Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī and Sultan Bahoo: A Trustworthy Message of Peace and Love for Humanity
Dr. Najeeb Haider Malghaani | October 04, 2026
Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī and Sultan Bahoo: A Trustworthy Message of Peace and Love for Humanity
Author: Dr. Najeeb Haider Malghaani
The history of the structural and ideological formation of human society tells us that various forces have continually influenced human life, constantly reshaping the structural and ideological composition of societies. Among the most prominent of these forces has been the conflict and evolution of the drives toward self-interest and survival, which have continuously defined and redefined the relationship of the individual to other individuals and to the social environment. Throughout centuries of this journey, the economic, social, and emotional exploitation of the human being continued with full intensity, while individual and collective movements of intellectual resistance against these exploitative forces of tyranny and despotism also remained active in their own evolving ways. This intellectual evolution advanced in both horizontal and vertical directions. For vertical intellectual growth, the forces of goodness have been active since the very first chapter of human history. These forces of goodness have manifested themselves in the form of various religions, social philosophies, and ideologies, through which the relationship of the individual to other individuals and to the social environment, as well as the interpretation and promotion of several dimensions of society itself, became possible.
Today, in the twenty-first century, the advancement of science and technology speaks of transforming the organic existence of the human being into a non-organic one. Various political and social systems too have continued to emphasise the material existence of the individual. Yet throughout these centuries, one current of thought has insisted that the individual possesses, alongside his material existence, a spiritual identity, and that the attainment of joy is impossible without its cultivation. Spiritual joy is the name of that immortal love which transcends the boundaries of colour, race, and geography; indeed, this love does not submit to any ideological or religious framework.
Coleman Barks writes in his introduction to “The Essential Rumi” that Mawlānā Rūmī dissolved the boundaries of all religions and merged them into the empire of universal love, giving the multiplicity of rising and receding waves the form of the ocean's singular unity. The great Sufi poet of the land of knowledge and revelation, Sultan Bahoo of the Indo-Pak Subcontinent, added to this message the further emphasis that, alongside the reverence for revealed religions, the reverence and promotion of local culture and rootedness is also of the greatest importance, for the essence of existence is bound to the earth. Cosmic consciousness grows from the gentle soil of nature and the land.
Love as the Highest Guide
Mawlānā Rūmī regards passionate love ('ishq) as his guide in the journey of cosmic consciousness or spiritual growth:
شاد باش اے عشق سودائے ما
ای طبیب جملہ علت ہائے ما
اے دوائے نخوت و ناموس ما
اے تو افلاطون و جالینوس ما
"O our love of blessed passion, remain joyful and flourishing, for you are the physician of all our ailments and diseases. O love, you are the cure for our arrogance and our pursuit of name and reputation. O love, you are our Plato; you are our Galen."
Sultan Bahoo says:
اِک نگاہ جے عَاشق ویکھے لکھ ھَزاراں تارے ھو
اِک نگاہ جے عَالم ویکھے کِسے نہ کدھی چَاہڑے ھو
"Single glance of a passionate-lover would take millions across Hoo
With millions of glances by scholars, no one reached the shores any way Hoo"
Passionate love is that intensely vibrant feeling whose expression and comprehension are most powerfully possible in the language of poetry and music. This is why the Sufis have created special constructions and similes for communication, through which the hidden secrets of the universe unfold layer by layer. In this inspired thought, the phenomenal world is a manifestation of Absolute Being, from which the springs of immortal love gush forth, and the phenomenal world is manifested in the form of the Absolute Singular.
This thought emerges prominently in the poetry of both Mawlānā Rūmī and Sultan Bahoo. Sultan Bahoo says:
ازل ابد نُوں صحی کِیتوسے ویکھ تماشے گُزرے ھو
چوداں طَبق دِلینْدے اَندر آتش لائے حُجرے ھو
جِنہاں حَقْ نہ حاصل کیتا اوہ دوہیں جہانیں اُجڑے ھو
عَاشق غَرق ہوئے وچ وحدت باھوؒ ویکھ تِنہاندے مُجرے ھو
"We corrected eternity and finality by witnessing all happenings - Hoo,
All the fourteen realms (plains) are in the heart and fire of (Allah‘s) love is burning in the heart - Hoo,
They were desolate in both the worlds who did not find out the truth - Hoo,
Look at the style of those, Bahoo, who immersed themselves in the Oneness - Hoo. "
History tells us that the thirteenth century CE was an era of agony and affliction for Anatolia. The barbarity of the Cru-sades from the West had engulfed the region. The Byzantine Empire was disintegrating. On the other hand, the Mongols under Genghis Khan were devastating the peace of the world. Against this backdrop of 1244 CE, a single glance from Shams-e-Tabrīz swept away all of Mawlānā's outward glory and worldly prestige like floodwater from a valley, and from within Mawlānā the springs of immortal love burst open. He was swept into a dance of the soul that transcended the bonds of colour, creed, race, and geographical frontiers.
On the other side of history, the era of the great Sufi poet of the seventeenth century, Sultan Bahoo, was relatively stable from a political and administrative standpoint, though the India of that time was under the Mughals. Both of the Sufis we are discussing treated passionate love as an immortal and dynamic force. Mawlānā Rūmī's flute and Sultan Bahoo invocation of "Hoo" carried a single message: the secret of human joy on this earth lies solely and exclusively in love. In their view, it is only through the power of passionate love, beyond the frontiers of time, space, colour, and race, that the individual comes to know the vision of Reality, at which point the distinction between lover and Beloved, between seeker and sought, is extinguished.
While the relationship between the phenomenal world and Absolute Being has been under debate for centuries, some Western thinkers such as Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas held that the concept of God's existence transcends the boundaries of time, and this concept is contrary to the idea of time being eternal and endless. In Islamic Sufism too, this question remained much debated, resulting in two perspectives known as Oneness of Being (waḥdat al-wujūd ) and Oneness of Witnessing (waḥdat al-shuhūd), both of which have explained in beautiful ways the relationship between the phenomenal world and the Absolute Dhāt. While it may seem relatively straightforward to associate some Sufi poets with one or the other of these intellectual movements, it is quite difficult to view the poetry of Mawlānā Rūmī and Sultan Bahoo as being under the influence of any single movement. To some degree both perspectives appear to be reconciled in their work, but it is more accurate to say that both these Sufi poets perceive the relationship between the phenomenal world and Absolute Being within the boundless, unfathomable depths of passionate love. In their view, passionate love and the spiritual guide (murshid) are the means of understanding the journey from possibility to the realm beyond possibility.
Sultan Bahoo says:
جِس مَنزل نوں عِشق پُچاوے اِیمان نوں خَبر نہ کوئی ھو
"Ishq attains destinations that faith even does not know - Hoo, "
In the view of both Mawlānā Rūmī and Sultan Bahoo, a single glance from the perfect spiritual guide (murshid kāmil) grants recognition of the Divine-Self (ma'rifat-e-dhāt), through which the individual is unveiled to himself, and a connection is established with every manifestation of the phenomenal world such that the wilderness of possibilities is filled with colour and fragrance. Sultan Bahoo says:
الف اللہ چنبے دی بوٹی میرے من وچ مرشد لائی ھو
نفی اثبات دا پانی مِلیس ہر رگے ہر جائی ھو
اندر بوٹی مُشک مچایا جاں پھلاں تے آئی ھو
جیوے مرشد کا مِل باھو جیں ایہ بوٹی لائی ھو
"Spiritual mentor planted the ―Jasmeen‖ sapling of Allah's name in my heart - Hoo,
Irrigated with water of negation and affirmation in whole body - Hoo,
It has blossomed and emits sweet fragrance all within - Hoo,
Long live my perfect guide, Bahoo, who planted it in me - Hoo."
Mawlānā Rūmī says:
دید آں مرشد کہ او ادراک داشت
تخم پاک اندر زمین پاک کاشت
"The murshid saw that he had the capacity, so he sowed a pure seed in the pure soil of his heart."
In the thought of both our Sufi poets, the intensity of pain and separation brings the destination of union closer. On the path of passionate love, a shattered existence becomes the signpost of the destination. In the words of Mawlānā Rūmī:
سینہ خواہم شرح شرح از فراق
تا بگویم شرح درد اشتیاق
"I want a chest torn apart by separation, so that I may recount the details of the pain of longing."
Sultan Bahoo says:
تَن مَن مِیرا پُرزے پُرزے جیوں درزی دیاں لِیراں ھو
اینہاں لِیراں دی گل کفنی پا کے رَلساں سنگ فقِیراں ھو
"My body-soul are torn into pieces like tailor's tatters - Hoo,
I will wrap a shroud of these rags and associate with mystic - Hoo, "
This is the station of passionate love that, on the plains of Karbalā, became the dignified and honourable steadfastness of Honourable Hussain ibn 'Alī (R.A.), before which the forces of tyranny and despotism shall remain bowed in defeat to the end of time. As Sultan Bahoo says:
سچا عشق حسین علی دا باھُوؒ سر دیوے راز نہ بھنے ھُو
"True love is of Hussain bin Ali (A.S.) Bahoo, who sacrificed life but did not expose the secret - Hoo. "
Colonialist educational systems have attempted to present the Sufi as a world-renouncing figure, hostile to worldly sciences. In truth, the Sufi is against any knowledge that is acquired for the sake of superiority over another individual or nation. Mawlānā Rūmī says:
علم را بر تن زنی ماری بود
علم را بر دل زنی یاری بود
"If knowledge is applied to the body, it is a snake; if knowledge is connected to the heart, it is a friend."
Sultan Bahoo says:
جاگ بناں دودھ جمدے ناہیں بھانویں لال ہون کڑھ کڑھ کے ھو
"The milk can't turn into butter without a little ferment (Curd), even if you boil it red - Hoo."
Here "jāg" (starter culture or rennet) is used as a metaphor for action: just as milk cannot curdle without rennet, no matter how long it is heated, knowledge without practice can never become the means of achieving its purpose.
Hidden within the poetry of Sultan Bahoo is the mystery of passionate love that reveals to the people of the heart such secrets of the relationship between the phenomenal world and Absolute Being as are beyond the boundaries of time and space. Human consciousness, which lacks the capacity to look beyond the bounds of time and space, finds through the boundless power of passionate love that the realm beyond space (lāmakān) is made manifest within the landscape of possibility.
Honourable Sultan al-Arifeen Sultan Bahoo (R.A.) says:
کُن فَیَکُونْ جَدوں فرمایا اساں بھی کولوں ہاسے ھو
ہکے ذات صفات ربے دی آہی ہکے جگ ڈھنڈیاسے ھو
ہک لا مکان مکان اساڈا ہکے آن بتاں وچ پھاسے ھو
"When He decreed ‗Be‘and everything came into being, we too were there - Hoo,
Once we were with Allah only, now searching for Him in this world - Hoo,
There was a time we existed in the Placeless (La-makan) and now confined into bodies - Hoo, "
The eternity of passionate love reveals to Sultan Bahoo visions of the realm beyond possibility, and he negates formal acts of worship grounded in ritual and ostentation, creating new constructions for this negation.
Sultan Bahoo says:
ناں مَیں بھج مسیتیں وڑیا ناں تسبا کھڑ کایا ھو
"I did not attend Masjid nor rattled the beads of rosary - Hoo, "
An important quality of eternity is being beyond heedlessness:
جو دم غافل سو دم کا-فر سانوں مرشد ایہہ پڑھایا ھو
"A moment of negligence is a moment of heresy (Ku-fr); the perfect guide told me this - Hoo, "
Sultan Bahoo is not merely acquainted with this quality; he regards the moment of heedlessness as reaching the degree of disbelief. Alongside this, he also perceives within the individual's self the boundless expanses of the universe. In his view, the self of the individual is a profound and deep secret, one of the hidden secrets of the universe. Whoever has found the secret of the heart has found the Absolute Dhāt. He says:
دِل دریا سمندروں ڈُوگھے کون دِلاں دیاں جانی ھو
وِچے بیڑے وِچے جھیڑے وچے ونجھ مُوہانی ھو
چوداں طَبق دِلے دے اَندر جِتھے عِشق تنبُو وَنج تانی ھو
جو دِل دا محرم ہووے باھوؒ سوئی رَبّ پِچھانی ھو
"Heart is deeper than rivers and oceans; who can fathom Heart - Hoo,
Seamen, boats, and oars all are inside the ocean of Heart - Hoo,
All the fourteen Realms (Spheres) are open in Heart like a tent - Hoo,
Those who fathom Heart Bahoo are the ones who recognize Lord - Hoo. "
This article was originally published in Urdu in the Monthly Mirrat ul Arifeen International Magazine.
To cite the original article:
Najeeb Haider Malghaani, "Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī and Sultan Bahoo: A Trustworthy Message of Peace and Love for Humanity," Monthly Mirrat ul Arifeen International, December 2024. https://www.mirrat.com/article/91/1542