The following translation by Mutahar M. from London, England, was commissioned by the MSAC Philosophy Group. To his great credit Mutahar M. finished doing a rough translation from the Urdu edition of Jahanara Begum’s original Persian text in a very short time. We have subsequently rendered his more literal translation into prose that we felt was more accessible to the general reader. However, I think it is important to underline a note of caution here, since Jahanara’s original Persian is mutilated to some measure when taken out of its native language and context. Nevertheless, my hope is that this small book will spark a deeper interest in the spiritual life of Jahanara and her tutelage under Mullah Shah. It is my earnest desire that a new translation directly from the Persian manuscript be done and then published with both versions side by side. Jahanara Begum’s life and work are worthy of a deeper and more systematic study. Although she is mostly known as the daughter of Shah Jahan and the sister of Dara Shikoh, she is a remarkable person in her own right and deserves more scholarly attention than has been shown in the past.

AUDIOBOOK VERSION | ILLUSTRATED TEXT VERSION | VISUAL BOOK FILM | COLOR PAPERBACK forthcoming

The story of Mullah Shah is a remarkable one. Not only was he a Sufi mystic who was widely and deeply respected, but he lived at a very pivotal time in history where he witnessed the reign of Shah-Jahan (who commissioned and oversaw the building of the exquisite Taj Mahal) and that of his notorious younger son, Aurangzeb, who would eventually kill his brothers and imprison his own father in order to secure his place as the sole Emperor of the Mughal dynasty. Yet, despite these political turmoils Mullah Shah taught a spiritual path that transcended sectarian borders. He attracted the devotion of two of Shah-Jahan’s favorite children, Dara Shikoh and Fatimah Jahanara. Both were exceptionally devoted to the wise sage and Mullah Shah’s life appears to have been spared due to the intercession of both Dara Shikoh and his sister Jahanara, who would eventually write a Persian biography of her spiritual teacher. It is of interest to note that Mullah Shah advocated the meditative practice of nad or shabd yoga, which he called Sultan-ul-Azkar, the loftiest of spiritual disciplines.

AUDIOBOOK VERSION | ILLUSTRATED TEXT VERSION | VISUAL BOOK FILM | COLOR PAPERBACK |

FOREWORD FROM THE ASIATIC SOCIETY, INDIA

Dara Shikuh, who was born in Ajmer in 1024 A.H., was certainly influenced by Mu'in-ud-din Chisti, the great mystic saint, whose tomb is situated in Ajmir. In "Introduction", M. Mahfuz-ul-Haq gives a good account of Dara Shikuh's life and times which has considerable historical importance the Prince himself was a notable intellectual. He was the author of ten dissertations and four tracts. He was also a poet of considerable merit. Dara Shikuh appreciated the arts, and he was himself a calligrapher. A large number of books were written at his request by numerous author, one of whom was Babalal Mandiya, who was a Hindu. In Majma'-ul-Bahrain the Prince mentions a Hindu saint named Baba Lal Bairagi, who was a Vaisnava, and whom the Prince admired. There is no doubt about the fact that Dara Shikuh was well-acquainted with the ideology of the Nirguna Saints like Kabir, Pipa, Namdev and other sages who repudiated communalism and propagated religious harmony in a plural society. The Yogavasista was translated into Persian language at the instruction of the Prince. Dara was initially influenced by Sufism. Later he appreciated the Nirguna Sant-tradition, and in particular, such ancient works as the Yogavasista and the Upanisads, and the Gospels and the Pentateuch. This is the context of Majma'-ul-Bahrai, in which a philosophical approach to the necessity of religious harmony is found. The work is the evidence of a highly cultured mind, and a culmination of the religious liberalism of Akbar the Great. Prince Dara had not renounced Muhammadanism. He was not a heretic. But like Akbar, he felt the necessity of maintaining communal harmony in a plural society, for which he was killed by his fanatical younger brother Aurangzib. Majma'-ul-Bahrain is a brilliant manifesto of harmony and has, therefore, considerable historical and theological interest.

| ILLUSTRATED TEXT VERSION | PAPERBACK COLOR VERSION |

Sarmad (sometimes called Sarmad the Cheerful or Sarmad the Martyr), is a fascinating and complex character who seems to have bridged several cultures in Persia and India. Sarmad originally lived in the Kashan region, between Tehran and Isfahan, in what is today Iran. He was from a minority community of the society. Some biographies say Sarmad was originally from a Jewish merchant family, though others say he was Armenian. Because of his possible Jewish heritage and his later migration to Delhi, he is sometimes called the Jewish Sufi Saint of India. He had an excellent command of both Persian and Arabic, essential for his work as a merchant. Hearing that precious items and works of art were being purchased in India at high prices, Sarmad gathered together his wares and traveled to India where he intended to sell them. Near the end of his journey, however, he met a beautiful Indian boy and was entranced. This ardent love ('ishq) created such a radical transformation in his awareness that Sarmad immediately dropped all desire for wealth and worldly comfort. In this ecstatic state, he abandoned his considerable wealth and, losing all concern for social convention, he began to wander about without clothes, becoming a naked faqir. Some biographers assert that Sarmad formally converted to Islam, while others claim he had a universalist notion of God and religion, seeing no conflict between his Judaism and the esoteric truth of the Sufi path he adopted. In his own poetry, Sarmad asserts that he is neither Jew, nor Muslim, nor Hindu. He continued to journey through India, but now as a naked dervish rather than as a merchant. He ended up in Delhi where he found the favor of a prince in the region and gained a certain amount of influence at court. That prince, however, was soon overthrown by Aurengzeb. The new king and orthodox religious authorities were offended by Sarmad's open criticism of their social hypocrisy and mindless religious formalism.

| ILLUSTRATED TEXT VERSION | PAPERBACK COLOR VERSION

On the 9th of April, 1336, there was born to the chief of the Birbás, a tribe of the purest Mughal origin, at Shehr-Sebz, thirty miles to the north of Samarkand, a son, the eldest of his family. This boy, who was called Taimur, and who was descended in the female line from Chengiz Khán, was gifted by nature with the qualities which enable a man to control his fellow men. Fortune gave him the chance to employ those qualities to the best advantage. The successors of Chengiz Khán in the male line had gradually sunk into feebleness and sloth, and, in 1370, the family in that line had died out. Taimur, then thirty-four, seized the vacated seat, gained, after many vicissitudes of fortune, the complete upper hand, and established himself at Samarkand the undisputed ruler of all the country between the Oxus and the Jaxartes. Then he entered upon that career of conquest which terminated only with his life. He established his authority in Mughalistán, or the country between the Tibet mountains, the Indus and Mekrán, to the north, and Siberia to the north; in Kipchak, the country lying north of the lower course of the Jaxartes, the sea of Aral, and the Caspian, including the rich lands on the Don and Wolga, and part of those on the Euxine; he conquered India, and forced the people of territories between the Dardanelles and Delhi to acknowledge his supremacy. When he died, on the 18th February, 1405, he left behind him one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen.

| ILLUSTRATED TEXT VERSION |

HARDBACK COLOR VERSION |

Just without one of the massive bastioned gates of the city of Fathpur-Sikri there stood in the year 1580 a caravanserai that afforded accommodation for man and beast. Here would alight travellers drawn by the calls of homage, by business, or by curiosity to the famous Town of Victory, built, as the inscription over the gateway told, by "His Majesty, King of Kings, Heaven of the Court, Shadow of God, Jalal-ad-din Mohammed Akbar Padishah." At the time of our story Akbar was at the zenith of his glory. He had moved his court from Agra, the capital of his predecessors on the throne of the Moguls, after having raised for himself, on the spot where the birth of a son had been promised him by a hermit saint, this superb new city of Fathpur-Sikri, seven miles in circumference, walled and guarded by strong forts at its seven gateways. Emperor and nobles had vied with each other in erecting palaces of stately design and exquisite finish of adornment. A beautiful mosque commemorated the good deeds of the saint, and provided a place of prayer for those of the Moslem faith. In the palace of the Emperor was a magnificent audience hall, with marble columns and stone-carved galleries, in the centre of which stood the throne of gold sprinkled with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, surrounded by a silver railing, and covered by a canopy of rich crimson brocade. In this audience hall the great and good Akbar was wont to receive not only his subjects, rich and poor, the former assembled to pay their court, the latter to lay their grievances before the Imperial judge; but he also extended welcome to strangers from afar. On the question of religion his mind was at this period in a state of change, for he had broken from the strict faith of the Moslem, had publicly announced that there was good in all beliefs, had overthrown ceremonial rules, whether of Islam or of Hinduism, and had proclaimed all things lawful except excess.

| ITEXT VERSION | PAPERBACK VERSION | AUDIOBOOK VERSION |

It is an intriguing historical question to ponder on how meditating on subtler and subtler sounds first became known and advocated among spiritual adepts. Arguably, the practice may have arisen in our prehistoric past since any form of deep concentration (by whatever means or by happenstance) tends to make one more keenly aware and cognizant of hidden features within one’s own consciousness and neurophysiology. One of the more interesting works on this subject comes from the pen of Dara Shikoh, the eldest son of Shah Jahan, the great Mogul emperor who built the wondrous Taj Mahal in Agra, India. After securing initiation from his spiritual guide, Mulla Shah Badakhsi, in Kashmir, Dara Shikoh wrote a short, but revealing text in Persian entitled Risāla-yi Haqq Numāon (“The Compass of Truth”). Here he openly revealed what had usually been a closely guarded secret among Sufi masters: how to properly use breathing exercises, holy repetition, focused awareness, and listening to the sound.

| TEXT VERSION | PAPERBACK VERSION | AUDIOBOOK VERSION |