekha jo mujhe fikr meN taareeKh ke, Majruuh
haatif ne kahaa *ganj-e-ma’ani hai tah-e-Khaak*
the qita (composed four verses) is by Mir Mahdi Majruuh; the phrase contains the chronogram of 1285 AH
—
The Alive, The Eternal [these are two of the names of Allah]
the envy of Urfi and the pride of Talib has died, Asadullah Khan Ghalib has died
[Urfi and Talib were Persian-Indian poets]
yesterday in sadness and mourning, grief-afflicted too
I sat by the Master’s grave with sorrow profound
seeing me thinking of a tareeKh, Majruuh [taareeKh = chronogram]
a heavenly voice said, “treasury of meanings is under the ground” Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Delhi, Ghalib, India, poet, Poetry, South Asia, Urdu
What distinguishes Asim Butt from his generation and perhaps the preceding generations of artists is the sheer originality of his vision and an iconoclasm that is neither trumpeted nor made visible until the subtext of his lines is closely studied. This is why Asim has undertaken bold strides during the last 10 enriching years of painting. In the meantime, he also earned a degree or two in social sciences, a half-finished PhD at the University of California and formal training from Karachi’s Indus Valley Art school.
Art education in Pakistan, despite its deep- seated tradition of experimentation, does not allow the full exploration of originality. This is why the revival of miniatures has become another soft tool of marketisation and an out-of-wedlock union between art and commercialism. Rejecting what is on the horizon of Pakistani art, Asim Butt has stuck to his innate traumas and nightmares, sometimes indulging them, at others softening them with figures that blend the sensuous with the spiritual and the political with the existential.
That his early works display a cracked sense of the self is not surprising. A rebel from his conventional background, Butt continues to defy the conformist meanings of family, career, security, sexuality and that elusive bourgeois pursuit of happiness. Inspired by the Stuckism movement of art, Asim holds painting as a powerful medium of communication. This standpoint brings our young Pakistani Stuckist at odds with the skin-deep novelty and claimed nihilism of “conceptual” art and postmodernism. The pursuit of art in this worldview thus merges into an impulse for a renewal of spiritual values in art and society, or what is known as “re-modernism.” In Asim’s own words: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: art, Asim Butt, canvas, Karachi, painting, pakistan, performative, public art, stuckism, Stuckist
My dear friend Salman Chishty is holding an exhibition at the death anniversary (Urs=Union) celebrations of Khawaja Muinuddin Chishty. This is such an innovative tribute to the great Chishty saint. I recall seeing some of these works that he was collecting in Ajmer earlier this year.
This story from the Times of India came as a pleasant surprise …
AJMER: The Sufi message of peace and harmony is being propagated through an exhibition of paintings called ‘Sufi art exhibition’ organized by Salman Chishti, a Sufi Scholar and a curator of art paintings.
He is displaying his collection of 100 paintings on handmade khadi paper at the Chishti Manzil here. The theme of exhibition revolves around calligraphy and paintings depicting Sufi values.
At the exhibition, the Sufi paintings of Najmul Hasan Chishti, a khadim of the Khwaja and a calligraphy artist. The unique feature of this exhibition is the representation of the saying of Sufis in calligraphy, along with its meaning illustrated through a painting in the background.
The principal essence of Najmul’s works is portraying life in ‘Sufi Islam’ and especially on ‘Sama, a form of mediation, widely practiced by the Sufi ‘dervish’. One can observe Rumi poetry in many of his paintings. He had beautifully portrayed the whirling ‘dervishes’ in ecstasy.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Ajmer, art, India, Khawaja Muinuddin Chishty, paintings, Sufia, Sufiana
My bright, young friend Imaduddin (left) has written this excellent, terse review of the engaging book White Mughals.
Yesterday when he emailed me this text, I was intrigued by his views as well as envious of his ability to say a lot in so few words. I enjoyed the book for the era it evoked with such craftsmanship and tenderness. However, Imaduddin says it all:
Quick and dirty impressions of White Mughals by William Dalrymple
Beautiful prose with a significant point brought out: that the British DID integrate in India prior to their discriminatory laws against mixed race progeny of the 1780s, the policy that East India Company servants would be older when they arrived in India, the arrival of white memsahibs and the arrival of condescending, colonial attitudes. Dalrymple finds that a third of Company servant wills bequeathed property to native wives, concubines and children until the afore mentioned advents, after which wills including native family dropped to almost none.
Vivid depictions of the court life and society of perhaps India’s most cultured city, Hyderabad, are brought out in this book, as are the enlightened, seeking attitudes of early British Company servants who integrated beautifully into Mughal society, as had the Portugese into Indian society earlier - as had every other foreigner invader into India, an India which had turned rugged Mughal warriors into artsy Rennaisance men.
The love story of Khair un Nissa, cousin to an ambitious minister in the Nizam’s court, and James Kirkpatrick, the Company’s Resident in Hyderabad, is the thread that brings all these themes together, but is unnecessarily long. If I were Dalyrymple’s editor, I’d have cut this 500 page book by a fifth - there is much repitition.
If you don’t have time to read love stories and are interested in historical commentary on India, read the first 57 pages. That will be enough.
Tags: book, British, History, Hyderabad, Impressions, India, Raj, White Mughals, William Dalrymple
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