Revolt against traditional religious authority in Islamic history

It was on a summer night of 2013 when the terrorists of Al-Qaeda beheaded one of their most hated enemies. The event was peculiar because the person they beheaded was already dead for over a thousand years. It did not matter! The terrorists descended on the statue of Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī, took it down from its pedestal and cut his head off.[1] Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī, like many other controversial figures in Islamic history, is a symbol of rebellion against the religious orthodoxy and traditional world views. The echo of revolt by many thinkers like al-Maʿarrī still survives in their respective art forms, and it still gives nightmares to the conservatives and the orthodoxy. This essay is an attempt to discuss a few of the examples of rebellion by figures in Islamic history against tradition and orthodoxy. Building on the examples of Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī and Abū Nuwās al-Ḥasan ibn Hānī al-Ḥakamī, the essay will discuss two similar voices of rebellion and resistance from the Indian subcontinent, Kabir Das and Baba Bulleh Shah.

Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī, born in the hustling-bustling and a prosperous tenth-century Syria, is arguably one of the greatest thinkers of the intellectual history of the world. Among many things, he is known for his reliance on reason and his unapologetic opposition to the organized religion. While he was young, al-Maʿarrī was struck by a disease which took away his eyesight and left him completely blind.[2] al-Maʿarrī spent most of his life in various towns of Syria, but he also visited the diverse city of Baghdad between 1009 and 1010. At the time, Baghdad was the centre of a scholarship and a breeding ground for debates and discussions among Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, Sufi and Rationalist scholars.[3] It was during this short stay of eighteen months in Baghdad where Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī created his famous collection of revolutionary verses the Luzumiyat. The philosophical and theological questions al-Maʿarrī engaged within the tenth century Iraq and Syria are so intrinsic to human nature and so relevant with contemporary challenges that they still totally arrest the attention of the reader “by their boldness and uniqueness as well as by the subdued and sober tone which pervades them”.[4]

One of the most repeated accusations about al-Maʿarrī is that he mocked the divine knowledge and established religion. The conservatives use this argument to portray al-Maʿarrī as a figure who was simply against the acquisition of religious knowledge. However, reading the works of al-Maʿarrī and digging a little deeper enables one to see that his sarcasm is “not essentially against knowledge but against the men of authority who claim that they have attained the absolute knowledge”[5]. The notion of attaining absolute knowledge is alien to him, and thus al-Maʿarrī is robust and unrepentant in his criticism against men who make such claims and consequently use their claim to legitimize their authority. Not only does he bash the clergy and religious authority for their hunger of fame and power, but he also runs away from such feats. Once a prominent figure of authority visited him and started to express his deep admiration for al-Maʿarrī and narrated many praiseworthy stories about him. “Men are jealous of me”, responded al-Maʿarrī, “that is why the spread such lies about me”.[6]

For a believer, Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī is a stray infidel because as a rationalist, nothing is above the truth revealed by reason and common sense. Consequently, when he criticizes organized religion, he does so with utmost passion and rigour. In a deeply religious environment and it a time when Ash’arites and Muʿtazilites were arguing over the issues of free will and predestination, al-Maʿarrī seeks simple answers yet the ones that genuinely resonates with rationality and reason. For al-Maʿarrī, the religious fate of a person nothing more than a mere coincidence based on the fact that he is born to a particular religion or a caste. Al-Maʿarrī asserts, “If somebody were to find that his kin were Zoroastrians, he would become a Zoroastrian himself; or, if they belonged to the Ṣābians, he would join them likewise. When someone who exercises his judgment rejects the uncritical acceptance of authority, he will only succeed in becoming weak.”[7]

For al-Maʿarrī, religion is just another form of superstition utterly devoid of reason. In his works, religion is not just a benign ideology that simply sits opposite to rationality, but it is harmful to humanity. Religion, according to al-Maʿarrī, is “a myth conceived by the ancients which is pointless and only serves the purpose to corrupt people who prey upon human stupidity and delusion”[8]. Al-Maʿarrī vividly imagines a world before religion when peace prevailed among humankind, but then with the emergence of religion, all of this changed. In his work Resalat Al-Ghufran ( epistles of forgiveness) al-Maʿarrī has displayed his exceptionally vast imagination as well as his command in sarcasm and satire. He narrates the story of his visit to the paradise where he meets many poets who were deemed infidels by the orthodoxy.[9] In paradise, he also comes across a man who lived on earth when there was no religion, and that was a golden era of man’s freedom. This was a time when “kings used to sit with their servants at the table and men everywhere were equal.”[10] But then religion emerged and

“Religion has disseminated hate among men.

Man lived in peace and understanding:

But the Apostles brought to them the impossible,

And so disturbed their soul. . . .

Moses came and laid laws,

Jesus came and put them aside,

And they say others and others will come. . . .”[11]

To a modern reader, Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī might sound like an incredible exception in the intellectual history of the Muslim tradition. Moreover, while he truly is one of his kind, al-Maʿarrī is undoubtedly not the only one who intensely criticized the traditional, orthodox religious authority. Almost three centuries before Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī, lived a prolific poet so learned and revolutionary that his legacy will only flourish in the centuries to come. His name was Abū Nuwās al-Ḥasan ibn Hānī al-Ḥakamī.

Abū Nuwās was born in 756 CE in the city of Ahvaz, current-day Iran. Born to an Arab father and a Persian mother, Abū Nuwās’s own identity as either Persian or Arab is sometimes debated amongst scholars. However, there is little doubt that “Abū Nuwās deemed himself to be an Arab poet passionately set within the Arab tradition”. [12] Regardless, leaving the question of his self-identity aside, it is safe to assume that his diverse ethnic background must have contributed in one way or the other in shaping a broader world view than some of his colleagues in scholarly circles of his time. Abū Nuwās blatantly engaged with subjects which even from a modern ‘enlightened’ definition are deemed controversial. For instance, themes like resistance to orthodoxy, the satire of organized religion and politics, homosexuality, eroticism and wine drinking, to name just a few.

The satire and the criticism of Abū Nuwās against the established norms of the society was so sharp that the tradition had ascribed Abū Nuwās with Iblees ( Satan/Devil). Such linkage does not come as a surprise as a significant part of his poetry passionately endorses pleasures that are strictly forbidden in the Islamic law such as homosexuality, wine drinking and fornication.[13] Besides, on several occasions in his work, building upon the Qur’anic idea of Iblees’s rebellion against God when asked to prostrate to Adam, Abū Nuwās as seems to show particular respect to the Iblees. For example, the khamriyyāt collection, he enters into relations with Iblees so much so that he calls him his uncle and is found asking for his help.[14]

“When my sweetheart began to spurn me

And his letters and news stopped coming,

I called upon Iblis and said to him Privately,

shedding tears by the bucket:

“Do you not see I am ruined?

How weeping and sleeplessness have emaciated my frame?

And how my ardour has intensified? Acute worry”

Diwan Volume IV, 216–7

Abū Nuwās’s work consistently screams of one theme, and that is of rebellion. Rebellion against outdated customs, rebellion against the traditions, rebellion against monotony and rebellion against organized religion. Probably that is one of the reasons why Iblees finds a special place in Abū Nuwās’s work, Iblees being the most notorious rebellion in the Islamic world. The relationship of Abū Nuwās with Iblees is anything but ordinary. There are instances when he becomes a faithful servant of Iblees,[15] and his acts such as wine drinking and homosexuality become an endorsement of his slavery. While on other occasions, Iblees is found asking for help from Abū Nuwās to spread “immorality” in the society. The relationship between Abū Nuwās and iblees is not a once sided one but seems to be based on mutual trust and loyalty. In times of need, Iblees “helps Abū Nuwās, and in return, Abū Nuwās calls upon himself and others to make obedience to him.”[16] The portrayal of such a relationship is a brave and incredibly creative way to rebel against society by associating oneself with the greatest villain in the collective imagination of that society.

In another instance, Abū Nuwās displays his most significant talent of using symbolism as a tool to further his point. In the Muslim tradition, if there is anything more dichotomous in nature, it is the relationship of Iblees and the mosque. Iblees, on the one hand, is an outcast never to be allowed God’s blessing and doomed to hell while the mosque, on the other hand, is God’s house and anyone associated with the mosque surely deserves God’s blessing. This simplistic dichotomy is much prevalent and readily accepted by the mainstream Muslim society; however, for Abū Nuwās’s creative and rebellious mind, it is not as simple as it sounds. In a rather bizarre yet interesting conversation, Abū Nuwās is found talking to the great mosque of Basra. For Abū Nuwās, the great mosque of Basra is a breeding place of immortality and a hub for the Iblees to carry on his immoral acts.[17] It is almost baffling to see such a linkage and to imagine how a mosque can be a headquarter of immorality run by the devil? This can be possible because, in Islamic tradition, a mosque is not just a place of worship but a learning centre where beautiful young boys from all around gather to learn Fiqh, Quran and Hadith and for Iblees and Abū Nuwās both, these young boys become the reason of their infatuation.[18]

Another prominent theme of rebellion in Abū Nuwās’s work is that of wine drinking poetry; an act that is strictly forbidden in Islamic law. The wine had always remained an essential part of pre-Islamic poetry. The poets of pre-Islamic Arabia celebrated wine drinking at length and with vigour in their poems. With the advent of Islam, however, wine poetry survived as a subdued theme within the qasida tradition.[19]From the beginning of the seventh century, a different genre of poetry emerged within Islamic tradition and developed into a genre of its own. This was called Khamriyyā – “a theme of wine poetry with a wide collection and literary quality and sophistication on a par with any of the other genres at the time”.[20] Abū Nuwās essentially perfected the art of khamriyyā. In his work, “wine becomes a form of enlightened self-expression, giving voice to verses of religious blasphemy, hedonism and extravagance.”[21] Furthermore, the narrative Abū Nuwās builds around wine, and the imagery he paints is an exciting work on art in itself. In most of his poems, the wine becomes an object of pleasure in combination with the beauty of, either a gorgeous lady or a beautiful young boy.[22] In his poetry, “wine is a sensuously feminine entity, and “she” is described in such a way as to combine with the cross-dressed ghulamiyya: light irradiates blindingly from both.”[23]

“Come on, pour me some wine and tell me it is wine:

Don’t pour it secretly when one can do it openly.

Don’t pour a single drop of it for hypocrites:

hypocrisy to me is mere obscenity.

A good life for a man is being drunk and drunk again:

when that goes on and on, time seems to shrink for him.

To see me sober: I would be a fraud, for sure;

to totter in a stupor: that is my neat gain.

so speak your lover’s name; no more allusions:

there is no good in pleasures that are veiled”.[24]

For centuries, both Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī and Abū Nuwās have remained great symbols of resistance to the orthodoxy, superstition and traditional norms in the Arab world. They inspired not only a generation of artists but also great freethinkers who followed their argument and pursuit. It is interesting to note that despite their heresy and bold criticism of religion, both Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī and Abū Nuwās were not subjected to direct violence. Such a direct criticism of religion anywhere in the contemporary Muslim world ( and even in the Christian world until very recently in history) would be with grave consequences. Over the centuries as the Muslim societies grew more and more strict and started to deal with the subjects of blasphemy and heresy with much stronger punishments, artists in these societies started to use their art in a subdued manner to criticize for instance orthodoxy and religious bigotry. Though these artists and great thinkers may be vastly separated by time and distance, the thematic similarities of rebellion and resistance found in their work is just incredibly exciting to study.

One such example of rebellion against religious orthodoxy in the Indian subcontinent is of the great thinker, mystic poet and saint, Kabir Das. Born to a Muslim family in a religiously volatile late fifteenth-century India, Kabir grew up preaching a message of universalism and became one of the greatest, albeit controversial thinkers of the subcontinent India. Kabir’s message was of a universal human experience that resonated with the intrinsic human nature; it was about breaking free from the strict shackles of dogmatism and organized religion that have imprisoned the human experience. Kabir was furiously critical of both Hindu and Muslim religious orthodoxy, and he openly disapproved of the clergy of both religions.

Kabir confronted the powerful Mullah[25] and Pundit[26] alike with a sharp denunciation in his poems. Kabir was gifted in memory and oration. Confident with his oral capacities, “he dismisses anything written on paper along with the self-important personage who present themselves as the custodians of those dusty documents”.[27] For Kabir, Muslim Hindu or the Yogis, all are in the same boat of ignorance and one worse than the other, and his lengthy poems hardly make any reference to the holy deities of these religions because, in Kabir’s world, all the holy deities are just hungry for blood and sacrifice.[28]

Kabir’s style of confrontation in itself is an example of sheer creativity in the art of provocation. His provocations often take the shapes of questions, cleverly injected to upset one up or pull one out. Oh Muslim, Oh Pundit – as if someone is sneaking behind and whispering in one’s ear or someone is sitting on a mountain top and screaming down at the bewildering subject. On the one hand, this style of oration creates a feeling of tension between the listener and the performer while on the other hand, the vocative creates affection. “What is your God worth?” might be a strong start of a polemical verse but putting it in the style of Kabir, “Oh my brother, tell me where did your God come from?” draws the reader, as a participant into highly charged dialogues.[29]

“Oh Qazi, what book are you lecturing on?

Yak yak yak, day and night...

If God wanted circumcision,

why didn't you come out cut?

Muslim—where did they come from?

Who started this road?

Look in your heart,

send out scouts: where is heaven?”[30]

or:

“Pundit, how can you be so dumb?

You are going to drown, along with your kin.”[31]

Kabir’s resounding criticism of the religious orthodoxy heavily relies – just like Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī and Abū Nuwās – on satire and sarcasm. He is resolute in mocking the Hindu worshipping customs of prostrating in front of “lifeless stones” and of the meaningless ceremonies of bathing in milky streams and ritualistic fasting. However, Kabir’s satire of Hindu idol-worshipping does not build upon the common Muslim criticism of Hindu rituals based on iconoclasm; instead, it is the superficial face value of the practices itself. On the other hand, the Muslim clergy, the Mullah and the Qazi are no lesser subjects of mockery than the Hindu pundits. For Kabir, the reason behind the stupidity and ignorance is not as much the personal agency but the ideologies behind which these entities hide or in some cases jump up so ferociously to defend.[32] More than the Pundit or the Qazi, Kabir’s rebellion is directed towards the claim of holy books ( Veda and the Qur’an ) to solve the mystery of human existence and condition and the issue of redemption.[33] If the mosque of Basra becomes a snare of Iblees’s cunningness in Abu Nuwa’s ideology, centuries later, Kabir will reiterate the same theme and the notion of Paradise would then become a snare set up for the greedy and delusional orthodoxy.

“Everyone speaks of going there,

But I do not know where that Paradise is!

They do not understand the mystery of their own self

And they give a description of Paradise!”[34]

There is a consistent search for a metaphysical aspect of interiorization of human experience in Kabir’s work, an emphasis on cutting ties with the superficial and pretentious rituals. In that, man needs to direct awareness away from all the qualities of the exterior world and retreat into the deepest depths of his conscience.[35] Kabir rejects all the ideologies that religious orthodoxy preaches in which God becomes an entity that is external and is obsessively fixated on the minor affairs of humanity. In Kabir’s world, if there is a God, he is in no need of the human prayers and sacrifices, the God that the organized religion has portrayed over centuries does not exist, and if there is something like God, that is the inner self of the human being.

“They say that Hari dwells in the east

and that Allah resides in the west:

Search in your heart,

search in your heart-there is

his dwelling and his residence!”[36]

Kabir’s work touched many souls and inspired many thinkers in the Indian subcontinent. One such thinker whose message was very much similar to that of Kabir was the mystic poet Bulleh Shah. Born in a small city of Punjab after almost a century after Kabir’s death, it is hard to say with certainty if Bulleh Shah was directly inspired by Kabir’s work. However, it can be said with utmost confidence that the message of peace, inclusion and interiorization Bulleh Shah wanted to spread among the everyday folks of Indian Subcontinent was almost identical that of Kabir’s.

Bulleh Shah was born to an ultra-orthodox Syed Muslim family in the year 1680.[37] This was a time when the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir was ambitiously trying to establish orthodox Islamic Law in the Indian subcontinent. It was during these harsh times and the ever-strong religious orthodoxy and prevalent bigotry against which Bulleh Shah rebelled using his poetry as a tool. Just like Kabir, in his poems, Bulleh shah dwells in a world that transcends all boundaries of gender and limitations of human experience to achieve a higher meaning in life. For Bulleh Shah, the pictures that organized religion and clergy paint are just another way to hold the greatness of human consciousness tied to the illusionary structure that has been erected by the orthodoxy.[38]

Bulleh Shah seems to be drastically disappointed and fed up with the established schemes of religion. On one occasion, when Bulleh Shah had made it clear to the society that he no longer is a follower of the strict religious dogmatism, members of his family rush to talk some ‘sense’ to him. The conversation, with a touch of tasteful satire, is well recorded in one of his Kafis.[39] The idea of a superior lineage is alien to Bulleh shah as well as the message that Bulleh Shah’s sisters and brothers so desperately try to convey to him. Bulleh shah’s reply to his kin is one that in the very next verse he directs towards whole humanity, that the quest for running after gardens and flowers in this just futile as these superficial longing will never let your true self be a free wanderer.[40]

Bulleh Shah faced great hardships for criticising the Islamic clergy, so much so that he had to face several exiles including from his hometown of Qasur. Such a strong reaction from the orthodoxy can be easily explained by studying the influence of clergy on the mainstream society in the Indian subcontinent. Nevertheless, it is easy to see from his work that Bulleh Shah was not particularly against the religious experience per se but how people with authority have hijacked religion and converted it into a specific set of rigid rules. In that, Bulleh Shah’s criticism of the Mullah is very much like Abū Nuwās’s rift with the Mullah for focusing on just the exterior wordings of the book completely ignorant of the esoteric meaning. In one of his most popular Kafis, he directly addresses the mullah who spends his whole life reading the books in search of knowledge but ultimately fails to understand his inner self. On other occasions, he goes as far as to compare the Mullahs with street dogs. Bulleh Shah argues that just like the street dogs that bark in the street just for the sake of it, the Mullah wakes up every morning and prays to God without any real connection or understanding of the divine. In that, the dogs are even better than the Mullah.[41]

“You have spent your life buried in books,

Yet you have never studied your own self.

You rush to holy shrines to play a part,

Would you dare enter the shrine of your heart

You are quick to attack the evil one,

yet pride is a battle you have not won.”[42]

Conclusion

Islamic history is full of figures who have set examples of revolt and rebellion against the traditional and religious worldviews. Interestingly, one of the most potent tools to register such revolt has remained to be the ever-alive art of poetry. The works of poetry as an example of criticism of the established norms of society discussed in this paper might have come from figures who were far apart in their own time and space, yet the thematic similarity among their work is fascinating. Poetry as a powerful art form of resistance and revolt has remained so for many centuries, it has enabled us to travel back and time and see at Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī condemning the hollow arguments of Mu’tazilites or Ash’arites, or Abū Nuwās’s bold and unshaken resolve to provoke the conservative authorities by indulging in the acts of fornication and wine drinking. The verses of Kabir have survived to tell us about the greedy Mullah and Pundit both furiously fighting to win the race drooling over the superficial blessings of heaven. While Bulleh Shah’s descriptive Kafis have painted a vivid picture of his confrontations with the Mullah who despite spending a lifetime reading books, learned nothing. What is more interesting is that despite been hundreds of years and thousands of miles apart, their message of rebellion still resonates with the contemporary reader. The message of reason, rationality, peace and pleasure still make their haters shiver in fear. It seems that the universal message of inclusion and love is here to stay through in the verses and poems, no matter how many statues are beheaded, no matter how many books are burnt.

References

[1] "Jihadists Behead Statue Of Syrian Poet Abul Ala Al-Maari", The France 24 Observers, 2020, https://observers.france24.com/en/20130214-jihadists-behead-statue-syrian-poet-abul-ala-al-maari. [2] Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, A Literary History Of The Arabs (Alpha Editions, 2019), 348. [3] Nicholson, A Literary History Of The Arab, 348. [4] Nicholson, A Literary History Of The Arab, 349. [5] Puznat Yeghiyan, "The Philosophy of Al-ma'arri", The Muslim World 35, no. 3 (1945): 224-236, doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.1945.tb02058.x. [6] Yegiyan, the Philosophy of Al-Ma’ari,224-236. [7] Abū al-ʻAlāʼ al-Maʻarrī et al., The Epistle Of Forgiveness, ( New York: New York University Press, 2016). [8] Nicholson, A Literary History Of The Arab, 318. [9] Abū al-ʻAlāʼ al-Maʻarrī et al., The Epistle Of Forgiveness Vol 1, ( New York: New York University Press, 2016). [10] Yegiyan, the Philosophy of Al-Ma’ari,224-236. [11] Yegiyan, the Philosophy of Al-Ma’ari,224-236. [12] F. Philip Kennedy, Abū Nuwās:A Genius Of Poetry (Makers Muslim World, 1st ed. (repr., Oxford: OneWorld Publications, 2006), 4. [13] Schoeler, Gregor. "Iblīs in the Poems of Abū Nuwās." Zeitschrift Der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 151, no. 1 (2001): 43-62. Accessed April 7, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/43380254. [14] Gregor,Iblīs in the Poems of Abū Nuwās, 21. [15] “I am secretly and publicly disobedient to my blamer and make my obedience to Satan my sustenance”, Diwan V, no.229 , p.184. [16] Gregor,Iblīs in the Poems of Abū Nuwās, 49. [17] Diwant V, no. 143,p.100 [18] Gregor,Iblīs in the Poems of Abū Nuwās, 51. [19] Kennedy, Abū Nuwās,58. [20] Kennedy, Abū Nuwās,59. [21] Kennedy, Abū Nuwās,59. [22] Montgomery, James E. "Abū Nuwās, The Justified Sinner?" Oriens 39, no. 1 (2011): 75-164. Accessed April 8, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/23072695. [23] Kennedy, Abū Nuwās,59. [24] G. J. H. van Gelder, Classical Arabic Literature (repr., New York: New York University Press, 2013). [25] Mullah is a Muslim cleric who holds a great position of power and authority in the Muslim Society. [26] Pundit is the counterpart of Mullah except Pundit is a figure of authority in Hindu religion. [27] John Stratton Hawley, Three Bhakti Voices (repr., New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011). [28] Linda Beth Hess and Śukadeva Siṃha, The Bijak Of Kabir (repr., New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 32. [29] Hess, The Bijak of Kabir, 26. [30] Hess, The Bijak of Kabir, 27 [31] Hawley, Three Bhakti Voices,355. [32] Vaudeville, Charlotte, and Harry B. Partin. "Kabīr and Interior Religion." History of Religions 3, no. 2 (1964): 191-201. Accessed April 9, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/1061989. [33] Vadeville,Charlotter, Partin, Kabīr and Interior Religion,4. [34] Kabir Das in Vadeville,Charlotter, Partin, Kabīr and Interior Religion,4. [35] Kabir Das in Vadeville,Charlotter, Partin, Kabīr and Interior Religion,5. [36] Kabir Das in Vadeville,Charlotter, Partin, Kabīr and Interior Religion,5. [37] Robin Rinehart, "The Portable Bullhe Shah: Biography, Categorization, and Authorship in the Study of Punjabi Sufi Poetry." Numen 46, no. 1 (1999): 53-87. Accessed April 10, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/3270291. [38] “Neither Hindu nor Mussulman let us sit to spin, abandoning pride (of religion). Neither a sunni nor a shi’a, Ihave taken the path of complete peace and unity. Neither am Ihungry (poor) nor satisfied (rich), nor naked I nor covered” : in Locana Siṅgha Bak̲h̲ashī, Prominent Mystic Poets Of Punjab (repr., New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1994), 43. [39] Kafi is a style of poetry popular among the sufi poets of subcontinent india. It mostly consists of rhyming verses around a centralized theme. “Bulleh Shah’s sisters and sisters-in-laws came to convince him. Bulleya, please do as we tell you and leave the Arain’s (his guru’s) company. You are born into the family of prophet, you are heir of Ali,So why do you ruin your family’s name like this. Those who address me as Syed, shall be condemned to hell.Those who address me as Raie, shall ride the swings in heaven.”: In Bak̲h̲ashī, Prominent Mystic Poets Of Punjab,67. [40] “If you seek the pleasure of a heaven in spring, go and become a servant of the Araiens, O’ do not ask Bullah his caste; Be thankful and be content with the lord’s creation.” In Bak̲h̲ashī, Prominent Mystic Poets Of Punjab,67. [41] “You do not sleep at night, you pray: dogs do not sleep either:they are superior to you :they keep on barking all night:and sleep finally on a pile of trash:they are superior to you” [42] Translation from : "Parh Parh Ilm : Baba Bhulle Shah (With English Translation)". Plug 'N' Read, 2020. http://plugnread.com/2012/07/poetry-of-baba-bhulle-shah/.