History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c38.s4: §6. Sarmad the mystic.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c38.s4
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§6. Sarmad the mystic.
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A heavier punishment fell on the renowned Sufi ascetic best known by his poetical pen-name of SARMAD† (or Chief). This man was born of Jewish stock at Kashan in Persia and made himself a scholar (rabbi) by the study of the Hebrew Scriptures. Then he embraced Islam and, taking the name of Muhammad Said, cultivated Islamic philosophy under two renowned professors in Persia. Coming over to India, like so many other Persians, as a trader, he met at Tatta a Hindu lad named Abhay Chand, with whom he was so infatuated that he gave up his business, became a naked faqir, and induced Abhay Chand to be his disciple. The youth was carefully instructed by him in the Pentateuch and the Psalms, and even translated the first few chapters of the Book of Moses into Persian. Then Sarmad went to Haidarabad in the Deccan (about 1647); but as the wazir Shaikh Muhammad Khan did not help him to have audience of Qutb Shah, he came back in disappointment to Delhi, where Dara Shukoh made much of him and introduced him to the favour of Shah Jahan. The prince used to pay frequent visits to the naked *faqir* and listen to his teaching of Sufism.
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∗ Tarikh-i-Kashmiri by Azam, 121a—122a. The saint had offered adoration to the rising sun by sending to Aurangzib a laudatory quatrain containing the date of his coronation. (K.K. ii. 78.) But he could not escape so easily.
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† The fullest account of Sarmad is given in Dabistan 194-196, which should be supplemented by selections from his poetry as given in Madhodas's Bustan-i-marafat, Indian Antiquary, 1910, 121-122, and (a few) Aqil Kh. 89-90. His life and execution, Aqil Khan, 89-90; Storia, i. 223 (as Dara's favourite 'atheist'), 384; anecdotes recorded in Ind. Antiq. as cited; Bernier, 317 (beheaded for "his obstinate refusal to put on wearing apparel"); M.U. i. 226-227 (useful). J. A. S. B. 1924, pp. 111-122. He was buried north-east of the Jama Masjid, Delhi.
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Sarmad was a pantheist, and his smooth-flowing verses breathe not only the mystic fervour of the Sufi, but also a lofty spirit of catholicity which rises above the wrangle of sects and adores the truth inherent in all creeds. As he taught his pupil Abhay Chand to sing,
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"I am a follower of the Furqan—a priest, and an anchorite;
I am a Rabbi of the Jews, an idolator and a Muslim!"
And again,
"In the Kaba and temples alike they preserve
only His stone and His wood.
At the one place *He* takes the form of the 'black stone'
[ adored at the Kaba ]
and at the other *He* becomes the idol of the Hindu."
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His attitude to Muhammad was one of deep respect. He extolled the Arabian Prophet as a latterday Joseph, a more weighty Sun; "Muhammad is to Joseph what the red rose is to the yellow; he is to the Sun what a heavy thing is to a light one." But, on several points of Muslim theology and tradition, his opinions were unorthodox. For instance, he taught that the Old Testament denies the prophetship of Christ, and that the words in the books of the Prophets which the Christians take as referring to the coming Messiah are either applied by Daniel and Isaiah to their own selves, or bear a palpably different interpretation from that put by the Christians. And, again, he held that the advent of Muhammad as a messenger of God is not foreshadowed in the Talmud, but that the Jews are there warned against accepting his faith or joining his followers; that Muhammad was the Scourge of God prophesied in the Pentateuch as coming in future to chastise the sinning children of Israel; and that circumcision was an exclusively Jewish sacrament to which the Muslims had no right.
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Others of his opinions were equally novel. "God," he held, "is a *material* substance according to the Jews, and His materiality is symbolized by a human figure and body. At times He diffuses Himself like the separate rays of the Sun....The reward of good deeds and the punishment of sins take place in *this* world. A man's soul is born again after a period of sleep exactly as long as his last life; life in the world and repose in the grave alternate exactly like day and night....Every element that exists in the universe, is present in the human body....There ought to be, according to the Jewish religion, a living Prophet always present in the world to give currency to the Law of Moses.''
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Sarmad used to go about stark naked. As an uncompromising Monist, he denied the existence of Matter, and felt no shame about anything pertaining to his body. He justified his imitation of the state of innocence in respect of dress in the very words of his contemporary, John Milton :
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``He who invested thee with the king's crown,
Clad me all in the garb of distress.
He put dresses on all whom He saw sinful ;
On the sinless He conferred the robe of nakedness !''*
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In support of his conduct he appealed to a Talmudic tradition that the Jews before the time of Moses wore no clothing and that the Prophet Isaiah himself in his old age used to walk naked.
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A bench of Muslim theologians sat in judgment over Sarmad and doomed him to death ``on account of his nakedness,'' as Aurangzib's servant Aqil Khan Razi says, or because frequently words opposed to the Holy Law were uttered by him,"* as a Hindu writer 80 years afterwards affirmed. But Sarmad's refusal to cover his lower limbs could hardly have been the ground for passing the death sentence on him, because we read of no Hindu Naga *sannyasi* or Jain Digambar monk being beheaded by order of Aurangzib for the same offence. The real reason was political; as even a modern apologist of Aurangzib† admits, "His friendship for Dara Shukoh, whose accession to the empire he is said to have foretold, made him politically a suspect."
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∗ *Cf. Paradise Lost*, iv. 313—316. ``——Dishonest shame of Nature's work, honour dishonourable, Sin-bred, how have ye troubled all mankind With shows instead !''
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† Maulvi Abdul Wali, who defends Aurangzib's religious policy and asserts that "the stupendous fabric of the mighty empire of the Mughals fell rapidly into pieces, after his death, not because of Aurangzib's intolerance, but because of his sons' and grandsons'
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Sarmad mounted the scaffold singing extempore verses in a lofty strain of Sufism, and laid his head down on the block rejoicing that the body, which had so long hindered the union of his soul with the Beloved, was at last being removed by the friendly agency of the sword! With his last breath he sang,
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"My friend, the naked sword, has come! I know Thee, in whatever guise Thou comest!"
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Some years afterwards another execution for religion is recorded. On 3rd November, 1672 a Shia named Muhammad Tahir, an officer of long standing, then acting as *diwan* of Hasan Ali Khan, was beheaded, because he had cursed the first three Khalifs, and the Censor had demanded his death in accordance with Canon Law. [*M.A.* 120.]
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∗ Anand Ram Mukhlis, tr. by Irvine in *Indian Magazine*, 1903, p. 120.
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In 1667, a Portuguese friar who had embraced Islam and then reverted to his old faith, was put to death at Aurangabad for apostacy. [*Storia*, ii. 159.]
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The Bohra sect have a tradition that their spiritual guide, Sayyid Qutb-ud-din of Ahmadabad, was killed with 700 of his followers, by order of Aurangzib.* We know from the Persian histories that there was a bloody feud between the Shia and Sunni sections of the Bohras, and also that the influence of the governors of Gujrat used to be directed to the repression of the Shia Bohras, who enjoyed toleration only when the subahdar happened to be a Persian or Shia himself. Aurangzib would naturally have supported the policy of persecuting these heretics (*rafizi*).
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impotency and inability to support it." (*Ind. Antiq.*, 1910, p. 120). The author of the *Masir-ul-umara* also holds, "In truth the chief reason of his execution was his companionship of Dara Shukoh. Otherwise, [why did not the Emperor punish] the naked fanatics and foolish babblers like him who wander in every lane and bazar?" (*i*. 227).
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∗ *M. U.* i. 241; *Mirat-i-Ahmadi*, 377; *Bom. Gaz.* i. pt. 1, 288.