When Sun Meets Moon

Gender, Eros, and Ecstasy in Urdu Poetry

Scott Kugle

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781469626789
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

The two Muslim poets featured in Scott Kugle's comparative study lived separate lives during the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries in the Deccan region of southern India. Here, they meet in the realm of literary imagination, illuminating the complexity of gender, sexuality, and religious practice in South Asian Islamic culture. Shah Siraj Awrangabadi (1715-1763), known as "Sun, " was a Sunni who, after a youthful homosexual love affair, gave up sexual relationships to follow a path of personal holiness. Mah Laqa Bai Chanda (1768-1820), known as "Moon, " was a Shi'i and courtesan dancer who transferred her seduction of men to the pursuit of mystical love. Both were poets in the Urdu language of the ghazal, or love lyric, often fusing a spiritual quest with erotic imagery. Kugle argues that Sun and Moon expressed through their poetry exceptions to the general rules of heteronormativity and gender inequality common in their patriarchal societies. Their art provides a lens for a more subtle understanding of both the reach and the limitations of gender roles in Islamic and South Asian culture and underscores how the arts of poetry, music, and dance are integral to Islamic religious life. Integrated throughout are Kugle's translations of Urdu and Persian poetry previously unavailable in English.

Chapter One: Celestial Bodies Seen from Deccan Soil

When Abraham observed the moon ascend, he said, “This is my Lord!” But when it set he said, “If my Lord had not given me guidance, I would surely be among those who are astray.” When he observed the sun rise, he said, “This is my Lord—this is greater than all others!” But when it set he said, “O my people, I do not equate God with anything as you do.”

—Qurʾan 6:76–79

Shah Siraj and Mah Laqa Bai were poets in the eighteenth-century Deccan, but they were Muslims first. This initial chapter will explain how Islam developed in the Deccan, because religion and region shaped these poets’ experiences of gender, sexuality, and poetry. It will illustrate the development of Islam in various contexts, including religious, social, and literary contexts.

Celestial and Terrestrial Contexts

The Qurʾan declares that the sun, moon, and stars are not divine, challenging the old gods of earth, water, wind, and fire. It tells the story of Abraham—the archetypal monotheist—rebelling against his father and tribe. Ostracized for rejecting their idols, he wandered in search of a true deity. He observed the stars, moon, and sun yet rejected each in favor of a singular immaterial God. The Qurʾan uses both narrative and poetry to convey its message through the story of Abraham and many subsequent prophets, including Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Poetically it argues that all things, including the sun and moon, worship God, who creates and sustains them. In worshipping the one God, each being acknowledges its ephemeral nature while reaching in humility toward the one who is eternal.

As the people of ancient cultures, like the Arabs, Persians, Africans, Berbers, and Turks, increasingly converted to Islam, ancient deities of the moon and sun were displaced. To reinforce the idea that the sun and moon submit to the monotheistic faith, Muslims told of miracles by Muhammad and his closest follower, ʿAli ibn Abi Talib (died 661). The Prophet pointed to the full moon and it split, demonstrating his mission to the pagan Arabs; the Qurʾan refers to this event when it recites, The time drew nigh and the moon split in two, but when they see a miracle they turn aside muttering, “Clearly it’s sorcery” (Q 51:1–2). ʿAli caused the sun to reverse its course after he missed the time for afternoon prayer because the Prophet had fallen asleep with his head cradled in ʿAli’s lap; the sun moved back across the sky and gave ʿAli a second chance to fulfill his obligatory prayer.¹ Rather than propitiate the sun and moon, Muslim worshippers were to imitate their qualities: their submission to God’s will, moving invariably along a determined path, serving with inerrant timing and exhibiting patient endurance in constant motion. Bowing in submission, people on earth could find the balance, dynamism, and harmony displayed by the heavens and its illuminated celestial bodies.

Muslims brought a religious message and also engineered a political revolution. Uniting various nations and tribes under one religion created a force that was political and civilizational. It elevated one book—the Qurʾan—as sacred above all others but also encouraged literacy and scholarship, creating a veritable explosion of the written word. Over time, military conquest matured into stable administration and urban prosperity, which promoted courtly love and the literary pursuit of beauty. Whether strolling in a garden, engaging in repartee at a tavern, or reciting at nighttime gatherings, poets kept their divans handy. The divan was a collection of poetry, especially the short lyrical love poems called ghazals, the symbol of cultivating a refined romantic and spiritual personality.

Mah Laqa Bai and Shah Siraj both compiled poetic divans. Yet before examining the poems and personas of Shah Siraj and Mah Laqa Bai, we have to understand how their Islamic society in the Deccan was formed. The terrestrial context will extend into three long-duration views: first, a view of Islamic civilization in South Asia from the perspective of religious history; second, a view of gender and sexuality in Islamic cultures from the perspective of sociology; and third, a view of love poetry from the perspective of comparative literature with a focus on Persian and Urdu. We could call these three different views “rites for sects,” then “rhythm of sex,” and finally “rhymes in sets.”

Religious Context: Sectarian Competition and Coexistence

Muslims forged their new religion into a city-state, then a commonwealth, and then an empire. The Prophet Muhammad first ruled as mediator, religious guide, and lawgiver at Medina. He and his companions then formed a commonwealth that united Arab tribes along with former slaves and clients, including as allies some Jews and Christians, some of whom later converted to Islam. Within three decades, a faction led by the Umayyad Arab clan claimed the right to rule Islamic domains as an imperial dynasty, expanding its boundaries of control, fostering interregional trade, and generating enormous wealth for an aristocracy that accepted their terms.

However, this faction’s success in empire building engendered conflict in theology as well as in politics. In the beginning, the Prophet, who spoke for God, brought the divine presence directly into the community and inspired unity among fractious tribes. But Muhammad’s death created a deep crisis. Senior male followers selected a caliph (khalifa or “authoritative follower”) who would rule, perpetuating an Arab tribal custom of electing an elder male leader. Four consecutive caliphs guided the nascent Islamic community through rapid expansion while factions formed through tribal chauvinism, regional power, and personal enmity. After a complex struggle, a governor of Syria took power as a king, setting up his family as the Umayyad dynasty. This usurpation led to sectarian formations that persist today. Many Muslims accepted the king as providing stable continuity, while others rejected his unjust usurpation of power that betrayed the Prophet’s teachings. Some abhorred kings but feared politics and so turned toward morality. Each reaction gave rise to a different kind of Islamic practice.

Those who accepted kings who took power by fiat evolved into a sectarian allegiance called Sunni (which is short for Ahl al-Sunna waʾl-Jamaʿa). They asserted that an elected caliph was legitimate and that kings were acceptable if they enabled Muslims to live securely and fulfill their religious duties. Sunnis accepted kings as a necessary evil and focused on building a system of Islamic moral order called shariʿa. Those who rejected the dynastic usurpation developed into a sectarian allegiance called Shiʿi (which is short for Shiʿat ʿAli). Shiʿi loyalists asserted that only members of the Prophet Muhammad’s immediate family should lead. They held that the Prophet designated his cousin and son-in-law, ʿAli, to be leader in both spiritual and political affairs. Members of the Shiʿi community developed a devotional ethos and theological outlook linked to their political dissent, asserting that the light of guidance that provided Muhammad with charismatic authority and intuitive knowledge was passed on genealogically. From the descendants of Muhammad’s daughter Fatima (died 632) and her husband, ʿAli, one male in each generation was to be designated as the imam who perpetuated the Prophet’s charisma. Some Shiʿi groups rebelled against rulers they saw as illegitimate and many of the imams were martyred, and so the Shiʿi community formed a vibrant minority with many varieties in devotional life and theological discourse.

In the face of opposition and rebellion, Muslim kings claimed to rule on behalf of the caliph, whom they upheld as a political pawn.² This concession created a stable pattern of governance for many centuries, producing an affluent urban society under an expansive empire, but it did not live up to Qurʾanic ideals. Shiʿi rejection and calls for justice highlighted the system’s inequities but did not resolve them. Suppressed rebellions caused schismatic differences within the Shiʿi community, which fractured into competing factions. The largest Shiʿi community is called the “Twelver” group or “Imami” Shiʿis, who believe in a lineage of imams descended from ʿAli through twelve generations.³ Twelver Shiʿis believe that the imams were created from one preexisting light and through them the universe came into being and is sustained.⁴ They are the most excellent of all beings after the Prophet Muhammad and are superior to angels and previous prophets; they are immaculate and protected from sin.⁵

Some Muslims tired of political wrangling. They preached detachment from worldly ambition in order to draw closer to God through personal piety, mystical contemplation, and communitarian living. This movement was advocated by ascetics, philosophers, and mystics who were eventually called Sufis. The term Sufi has various etymologies: it could mean an ascetic who wears rough wool, or a sage who loves wisdom, or a contemplative who seeks ecstatic experience. Sufis created a subculture based upon a charismatic teacher (spiritual master or shaikh) who imparts the inner meaning of Islam. Sufi practice of Islam was not defined by political domination or messianic justice but rather by a constant struggle to stay conscious of the presence of God in all situations—in work as well as in prayer, in enjoyment as well as in suffering. Eventually, Sufis organized themselves into discrete communities with different methods of practicing Islam with a mystical orientation. Once so organized, Sufis could occasionally influence politics and social norms and thus were not individual quietists, such as the label “mystic” might imply.

Both Sunni and Shiʿi Muslims were drawn to Sufi practices. Sufi lineages included as spiritual masters several of the Prophet Muhammad’s family members who were considered by Shiʿis to be imams. Sufis shared with Shiʿis the concept that the Prophet was more than a mortal human. Both groups believed that he was also a spiritual principle: he was imbued with divine light through which God created the world. After the death of the Prophet’s material body, his presence lives on through the divine light that shines through his closest followers, the imams for Shiʿis and the saints (awliya) for Sufis. In the medieval period, political events led Sufis to identify mainly with the Sunni sect, while Shiʿis began to distinguish themselves from Sufis.⁶

The esoteric teaching of Sufi masters filled a gap in Sunni communities, as the caliph system lost ideological force and political persuasiveness and actual power devolved onto regional sultans (meaning “authority” or ruler by might rather than by any divine right). Many Sunnis were attracted to Sufi leaders as “spiritual kings” whose prayers and devotions helped to prop up the “worldly kings” who ruled by violence and coercion. Sufis built a powerful institution called a tariqa (sometimes translated as “Sufi order” or “brotherhood”). Multiple orders proliferated, spreading variations of basic Sufi practices of prayer, meditation, music, and ecstatic devotion. After Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century, many Sunnis looked to Sufi leaders as anchors of the Islamic social order because strongmen, chiefs, and kings came and went in quick succession. In response, many Shiʿis of the Twelver community disparaged the term “Sufi” as a marker of a mere subculture aligned to Sunni interests. Yet mystical concepts and practices advocated by Sufis were cultivated by many Shiʿis under a different name—not Sufism but ʿirfan, or “mystical knowledge.”

In short, there were different orientations within Islam broadly categorized as Sunni, Shiʿi, and Sufi. Sunni and Shiʿi were sectarian groups, whose split was over political issues, social allegiances, and theological assumptions. The third group, Sufi, was not a sect but rather a mystical movement. This movement was found mainly among Sunnis but shared many concepts with mystical currents among Shiʿis. This background is important for the history of Islam in the Deccan, where all three groups were found, and each has played important roles, interacting with the others in complex ways.

Sufism in South Asia was largely shaped by the Chishti Sufi community. Khwaja Muʿin al-Din Chishti (died 1236) brought Sufi practices from Afghanistan and settled in Rajasthan. He taught that a Muslim should cultivate magnanimity like the sun, generosity like a river, and humility like the earth. Three generations later, Nizam al-Din Awliya (died 1325) systematized the core practices of the Chishti community, centered on ascetic renunciation, focused meditation, popular poetry, and devotional music. He sent his delegates to all corners of the Islamic empire ruled by the Delhi sultans, who controlled large tracts of South Asia. His disciples included courtiers who were the best poets of their age, like Amir Hasan Sijzi (died 1336) and Amir Khusro (died 1325), who left a literary and musical legacy that continues today.⁷

In the fourteenth century, many poets, administrators, and scholars moved south to Dawlatabad (a fortress town close to Awrangabad), sparking a florescence of Islamic devotional and artistic activity. Nizam al-Din sent disciples to Dawlatabad in the Deccan region, most notably Burhan al-Din Gharib (died 1337). The poet Amir Hasan shifted south and became a devoted follower of Burhan al-Din.⁸ Chishti Sufis set the tone for popular religious piety among Sunni communities in the Deccan due to their admirable ethics and their lyrical activity.⁹

By the sixteenth century, the Deccan region split into five states ruled by Muslim kings (Bijapur, Golkonda, Khandesh, Ahmadnagar, and Berar) and one state ruled by a Hindu king (Vijayanagar). The king of Golkonda, Sultan Quli Qutb-Shah (ruled 1518–43), declared Shiʿism to be the official faith, buttressing his independence from the Sunni dynasty in Delhi. He fostered cultural and commercial relationships with the Shiʿi Safavid dynasty that ruled Iran. The Qutb-Shahi dynasty of Golkonda imported prime ministers from Iran, such as Mir Muhammad Muʾmin (died 1625), an impressive scholar-administrator who helped to design the new city of Hyderabad in 1592. The Qutb-Shahi rulers expressed Shiʿi piety in building shrines dedicated to Hazrat ʿAli, Imam Husain (died 680 at Karbala), and other Shiʿi heroes and heroines. Sufi masters’ tombs and Shiʿi relic shrines were important sites of religious devotion and had intense syncretic potential. Hindus engaged in worship there in an Islamic environment, transferring Hindu practices onto Islamic foci of devotion.

As Islamic communities expanded in the Deccan, they witnessed a variety of sectarian, theological, and political movements. Initial conquest was by the sultans of Delhi, Sunni warlords who saw Islam as submission to God and obedience to rulers. Sufis promoted communi...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures, Maps, and Photographs
• Acknowledgments
• Translation and Transliteration from Urdu and Persian
• Introduction
• 1 Celestial Bodies Seen from Deccan Soil
• First Orbit Siraj the Sun
• Second Orbit Mah Laqa the Moon
• Conjunction—When Sun Meets Moon
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks