Preface: The Blessings of Travel, and a Lament for Delhi

Preface: The Blessings of Travel, and a Lament for Delhi

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

"O God, You alone we worship and You alone we ask for help; praise be to You, Lord of the worlds; have mercy on us, O Most Merciful of the merciful; and blessings on Your trusted Messenger, and peace on his pure family and his rightly guided Companions, may God Most High be pleased with them all." [TN: in Arabic in the original]

A quatrain:

If I am on a journey, You are my companion on the road; [TN: this quatrain is in Persian in the original]

if I am at home, You are the guardian of my home.

In short, wherever my way may pass,

I have no refuge but You.

After this, the poor and humble servant of dervishes, Muhammad Akbar Abul-Ulai Danapuri, may God forgive his sins, son of my master and lord, the pilgrim of the two holy sanctuaries, Sayyid Shah Muhammad Sajjad Abul-Ulai, son of Maulana Sayyid Shah Turab-ul-Haq, son of Maulana Sayyid Shah Tayyibullah the Veiled, *qutb* (spiritual axis) of his time, son of the *qutb* of his age Maulana Aminullah the Martyr, son of the guide of the horizons Maulana Munawwarullah, may God sanctify their secrets, submits to the blessed attention of the readers of this treatise that everyone knows how unstable the world is; the truth is that here there is not even time to draw a breath straight. By the author:

We had only just come and sat down in the gathering of life

when death came, and did not even let us shift our knees.

The noble Messenger, our master and lord Muhammad, the Messenger of God, God bless him and his family and Companions and give them peace, has said, in a noble *hadith* (saying of the Prophet): the Messenger of God, God bless him and give him peace, said, "What have I to do with the world? I and the world are only like a rider who rested in the shade of a tree, then went on and left it." [TN: quoted in Arabic in the original] Translation: His Holiness says that such is the state of the world: I and the world are nothing but like a rider who came tired from somewhere, rested in the shade of some tree, and left that tree behind and went on. God, God! Such was the narrowness of the world in that age which was all happiness and goodness, and now we are thirteen hundred years away from that age. A quatrain:

The world does not become the object of one who seeks the faith; [TN: this quatrain is in Persian in the original]

the lover of the one does not become infatuated with the other.

The show of the age does not weigh on the heart of one who knows;

a mirror does not grow heavy with the reflection of a mountain.

How beautiful a parable God, exalted be His glory, has given in His holy Word of the instability of the world and of His own power and will, so that reading and understanding it brings on a kind of intoxication; and why should it not, when the words of kings are called "the king of words", and this is the holy Word of Him who created kings and seated them on the throne of empire. Praise be to God for His goodness. And that holy Word is this: God, blessed and exalted, has said: "The likeness of the life of this world is as water that We send down from the sky; the plants of the earth, of which men and cattle eat, mingle with it, until, when the earth has taken on its ornament and is adorned, and its people think they have power over it, Our command comes to it by night or by day, and We make it as a reaped field, as if it had not flourished yesterday. Thus do We set out the signs for people who reflect." [TN: Qur'an 10:24, quoted in Arabic in the original] Translation: that is, the likeness of the life of this world, in its quick ending and its sudden turning of a rich man into a poor one, is like water: We rained it down from the sky, then the green of the earth, which men and four-footed beasts eat, came up mingled with that water; until, when the earth took on its splendour and came to its adornment, and the owners of the earth thought that now they had power over it to do whatever they pleased, Our punishment reached it, to ruin it, by night or by day, and made it like a field that has been cut, as if there had been no sign or trace of settlement there yesterday. In this way We set out by parables the proofs of Our power for those people who think and take profit from them; that is all. Exactly such is the state of this world which is called the human world: that is, a child is born, and how lovely its soft little hands and feet and innocent face seem, so that one does not want to take one's eyes off it for a moment. When the mother and father have reared and nurtured it and the child has grown and begun to walk on its own feet and to talk sweetly in its lisping tongue, the mother and father and the family begin to rejoice at the sight of it. At length that same boy grows young, strong and vigorous. One of them becomes a saint, one a scholar, one a king, one a physician, one a craftsman, one a poet, and after a little while all pass away. If the saint was a guide of others, his line endured for ever; if the scholar was an author, he arranged for his everlasting life; if the king was just, he gained eternal life like Nausherwan; and if the philosopher left teaching behind him, then, like Plato, for all his sitting in a jar [TN: the story is properly told of Diogenes], his name stayed at the head of the list of creation; and so on. Otherwise they vanished without name or trace; it is not even known that such a man ever came into the world. So, since this world is so unstable, let a man form no attachment to it; let him look at its show with an eye that takes warning, regard this world as a place of excursion, travel through it and take spiritual profit from its blessings; and while there is strength in his hands and feet let him go about and see the world, and when his outward powers begin to fail, let him sit in a corner of peace and begin to travel the stages of the spirit. By the author:

The true seeker is he whose lot is always to journey;

running water is pure: this is the blessing of travel.

For the traveller on the Path, by the firm command "Travel through the earth" [TN: Qur'an, e.g. 6:11, in Arabic], constant journeying is necessary, and he can learn the lesson of warning from this world who looks at it with eyes of thought and reflection. The wider a man's travels, the wider and longer his knowledge and researches will be:

As long as you are pledged to the shop and the house, [TN: in Persian in the original]

O raw one, you will never become a man.

One great benefit of travel for the people of the Path is this, that their hearts form no special attachment to any place. By daily travel the world truly begins to seem to them a passing inn. By the author:

Travellers have alighted in that one, and in this one, O rich man, you dwell:

the state of that inn is the very state of this mansion.

Love of one's homeland is a hard love. So much so that a prophet like Hazrat Yusuf (Joseph), on our Prophet and on him be peace, though he was for long ages the great man of Egypt, did not forget the memory of his home:

Joseph, who ruled as a king in Egypt, [TN: in Persian in the original]

used to say, "Better to be a beggar in Canaan."

Although this saying can be interpreted to mean that his love of his homeland was secondary, and that his real love was for his honoured father; otherwise the good treatment he had from his brothers at home is well known:

Run from these slave-sellers; what brothers are these?

They would sell even a brother such as Joseph.

So for the seeker travel has been laid down on this principle: that the tree of love for the homeland and its dear ones should not spread so far that the seed of love for the True Beloved is crushed in its shade. In just such a case the saying "Travel is the means to victory" holds true; otherwise the hardships of travel are no secret. Ask worldly travellers; it is of such people that His Holiness said, "Travel is a piece of hellfire." [TN: both sayings in Arabic in the original; the usual form of the second is "Travel is a piece of torment"] And among the people of the Path the benefit of travel is this: the self is disciplined, the character is purified, one learns the manners of attending on the poor and keeping company with the great, the intoxication of pride and arrogance leaves one's head; in travel one is knocked about from place to place, and there is no one to ask after one. At home those who knew him showed him a certain respect, and he had stored up a capital of self-esteem in his head; in travel that is purged. At home the great kissed his feet; abroad the seeker comes to kissing the feet of the servants of the great. Pure and of great majesty and glory is that God who has filled the heart of one of His servants with such pure thoughts:

Lowliness raises the seed out of the dust; [TN: in Persian in the original]

holding the neck high brings the target down to the dust.

He alone is a man who is humble, for he turns back to his origin, and the essential nature of every man is not to forget his origin. The proverb: "O Ayaz, know your own worth." [TN: in Persian] And it is the experiences of travel that teach a man these things. In short, the blessings of travel are countless and can hardly be reckoned. If pure and lawful food were to be had in Europe, that region would truly be worth seeing; but if anyone is for some reason unable to travel, let him travel within himself and watch the signs of God's power sitting at home. By the author:

There is a whole world within our bodies, and we are unaware;

we do not know what work God's power is doing in it.

Let not the search for the beloved of meaning slip away;

Akbar, like the breath, let there be travel while at home.

Although I have visited this blessed city several times, every visit has shown me a fresh delight. And why should it not bring fresh delight? Delhi is the threshold of the twenty-two *khwajas* (Sufi masters); it is the doorstep of the friends of God, the school of the learned, the meeting place of poets, the capital of kings, the clinic of physicians, the market of trade, the workshop of craftsmen. Where would Bombay and Calcutta find such a gathering? Calcutta is certainly a jungle of men, but all of them borrowed, that is, foreigners, and even so, where would it find men of such cut and polish? Bombay is a very large city, with buildings of eight and nine storeys, but like pigeons' coops, and the people all wild. Bombay can never have seen, even in a dream, houses as large and spacious as Delhi's. Alas for Delhi, woe for Delhi! But the truth is that even in its ruin there is charm:

The old age of the morning breeze availed nothing:

even in its disorder her tress was well arranged.

I have written a *shahr-ashob* (lament for a ruined city) on Delhi; it will not be without interest to enter it here.

A Lament for the City of Delhi

O sky, O inventor of tyranny, O cruel seeker of wrongs,

O nurse of grudges, sower of discord, patron of the base!

Your movements have their own manner, their new ways;

your crookedness is a curse, your stumble a disaster.

By your turning even the age is twisted and tossed;

no one in the world escapes your hands.

Those emperors before whom the age trembled

shake and quiver at your moves.

Such is your policy that no one has yet understood it:

even when you made peace, some evil came of it.

You picked out and ground into the dust the very ones

whom you yourself had robed with crown and girdle.

You did not let even kings live in peace:

if this one is distressed, that one's heart is restless in his breast.

Sleep does not come even in a golden canopied bed:

one fears for his kingdom, another for his life.

If on one man's head you set the saw of wrath,

on another's throat you rubbed the dagger of cruelty.

If you blew this one up with a bombshell,

into that one's veins you drove a sharp lancet.

Jackals have imprisoned the black lion of Europe [TN: perhaps Napoleon III, captured in 1870]:

what a turning upside down; how is a man to understand it?

The country too is in the same state as its kings:

the city that was so populous is a ruin today.

That building that used to talk with the sky

has crumbled away and now equals the depths of the earth.

That mansion that showed the spring of the palaces of Paradise

now has no roof anywhere, no balconies and no doors.

Where the speaking eye could not dare to make a sign,

now the noise of the rabble makes the head spin.

Where no one dared even to smile beneath his lips,

now the ravings of madmen go on all day.

That mansion where princes laid down their eyes in welcome,

now not even a sweeper comes there to sweep.

That mansion that was the place of the kings' councils,

there now a crowd of rakes mostly gathers.

That mansion whose ceilings bore gilded designs,

in that same palace misfortune has spread a thatch.

That mansion that was the house of prayer of the pious,

there now cups of rose-red wine go round.

That mansion each of whose pillars was a Raja,

alas, what has become of that house? Where are those grandees?

The Diwan-e-Khas, which is a splendid building,

monkeys run about over its walls.

The place where salutes and homage were made from afar

has become a thoroughfare for every Tom, Dick and Harry.

The place where once stood the Peacock Throne,

there now are crows' droppings and swallows' feathers.

The place where it was impossible to go even with one's head for feet,

people wander there bareheaded with their shoes on.

The place where cushions of satin and brocade were spread,

there not even a floor of sackcloth is to be seen.

The place where Rajas received robes of pearls,

in that same court there are now maunds of stones and gravel.

Where scores of chandeliers of camphor candles shone,

there now fly the sparks of heart-burning sighs.

That building famous by the name of Sheesh Mahal,

I saw its walls now lined with dust.

That very house has become today a model of hell,

where the breeze of the garden of Paradise used to blow and rustle.

Today in that house the stoves of the English are lit,

in which yesterday the censer of Qumari aloes burned.

The purity of the Moti Masjid and its beauty:

let an unbeliever see it and he would begin to recite the creed.

Now it lies desolate; there is no call to prayer and no prayer;

the tank for ablutions is dry, and the pulpit broken.

All houses gain honour from those who live in them;

when the master of the house has gone, the house is desolate.

There is a separate elegy for the bazaars,

at the hearing of which the very heart of a stone would turn to water.

In the Chandni Chowk shoulder rubbed against shoulder;

throw down a plate and it would ride on heads from end to end.

In the Chawri the goods of every country were to be seen;

merchants of the seven climes were there.

Such deft-handed craftsmen were there

as would put to shame every skilled man of Europe.

From the time of the afternoon prayer such crowds were in the bazaar

that even today the thought of it turns the heart upside down.

That shouting of the mace-bearers, the cries of the heralds,

the princes riding out on their open litters,

the young men curvetting their horses along the road,

and the horses glittering in their ornaments,

the ring of the water-sellers' cups and their jingling,

water so sweet it would shame the fountain of Kausar,

the cry of the ice-sellers that cooled the heart,

the sight alone of the *qulfi* moulds that kept one's breast moist,

the tang of the kebabs, the delight of the *kachalu*,

and the friends eating it with relish:

the throngs of friends pass again before my eyes

whenever I remember the Eid outing.

That Phul Walon ki Sair and its elegant fair:

beside its brightness the Chhatar is a dirty fair.

(Chhatar is a fair of the Hindus. It is held across the river Ganges from Danapur, and thousands of horses, elephants and every kind of costly goods are sold at it. It is a famous fair of India.) [TN: the author's own note]

The outings to the mango groves, and the king himself coming there,

the joys of the rains, the water flowing and splashing:

there was splendour in the Khas Bazaar, and the Dariba was flourishing;

Delhi was populous as long as Zafar remained in Delhi.

Let someone ask it of the hearts of the people of Delhi:

how it was plundered, what a Day of Judgement broke there.

Those beautiful ladies who had the virtues of Mary

died from fear for their honour, throwing themselves into wells.

The girls who were lost have not been found to this day;

the mother has gone blind from weeping in the middle of the night.

The brother who was parted from his brother stayed parted;

of some friends we have no news even now.

A son, broken with wounds, breathes his last;

the father is bent double, his back bowed with the shock.

The young men were hanged without crime or fault;

whoever was found to be somewhat strong was shot.

That same Sahbai, who was the master of the final word,

was killed, father and son, together.

When the people left the city at once, all in disarray,

men and women were seen tumbling over one another.

This one went to Akbarabad, that one towards Jaipur,

one to Hyderabad, another departed for Alwar.

From morning to evening the whole city was emptied,

and the army burst into the houses to plunder.

The white soldiers surrounded the king on every side

and clothed him in a coarse ochre garment.

Then the heads of the princes were shown to him as offerings;

he said, "The love of the family of Haidar has been accepted."

After that came the march towards Rangoon;

the Fort went dark, the candle of Akbar went out.

Lucknow too was ruined in the same way:

Lucknow was the body, and Akhtar was the soul of that body.

When he left Lucknow he settled Matiya Burj;

for a few days in this station the moon kept its course.

Over all Calcutta this piece of earth had the advantage:

what fell on it was not rain but pearls.

Hundreds of homeless wanderers found a home here;

the free kitchen of the table of plenty was given out at all hours.

If any needy man came here,

he was given gold coins by the handful.

Every king, indeed, is a shadow of God,

but the wronged king was in truth the shadow of the Lord.

In his reign he gave no one the order to be killed,

nor ever cast a look of anger on any criminal.

How populous this land was by that king's presence!

He has gone beneath the dust, and here the dust has begun to fly.

That land which we used to call a photograph of Paradise,

today a barren waste is far more pleasant than it.

Is it the royal garden, or some house of mourning?

The nightingales chant dirges; the buds and roses have dust on their heads.

Is it the path of the garden, or the parting of a widow's hair?

Is the tank brimming with water, or is it a tear-filled eye?

These leaves are not rubbing together in the wind:

the trees of the garden are wringing their hands in grief.

The turtle-doves sit on the cypresses crying "Where? Where?" [TN: کو کو, the dove's call, also means "where, where"]

alas, what has become of that Alexander of Lucknow?

These birds are not roosting in the trees:

they recite the dirge of the Sultan of Awadh morning and evening.

The fly of the royal kitchen wrings its hands:

where now will the sugar-eaters get their sugar?

What shall I say of the state of those whose livelihood was stopped?

They sit dumbfounded with their hands on their heads.

All the pensioners wander weeping from lane to lane;

let us see how their old age will pass now.

The anguish of the Begums, the lament of the maidservants,

the heart-burning effect of the orphans' wailing:

it was a Day of Judgement, with men and women all in one place,

and yet no harm came to anyone's honour.

In the twinkling of an eye I saw quite another state:

neither that Sultan was to be seen, nor his army.

He who used to take his ease in the cool grass-screened room

is in the grave today, and on the grave is a sheet.

Today the air of that same Machchhi Bhawan rains fire,

where yesterday the morning breeze blew softly.

The mansions are being emptied, all the houses deserted;

bundles on heads, bales loaded on carts.

This one has resolved to settle in Calcutta,

that one has rolled up his bedding to go to Lucknow.

Crowd upon crowd is going towards the west,

and ten or twenty have set out for the east.

One caravan goes to Najaf with sobs and sighs,

some set off for Medina, taking a guide along;

someone is now getting ready to go to Karbala,

another has left his house for Mashhad.

In a moment this whole settlement was laid waste;

before our eyes everyone was scattered.

When the king's shadow was lifted from the people's heads,

they all ran about like an army without a commander.

When there is no king, Akbar, why should the country not be desolate?

Even in *ganjifa* (a card game) the game goes wrong without the king.