Frontline
April 1999
Cover Story

Martyr for communal amity

Had Dara Shikoh succeeded Shah Jehan, Mughal history in India may
have taken a different turn

The centuries of Muslim rule in India witnessed, among other developments, the emergence of
a unique cultural synthesis, giving birth to a rich composite culture drawing upon Indian, Iranian and West Asian traditions. The origins of this cultural synthesis can be traced to the early years of the Delhi Sultanate, when the intrepid traveller, al–Biruni, on the basis of a close reading of available Sanskrit texts, wrote him famous Kitab fi Tahqiq malil Hind (Researches on India), "to acquaint", as he put it in his foreword, "the Ghaznavid rulers with Hinduism’.

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


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