The colonial hangover, as they describe it,posited an insurmountable damage upon tradition, traditional patterns andtraditional understanding of man and universe. The leftover spirit of Socratesand Plato and the transfigured Christianity was all that west had inherited andthis was all that they kept imposing overtly and covertly on Asian and Africancountries for long dark ages of imperial era . With their colonial dominionover Asia and Africa by virtue of their material upper hand, they simultaneouslyDesolated the cultural and traditional legacy of the natives. This is the themethat has been recurrently explored by post-colonial theorists like PaulinHoutondji, Desmond Tutu, Edward Said and others. Even the “post-colonialthinkers of colonial era”, like Tagore, Comoraswamy and others questionedthis grafting of oriental narrative on native landscape. These theorists heldunder serious scrutiny the imperial and colonial constructs and brought homethe ideological perversions present therein. The colonisers, who were by andlarge westerners not only made the natives oblivion of their glorious literaryand intellectual legacy, but under the might of their material supremacy madethem to dislike it as well and to look upon it as an inherited burden. Consequentiallythe traditional wisdom remained in cold storage for long and it was not longbefore that native and foreign scholars and researchers showed serious interestin intellectual legacy of Easterners that the poets, writers and thinkers wererestored to their lost glory and light came to be extracted from theirilluminating works. One such guiding figure is Khwaja Ghulam Farid whose poetryis repository of gnosis, wisdom, spiritual illumination andintellect-traditional synthesis.
Khwaja Ghulam Farid is the poet laureate ofSaraiki language. His stature vis a vis “kafis” is same as that ofGhalib vis a vis Ghazals. His poetry emerges as a towering illustration oftraditional metaphysics. Well versed with classical religious sciences, he was,by virtue of his poetic ingenuity, able to translate the religious metaphysicsinto cultural metaphysics. In doing so he made himself not only relevant to histime and people, but more importantly he was able to resolve the stresses andstrains intrinsic to religious metaphysics. Dr Shehzad Qaisar pertinently notesin this regard that “The problem with Iqbal is that he remains atindividualistic level and does not transcend to the universal realm. He commitsa category mistake in the sense that he tries to place metaphysical truths atthe level of the mystical plane and abhors them for being pantheistic….Whereas Khwaja Ghulam Farid excels in interpreting and analysing the truth atmetaphysical level to which it rightfully belongs”.
Khwaja Ghulam Fareed’s poetry is essentiallypoetry of unity and unityism. He calls for the reintegration of man, universeand God. This reintegration shall not be merely evaluated as a theologicalpostulate but shall be seen in its broader metaphysical context. This call forunity arises both at epistemic and ontic level. The epistemic division of worldinto “Known – knower” doesn’t go well with his metaphysic. To himknowing is the process in which knower becomes the known. Seen in itsontological dimension it calls for the unity of being – a doctrine muchcherished by Sufi saints and mystics across the board. He drew his inspirationof unity of being or pantheism from the teachings of Ibn Arabi, Mansur Hallajand Bayazeed Bastami. Thus he is located at a critical junction of religious spiritualityand traditional metaphysics.
He basis his epistemological paradigm noton literary, sensual, intellectual or imaginary basis. Rather uniquely, heposits heart perception and gnosis as the ultimate and most reliable form ofepistemic experience. In his own style he goes on to take a sarcastic survey ofbooks of theology and jurisprudence, for all these books are no more thanjugglery of words. He thus advises the traveller
” So not consider kifaya assufficient. Do not consider Hidaya, as the guide. Just tear to bits the pagesWiqaya. Our heart is the immanent Quran
Heart is love and gnosis. Heart is essenceof life as portrayed in Hindu scriptures : Vedas and Puranas. Heart is theartery of universe. Heart opens to infinite depths of interiority “
Emphasis on heart as an instrument oflearning is nothing new in mystical or religious paradigm. The Quran itselfrefers to heart when describing the human receptacle of guidance. But thisheart is not to be confused with the biological organ, whose function isnothing more than to pump the blood around the body. The heart referred to andreferred by mystics and religious scriptures is a level of discerningconsciousness within the human organism, the traces of which are yet to foundby modern day psychology.
Lyricism, rhyme and rhythm is acharacteristic feature of Khwaja Ghulam Fareed’s poetry. This lyrical cadencethat lies at the heart of traditional poetry is to be seen as a reflection of adeeper underlying principle of cosmic harmony and universal theophany.Traditional poetry, as they say, is the singing cosmos. Thus the overemphasison lyricism, as we encounter in traditional poetry doesn’t come without itssubtle sub-textual import.
Khwaja Ghulam Fareed’s poetry like mysticalpoetry in general is the poetry of presence. What it means is that this genreof poetry doesn’t merely amount to commutation of words but rather opens uphitherto unknown and unexplored paradigms of existence. In his poetry werecurrently come across mention of divine and other worldliness but this divineand other worldliness is made to reverberate and reflect in the canvas and thisworld and its immanent aspects. The message of human unity transcendingreligious and cultural contours is emphasised time and again in his verses andthis message of ideological Transcendence is what our world is desperately insearch of.
Amir Suhail Wani works as R&D engineerwith S.A power utilities, besides being a student of comparative studies.