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B O O K S , A R T S & C U LT U R E

Soni Wadhwa / 18 July 2018 / Non-Fiction, , Reviews

“Risalo” by Shah Abdul Latif, edited

and translated by Christopher
Shackle
Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai's house in Bhit Shah (via Wikimedia Commons)

T he Sindhi diaspora, whether in India or around the world, have a warm spot for

the name Shah Abdul Latif, an 18th-century Sufi poet from Sindh, Pakistan, and a

contemporary of the better known Punjabi Sufi poet Bulle Shah.

Very little is known about Latif, except that he was a pir, or a holy man, and his

title Shah hints at his possible direct descent from the prophet Muhammad. An

ancestor of his, Shah Karim, is considered to be one of the earliest poets

writing/composing in Sindhi. Latif is hailed as Shakespeare of Sindhi literature.

Christopher Shackle’s edition of Risalo—Latif’s collection of his songs; the title

means “the message— forms part of the respected Murty Classical Library of India

published by the Harvard University Press and is an easily accessible bilingual edition

of the entirety of Latif’s works in Sindhi original and English translation.

It also comes at a special moment: at a time when Sindhi language is fast

disappearing from even the isolated pockets of several Indian cities where the Sindhis

live, and when the schools teaching in Sindhi are shutting down, the Risalo stands as a

revived icon of the esteem and the heritage of the community.

A word about Sufism and the language would be in order here. Sufism, or
tasawwuf, is a mystical tradition of Islam often quite different from what might be

considered “orthodox” practices. The movement spread to South Asia with the Muslim

conquest; its literary express came with the consequent contact with Persian

literature.

The Sindhi language’s relation with Islam goes back to at least the 9th century

when tradition has it that Quran was first translated in Sindhi. The language has more

recently been political: there was a row in the Victorian colonial period about which

script to write it in and more recently about its lack of status as an “official” language”.

In Sindhi, the Sufi message is seen at its subtlest and most powerful in the words of

Latif.

Latif’s Risalo speaks of love and the beloved and incorporates metaphors of wine

and yogic practices, highlighting traditions that belie Islam’s characterization as a

monolithic faith.

The verses or lyrics in the Risalo are grouped under

Risalo, Shah Abdul Latif,
thirty surs. While a sur is understood to be the way a Christopher Shackle (ed, trans)
(Harvard University Press,
particular raga or scale is sung, in the Risalo, the surs are January 2018)

mostly named after the theme that the majority of the

verses deal with. The surs do not come with a musical notation but the musicians

performing at the shrine of Latif sing them in specific ways. Some surs are dedicated

to regional legends like Suhini-Sahar or Sasui-Punhun. Some speak of love in general.

Some offer praise to God. But within all subsumes the idea of the beloved as God and

God as beloved. In “Sur Yaman Kalyan,” Latif says:

Mother, I do not believe those who shed tears and show people how their eyes water. Those who truly

think of the beloved do not weep or say anything.

And a little later:

If you think of being united with the beloved, then learn from the way that thieves behave. They celebrate
 by keeping awake and taking no rest all night long. When they deliberately do come out, they do not utter a

word. When they are chained together and put on the gallows, they say nothing. Although they are cut with

knives, they reveal nothing of what has really happened.

The idea of love as a silent phenomenon is not unusual across cultures but the way

it is blended here with thievery seems unique and shocking. Also unusual is the way

Latif incorporates contradictions in the way he defines Sufi ways of love and devotion:

They are grieved by being given, by not being given they are happy. True Sufis are those who take

nonexistence with them.

Latif speaks of love as suffering and pain, even in terms of violent images:

False lovers escape the arrow and never let themselves be struck. Those who make themselves a mark are

killed by the first shot.

Or:

On the field of love, do not care about your head. If you mount the gallows of the beloved you will find

perfect health.

Sufi thought and practice conceive of love as self-sacrifice. Latif spells it out very

clearly when he says that desire and death begin with the same letter. The only way to

love is be ready for death, to cease to exist, to trade with one’s head. These are the pre-

requisites to union:

The self is a veil over yourself; listen and mark this well. It is existence that stands in the way of union.

Misery, unbearably cruelty—such are the ways of love and what it demands:
 My beloved tied me up and threw me into deep water. He just stood there and told me not to get the hem of

my clothes wet.

Latif also uses local romantic stories as analogies for devotion. There is one about

Suhini who is married to Dam, but crosses the river Indus or Sindhu every night to

meet her lover Sahar. Someone from Dam’s family conspires to kill her by replacing

the pot she uses to cross the river with an unfired one. Suhini drowns but Latif uses

her journey to draw parallels with the quest for the divine beloved. The husband and

the society stand for the world that stands between Sunhini and God:

Her route lies in whichever direction the river flows; only insincere girls inspect the riverbank. Those who

are filled with desire for Sahar do not ask about entry points or landing places. Those who thirst for love

think the river is a mere step.

Loving becomes a journey and the act of pursuing the divine. Latif turns

something as illicit as extramarital love into piety. Suhini screams:

Love rages at me every day. Beloved, why do you not come and restrain it?

Besides these ways of refreshing the way trueness to God/beloved is conceived of,

there is also an element of transcending religious boundaries in Latif’s poetry. Latif

says that the practice of seeking God is not in any way exclusive to the pathways

dictated by any religious scriptures. That is why he can see what the Hindu yogis who

journey towards the Eastern sites of pilgrimages are up to:

For what purpose do the yogis follow this path? Their hearts are not set on hell, nor do they desire

paradise. They have nothing to do with unbelievers, and they do not have Islam in their minds. They stand

there saying: “Make the beloved your own.”

The way the Sufis and the yogis love is the same in this vision. Both are consumed
by a passion for the beloved and both quietly go about their business of seeking

him/her:

Ram dwells in their soul, they speak of nothing else. They filled the cup of love and drank deeply from it.

After that they closed their lodges and left. With matted braids over their foreheads, the yogis are always

lamenting. No one has ever spoken to ask what makes them grieve. They spend their entire life in

suffering.

This kind of identification and camaraderie across religious practices is not

discernible in South Asian literary traditions except, perhaps, in the work of the

Indian Bhakti poet Kabir, or Latif’s contemporary Bulle Shah. Christopher Shackle’s

translation goes a long way in reminding readers across communities that faith moves

people and torments them too in the same way irrespective of their religiosity.

The Risalo might be held as the Quran of Sindhi literature, Shackle suggests. It is

perhaps no coincidence that among the works inspirational to Latif himself was the

Persian poet Rumi’s Masnavi, which in turn is idolized as the Quran of Persian

literature.

Sindhi writing is among the least known regional expressions of South Asian

literature. This edition brings to light an important voice from an intersection of a

literary tradition and a syncretic practice. The new Risalo is invaluable for

reintroducing the poet saint’s message and creating a context for reading about the

ecstasy of divine love and revisiting the ways one can love.

Soni Wadhwa lives in Mumbai.

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Posted in Non-Fiction, Reviews and tagged India, Literature, Pakistan, Sindh.

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