1 - The Sahaja Islam of Nund Rishi
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2023
Summary
My son, may God hide from you the apparent meaning of the Law and reveal to you the truth of impiety! Because the apparent meaning of the Law is hidden impiety and the truth of impiety is manifest knowledge. Now therefore: praise to God, who manifests Himself upon the point of a needle to whomsoever He will and who hides Himself in the heavens and on the earth from whomsoever He will, with the result that one attests that “He is not” and the other attests that “There is only Him.” Neither is he who professes the negation of God rejected, nor is he who confesses his existence praised. The intent of this letter is that you explain nothing by God, that you extract not a single argumentation from him, that you desire neither to love him nor to not love him, that you do not confess his existence and that you are not inclined to deny it. And above all, refrain from proclaiming his Unity!: Maná¹£ūr al-Ḥallaj, cited by Michel de Certeau.
The contemporary discourses on Kashmir turn often to the idea of Kashmiri Islam as being unique and distinctive in South Asia. Such notions have appealed to Kashmiris themselves and inform articulations of Islam and Muslim nationalism in contemporary Kashmir. Even Kashmiri historians such as Mohammad Ishaq Khan who are critical of an understanding of Kashmir's pasts as “syncretic,” and not unqualifyingly Islamic, have found it difficult to reject the idea of an exclusive, even exceptional, Islam in Kashmir. The Rishi Order of Kashmiri Sufism is fundamental to these debates about a distinctive history of Islam in Kashmir. The shruks of Nund Rishi in the Kashmiri vernacular not only turn to metaphors, symbols, and events from the Qur’ān but also rely on pre-Islamic Kashmiri cultural memory at a time (the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries) when Islam was still a minority religion in Kashmir after the establishment of a Muslim ruling dynasty in the fourteenth century. The Rishi Order is recognized by most scholars of religion, history, and literature in Kashmir to have played a significant role in Kashmir's transition to Islam. The Rishi Order is also considered central to the claims of a distinctive Kashmiri Islam because of its retention of such pre-Islamic ascetic practices as vegetarianism and celibacy.
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- Nund RishiPoetry and Politics in Medieval Kashmir, pp. 51 - 130Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024