Part II | Was Rishism an answer to Mullaism?

In this cycle of historic change, Bulbul Shah, Taj-ud-Din Simnani, Mir Hussan Simnani, Mir Ali Hamdani and Mir Muhammad Hamdani played a pivotal role. But in the galaxy of missionaries, Mir Ali Hamadani stood at the top like a shining star in the sky.

He outshined them all in his comprehensive understanding of human nature, world affairs, scholarship, jurisprudence, economics and other attainments. His popularity soared terribly for his being a harbinger of eventful changes in Kashmir which made him to be addressed respectfully as Shah-e-Hamdan, Amir-e-Kabir etc.

   

He helped the nascent Kashmir monarchy in many ways. He achieved peace between Sultan Qutub-ud-Din of Kashmir and Sultan Feroze Shah of Delhi which was of course the need of the hour as the Sultanate was in its critical phase of evolution when it couldn’t afford to become entangled in skirmishes and wars with the powerful Delhi Sultanate.

His Zakhirat-ul-Muluk, a treatise on politics and social relationships was acclaimed as a divine guidance for building up a vibrant Kashmir Sultanate with a sound leadership and efficient and effective bureaucracy to oversee the works of public utility, arts and crafts, education, law and order and spirituality.

Kashmir continued this magnum opus by enlarging and promoting the role of its Sultanate which in the process created a distinct class of powerful people who gained considerable ascendancy over the natives in every sphere of life. They deviated from their mission, abandoned the path of Shah-e-Hamdan and gave up completely: filling Kashmir’s ideological vacuum, cultivating its spirituality, enriching its value system, augmenting its cultural stockpile, ensuring the welfare of the poor, and dispensing justice to the public. Instead they resorted to satiating their own lust for power and riches and pursuing their personal interests in open violation of the following Quranic verdict:

“Who amasses wealth, counting it over, thinking that his wealth will make him live forever. By no means! He shall surely be cast into the crushing torment. Would that you understood what that crushing torment is like. It is Fire kindled by God. Reaching right into the hearts of men, it closes in on them from every side in towering columns”.

Such a growing acquisitiveness and consumption was bound to create an ugly environment in which-as a contemporary chronicler, Srivara says-:

“accepting bribes was considered a virtue, oppressing the subjects was regarded wisdom, and addiction to women were reckoned happiness”.

A heinous wholesale corruption permeated Kashmir to devastate its forces of production. It led to oppression and exploitation which in turn bred abhorrence and aversion. Aversion inspired resistance which found its outlet in Rishims that was profoundly articulated by Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Noorani (Nund Rishi), the popular saint and a public intellectual par excellence. With his rational mind, humanistic outlook and poetic disposition, he awakened people’s consciousness, and created in them a sense of social responsibility, honesty, simplicity, compassion and collectivity. Also he inculcated in them feelings of love, brotherhood and that of repugnance for those who indulged in corruption and conspicuous consumption, and mistreated others on the basis of caste, occupation and religion; laying, thereby, the foundation of a Parallel Rational Culture whose essence is amply borne out by these words:

Avarice makes you blind,

Money makes you a merchant;

Worldly needs force you

Toil from dawn to dusk,

While you close your eyes

From the treasures of wisdom.

Through his poetry, he warned the upholders of Property Culture, and seekers of life’s riches and luxuries by misusing their position and skills that:

You seek knowledge for life’s comforts

And envy one another

And take pride

In being superior.

But in the hereafter

Salvation lies in store

For one in a million.

He actually and explicitly enunciated a Parallel Culture of Rationality, Simplicity, Spirituality and Honesty to replace the ever growing Culture of Acquisition, Deceit and Discrimination represented by the royalty, elite and bureaucracy.

Pushing rapidly through the crowd, Rishi Culture embarked upon cutting at the roots of those who had been enrolled from among the locals as disciples by the emigrants to create for themselves a support system to strengthen their hold on the alien terrain. Creating a class of their own, these acolytes were called Pirs/Mullas whose households had been inundated by the Culture of Acquisition. They had assumed such an importance as religious preachers in the society that it had become essential for Kashmiris to: pay them obeisance, seek their mercy and intervention in diseases and ailments, feed them occasionally on Khatam-e-Sharif, offer them hadiya for taweez and ritual acts of bellowing breath for eradication of disease and expulsion of evil from the body of the sick. They had, thus, added one more spoke to the unstoppable wheel of exploitation and coercion. In their sudden paroxysm of superiority complexe, arrogance and greed, they would often rebuke people for no fault of theirs. Noorani exposed their hypocrisy, and lashed, scolded and reproved them with harsh criticism:

Your rosary is like a snake, You bend it only on seeing your disciples. You have eaten six plates of food, one after another,

If you are the Pir, then who are the robbers.

Likewise, Rishims did not close its rational eyes to the acrimonious atmosphere created by the individual seeking and cruelty of Suhabhatta (a neo-Muslim and Regent and Prime Minister of Sultan Skindar) against his former co-religionists. It raised its voice against his viciousness and rancour. Noorani’s personal intervention in the Prime Minister’s discriminatory policy, persecution and impiety against Hindus and their gods, goddesses and temples elicited a wicked response from Suhabhatta. He imprisoned the Rishi saint.

However, the two cultures did not always get embroiled in conflicts and feuds. They would rather unite behind benevolent Kings like Zain-ul-Abidin to fight together against the evil. Such Sultans were conscious enough to realize adequately the necessity and efficacy of both these cultures for social engineering of their societies. They manifested in abundance the traits of Rational Culture whose zest for social good was always reignited on the return of the apostles to the society to enlighten its members after having themselves withdrawn from it for their personal enlightenment. So greatly was Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin influenced by their culture that he left no stone unturned in making the best times possible in Kashmir under the collective wisdom of Rishi saints including Lal Ded, and, thereby, becoming the Badshah. Not bearing the hegemonic character, acquisitiveness and notoriety of emigrants, he and Sultan Hassan Shah wasted no time in turning them out of the Valley, making it virtually a Resh Waer in whose praise Abul Fazal wrote:

“Kashmir is a sacred land. Here Rishis, Sufis and men of piety worship the Almighty and spend their life in seclusion”

Emperor Jehangir described it as:

‘the paradise on earth of which priests have prophesied and poets sung’.

However, the weak successors of Badshah brought the emigrants back and consequently they swooped over Kashmir, according to a contemporary Chronicler, Srivara:

“in legions like the aquatic birds quite famished repairing to a lake.”

They were ultimately subdued by the natives in the battle of Zaldagar.

Dr. Ahad is an author, and historian

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.

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