Jalaluddin

(1)

Jalaluddin could not be persuaded that day to accept his father's ecclesiastical gadee at Multan, though thousands of his followers had gathered to put him on the old ancestral spiritual throne, and were willing to recognise him as their Pir. Another day had passed in futile discussions.

"What does this gadee signify?" enquired Jalaluddin.

"This is the throne of the Pir Akbar Din which your late father occupied, shedding such lustre all around. We are his followers and we ardently wish you to occupy it now in succession," said Abindin, as the spokesman of the assembly.

"I am one of you. I too wish to follow him amongst us who knows the secret of life, of God, of man, for the gadee belongs to merit spiritual, not to a mere man. I dare not sit on it, for I am more ignorant than you all of the life of Pir Akbar Din who created this throne. I cannot occupy it," said Jalaluddin.

"But you need not know. You have the blood of the Pir in you. Your touch will give us solace. Your prayer on our behalf will be heard by your great ancestors. You are our Pir, there is no doubt. Pray occupy the throne and rule over our hearts and destinies," said Abindin.

"This is your faith, not mine. I feel he occupies this gadee who knows God, not I. Choose one who knows its secret. If my father knew the secret, he has not bequeathed it to me. I may have his blood, I have neither his knowledge nor faith, nor inner light," said Jalaluddin.

"But it is the sacred custom that the son inherits this gadee from the father. You should not annoy the Pirs,"said Abindin.

"Excuse me, I do not consider myself fit for this throne," said Jalaluddin.

By this time Jalaluddin's mother came in Purdah from behind and implored her son to accept what the faithful were saying. Their request should never be declined. She asked him not to insult the gadee. He should take it as the order of ancestors, which must be accepted.

"Pardon me, mother!" said Jalaluddin turning to his mother, "To accept this gadee for me would be a curse. It is hypocrisy to pose as the spiritual preceptor of a people, when one knows nothing more than do those who profess to follow. I see nothing superior in me, I am just as they are. Some of the old men amongst them, on the other hand, bear holy looks and some eyes gleam with the light of knowledge that I have not yet got. I cannot accept the gadee. I accept one thing, that I would go and search for the light that beamed in the eyes of Pir Akbar Din who provided this secret of Faqirs, and rest not till I either find it or die searching for it. Without that light in my eyes, without that power in my feeling, I can under no circumstances play traitor to myself and to my father and to your divine milk, my mother," said Jalaluddin.

A death-like hush prevailed after the impassioned little speech of Jalaluddin, and the mother cried behind the Purdah and the assembled people began to weep and sob.

The gadee of Pir Akbar Din was thus for the first time declined by the rightful heir and the followers were sorrowful.

Next day Jalaluddin had gone, none knew where, leaving his mother to weep for the loss of her only son, the light of her eyes.

(2)

Many people in the Punjab near Sialkot remember still a Musalman young man who wandered for months in that region embracing the road-side trees and crying, bitterly. He seldom came near the society of men. He found, it seems, better society amongst trees. It seemed the sheeshum, the mango, and the plum talked to him. He would sit for hours near the wild-grown berries, plucking red and yellow berries and playing with them. He was supremely sad. He was tall, straight like a young pine tree. His large fairy eyes that swooped up and down the space with penetrating glances, it seemed, were tearing the very veils of space to find That sitting behind the veils of nature! He had a broad high forehead where shone so pathetically beams of a noble ancestry, and as he passed, all men and women stood to look at his forehead. It had the purity of the mountain snows. His eyebrows looked like the arched doors of two mosques, and one, looking at him, almost entered as it were into sacred precincts. Though sad, starved, and perfectly self-abandoned, yet his face wore the colour of a pale rose, and there was both romance and mystery of life playing upon his face, and he knew not and he saw not that he had the whole mystery of creation in his face. He was searching for what, to others, seemed so much in his own features. The impression he gave to everybody, as everybody in India is more or less a mystic and a philosopher in one, was that a musk-deer was running wild in search of his own perfume. But he would fly away from men, for they wished to console him with vain words of philosophy. One day, in the dusty wilderness, outside Sialkot city a Musalman Sufi saw the young stranger crying bitterly, as he sat with his eyes shut, holding a sheeshum tree in his embrace and saying: "Oh Pir! Where are you? Why not come to me and light my eyes by your presence? You have given light to all your followers. Why deny it to me? When shall I see thee? And where? Where are you? Why not speak? Why does the touch of this sheeshum tree fascinate me, what is it in its touch that cools my bosom? Is it yourself in this? Are you here in disguise?" And crying and weeping thus, the young stranger fell down unconscious.

When he woke up, the sufi with his two disciples was sitting close to him and enquired what ailed him.

"Nothing, sir," said the strange young man.

"Are you in search of God?" said the sufi.

"No, sir!"

"Of His Prophet, Mohammad?"

"No, sir!"

"Of what, then?"

"I am in search of a true faqir who would come and live in my eyes, in my throat, in my heart, in my head," said the young man.

"Ah! How difficult it is to find what thou searchest. When the veil of God lifts, one finds His Prophet seated in his heart. I could take thee to God and with some effort to the Prophet, but beyond me is it to take thee to a true faqir that thou seekest. A faqir is the beloved both of Allah and His Prophet.

(3)

After years, one day, the two young Musalmans of Sialkot met the young stranger in the streets of Jammu, but how different! He had completely changed. Youth had descended on him right from heaven in its full, divine beauty and attire. He was burning like a heap of Persian roses. His tresses fell intoxicated with the joy that dwelt in his forehead. His eyes were half-closed with self-intoxication, and they were red with the inward feeling of his own beauty. He half-looked at the world outside, and met every object with a ringing laughter. He laughed and laughed, joy was overflowing the walls of the body. His presence infected all around with joy. It seemed he wore the sun as an armlet. The sky was his umbrella. He had, in the abundance of self, overflown himself and was running waste in all nature around. Looking at him, the two Musalmans of Sialkot recognised him. "He is that Shah sahib, who, years ago, embraced road-side trees and cried near Sialkot," said one.

"Quite so! How wonderfully different he is from his old self," said the other and went ahead and accosted the saint.

"Shahji! You've forgotten us," said one of the young men of Sialkot.

"Ah, no! I know, I know, you loved me once. You took me to your house and talked of God," said the intoxicated faqir and continued, "what brings you to Jammu? Come and be my guests for tonight. I live in the forest a little away from Jammu."

"No! No! Shahji. We are spoilt young men. We have come, not for forests but for cities. We are not seeking God, we are seeking only beautiful women. We are engaged to see a nautch tonight and there will be excellent music. We shall come to you when we are quite old and when we have nothing else but God to think of," said both of them together.

"My friends! Postpone your engagement tonight. Come with me. You want to hear music. I will provide you music. And you want to listen to the dancers. I will provide you the pleasure you are seeking," said the faqir.

"Why not, Nazir! Let us waste one night with Shahji and miss today's nautch party," said Gulamdin to his friend Nazir.

"No! We have seen Shahji. Is it not enough? These faqirs are great illusions. He will take us to the forest and leave us to the dreadful shadows, while he escapes into his own reveries. On the other hand, there is such good music in Jammu tonight," said Nazir.

"But, my friend! It is one day's love from you that I remember. Come with me just now and stay with me one night, and I will give you the best night of your life," said the faqir.

Gulamdin persuaded Nazir and both went along with the faqir to the forest, some five miles away from the city.

(4)

The faqir's place in the forest was a huge slab of stone. It was his roofless dwelling under the blue sky. Gulamdin and Nazir were asked to sit on the slab, and in one corner under a tree went and sat the faqir. Gulamdin and Nazir felt a bit thirsty but they saw no signs of water. Having taken a little rest by stretching themselves full on the slab, they spoke at last: "Shahji! We are thirsty."

"My friends!" said Shahji, "there are only two ways of extinguishing thirst, either by denying it or by drinking water or syrup or any such thing you like."

"Shahji!" said both "none of your metaphysics; we want fresh cold water to quench our thirst. It is so hot."

"Very well! Drink!" said Shahji.

And Gulamdin and Nazir saw two big bowls of water lying before them and they drank out of them and felt satiated. The draught was so sweet and cooling! Both of them again lay down on the slab and went to sleep. As they woke, they felt very hungry and again saw no signs of any arrangements for the evening meals."

"Shahji! We are hungry. You have brought us to this lonely place to starve us in dreadful loneliness," said Nazir.

Shahji got up and came and sat by them and said: "My friends! There are two ways of appeasing hunger, one by denying it and the other by eating bread."

"We want to eat, we have not the power to deny the hunger," said both of them.

"All right, let us eat", said Shahji. And as he said this there was a Dastarkahn before them, with the simple maize bread and a little salt and three bowls of water. As if the Dastarkahn descended from Heaven for them!

They ate of it and felt satiated.

"But, Shahji, it is now past evening, and you have brought us here to provide us music and dance, and we see no signs of a beautiful society in this shady loneliness."

"But, my friends! You wait and see," said Shahji and left the slab and went and took his seat under the tree.

The two Musalman young men, Gulamdin and Nazir, sat the whole night through under what seemed to them the dazzling light of the stars, and they listened enraptured, the whole night, to the dance and music of a hundred dancers. A hundred pair of feet with little silver anklets chimed in their ears, and a hundred love strains went deep into their soul. Their eyes were closed; they knew not if they were asleep or awake, if it was a dream or a reality, but they heard the music of Heaven that was promised them: which they heard never before, or as they related their experience on their return, they never expected to hear again.

(5)

As they got up, it was morning. They saw the faqir seated under the tree, with his head buried in his knees, and there were no dancers, nor musicians, only he was emitting the sound of "Allah-hu", "Allah-hu"–and the air was fragrant around him, all absorbed in God, and all music and all dance was in him.

The faqir got up from his reverie and they fell at his feet. He blessed them and said, "My good young men! Everything is within us. Don't go seeking God and His Beauty outside yourselves."

* * * *

It was Jalaluddin of Multan. He had grown a man, a King of himself. Truly a Shah!