3.) Bhakti as a Bridge Between Hinduism and Islam: Some Complicating Considerations

It is commonplace to regard the Bhakti movement as promoting a kind of rapprochement between Hinduism and Islam. Those who do so, however, need to satisfactorily explain the following counter-illustrations.

(1) The Dādūpanthīs

Of all the Bhakti figures, Dādū Dayāl (1544-1603), is said to come “nearest to Sūfism”.[1] He may have been born in a family of recent converts to Islam but “Dādū did not find his spiritual home within Hindu orthodoxy but in the Bhakti movements that were reinvigorating the religious life of North India at the time”.[2] His teachings are collected in a work known as “Bani or inspired speech. This is revered as scripture by many sects of modern India, one of the most curious of these was a group of warrior ascetics who, in the nineteenth century, served as border guards for Jaipur state”.[3]

What is considered curious here leads into something serious. Aziz Ahmad notes:

The Dādūpanthī sect was syncretic in the beginning, one of its early exponents being Rajjabdās, a re-convert to Hinduism. Gradually it transformed itself from an esoteric to a militant orientation under the influence of the Vairāgīs and the Sikhs. Towards the end of the eighteenth century it led a predatory existence in the area around Jaipur. ‘They went into battle with the name of Dādū on their lips. But of the aims and spirit of the early movement scarcely a vestige remained.’ It is ironical that a quietist Bhakti sect which was so close to Sūfism in the mystical experience of its founder, ended up as a gang of mercenary robbers and soldiers of fortune.[4]

(2) The Maratha Saints

The history of the Bhakti movement in Maharashtra is well documented but of particular interest for the point at issue is the following statement by Aziz Ahmad:

…The Mahārāshtrian Bhakti movement centered around the shrine of Vithobā at Pandharpur. It encouraged the growth of Marāthī literature, loosened the rigidity of caste, subordinated ritual to devotion in worship and brought about a certain measure of reconciliation with the presence of Islam in India. The most influential of Marāthā saints was Tukārām (b. 1608) whose conception of God was very much like that of Kabīr and who occasionally used Sūfī terms in his hymns. And yet according to Tara Chand ‘he was a contemporary of Shivājī and one of the inspirers of the spirit which welded the Marāthās into a people’. Here we have another interesting case of Bhakti eclecticism paving the way for anti-Muslim militarism.[5]

And all this without even the name of Rāmdās being mentioned!

(3) The Caitanya Movement

Here again we have to deal with the following facts:

Popular anti-Muslim elements wove themselves into the Bhakti thought of Bengal from the very beginning. Thus, a popular legend arose about the poet Candīdās (fifteenth century), that he was persecuted by a Muslim Sultan for the love offered to him by that Sultan’s wife. It has recently been pointed out that after becoming a sanyasin, Caitānya (sic) (1485-1533) spent twenty years of his life in the Hindu Kingdom of Orissa away from Muslim Bengal. He also engaged himself actively in re-absorbing and re-converting Muslims to Krishnaite Bhakti Hinduism.[6]

(4) The Sikhs

The Sikh example of a pacific devotional sect, converting itself into a martial core, is too well known to require documentation.

All the four examples raise the point that efforts which started out perhaps as bridges between Hinduism and Islam may have ended up by becoming barriers in some way. Why?

Aziz Ahmad regards all four as examples of failures, with the Sikhs as the extreme example. S.M. Ikram is more willing to admit the role of historical events in the process with the exception of the Caitanya movement, which he considers opposed to Islam ab initio. Ikram writes:

In general the attitude of the Marthas to Muslim saints was one of respect, the most vivid example of this being the great faith Shivaji’s grandfather had in Shah Sharif of Ahmadnagar. In honor of the saint he gave his sons the names of Shahji and Sharif. While a full study of the religious and social ferment of Maharashtra in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has yet to be made; it seems certain that the new religious life did not take the form from Islam. Antagonism toward Muslims came later, and, as was the case with the Sikhs, had definite antecedents in particular historical events. The creative spiritual and literary movement provided the basis on which the Maratha nation could be built, and its emergence as the great antagonist of Muslim power in India was based on political, not religious, factors. The evidence from the songs of Namadeva and Tukaram strongly suggests that they were not reacting in any hostile fashion to Islam. For this reaction one must look to Chaitanya and the Vaishnavite movement in Bengal.[7]

This exercise remains to be completed in Medieval studies.

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[1] Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964) p. 148. For a somewhat different perception, sees Ainslie T. Embree, ed., The Hindu Tradition (New York: Random House, 1966) p. 268.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Aziz Ahmad, op. cit., p. 148.

[5] Ibid, p. 151.

[6] Ibid., p. 150.

[7] S.M. Ikram, Muslim Civilization in India (edited by Anslie T. Embree) (New York and London: Colombia University Press, 1965) p. 129.