Dr. Nazir Ahmad Zargar
Sheikh Nuruddin (Rahmatullahi ‘alayh), commonly called as Nund Rishi, is regarded as the founder of the Muslim Rishi movement in Kashmir. It is said that he was influenced by the local Rishis and also highly influenced by the Muslim Sufis who came to Kashmir from Central Asia and Iran. He had bay’ ah with Hadrat Mir Muhammad Hamadani (RA), son of the celebrated Sufi and ‘Alim of high caliber and benefactor of the Kashmiri Muslims’, Hazrat Amir Kabir Mir Syed Ali Hamadani (RA).
Linguistically, the word Rishi is a Vedic term, which means the seer of the supreme truth. The Rishis were Hindu ascetics who lived in ancient Kashmir and formed a mystic order. Under the guidance of his spiritual mentor, the Sheikh Islamized the local Rishi cult. The Sheikh (RA) spent 12 years in renunciation, during which he retired to a cave in Qaymuh in present-day Kulgam district of Kashmir for meditation. Thereafter, he returned to a life which Islam considers ideal in nature. He started giving attention to his wife, Zia Ded, and their two children, Hayder and Zun. He expressed his displeasure with his renunciation of the world in the following verse:
Nasar Babe jangal gachun gayam
khaemi me doup ye chhe baed ibadat
Ye aes patus baed badnaemi
sarea aes Karen kuni kath
After a short period, he finally overthrew the cloak of worldliness and divorced his wife. This was because, given his ascetic ways, he was unable to provide for his wife, children, and mother. He would remain engrossed in the thought of his Creator and the other life. It was un-Islamic to keep a family without fulfilling his duties towards them.
The Sheikh (RA) was more a Sufi than a Rishi. Notwithstanding the fact that the Rishi way of the Sheikh (RA) had a close resemblance with the ancient Hindu ascetics, but the fact is that there is a state in a Sufi’s life which is called Zuhd. The Sufi at this stage is called a Zahid – one who not only shuns unlawful things but also refrains from those things which, otherwise being lawful, act as hurdle in achieving the higher spiritual degrees).
While believing that Nafs (lust) is the main hurdle in achieving the righteous path, the Sheikh (RA) chose to be strictly vegetarian and did not touch any sumptuous dish. He lived on wild vegetables, wore ragged garments (Janda), had no earthly attachments – family, home, or property. It is perhaps in this backdrop that Hadrat Mir Muhammad Hamadani (RA) called him a Zahid.
The Sheikh (RA) being more a Sufi than a Rishi (although his being a Rishi is not denied at all) is further evidenced by the fact that he, according to Baba Dawud, was a member of the Uwaysi order of tasawwuf. It can, therefore, be said that Nuruddin Wali’s (RA) tasawwuf is the Islamized form of Rishism.
A close and careful understanding of some of the verses of the Sheikh (RA) is of significance in this respect when he, in the family tree of the Rishis, attributes his Rishism to the Prophet (SAW) himself. In these verses, according to scholars, the Sheikh’s (RA) denial of being a Rishi is his self-denial and humble nature, which is one of the most prominent qualities of the Sufis. A study of this family tree makes a common student conclude that Sheikh al-’Alam (RA) himself denied having any link with the ancient pre-Islamic Hindu ascetics. Like a true Sufi, he traces the origin of his order back to the Prophet of Islam Muhammad (SAW).
The following long passage from Professor Muhammad Ishaq Khan’s “Kashmir’s Transition to Islam” throws ample light on this fact:
“It will be seen that Nuruddin traces the family tree of the Rishis back to Muhammad (SAW) and not to any local saint of pre-Islamic times. From the Prophet (SAW) are descended Uways and the ‘legendry’ sages of Kashmir, such as Zulka, Miran, Rum and Pilas. Chronologically, Nuruddin is separated from a spiritual master by several centuries. But as one of the leading scholars of Sufism, Henry Corbin, remarks, “The events of the soul are themselves qualitative measures of their characteristic time. A synchronism impossible in historical times is possible in the tempus discretum of the world of the soul or of the Alam al mithal. And this also explains how it is possible, at a distance of several centuries to be the direct synchronous disciple of a master who is chronologically “in the past’.’
Nuruddin thus presents a kinship with those Sufis who received guidance in the spiritual path directly from the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) without having a visible guide (mursahid) like Uways. The Sufis, known as Uwaysis, owed their name to the first pious ascetic of Islam, Uwaysal-Qarni of Yemen, a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Viewed against the deeper implications of the term Uwaysi in the history of Sufism, the hagiographers attempt at tracing the spiritual links of Nuruddin with the Uwaysi Sufis does not seem to be unwarranted.”
Sufi and Sufism
In Islam theory and practice, doctrine (aqidah) and method (amal) are indissolubly connected with each other. Whereas doctrine concerns the mind and can be summarized as intellectual discrimination between the real and the unreal, method concerns the will that can be summarized as concentration upon the dhikrullah (remembrance of God). Hence Islam always engages both mind and will. The doctrinal side of Islam manifests itself in the Shahadah, the Tawhidic perception that Only Absolute Reality is Absolutely Real.
The practical side of Islam takes two forms: morality and worship. Morality includes doing of awamir or ma’rufr i.e. things that ought to be done or possessed like Iman (faith), Ikhlas (purity of intention), Sidq (truthfulness), Tawadu (humility), and not doing of nawahi or munkarar i.e. the things that ought not to be done like kufr (disbelief), nifaq (hypocricy), riya (pomp) etc.
Let’s approach this view through another angle:
The Sufi experience (spiritual method) is summarized in the concept of Ihsan, which involves, as the term itself denotes, the practice of all virtues. The Hadith defines thus: “Worship God as if you see Him, for if you do not see Him nevertheless, He sees you.”
An inward understanding of this Hadith can be that of a Sufi (or Muhsin, one who has reached the stage of Ihsan) remains either in Mushahadah, the highest stage where he perceives the truth with the eye of heart (ayn al-qalb), or in Muraqabah (meditation), a permanent state of awareness. In order with the highest degree of Ihsan, where the worshipper gets so engrossed in his spiritual experience that he feels as if he sees God, is the Mushahadah, and the lowest degree of it where the worshipper permanently feels himself to be in the sight of his Lord. This is the Muraqabah.
Mishkah quotes that angels once come to the messenger while he was asleep. They remarked: (His) eyes are sleeping but (His) heart is waking. Thus meditation in Sufism is a background for Dhikr, the principal means of spiritual realization the Holy Qur’an explains thus:
And the remembrance of God is greatest.
Al-Hujwiri (RA) says:“ When self will vanish in the world, contemplation is attained and when contemplation is firmly established, there is no difference between this world and the next.” But in the way of Muraqabah, the illusion of the ego is an obstacle. Humility and love of one’s neighbor cuts at the root of this illusion. Allah’s Rasul Muhammad (SAW) says:
You will not enter paradise until you love your brother
Faqr in Tasawwuf (spiritual poverty of a Sufi) is actually the same thing that empties the soul of the ego’s false reality. Starting from Muraqabah to Mushahadah, the Sufi then reaches Ma’rifah, the stage of recognition of the reality. That is why he (the Sufi) in the highest degree is called Arif bi-Allah (knower by Allah).
It is through the Ma’rifah that the Sufi bridges the gap between rational knowledge and revealed knowledge. Seeing with the eye of heart (Ayn-al-qalb), the Sufis see the reality behind the manifestation. Hence they are those who really see, and none else does. They are the Ulu al-Absar (those who have vision). They are the Ulu al-Albab (those who possess the kernel).
True faith always has a taste of Sufism in it. Without it belief would be mere theoretical knowledge that commits one to nothing and engages one in nothing. Hence a true and faithful Muslim always has Sufi behavior in thought and action.
In light of the above description about a Sufi’s behavior with respect to the rights of Allah and the rights of creation, Sheikh Nuruddin (RA) looks clearly different from the Hindu ascetics. He, unlike the Hindu ascetics, does not ignore social responsibilities altogether. “Unlike the Hindu ascetics, Nuruddin (RA) did not ignore society altogether. The former, while seeking union with God, placed themselves outside the historical process, which rests upon social cooperation and mutual understanding between men. Even after their return from periods of withdrawal and contemplation, the Hindu mystics remained highly individualistic in their approach to religion. And while leading secluded lives they seldom felt the need to direct or guide the society of which they were a part. Nuruddin Wali (RA), on the other hand, made his intuitive faculty serve contemporary society by the argument of word and deed. In his verses, there is an element of a dynamic inner-worldly asceticism seeking to achieve mastery not only over his individual self but also over the world around him.”
Sheikh Nuruddin (RA) criticizes the scholars, the mullahs and religious preachers and warns them to give up playing the game of hypocrisy. But at the same time, his great soul is so greatly absorbed in admonishing his nafs that this worldly life is a temporary abode. The real-life is the life hereafter. Therefore, he should not consider himself superior to anybody in the world.
Like a true follower of the Prophet (SAW), Sheikh al-alm (RA) looks to behave in the same way. He was one of the very few who have in varying measures had the luck and the opportunity of acquiring this stage of perfection, the position where all dimensions shrink to two only: intense love for man and equally great love for God, which in turn boil down finally to one i.e. in a great attachment to feel comSheikh Nuruddin’s (RA) life was filled with love and compassion for people and contempt of this world, other-worldliness, and his life was based on the purity of thought and action. Going from place to place, he preached his message against nifaq (hypocrisy), nafs (lust), hasad (jealousy), riya (show), hirs (greed), and akli-haram (unlawful eating).
Image: Mukhtar Ahmad
