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| 16 April 2005 | Saturday | 06 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426 |
Shah Hussain’s poetry panacea for worries, says scholar
ISLAMABAD, April 15: The message of Shah Hussain’s poetry is universal love, fraternity, equality and peaceful co-existence and it still possess remedy for most of our socio-economic ills.
Prof Sajjad Shaikh said this while delivering his paper on “Shah Hussain - The Red-Robed Saint” at TVO here on Friday. The event was organized by the Islamabad Cultural Forum.
Mr Shaikh said Shah Hussain should be studied in the backdrop of the Mughal emperor Akbar’s era in which he lived. In his poetry, he said, one could find traces of Akbar’s liberalism with his all-embracing religious doctrines and policies, Bhugti Tehrik, Vedantic Mysticism and the impact of Guru Nanak’s Movement on the Indian masses.
Though, he said, Shah Hussain’s views were coloured by his contemporary cultural and social ethos, his philosophy had a universal appeal and was relevant to our own age because it could not be confined to a particular period of history.
He said Shah Hussain’s verses depicted a bitter criticism and unequivocal condemnation of the centuries-old feudal system as well as its chief traditional supporters and the yes-men - the Mullah and Qazi - who represented corrupt judiciary and religious orthodoxy.
These negative characters, he said, had been condemned in Shah Hussain’s poetry both in plain and indirect language as well as in the garb of poetic devices.
He said the poet used animal imagery and symbols like crows, kites, vultures, monkeys, foxes, wolves, vipers and serpents to highlight the cunning nature, cruelty and monstrosity of these negative characters.
“Shah Hussain is different from other mystics whose main concern is union with the divine merely through renunciation. According to Shah Hussain, the ultimate union with God is possible through grace but in order to be eligible for the divine grace, man must perform good deeds,” Prof Shaikh said.
Born in Lahore in 1538 to Shaikh Usman, Madhu Lal Hussain, popularly known as Shah Hussain, was a rebel. Once Mughal emperor Akbar called Shah Hussain and wanted to test his spirituality by giving him a bottle full of wine, Prof Shaikh said.
He said the saint filled eight bowls out of it and offered them to the emperor one by one. Akbar sipped a few drops from each bowl and was astonished to find that each of them contained a different drink such as water, milk, honey etc.
Science, Prof Shaikh, said had conquered time and space but the distance between human hearts was increasing day by day. In the age of industrialisation and supremacy of machines, people had become machine-like in their approach to their fellows, while the insatiable lust of the big businessmen and industrialists for wealth had carried them far beyond human values resulting in the break-up of humanitarian and social bonds.
During the past three decades, he said, a sincere attempt had been made to revive Shah Hussain’s works, which was a significant step in the right direction to recapture our lost identity and heritage.
Ishfaq Saleem Mirza of Islamabad Cultural Forum said the great mystic must be analysed in the social context of his own age.
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