Jahane Rumi In search of the unsearchable: O, my soul! where would you find your house?

When will my beloved visit my courtyard

The soulful poetry of Khawaja Ghulam Farid (1845-1901) best represents the essence of Seraiki language. Diwan-e-Farid, a collection of the poet’s verses, happens to be an outstanding masterpiece of Seraiki mystical poetry that reaches the poetic excellence and transcendence found in the messages of Rumi and Iqbal in terms of exploring the metaphysics of knowledge and being.

Shahzad Qaiser has undertaken a major labour of love by rendering the Diwan-e-Farid into English and issuing another separate volume – The Metaphysics of Khawaja Ghulam Farid – that explores the vastness of meaning in Khawaja Farid’s poetry. It is rare these days to find a civil servant who can spare time to devote himself to the cause of letters. In contrast to past traditions, present day civil service has become a vehicle for playing along with palace intrigues and extracting opportunities from the vicissitudes of power. Rejecting this trend, Qaiser appears to have shunned the ordinary power-mongering culture and delved deeper into the mysteries of divine love. Therefore, his endeavour to search for the inner meanings of Khawaja Ghulam Farid’s poetry has been eminently successful. These two volumes are highly readable and well-presented for specialists and lay readers alike.

Khawaja Ghulam Farid was born in Chachran, located in the south of present day Pakistan’s Punjab province. His spiritual ancestry was somewhere linked with the revered Baba Farid Ganj-e-Shakar of Pakpattan and hence he was named after the master saint of the family. It is the metaphysical understanding which talks of reality as the divine essence and removes the difference between Ahad and Wahad and one and many that constitutes the doctrine of ‘oneness of being’ ( wahdat al wajud ). Diwan-e-Farid is a testament to the details of wahdatal wajud and its refinement and exploration by a mystic in the late nineteenth century. Thus, Khawaja Ghulam Farid is a natural inheritor of the message that was spread by Baba Farid, Baba Guru Nanak, Bhagat Kabir, Tulsi Bhagat, Bulleh Shah, Madhu Lal Hussain and others in the spiritually fertile plains of an otherwise arid Punjab. Qaiser has enriched his translation of the Diwan by contributing an erudite introduction and competent translations of 272 kafis (short poems). Each kafi begins with a short introduction setting the tone and mood of the particular poem and then ventures to present simple renditions that touch the hearts of readers. For instance, the verses in kafi number 83 are translated as follows:

I am asking a cleric, Brahman and astrologer to divulge on the moment of union,

When will my beloved visit my courtyard?

The grief of disunion is highly vexing.

In the translated kafis , the metaphor of Rohi – the vast boundless desert of Cholistan and beyond – and Punnal (a folk lover) repeatedly emerge as appropriate expressions of Khawaja Farid’s poetic muse. Kafi number 94 deals with the frenzy of love that leads to the mystic lover reaching infinite heights. The proximity of the beloved, as Qaiser tells us, makes one ‘gaze inwardly’ where there is no otherness or outwardness. ‘All is the abiding and everlasting face of the beloved. The soul realizes the spirit. To constantly find one’s beloved within one’s self is a unique experience.’

There is no one except my charming beloved; this is the frenzy of the lovers. There is hither nor thither (except my beloved). Such is the frenzy of the lovers.

Qaiser, in his introduction, makes the following observations: ‘The modern man is fast losing his intimate contact with nature, which is bringing life weariness. He has no understanding of the cosmic book written in a universal language. He misses the sunrise or a sunset in the spaciousness of the desert, a full moon and a starry heaven in the pitch of darkness in the mountains. The reality within in each one of us longs to witness nature through our eye. Isn’t He hidden in our eyes? Let us find Him within ourselves while sitting in the lap of nature.’

Shahzad Qaiser’s musings are pertinent for they usher the reader into a journey of how self-exploration and seeking knowledge about one’s self is the key to connecting with divine reality. This is why the translations of the Diwan-e-Farid are earthy and homely. They lack the erudition of an outside Western scholar, or of an arrogant orientalist. Instead they have an immediacy and understanding that can only be nourished when one has attempted to seek the path of love and divine grace.

Khawaja Farid’s best-known kafi – also rendered rather remarkably by Pathanay Khan – is ‘ maida ishq vi tu ’. Qaiser’s translation is quite simple and appealing, ‘ You are my love. You are my friend. You are my way. You are my faith. You are my body. You are my spirit. You are my heart. You are the spirit of my life. You are my first, last, inward, outward, visible and the invisible .’

The conclusion of the kafi is also meaningful where Khawaja Farid says that if the friend accepts you then you are the sovereign, otherwise a mere mortal, if not accepted by the Beloved, remains an ordinary lover bereft of reality and devoid of possibility.

My personal favourite is ‘ hun mayn Ranjhan hoi ’ – a kafi that plays on the irrelevance of a dichotomy and the urgency of a divine union.

‘ Now I have become Ranjhan. The polarization has been withdrawn (by the self). My heart ultimately became united with whom it cultivated love. Heer, the daughter of Choochak, reached such sublime heights. If you sacrifice yourself for the sake of love then you will also be transformed from Heer to a diamond (will become priceless by the process of alchemy)…I remained solely in the world without otherness. Farid! He always remained victor who found this secret (realized himself in fullness) .’ As Qaiser reminds us, metaphysical realisation is the process of crossing the bridge and reaching the spirit, which is, so to speak, the “supreme identity’.

As the Holy Quran has indicated ‘Withersoever yea turn, there is the face of God.’ From Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) onwards, all the seekers of divine beauty and love have yearned for the ultimate station in life – annihilation of one’s self in the glory of divine fire. Khawaja Ghulam Farid’s soul- stirring poetry articulates the core messages and meanings of Islamic Sufism in our local context. This is why the Sufis have been harbingers of love, peace and universal tolerance. It is a shame that in present day Pakistan, mullahism and the recent cancer of Talibanisation are gradually eating into what had kept us intact as a society. This is why the translation of Diwan-e-Farid and the accompanying metaphysical discourses are timely efforts to spread this message far and wide, especially for those who may not be familiar with Seraiki.

Raza Rumi is a development professional and a writer based in Lahore. He blogs at www.razarumi.com