Hazrat Shaikh Yaqub Sarfi (RA)

Hazrat Shaikh Yaqub Sarfi, cousin of Baba Daud Khaki, was born in 1521 C.E..
His father, Shaikh Mir Hasan Ganai, was a nobleman in the court of the Sultan of Kashmir.
He learnt the Qur’an at home, memorising the entire book by the age of six. By eight, he had begun composing poetry, and was then put under the care of a famous scholar, Maulana Muhammad Ani, who taught him Farsi and Arabic.

After that, he studied Islamic jurisprudence, Arabic and Sufism from Maulana Mir Raziuddin and Hafiz Basir Khandabhawani.

In search of a spiritual master, he set off on a long and arduous journey to Samarqand in Central Asia (modern-day Uzbekistan), where he accepted the noted Sufi Hazrat Shaikh Hussain Khwarizmi as his pir.

After training on the Sufi path under him, he returned to Kashmir, settling down at the khanqah of Shaikh Sultan Kashmiri in Srinagar, making this the centre for his missionary work.

In 1557, when Shaikh Yaqub Sarfi was thirty-five, the Shah Miri dynasty was overthrown by the Chaks. The Chaks traced their origins to Baltistan.

Being from outside Kashmir, they were not particularly concerned, writes Siddiqui, about the welfare of the people of Kashmir.

At this time, a noted Shi’a missionary, Mir Shamsuddin ‘Iraqi, entered Kashmir and made many disciples, including several members of the Chak royal family.

A passionate Shi’a, the Chak king Yaqub Shah is said to have set about persecuting his Sunni subjects.

This caused several Sunni scholars to leave Kashmir and seek shelter elsewhere (Siddiqui, 1383 A.H. : 20-22).
As an important Sunni leader and scholar, Shaikh Yaqub Sarfi is said to have been a thorn in the Sultan’s flesh, and therefore, the Sultan plotted to have him killed. When the Shaikh heard about the conspiracy,he left Kashmir, and went on a long journey that took him to Samarqand, Iran and then finally to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, where he spent several months in the company of accomplished Islamic scholars, studying various Qur’anic commentaries (tafasir) and the Traditions of the Prophet (hadith). He returned to India later, stopping at Fatehpur Sikri, where he took initiation in the Chishti order from the renowned Sufi, Hazrat Salim Chishti, and then going on to Sirhind, in Punjab, where he instructed the Naqshbandi Sufi, Hazrat Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, in the hadith and Sufism and initiated him into the Kubrawi order.

When he finally returned to Kashmir, the political situation was grim, with the Sunnis labouring under considerable oppression under Yaqub Shah Chak.

The Sultan issued a royal decree ordering that Yaqub Sarfi should be killed for not reading the call to prayer (azan) in the Shi’a manner and that his body should be tied to the tail of an elephant and dragged through the streets of Srinagar.

This provoked the Sunnis of the town, who rose up in protest. In order to put an end to the persecution of the Sunnis, Shaikh Yaqub Sarfi and a group of his companions went to the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar at Agra, requesting him to send an army to Kashmir and overthrow the Chak ruler.

In their audience with Akbar, Shaikh Yaqub Sarfi and his companions insisted that after Akbar took over the administration of Kashmir, he should ensure full freedom of religion to all its people; that there should be no interference with local commerce and trade; that no Kashmiri should be enslaved;

that the practice of beggar or compulsory labour be abolished; and that those who had been associated with the Chak regime should be divested of their powers.

Akbar gave his consent to these conditions and then dispatched an army under Mirza Shah Rukh against Yaqub Shah Chak.

The Chaks fought valiantly and defeated the Mughals. Then, in 1586, Akbar sent a larger army to Kashmir, under Mirza Qasim Khan, which inflicted a decisive defeat on the Chaks, and Yaqub Shah was forced to flee to Kishtwar, where he died in 1592.

In this way, the last independent Kashmiri dynasty came to an end, and Kashmir was made a part of the Mughal Empire ( Khayal (b), 1998: 139-159. Also, Haideri, 1987: 5-11).

With the Mughal take-over of Kashmir, some Sunnis are said to have launched stern reprisals against the Shi’as.

Shaikh Yaqub Sarfi is said to have bitterly protested against this, and is credited with having made efforts to restore peace and inter-community harmony.

After conditions had settled down somewhat, he left for the Haj, and returned a year later with a large number of books, setting up a magnificent library in Srinagar.

It is said that the library contained some fifteen thousand books.
Shaikh Yaqub Sarfi is credited with having written several books, both in prose as well as in poetry form, on Sufism, the Traditions of the Prophet, Islamic rituals and on the lives of various saints.

He was regarded as one of the leading Islamic scholars of his time, earning the title of Ishan Sahib, or ‘guide’ or ‘master’.

His Sufi poetry is considered to be among the gems of Kashmiri mystical writings. A pious Muslim, he saw the light of God as pervading every little particle in the world thus:
I see that lonely face manifest
In whatever I regard.

Though I look at a hundred thousand mirrors,
In all that One Face is manifest
(A.Q. Rafiqi, 1996: 124).

Shaikh Yaqub Sarfi left this world in 1594 at the age of seventy-five and is buried at a shrine at Mohalla Ishan Sahib in Srinagar.

Girls help preserve Kashmir’s Sufi music traditions

When Kashmiri teenager Shabnam Bashir first took up classical Sufi music three years ago, she had to practise singing in secret because all the men in her Muslim family opposed her new passion.

Now the 14-year-old is a proud member of what her teacher Mohammad Yaqoob Sheikh says is the first mixed Sufi singing ensemble in Indian-administered Kashmir, where the music has for generations been a male preserve.

“It took me two months to convince them all,” said Bashir as she joins four other girls — and one 13-year-old boy — for singing practice. “My father finally gave me permission on condition that it did not affect my regular studies.”

Thousands of people in the Muslim-majority region follow Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam whose adherents seek spiritual communion through music and dance at the shrines of their saints.

The songs, which use the lyrics of old Kashmiri- and Persian-language devotional poetry, date back to the 15th century. But they have evolved as a uniquely male tradition, sung by men and handed down through the male line of the family.

Sheikh is the exception — he learned the art from his maternal grandfather, Ghulam Mohammad Qaleenbaf, one of the region’s best known Sufi singers.

“The earlier masters wouldn’t even pass it on to sons of their daughters, only sons or sons of sons,” Sheikh told AFP at his home in the outskirts of the main city of Srinagar.

Sheikh began teaching young Kashmiris in a bid to preserve the Sufi musical tradition of the picturesque Himalayan region, which has been divided between India and Pakistan since partition but is claimed by both countries.

He said young Kashmiris were turning away from classical music and towards protest rap songs inspired by the tense politics of the heavily militarised region, where dozens of protesters were killed last year in clashes with government forces.

“Teaching young boys and girls in a disciplined manner is the surest way to preserve this heritage,” said Sheikh.

But doing so has not been easy. When he first started teaching girls, Sheikh faced opposition from both neighbours and soldiers, and had to move the classes to a new location four times.

“It looked like everything was going up in flames. I wanted to do something to save Sufiyana,” he said.

Now he has trained nearly 50 Kashmiri women — although only a small minority continue to perform after marriage.

Among his current students are teenagers Rehana Yousuf and her sister, who sit in a circle with their fellow musicians, heads covered in bright colourful scarves.

Yousuf plays the Santoor, a 100-stringed instrument that accompanies Sufi singing, and says she was inspired to learn when she first saw Sheikh perform on television.

“When I heard he (Sheikh) teaches girls too, I developed a strong urge to learn,” she said.

“My father is also his (Sheikh’s) student, and he was happy for me to come here.”

A curfew imposed last year following violent protests over the killing of a popular rebel leader meant classes had to stop for four months.

The situation has calmed since, but tensions are still running high in the territory, where many favour independence from India.

On the Pakistan side of the border, Sufi music is thriving thanks to a hybrid form known as Sufi Rock, in which the original lyrics are sung to electric guitar tracks and traditional tabla beats.

The form has seen a recent revival with the advent of Coke Studio, a television show which features live music performances. Female performers are among its biggest stars.

But over the years, political tensions have eroded Indian Kashmir’s rich musical heritage.

When an armed uprising against Indian rule broke out in 1989, public performances by artists suddenly stopped and cinema halls were closed and transformed into camps for government forces.

Once a feature of most public events, performances of Sufi music are now relatively rare.

Sheikh still goes wherever there is demand.

“Once in a while we go to perform in the homes of a few who still appreciate this music,” he said.

“For us, it’s like prayers, we cannot demand a price. They pay what they like,” Sheikh said.

Source: Daily STAR online