Understanding Sufism

Punjab University College of Art and Design and Pakistan Islamic Arts Institute jointly organised a lecture on Sufism at AnnaMolkaArtGallery on Monday where internationally renowned scholar and Yale Professor Dr Gerhard Bowering was the guest speaker

Dr Barbara Schmitz, Ather Tahir, Principal Prof Dr Rahat Naveed Masood, Dr Shahida Manzoor, and Dr Safia Farooq also spoke on the occasion.

A large number of students and intellectuals were also present on the occasion.

Dr Gerhard Böwering is a Professor of Islamic Studies in the Department of Religious Studies since 1984. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania and had been a visiting professor at the University of Innsbruck, PrincetonUniversity, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

He wrote various books including “The mystical vision of existence in classical Islam” (Berlin-New York 1980), “The minor Qur’an commentary of al-Sulami (Beirut 1995), “Sufi treatises” (Beirut 2009), “Sufi Inquiries and interpretations” (Beirut 2010) and “The comfort of the mystics” (Leiden 2013). He also wrote numerous articles, including those in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the Encyclopedia of the Qur’an, and the EncyclopaediaIranica.

“Not only subject of love but object of love is also there in the poetry of Bahu” Dr Gerhard Bowering said.

According to Dr Gerhard Bowering; like many other sufi saints of the South Asia, Sultan Bahu was also a prolific writer with more than forty books on Sufism attributed to him. However, as the majority of his books dealt with specialised subjects relating to Islam and Islamic mysticism, it is his Punjabi poetry that has generated popular appeal and made him a household name in the region.

His poetic verses are sung in many genres of Sufi music, including qawaalis and kaafis. There is a particular style of singing his couplets, which is not used in any other genre of Sufi music.

Dr Bowering added that in most of Bahu’s poems, in the original Punjabi language, every other line hypnotically ends with a “Hu”.

“Hu is a kind of a universal name of God often used by man beings and has mysteriously turned up in various languages and religions of the world, Hoozur, Yahoova, Allah Hu Akbar, Yeshua, Ahura Mazda, and so on,” he said.

He further said that the word Hu is the spirit of all sounds and of all words.

“It does not belong to any language, but no language can help belonging to it. This alone is the true name of God, a name that no people and no religion can claim as their own. This word is not only uttered by human beings, but is repeated by animals and birds. All things and beings proclaim this name of the Lord, for every activity of life expresses distinctly or indistinctly this very sound,” he said.