The Mystic as Muse

Poet Amrita Pritam said it in verse,Ajj Aakhan Wris Shah Nun,Pakistani theatre director Madeeha Gauhar and Shahid Nadeem saluted them through a play,Bulha,and now,fashion designer-publisher Muzaffar Ali pays tribute to the Sufi poet saints through a coffee table book called The Sufis of the Punjab. The book,launched in Delhi a few days ago,traces the tradition of Sufism and its impact on drama,literature,architecture and other works of art.

Poet Nirupama Dutt has written about how artists like Arpana Caur and Satish Gujral have imaged the love legends of Punjab,penned in poetry by Sufis such as Waris Shah who immortalised Heer-Ranjha. Another interesting insight by Dutt is into the Sufi architecture of the state. Several poets,authors,academicians,researchers and painters,from India and Pakistan,have contributed to the book,presenting an overview of how Sufism continues to influence the cultural,literary,artistic and spiritual tradition of the Punjab. The pages are replete with paintings,sketches,couplets in Urdu (with English translations),photographs and calligraphy.

Alongside Ajj Aakhan Waris Shah Nun,Pritam’s poignant work on the horrors of the Partition,are writings on the poetry and passion of Baba Farid,Hazrat Main Mir’s mystical relationship with the Sikhs,an introduction to Peero,probably the first Punjabi Sufi poetess and Sultan Bahu’s poetry of love for the higher being,among others. Gauhar and Nadeem write about their play on Bulleh Shah in the piece,When Theatre Becomes a Shrine.

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The book represents the annual issue of of Hu,a journal of the Rumi Foundation,an organisation of which Ali is the executive director and secretary.

“A world without boundaries is a world of the Sufis. When the Sufi opened his door,people from both sides began to pour in. It was a clarion call for love cutting across the barriers of religion. And it was the power of love in its most potent form that began to unite people,” says Ali.