Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c5.s1.99

c5.s1.99

But the weak points of the Sufi were some practical and unavoidable considerations. If logic was in his favour, the power of the whole of organized society was at the call of the Sultan, and available to support a man of the world. What, for instance was his solution of the bread problem, the inexorable necessity of sustaining oneself from day to day? The fanatical Sufi replied that if the means of subsistence and the providing of worldly needs rested with the Sultan, he would rather go without them than accept them from, what he considered, a tainted source. He looked upon the money coined in the royal mint as taboo and almost as poison. “If a single copper of the Sultan” so runs the argument of a Sufi as reported in the pages of Amir Khusrau “mingles with a hundred other coins in the keeping of a darwish, that one single copper instead of being purified by its association with others, was sufficient to pollute all of them”.³ The profession of arms was always attractive to the Muslims and the followers of the Qur'an, but the ascetic extended a similar prohibition to the following of it, for was it not accessory in establishing the great evil of the temporal power of Islam?⁴ The explosive and combative passion of this class of people once found expression in the Mahdavi movement under the Afghans (as in the Wahabi movement during the last century), and was more or less foredoomed to failure. Theirs is a tragic though sublime passion which manifests itself now and then in different parts of the Muslim world. The martyr's crown keeps the flame of religious purity burning in every clime and the fading vision only reveals the deep emotions of the human soul. But the Muslim world was hardly better for all these erratic passions. The 'Ulama, whatever their spiritual significance, did lend a hand, and perhaps not unsuccessfully, in helping the advancement of Muslim society in Hindustan, instead of harnessing all the religious passions of the Muslims, to impede its progress. Their close contact with politics widened their narrow and religious outlook; so that some of them did not hesitate to compare the service of mankind with the worship of the Divine. In explaining the religious duties of a monarch, the saint Hamadani of Kashmir does not forget to include even such minor items as the security of highways from robbers and thieves, the construction of bridges over rivers, and the erection of watchposts, etc.¹ all of which is very different from what was and is even now expected of theologians and religious men. If the 'Ulama were not bold enough to stop the Muslim State from taking the course it had adopted, at least they did not deprive Muslim society in an alien land of their measure of contribution in building up Muslim culture.