by Zhinia Noorian.
“Shaikh San’an and the Christian Girl” is the longest story in the Sufi classic, the Mantiq al-Tayr (The Conference of the Birds). This book presents a collection of poetic stories by Farid ad-Din ‘Attar (d. 1221), a renowned Persian poet, a theoretician of mysticism, a Sufi teacher, and a hagiographer. However, the plot of this work was inspired by another book, the Risālat al-Tayr, by Muḥammad (or Aḥmad) Ghazālī. This book’s story combined two famous themes: the coming together of birds to select their leader, and their journey to the far-away court of the bird king. ‘Attar kept this overall plot, but expanded and embellished the bird allegory. He also wove in anecdotes and tales to form a mystical narrative. To keep the plot on course, ‘Attar gave the roles of storytelling to particular birds. For example, the tale of Shaikh San’an and his love for a Christian girl (ᶜAṭṭār, pp. 77-122) is recited by the hoopoe bird, after which the assembly of the birds sets out flying to find the king-bird (Reinhart)[1] .
According to Sufi tradition, every generation has a great Sufi master, who lives among the people and serves as the cosmic pivot for bringing the world to perfection (Lindholm, p. 213). In the first line of this tale, we hear that Shaikh San’an is the elder guide of his time. He is a pious Sufi ascetic with four hundred disciples. To show his religiosity, the narrator bird informs us that San’an has performed the ḥajj pilgrimage fifty times, and that he has the power to heal people’s ailments. For numerous nights, however, San’an has dreamed that he goes to Rūm (the Byzantine lands), and is worshipping an idol there.
To find out what this dream means, San’an travels to the Byzantine lands, accompanied by his four hundred disciples. There, they come across a virtuous Christian girl who surpasses everyone else in beauty and serenity. It is noteworthy that ‘Attar writes twice as many lines of praise for this girl’s virtues than he writes to describe the Shaik’s piety. To the amazement of his disciples, the Shaikh prostrates himself before the girl, expressing his burning love for her. And her response to this great man’s adoration is total indifference.
This part of the poem paints the picture of a battle between belief and unbelief. A pious ascetic and Sufi master falling at the feet of a non-Muslim girl seems to totally betray his faith. The Sufi master therefore renounces his religion out of love for an unbeliever, bringing upon himself utter contempt from his hundreds of disciples. Their denunciations, however, do nothing to change the Shaikh’s mind. His adoration for the girl only grows stronger as she spurns him. He is left with nothing but his burning passion and the sorrow of separation from his beloved.
In a long argument with his disciples, San’an rejects all appeals that he return to respectable life as a Sufi master. His new devotion seems to violate every requirement of religion. He says that the residence of his beloved is now the holy place where he prays. He is drunk in the winehouse rather than going on pilgrimage to Mecca. He has discarded his prayer beads to wear the zunnar, or belt of a Christian. Most significantly, when the disciples tell him to fear God and repent for his soul’s sake, San’an replies that the fire consuming him comes from God and he cannot escape it.
Time passes and the girl hears word of the Shaikh’s trials. Pretending not to know the story, she asks San’an about his condition. He pours out his passionate admiration for her, declaring that he is ready to offer his life, and begs for her love. She gives four conditions for him to meet. To prove his love, he must perform these four acts in public: renounce his religion, drink wine, prostrate himself before an idol, and burn the Qur’an. With his mind swept away by love, he accepts and performs all these things before everyone, much to the disciples’ horror. When he asks her to marry him, she demands her kābīn (brideprice), and then rejects him because he is destitute and has no wealth to pay it. Weeping in sorrow, the Shaikh declares that he has lost everything—his faith in Islam, his reputation, and her love. He asks for her mercy. The girl asks if he will become a swineherd for a year to pay for her kābīn, and he swears that he will.
Then, one of the Shaikh’s disciples speaks out, reproaching the others for rejecting their master, and furiously defending San-an’s love, as follows:
What kind of disciples are you? If you claim to love our master, you must be true to your claim. You should be ashamed of yourselves! If your master threw off his Sufi cloak and put on a [Christian-style] cincture, you should have done the same. That is what love demands—no matter that it be labelled scandalous or insane. How dare you judge our shaikh as having done wrong? What gave you the authority to advise him to abandon his love? (Bayat and Jamnia, p. 78).
This story gives a classic example of a Sufi principle called malāma (blame). This principle was central to the practice of malāmatiyya, or deliberately doing what others deem shameful, as a means to break free from the ego’s fear of rejection. This practice of courting blame first appeared in Sufi text books during the ninth century. According to this line of teaching, harsh criticism purifies the soul on its spiritual journey. The story of the Sufi Shaikh San’an shows that the early Islamic mystics realised how the pursuit of piety could easily turn to arrogance and betrayal of the spiritual life (de Bruijn, p. 76). ᶜAṭṭār, therefore, takes his readers through the painful process of humiliation and total loss of all that a respected Sufi Shaikh had gained in the eyes of the world. When he fell to the lowest rank possible and was emptied of all worldly attachments, he gained freedom from his need for spiritual status. However, it was only through love that he found that liberation.
For illuminated folios of the Mantiq al-Tayr (The Conference of the Birds), Farid al-Din `Attar | Mantiq al-Tayr (Language of the Birds) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (metmuseum.org).
Sources
ᶜAṭṭār, Farīd al-Dīn. Manṭiq al-Tayr, edited by Muḥammad-Javād Mashkūr. Kitāb-furūshī-yi Tehran: Tehran, 1974.
Bayat, Mojdeh and Jamnia, Mohammad Ali, Tales from the Land of the Sufis. Shambhala, 2001.
Bruijn, Johannes T.P. de, ‘The qalandariyyāt in Persian Mystical Poetry, from Sanāᵓī Onwards’. In The Legacy of Mediæval Persian Sufism. Edited by Leonard Lewisohn, 75-86. London and New York: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1992.
Lindholm, Charles, “Prophets and Pirs: Charismatic Islam in the Middle East and South Asia.” In Embodying Charisma: Modernity, Locality and the Performance of Emotion in Sufi Cults, edited by Pnina Werbner and Helene Basu Werbner, 209-233. London: Routledge, 1998.
Reinert, B., in Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, s.v., “Aṭṭār, Farīd-Al-Dīn.”