تصوف اورشاعری کا انسلاک:شعر درد میں معرفت الٰہی کے بیان کا کشف المحجوب کی روشنی میں تجزیہ

The Interplay of Sufism and Poetry: A Qualitative Incursion into Mir Dard’s Divine Poetics in Light of Kashaf-ul-Mahjoob

Abstract

The Muslim Sufi poetry focuses on the purification of soul, mystical contemplation of God’s nature, reverence for humanity and sensibility of divine knowledge and wisdom. Khawaja Mir Dard (1721-1785), a poet, musician and Sufi mystic of the 18th Century Delhi belonging to Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi lineage of Sufism, is an important representa-tive of this poetic tradition. His patrilineal line traces back to Hazrat Khawaja Bahaud din Naqshbandi, the founder of Naqshbandi Sufi order, and matrilineage connects him to Hazrat Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani, the founder of Qadiriyya Sufi order. Dard strongly believed that his poetry was divinely enthused through kashf (divine unveiling). Rooted in religious mission, he played a principal role in the development of classical Urdu literature. Dard wrote extensively including a collection of Urdu ghazals, a Persian divaan, a prose discourse called ‘Ilm-ul Kitaab’, a compilation of mystical sayings called ‘Chahaar Risaala’, and a book on the Muhammadi path. From an early age, he started searching for the true link of human body (self) by traversing various stages of deep indulgence and immersion. He adopted Sufi lifestyle to attain the wealth of divine enlightenment and observance of truth in such a way that his every second verse became a testimony to such Sufi inclination. Kashaf-ul-Mahjoob (Revelation of the Veiled) written by the 11th-century saint Shaykh Syed Ali al-Hujwiri popularly known as Data Ganj Bakhsh, remains an influential Sufi manual for such poetic endeavors. Kashaf-ul-Mahjoob, the earliest formal treatise on Sufism originally written in the Persian language serves as a guide to ingress the hidden world enabling to traverse the stages of awareness. Following the same path described in Kashaf-ul-Mahjoob, Dard’s poetry offers a distinct flavor of how to search divine in the human heart and the universe. This article qualitatively explores the narration of Devine message in Dard’s poetry while using the Kashaf-ul-Mahjoob as a reference point.