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IZAT-E-WARIS

Chapter III

Haji Saheb was possessed with the Divine Idea that he had practically lost all self consciousness. It is remarkable that he never mentioned his own name. Nor did he  ever write it with his own hand. It may be taken as an indication of the fact that he ahd so effaced himself as to be unconscious of his own existence as a separate entity. "in that state" (that is, Fana) to use the words of Imam Ghazali, "man is effaced from self so that he is neither conscious of his body nor of outward things. Even the thought that he is effaced from self should not occur to him. The highest state is to be effaced from effacement". This was doubtless the state which Haji Saheb had reached. "The man that knows God best", said Zunnun Misri, "is the one most lost in Him".

The inward bent of Haji Saheb's mind prevented him from holding him long discourses, and this accounts for the lack of any systematic teaching for which we search in vain in the record of his long life. He was one of those saints whose thoughts are altogether absorbed in the contemplation of the Majesty of God and have no room for anything else. His biographers have, however, collected some of his percepts, a few of which are:

· Divine love cannot be acquired. It is a gift of God.

· There is no method in love.

· Distance does not count in love. If you love me, I am with you even if you are at a distance of thousands of miles.

· Love is akin to faith

· The universe is governed according to the sentiments of the lovers of God.

· Do not carry your want before God even if you are starving, for He knows everything.

· Real worldliness is forgetfulness of God.

· A true faqir is never in want.

· Islam is not identical with faith.

· Remain always the same.

· What you do once, continue to do it.

· Trust in God. If you rely upon Him truly, you need not worry about your daily wants.

· Faith should be free from doubt.

· Not a breath should pass without remembrance of God.

· It is no use going to the Kaaba for those who cannot see God here.

· The same God is to be found in the mosque, the church and the pagoda.

· God does not live on the empyrean. He exists everywhere. One who cannot see God in this world is blind.

If your love is true, you can see God, for you cannot love without seeing.

 

The last two may not inaptly be compared with the concluding words of St. John's First Epistle:

"Beloved are the sons of God…. we know that when He shall appear ….. we shall see Him he is".

These maxims only point to the transcendental doctrine common to the majority of the Sufis that God alone has real existence. Everything else is non ens. This is a great controversial point between the Sufis and the theologians, there being disagreement among the Sufis themselves. A section of them is opposed to the pantheistic view that "all is God" and believes in its reverse the "God is all" and accounts for the universe as a manifestation of His various attributes, though acknowledging that the whole creation is bound in one definite and consistent unity. There seems, however, nothing heterodox in the Sufistic view which is supported by the following  verse in the Holy Quran. The Almighty said, addressing the angels, "When I have made him (i.e. man) complete and breathed into him of My Spirit, kneel before him". (Part XIV, Chapter XV). There are more than one verse to this effect in the Holy Book. For those who believe in it, no further proof is needed of the fact that this "quintessence of dust" has within him the Divine Spirit. How strange that the pagan philosopher, Epictetus, should have exclaimed hundreds of years before the Book of God was revealed: "Thou art a piece of God, thou last in thee something that is a portion of Him. Unhappy Man! Thou bearest about with thee a God and knowest it not!".

It is the realization and development of the divine element of one's nature which the Sufis aim at. Sufism is essentially a cosmopolitan creed, but Haji Saheb enlarged its bounds to the extent which it had not known before. He admitted freely into his order men and women of every religion, caste and creed. He declared openly that Muslims and Hindus, Magians and Christians were all one in his eyes. In his presence one felt truly the touch of nature which makes the whole world kin.

There are three important schools or monastic orders of Sufis, namely Qadriya, Chishtia and Naqshbandia. Haji Saheb belonged to the first two. Unlike other Sufis darweshes he did not initiate people privately. He had different formulas for members of different faiths. When initiating with Jews and the Christians he used the following words:

"Mosses, Christ and Mohammad are all three apostles of God. If you do not believe in any one of them, do not speak ill of him. Abstain from unlawful things".

According to the Holy Quran, God made no distinction among the Apostles. His teaching was, therefore, based entirely in the word of God. It will not be out of place to refer here ti another verse in the Book which says that "the nearest in friendship to Muslims are those who call themselves Christians, for they have among them (learned) priests and monks who behave with humility". (Part VI, Chapter V). Every Christian ought to read these lines. In view of the past conflict between Christianity and Islam, it is high time that Europe rose to the realities of the moment and revised its knowledge of Islam by proper study and by casting off old prejudices and wrong notions disseminated by ill-informed European writers especially Missionaries. Will a union between Islam and Christianity be a great political asset, is a question for European statesman to consider.

To the Hindus he said:

"Believe in Brahma. Do not worship idols. Be honest". With him there were no distinctions if meum et tuum. Thousands of Hindus, including Sadhus and faqirs of different panths, paid homage to him and entered his order. He always welcomed them in these words:

"You and I are the same". He recognized God in every individual, because he had first realized Him in himself.

He did not ask non-Muslims to abjure their religion. On the contrary he advised them to follow it with greater zeal and sincerity. For those who belonged to any profession or trade, he often added a few words of advice which had a bearing on their individual calling. If any person showed an eagerness, after the pledge had been taken, for a religious life and chose to retire from the world, he was given a tahband (a garment similar to his own which has come to be recognized as the badge of the order) and received some verbal instructions, with the direction to leave for some far-away place where he was to stay and go through the prescribed course of training. The ascetic discipline which the novices were required to undergo was the hardest ever known. For example, one was asked to keep his eyes open which meant that the man was to deny himself solace of sleep for the rest of his life. Another man was directed to give up all kinds of food and to live on such fruit as he could pick up in the jungles. After a certain period he was only to smell the fruit when there was a craving for food, and at the final stage he was to content himself with simply looking at it. The teaching was not the same for everyone. It varied according to the capacity of the individual. As a rule for those who invested with the garb of the order were given a nick-name. It will not be out of place to refer in this connection to a ceremony originated by Haji Saheb's disciples. When a new ahram was brought by ay any one of them, he was requested to change, and the one he had on was taken away by them. It was held in such deep veneration that it was impossible for any one to get the whole ahram. It was torn into pieces which were distributed as relics. The avidity of his disciples to possess themselves of these relics was carried so far that on same occasions he had to change several times in the course of day. The ahram was sometimes brought before him to the accompaniment of music.

His disciples may broadly be divided into two classes-the Khirqa Posh (those who embraced the ascetic life) and the "Men if the World" (those who adopted his doctrine but made no ostensible change in their ways of life). The Khirqa Posh may again be subdivided into those who were considered to be fully qualified and received the ahram and those who assumed the garb of the order without permission and were quite innocent of spiritual training.

 The "Men of the World" outnumbered the Khirqa Posh. His biographers confess their inability to estimate the number of his disciples, as they are scattered all over the Asiatic continent and parts of Europe. Haji Saheb did not invite or persuade any one to enter his order. He was adored wherever he went. The extraordinary spell exercised by him not only on the popular mind, but on the rich and poor, the educated and the uneducated alike, can only be accounted for by the principle that if you would have all the world love you, you must first love all the world. The railway stations and streets of the towns which he visited were thronged with crowds. It is said that on the occasion of his first visit to Darbhanga there was such a rush in the house where he was staying that one of the doorways collapsed and he was moved to another part of the building. The initiation occupied the whole day and yet the crowd did not seem to thin. When he left the place about 10,000 people followed him. He stopped in the way and desired that his palanquin be placed on a raised piece of ground so that the people may touch it in token of their being included among his followers. On another occasion the crowd was so dense at a railway station that no one could pass through, though everyone wanted to be near him to be initiated. He looked around and said "You all are my disciples, go". A departure was made from the ordinary method of initiation when the crowd grew too thick to permit every person being formally initiated, and a rope or a sheet was held out, the far of which people were required to touch.

Of his European disciples who had received some training, three were known as Walayti Shah. A strange story is told about of a Spanish nobleman of the name of Count Galarza who came all the way from Spain to pay a visit to Haji Saheb and to be initiated in his order in London. A disciple of Haji Saheb who was interested in spiritualism made an exhibition of his powers. They were often thrown together, and the Count hearing if the greatness of his saint set his heart on seeing him. An interview was arranged through a Muslim student (another disciple of Haji Saheb) who was returning to India after being called to the bar, and the Count arrived in Deva eventually. In the course of the interview Haji Saheb said to him:

"You have come and are united with me. Blessed be your coming. You and I shall be there together".

The Count appears to have been well satisfied with the result of the interview, for on his way back he wrote from Paris to a member of his order in Deva to the effect that he perceived how the Saint had been with him in the Divine path from the first to the last.

There has not been a prophet or saint since the beginning of the world who has not had his opponents and whose conduct has not been the subject of adverse criticism. Despite his saintly life and Catholicism, Haji Saheb was not regarded as model of orthodoxy by a certain class of Muslims who were inclined to be pharisaical. The main charges against him were that he did not say his prayers regularly (i.e. five times a day) and that he admitted all sorts of people into his order who, owing to the want of proper teaching, displayed great laxity in the performance of religious duties. The first charge arose partly from "odium theological" and partly from misapprehension. It is true that Haji Saheb did not say his prayers like ordinary Muslims but he did so at times. There is absolutely no evidence of the fact that he ever departed from the recognized tenets of the faith. He held fast by the book of God, and if he did not outwardly observe the letter of the law, it was because he remained always in mantic state. According to the Sufi doctrine, a Sufi darwesh while in the state of sukr (intoxication) is exempt for the time being from the religious obligations, imposed on those who are in a state of "sobriety". The term "intoxication" is applied to a God-intoxicated man and is used to denote the rapture of love for God – a state in which all human attributes are annihilated and one sees nothing but God. "When the gnostic's spiritual eye is opened, his bodily eye is shut". Haji Saheb has himself put it that he could not with propriety address Him, as if He was absent, and go through the pretence of saying his prayers. He disliked all formalism and seemd to agree with great Rumi who says:

"Fools exalt the mosque, but ignore the true temple in the heart".

A reply given by him to a theologian on the same point was typical of him:

"If anyone sees God and kneels before Him, he is called a heretic, but those who kneel without seeing are described as true believers".

As regards the second charge, it must be conceded that his readiness to take men of all creeds into his order strikes one at first sight as an innovation or a departure from the established practice; but it is only a proof of the higher powers of his mind. Besides being a sign of great sage, it goes to show how far he excelled other Sufi darweshes in breadth of vision and was the first to open the gateway to Sufism so wide as to admit into it people of different faiths. He stands unique in this respect among the members of his fraternity. Like Christ who ate with plebeians and sinners, Haji Saheb took the good and the bad alike into his fold.

Those who are true to the Highest within them can call forth the good in each individual who is brought into contact with them. He taught by example and not by precept – by living the life and not by dogmatic teachings as to how it should be lived. In life, as in art, the only profitable method of teaching is by example. Our Prophet exemplified in his person what he preached and the same is true of his predecessors, Moses and Christ. He impressed on his disciples the fact that one should pray to God for the sake of praying and not with a view to any future reward. It is difficult to conceive of a higher standard of religious teaching. It may be said that the ideal placed before his disciples was too high to be attained by the average man. It is impossible, however, to comprehend the vast moral amelioration effected by his teaching.

Haji Saheb never claimed any extraordinary powers for himself, but there are innumerable instances on record of his healing the sick with a glance or by a touch things done in the ordinary routine of life seemed to order on the supernatural. Once on his way to Bahraich he wanted to cross the Gogra, but no boat was available at the ferry. He decided to swim across the river with his companions who were in a state of terrible fright and reluctant to follow him; but they were astonished to find the water only knee-deep when they got in and simply waded through. What was a matter of everyday experience for those who lived in his company may sound incredible now, namely, that his feet never showed any sign of dirt though he always remained barefooted, nor did they leave any mark or impression on the carpet when he walked into a room. Most people did not believe it. Some of them invited Haji Saheb to their houses to try the experiment. They had the floor spread with white linen and had the ground in front of the house well watered. To their great surprise they failed to discover any mud stain on the linen which, to be sure, was carefully examined as soon as he was gone.

When a man identifies himself with God the powers of God are manifested through him unconsciously. In the degree the human will is transmitted into the divine will and acts in conjunction with it does it become supreme. According as the effects produced by the powerful soul are good or bad they are termed miracles or sorceries. These souls differ from those of the ordinary people in three ways:

1. What others only see in dreams they see in their walking moments

2. While the wills of other people affect their own bodies a saint by will – power can move extraneous to himself.

The knowledge which others acquire by study comes to them by intuition. God has said "My servant seeks proximity to Me that I may make him My friend; I become his ear, his eye and his tongue".

 

Haji Saheb's life reminds one in an obscure way of the life of Christ. Some authorities on Sufism hold that a Saint sometimes takes one of the apostles for his model and concentrates his attention on certain aspects of life till he has absorbed in his own person some of the excellences of that particular apostle. They thus speak of willayat-i-Ibrahimi, willayat-i-Eeswi, willayat-i-Mohammadi, etc. There is nothing incongruous in the idea that Haji Saheb should have followed the example of Christ who had marked spiritually, inasmuch as the Prophet of Islam combined in his person all the powers and goodness of Mosses and Christ in addition to his own. If a Muslim saint has something of the Christ in him, it may safely be inferred that apart from being a true follower of Islam he possess in an eminent degree of qualities attributed to Christ. After all the "sons of desert" and their descendants bear a greater affinity to Christ than his followers in Europe. One of the peculiarities of such a saint is that he can influence his disciples as well as other people spiritually by a touch of his hand or his garment. This seems to account for peculiar method of initiation introduced by Haji Saheb, namely, the fact of a novice being required to touch the hem of a garment or the end of a cord passed round to him. He often expressed his satisfaction by patting one on the back or giving mock blows.

The Hindus regarded him as an incarnation of Sri Krishna while some of his great contemporaries looked upon him as a perfect image of his prototype, the ancient Sufis. All of them acknowledge his superiority. It will be sufficient to give the following extract from the opinion of one of his contemporaries, namely Maulana Shah Mohammad Akmal Afandi of Baghdad:

"Haji Saheb has no equal in this age. The degree of gnosis attained by him is unsurpassed. I have seen a number of Darweshes and Shaikhs and have traveled much, but I have not come across on who could approach him".