Cover Story |
Martyr for
communal amity Had Dara
Shikoh succeeded Shah Jehan, Mughal history in India may The centuries of Muslim rule in India witnessed,
among other developments, the emergence of Following al–Biruni, several Muslim rulers ordered the
translation of various Sanskrit works into Persian to satisfy their own
curiosity about Hinduism and to enable Muslims to understand the religious
beliefs and practices of the Hindus. In the Mughal period, particularly during
the reign of Akbar, this process received added impetus. Akbar set up a special
institution, the maktabkhana, to arrange for the rendering of Hindu
scriptures, such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, into Persian, thus
enabling a closer interaction between Hindus and Muslims at the religious level
than had ever been witnessed before. One of the least known but certainly one of the foremost
representatives of this composite Indian religious culture that developed in the
middle ages was Muhammad Dara Shikoh, eldest son of the great Mughal emperor,
Shah Jehan. Dara was born in Ajmer in the late seventeenth century. It is said
that his birth was a gift from the famous Sufi divine of Ajmer, Khwaja Moinuddin
Chishti, at whose grave Shah Jehan had prayed for a son. From childhood itself Dara was attracted to the teachings of the
Sufis. He was initiated into the Qadri Sufi order by a famous mystic of his
times, Mulla Shah, under whose instruction he embarked on the Sufi path. Mulla
Shah was the disciple of the renowned Qadri divine, Miyan Mir, who is best
remembered today for having laid the foundation stone of the Golden Temple of
the Sikhs at Amritsar. In the course of his mystical training, Dara wrote several texts
on Sufism that are unparalleled for their breadth of vision, and, in particular,
for their concern with inter–communal harmony between Hindus and Muslims.
Underlying all his numerous writings was his firm belief that, as he quoted the
Hindu Khatri mystic, Baba Lal, as saying in his Shathiyat, ‘Truth is not
the monopoly of any one religion’. Among the many writings of Dara Shikoh, two stand out
prominently for their pioneering contribution to Hindu–Muslim dialogue, the
Sirr–i–Akbar and the Majma–ul–Bahrain. The Sirr–i–Akbar (The
Great Secret) is Dara’s translation into Persian of some fifty chapters of the
Upanishads. This work was undertaken by Dara with the help of some sanyasis
of Benaras, with the intention of discovering the Sufi doctrine of wahdat–al–wujud
(the unity of existence) in order to help both Hindu as well as Muslim
mystics. The Sufi Way Not the Pundits,
even if it be In the text of a
Puran Nor the Kazi does
who inter- prets the Quran ….. knoweth the
way. (Guru Nanak,
1469–1539) Both transcended
and the faithful behave
against their own tenets, Thus between the
Hindus and Muslims has disunity arisen. Who can make the
blind see light? (Rohal, b.1730) Is there one God
in the pee- pul tree and
another in baboll? If Islam was
created by Allah Then who created
Kufr? If Ka’ba
be the house of God Why find fault
with the temple? The same light
burns bright within the temple
and the mosque. (Sufi Bhai
Dalpatram, 1768–1842) Every community
has its own path and
faith its own way of
worship. (Shaikh
Nizamu’d–Din Auliya, 1238–1325) It is the
religions which have misled people in
the country; The Shaikhdoms
and Pirdoms have terribly
misguided them, Some people bend
in mosques and others bow in
temples But they don’t
come near Love (of humanity) (Sachal
Sarmast, 1739–1829) The grass of a
lower stock Is not swallowed
by devouring animals, See, it reaches
even the head of a King! How can mere
animals recog nise its true worth? (Nuruddin Nurani,
regarded as Kashmir’s patron saint, using an analogy where ‘grass’ implies the
lower classes and the King — God.) Here, Dara writes that the Upanishads, like the Islamic
scriptures, teach an uncompromising monotheism and that they are ‘in accordance
with or an elucidation of the Holy Quran’. He goes on to call the Upanishads a
‘divinely revealed fountainhead of monotheism’. He refers to them as ‘the hidden
book’(kitab–i–maknun), which, because of the ‘divine utterances’ that
they contain, need to be more widely understood by both Hindu as well as Muslim
mystics. Dara’s Majma–ul–Bahrain (The Meeting of the Two Oceans)
is among his most well–known books. The ‘two oceans’ referred to in the title
are Sufism and Hindu Vedanta respectively. He makes clear that at their highest
level, Hindu and Islamic mysticism are one and the same. In this regard, the
opening lines of the book are particularly striking. Thus, Dara writes, "In the
name of One who has no name. With whatever name you call Him, He lifts up His
head. Abundant praise be showered upon the Incomparable One, who has manifested
on His beautiful, unparalleled and matchless face, the two parallel locks of
Faith (iman) and Infidelity (kufr) and by neither of them has He
covered His beautiful face. Faith and Infidelity, both are galloping on the way
towards him, and are together exclaiming, ‘He is One and none shares His
kingship’. He is manifest in all and everything has emanated from Him. He is the
first and the last and nothing exists but him". Dara’s principal aim in the Majma–ul–Bahrain is to show
that he did not find "any difference, except verbal" between the Sufis and the
"Indian monotheists" in "the way in which they sought and comprehended the
Truth". He seeks to reconcile Hindu and Muslim mysticism by pointing out the
similarities between the two in their teachings on various issues. He takes up
for discussion 20 different points, including God, the Soul, the Elements, the
Communion with the Divine, Prophethood, the Day of Resurrection and so on, and
shows how Vedanta and Sufism are identical to each other. He refers to the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and
writes that they are the same as the Islamic Jibrail (the angel of creation),
Mikhail (the angel of existence or duration) and Israfil (the angel of
destruction) respectively. In his chapter on devotional exercises, he writes
that the Hindu mystical syllable Om is akin to the Persian Umanam
(He is I) which, in turn, is identical with the Sufi zikr, ‘Hu Alla’
(He is God). He goes on to add that the Vedas are a divinely revealed book,
"because, as the Quran itself says, ‘And every nation had an apostle’, for God
has sent messengers to every people". As the eldest son of Shah Jehan, Dara was the rightful heir to
the Mughal throne. However, his younger brother Aurangzeb managed to capture the
throne of Delhi by imprisoning his father, Shah Jehan. Finding Dara a thorn in
his flesh and, because of his immense popularity among both the Hindus as well
as Muslims, a major obstacle in his path, Aurangzeb decided to kill him. Accordingly, Dara was accused by the ulema of Aurangzeb’s
court of heresy and apostasy. In the inquiry that was held at the court, Dara
was accused of having renounced Islam, and his Majma–ul–Bahrain was
produced as evidence in this regard. This accusation was, of course, completely
false, because Dara’s Sufism was well within the limits of Islamic mysticism.
Notwithstanding this, Aurangzeb passed the death sentence against Dara. The Ma’athir–i–Alamgiri, the official history of
Aurangzeb, tells us that, "The pillars of the Canonical Law and Faith
apprehended great disturbances from Dara Shikoh’s life. Hence, the Emperor, both
out of necessity to protect the Holy Law and also for reasons of state,
considered it unlawful to allow Dara to remain alive any longer as a threat to
the public and to peace". In accordance with Aurangzeb’s orders, Dara was executed, a
tragic end for one of the greatest champions of religious amity that the world
has ever seen. Yoginder Sikand |