Syed Afzaal Hussain Shah

Reg. Number:

Punjabi
Sufi
Poetry
MR.
 Punjabi Sufi Poetry

Punjabi poetry has its own charm. Its language is more archaic than
Hindi or Urdu; its imagery is drawn from country life and simple crafts.
One might make a comparison with the Provencal poetry of Southern
France. Provencal also is more old-fashioned than French. Its poetry
belongs to the countryside, to the farm, and tiny market town, and is
instinct with a simplicity and sincerity that is rare in the more classical
language. Panjabi poetry sings mainly of Love and God. By the Sufis
these two themes are interwoven, as is explained in the Introduction.

They begin with the second of the fifteenth century and end with the
nineteenth. In this period of some four centuries we find half a dozen
famous saints beginning with Farid, twelfth in spiritual succession from
Shakar Ganj of Pak Patan, and leading on to several others not so well
known. The greatest of them all was Bullhe Shah (1650- 1758).
Punjabi is a language written in three different scripts, i.e. Persian,
Hindi and Gurmukhi. The Muhammadans who employ the Persian
script give a Persian or Arabic character to the language, and the
Hindus who employ Hindi somewhat sanskritize it. The Sikhs, though
they sometimes insert Sanskrit words and phrases, on the whole try to
write the language as it is spoken by the masses.
By a judicious selection of extracts, carefully transliterated and
rendered in a literal but pleasing translation, the author brings out the
main characteristics of each poet in turn, both as regards verse and
style and as regards the doctrine or mystery he teaches. They vary from
the orthodox, with a strong spiritual urge towards mysticism, to the
lees orthodox and to those who so far transcend the barriers between
sects and creeds that they can hardly be designated by the
conventional man-made labels.

The history of the Punjab during these four centuries has seen many
storms and also peaceful interludes. These vicissitudes are reflected in
the Sufi poets though faintly. Yet for the comprehension of the period
an understanding of this religious development is of great importance.

In Punjabi poetry the Beloved is a man and the Lover who seeks him is a
woman. So in the Sufi sense Heer is the soul that seeks and Ranjha
represents the Divine Beloved.

The Sufis of the Bayazid School were tolerant towards all and attached
little importance to Islamic dogmas. They were, therefore, considered
heretics and were often hanged or exiled.

This alarmed the adherents of the new Sufi thought and induced them
to retrace their steps and reenter the fold of the old Sufi school The
Sufis in general were not popular with the powerful orthodox. To avoid
the fury of the orthodox and to save their lives, all the Sufis thence
forward recognized Muhammad as their ideal and tried to deduce their
thought from the allegorical sayings of the
Qur’an.
Punjabi Sufism, evidently, is a branch of the great Sufi movement which
originated in Arabia, during the second century A.H. (A.D. 800).
It differs a good deal, however, in details, from the original, being
subjected to many modifications under the influence of Hindu religious
and philosophic thought. Before following up the evolution and the
final trend of Sufi thought in the Punjab, it is necessary to review briefly
the outstanding features of this Islamic sect as it developed outside
India. Sufism was born soon after the death of the Prophet and
preceded on orthodox lines.

Its adepts had ascetic tendencies, led hard lives, practicing the tenets of
the Qur’an to the very letter. But this asceticism soon passed into
mysticism, and before the end of the second century A.H. (A.D. 815),
these ascetics began to be known to the people as Sufis.

The name was given to them because they wore woolen garments. The
term, labisa’l-suf, which formerly meant he clad himself in wool’, and
was applied to a person who renounced the world and became an
ascetic, henceforward signified that he became a Sufi. The early
mysticism was essentially a product of Islam, and originated as a
consequence of the Islamic conception of God which failed to satisfy
many persons possessing spiritual tendencies. The two striking factors
in the early mysticism, as Goldzi her has stated, were an exaggerated
consciousness of sin and an overwhelming dread of divine retribution.

They feared God more than they loved Him and submitted unreservedly
to His Will. But in the beginning of the second century A.H (A.D 815) the
Sufi thought began to develop under the influence of Greek philosophy
of Ashrakian and Dionysius.

Christianity, itself enveloped by Neo-Platonist speculations, exercised a

great influence in monastic organizations and discipline. Hebrew
philology, to a certain extent, helped the progress of the technical
vocabulary. But the Greek influence seems to have been the most
powerful, because, besides philosophical ideas, the Sufis borrowed
from the Greeks the medical science which they named yunani or the
Greek system.
Neo-Platonism developed intellectual tendencies. The civil wars and dry
dogmas of the ulama soon drove the intellectual Sufis to skepticism.
They searched else where for truth and knowledge. The search was not
in vain; and soon a new school was established, different from the one
already existing. It was greatly influenced by Persian religion and Indian
thought, both Buddhist and Hindu.

“Hereditary singers or musicians often attached to the tombs of the Sufi

saints, who recite compositions of the mystics and their own poems
Pease of the saints.”