Celebrated as the naked ascetic and mad poet, Sarmad, who lived in the seventeenth century, is revered as one the world’s most unorthodox Sufis. Originally from a Jewish trader’s family from the Armenian region of modern-day Iran, Sarmad adopted Islamic mysticism after arriving in India during the Mughal Emperor Shahjehan’s reign. He embraced spirituality entirely and gave up all his worldly possessions—even his clothes. In India, Sarmad fell deeply in love with Abhaichand, a Hindu boy, after hearing him recite poetry at a mehfil. Abhaichand became Sarmad’s disciple, and together the duo preached the Sufi’s spiritual beliefs—the former singing his murshid’s exquisite rubayis (quatrains). Despite his unconventional views, many became Sarmad’s followers, renowned among them, Shahjehan’s son, Prince Dara Shikoh. Even today, devotees flock to Sarmad’s grave in old Delhi, and his rubayis are also read, centuries after the Sufi Pir was beheaded for blasphemy under Aurangzeb’s rule.

This book is a selection of seventy of Sarmad’s finest rubayis that speak against conformist religious dogma and for universal love and surrender to the One Divine. Together, the rubayis constitute a true representation of the Ganga- Jamuni Tehzeeb—the syncretic culture of the Indian subcontinent. Each rubayi appears in three different languages—the original Farsi, an Urdu translation by Balmukund Arsh Malsiyani, a Punjabi-Urdu poet, and an elegant English version by Syeda Hameed and Reyaz Ahmad. Crowning these is a masterful translation of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s illuminating biographical essay on Sarmad, which analyses this great Sufi’s liberal ideals and radical mystical thought.