Carl W. Ernst

Muslim Studies of Hinduism? A Reconsideration of Arabic and Persian Translations from Indian Languages

(2003). Muslim Studies of Hinduism? A Reconsideration of Arabic and Persian Translations from Indian Languages. Iranian Studies: Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 173-195.

Situating Sufism and Yoga

“The natives of all unknown countries are commonly called Indians” Maximilian of Transylvania, De molucco (1523)

The islamization of yoga in the Amrtakunda translations

From the beginning of Orientalist studies of the Muslim world, it was axiomatic to define certain religious phenomena in terms of their origins. Because of the tendency to view all Eastern doctrines as essentially alike, Orientalist scholars of the Romantic period invariably defined Sufism as a mysticism that was Indian in origin; from the first appearance of the term in European languages, “Sufism” was characterised as essentially Looking back at this early scholarship today, it is surprising that this unanimous belief in the Indian origin of Sufism was almost entirely unconnected to any historical evidence. From the days of Sir William Jones and Sir John Malcolm to relatively recent times, this opinion has had a remarkable longevity, despite the ludicrous appearance of some of these claims today. As an example one may consider the outrageous claim of Max Horten, in a 1928 study that sought to explain Sufism as a pure expression of Vedanta: “No doubt can any longer remain that the teaching of Hallaj (d. 922) and his circle Another pertinent example is found in an observation of William James in his 1902 Gifford Lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience : In the Mohammedan world the Sufi sect and various dervish bodies are the possessors of the mystical tradition. The Sufis have existed in Persia from the earliest times, and as their pantheism is so at variance with the hot and rigid monotheism of the Arab mind, it has been suggested that Sufism must have Jamess remark illustrates, innocently enough, how widely this opinion was shared at the time by the academic world in Europe and America. It is easier to see from the perspective of the later twentieth century that this opinion was conditioned by nineteenth-century racial attitudes as well as assumptions about the unchanging nature of religions.

The Art of Ancestry

We talk about genealogies because Sufi authors themselves do. They do so because to reiterate and retrieve and conjure a spiritual line that links the current generation to earlier generations is central to defining identity. The key link is always through the Sufi masters, the spiritual giants, who define each generation. Genealogies serialized become biographies, and in the hands of Sufi authors, biographies often become hagiographies—the lives of holy exemplars.

Modern Day Chishtis

While extensive attention has been given to the early Chishti Sufis, and even to their Mughal and colonial successors, the same cannot be said for the contemporary period. The latest period is not only treated as last, but also as least important. It is most often summarized as a “revival,” following a “decline” from the original greatness of a “classical” or “formative” period. Our own approach questions the threefold model of classicism, decline, and revival. Those who speak of a Chishti revival or resurgence too often imply that renewed attention to religious learning and the mediation of spiritual exemplars marks a new beginning, but it is a new beginning with limited horizons; at best it can imitate—it can never equal—the glory of past historical epochs.1 Hope, in this view, is limited, for while every movement must coalesce around a set of symbols and leaders, it remains reactive, a diminished response to outside, often colonial, forces. Success, too, is limited, for it depends on institution building and networking, yet rivals limit their long-range potential.

The Chishti Masters

The first Chishti shaykhs to establish their order in Hindustan (northern India) made a decisive shift from their Central Asian bearings, despite the continued appeal of that tradition for future generations. What are the primary characteristics of those early masters? Why did they become emblematic models for later generations? These are the questions that will concern us in the present chapter.

The Major Chishti Shrines

The extreme devotion paid to particular saints’ tombs is confusing to many Muslims as well as non-Muslims. It is well known that in the Islamic tradition the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca is of paramount importance, but local and sectarian forms of pilgrimage to tombs (Arabic ziyara, Persian ziyarat) are also widely practiced. Pilgrimage to the tombs of the Shi’i martyrs is an important feature of Shi’i piety, and across the Islamic world, from Morocco to Chinese Turkestan, the tombs of the saints are the resort of Muslims of many varying backgrounds.

The Core Chishti Practices

It was above all the transmission of distinctive practices that gave each order its character. For the Chishti order, this transmission included distinctive practices associated with listening to music (sama‘). But the core of Sufi transmission was the complex of prayer and meditation practices associated with the recollection and recitation of the Arabic names of God mentioned in the Qur’an.1 The term for this recitation is zikr, meaning “recollection.” Zikr is mentioned very frequently in the Qur’an, since humanity is often called upon in the sacred text to remember God and his commands. The movement toward interiorization of the Qur’an that was so decisive for the development of Sufism lent itself especially to the practice of meditation in which the names of God (traditionally 99 in number) are chanted over and over again, either in solitude or in company, aloud or silently. Both historically and in the present day, the practice of recollection continues to be a central part of Sufi practice.