Certain Influences of Shaivism and Tantra on the Islamic Mystics
In order to have an integrated understanding of the S´aivite and Tantric
influences on certain mystical currents in the Islamic world, it
behooves us to consider the need for a future comprehensive volume.
This appendix is only a brief introduction to what may be buried or
disguised in the memory of the past. The porous borders between the
Indian and the Islamic worlds have always created inevitable crossinfluences,
which can no longer be overlooked.
In India, if the Sufis and yogic masters lived side by side, they must
have intermingled and influenced one another. Certainly, various
Hatha Yoga and S´aivite ideas became manifested in the practices of
the Sufis in India as they absorbed non-Islamic elements.1 Chroniclers
record that in thirteenth-century Sind some dervish orders would
gather in certain S´iva temples.2
Shaivism as a potent spiritual order assimilated many elements from
other traditions. The multifaceted nature of some of its practices and
universal conceptual ideas meant that S´aiva practices could be carried
on under other names. And with its syncretic system of practices,
Shaivism spread through north India, Central Asia, and Iran, “influencing
both Qalandars and Sufis.”3 The strength of Shaivism’s historical
presence was such that the early Kushan dynasty (ca. 80–375),
in what is now Afghanistan, adopted Shaivism alongside Buddhism:
their coins depicted S´iva on one side and the Buddha on the other.4
The archaeological evidence for the spread of Shaivism into Iran and
Iraq is meagre, but it is epitomized by the presence of a S´iva statue in
Iraq dating to pre-Islamic times.5
The Qalandars in Iran seem to have come under S´aiva influences,
imitating them in wearing earrings and bracelets and behaving eccentrically;
yet, like Muslims, the Qalandars still faced the Ka‘ba in meditation.
6 The problem has always been when multiple eccentric groups and individuals with transgressive practices and views within Islamic
communities were considered “Sufis” when they were not, when in
fact they rejected the Sufis’ conventional religiosity and mundane
piety.7 Those who wanted to provide some sort of religious legitimacy
for these “non-Sufi” groups—so that the absorption of practices from
Yogic, Buddhist, Vedantic, Christian, and neo-Platonic sources could
operate behind an Islamic mask, and, to a degree, become “unidentifiable”—
would create genealogies to trace these groups’ founders
back to Mohammad, Abu Bakr, or ‘Ali.8 Some, thus, accepted the
“Sufi” label, although the radical mystics such as the Qalandarıˉs in
Western Asia did not.
In South Asia, various practices of Shaivism, Buddhism, and
Tantra became quite prevalent. Bengal, because of the availability
of the Sanskrit sources, became a region where the Sufis Islamized
some of those practices—and the commonalities between Indian
yogis and Sufis became apparent after the Muslim expansion into
north India between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.9 In light
of rich and intense spiritual developments in Northwest India,
Central Asia, and Tibet, the Muslim conquest encountered many
Tantric centers, especially in the Swat Valley (then known as Uddiyana—
home of Padma Sambhava, the pioneer Tantric Buddhist
who arrived in Tibet in the eighth century).10 The Islamization of
these regions in the eighth through tenth centuries did not eliminate
the antinomian mystics from Muslim culture, just as it later
did not stop the Qalandarıˉ and their progenies. Geoffrey Samuel
asserts that the antinomian practices of Tantra and Vajrayana Buddhism
were adopted and continued in the Sufi context as early as
the eighth and ninth centuries.11
The practice of yoga by the Shaivites of greater Khuraˉsaˉn, and their
intermingling with Muslim mystics, may have influenced what some
Muslim mystics called namaˉz ma‘kus (praying by hanging upside
down, sometimes all evening or even all night). The renowned mystic
Abu Sa‘ıˉd Abul-Khayr (d. ca. 1049) is believed to have done that while
repeating zikr (a repetitive chant or prayer), which led to the state of
fanaˉ al-fanaˉ (annihilation in annihilation).12 To justify and legitimize
this meditational yoga position, the Muslim mystics claimed that the
Prophet of Islam was the first to perform it.13 In Tantric yoga, this is
considered the union of S´akti and S´iva, or the Sun and the Moon.14
And Rumi, in fact, speaks of prostrating by standing on his head (D:
1603).
With his actions, Abu Sa‘ıˉd believed his body had now become
qibla (the direction for prayer).15 He set out on a new spiritual path, dancing and encouraging feasts of sweet meat, roasted fowls,
and all kinds of fruit—just what is usually offered in a Tantric feast
(ganachakra). —But he had to explain to Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni
(971–1030), who was informed about his practices, why his sermons
did not include the teachings of the Prophet of Islam.16
Abu Sa‘ıˉd lived in the towns of Sarakhs and Mayhana, on the edge
of Buddhist and Shaivite territories, and that may be where he learned
the art of the spiritual feast, the feast with dance and singing, and
other Tantric practices that gradually entered the Islamic territories.
The following poem by Abu Sa‘ıˉd (which may actually have been written
by Rumi: see chapter 4) is characteristic of his spiritually fearless
and revolutionary attitude toward the religious thinking of his time:
Not until every mosque beneath the Sun
Lies ruined, will our holy work be done;
And never will true Muslim appear
Till faith and infidelity are one.17
Abu Sa‘ıˉd’s challenge remained how to explain to his contemporaries
the false human preoccupation with the subject of worshipping
God.18 It is asserted that Abu Sa‘ıˉd was heading to Mecca for pilgrimage
but along the way was dissuaded by Abul-Hassan Kharaqaˉnıˉ
(d. ca. 1033); he then returned to Bastaˉm, the birthplace of Baˉyazid
(d. 874).19 Abu Sa‘ıˉd’s approach to loosening the burden of self was
to offer meditation on non-self. This insightful meditation, according
to him, should result in understanding that all things were created
from non-self.20 Abu Sa‘ıˉd preached explicitly against the boastful
religious people who would constantly express their personal interpretation
of things by saying, “I, I . . . ,” whom he thought were trying
to escape from reality, an act of self-centeredness that would lead
to their wasting away.21 Abu Sa‘ıˉd’s praying upside down, sponsoring
feasts, and non-self utterances are the recorded aspects of the outside
influences he brought into the Islamic world; what went unrecorded
were far more enigmatic interactions between the Tantric world and
mysticism in Khuraˉsaˉn.
In the Tantric context, it is also not surprising to learn about
Kharaqaˉnıˉ (whose words were quoted in chapter 6A) and his two
lions. He would ride on the backs of two lions he had domesticated,
which was strange and frightening for the people of his village. Lion
symbolism may have had a spiritual significance for Kharaqaˉnıˉ,22 and
it is common in many cultures and traditions. The closest of these
to Khuraˉsaˉn at that time was the Buddhist and Tantric symbolism of taming a lion through attaining extraordinary power. In the Buddhist
context, the lion symbolizes both the power of Buddha’s teachings
and his throne—a precursor to the Tibetan Tantric notion of the
“Lion’s Roar” (a fearless state of mind), and the basis for the spread
of Tibetan iconography of the lion figure. In Indian Tantric iconography,
a lion (or tiger) is ridden by the Goddess Durga (the personification
of Kali, the great Cosmic Power), who is the conqueror of
demons and darkness. Again, in Tantric practice, a lion guards each
chakra (while each chakra is controlled by a goddess) and does not
allow the yogi to access the chakra.23
‘Attaˉr dedicates over fifty pages to this evolutionary ascetic who
seems to have remained at odds with traditional and institutional
Sufism (perhaps in favor of a more Malaˉmatıˉ type of practice).24 He
left no writing behind except for a handful of poems. ‘Attaˉr states that
Kharaqaˉnıˉ’s wife used to call him “an apostate and zindı ˉq” because
of his unusual and perhaps un-Islamic spiritual beliefs. This may
have been because of what she witnessed in his practices, beliefs, and
expressions, at least from her own Islamic point of view—she claimed
she could not reveal all of them (see M: VI: 1120).
Kharaqaˉnıˉ, an extraordinary Sheikh whom Rumi depicts riding on
the back of a lion, had a precedent in Baˉyazid, who would also ride on
a lion with a snake whip (M: VI: 1123–24).25 Legend also attributes
riding on a lion to Khidr, the mystical and immortal prophet, and he
was followed by some unknown dervishes and Sufis in India being
shown on the back of a tiger or lion.26 In the Shi‘a context, ‘Ali, the
son-in-law of the Prophet, has often been identified with a lion, symbolizing
both his ferocity in battles and his astonishing power to tame
such a ferocious beast in his native Arabia.27 Lions continue to appear
in the iconography of the Bektaˉshıˉ Sufi order in Anatolia,28 as well as
in Qaˉdiri order when the portrait of their founder, ‘Abdel Qaˉdir Jilaˉnıˉ
(d. 1166) appears with a tamed lion seated before him.29 The Tantric
practice of taming and riding on lions has taken root in general Sufism
and Shi‘ism, as reflected in poetry, including that of Rumi.
The addition of transgressive behaviors to the practice of Sufism
kept Sufis who adopted such practices under suspicion from the conservative
jurists of Islam. The aim of changing physiology to release
the energy of consciousness by committing sexual acts (such as the
return of semen, see chapter 6B) and the manipulation of the respiratory
system were not the only practices that prompted the fifteenthcentury
Sheikh Abdul-Quddus to say: “Unless the brain comes
down to the foot, none can reach the doors of God.”30 Of course,
in Northern India the Tantric Buddhists’ worship of female deities and transformation of sexual behavior by sublimation (as discussed
in chapter 6B) were part of the approach to attain higher consciousness
and superhuman powers and to be able to practice magic.31 The
respiration, mantra or zikr, visualization of the Sufi master, and the
presence of nuˉr-e mohammadi (Mohammadan Light) were all parts of
the meditational yogic practices—and all in the context of the Tantric
conception of connecting the body as microcosm to the external universe,
the celestial realm, rivers, mountains, and even social realities in
order to master the external universe.32
The sexual aspects of Tantra were rejected as non-permissible and
carried out by “wicked non-believers,” but the unconventional Sufis
justified them by invoking a hadˉıth from the Prophet and used Tantric
yoga. This was possible because such Tantric yoga practices were so
adaptable that so-called Sufis considered them natural components of
Sufism.33 Among the Bengali Qalandars, some of the Sufi and Tantric
allegories and homologies became interchangeable, and the Sufis
adapted and domesticated them for their own purposes. The Sufi
maqaˉm (stage) seems to have been adapted from the Tantric chakra,
and to have replaced the head (intellect) in Sufi imagery with the heart
as the throne of their own designated deity, visualized by simply displacing
the Tantric deities.34
The possibility that the earlier Kubravi and Naqshbandi35 orders of
Central Asia borrowed various yogic practices; their similar adoption
of the seven chakras, and using mantras to awaken certain chakras; and
even the extraordinary claim that yoga might have been taught to the
Prophet of Islam or that Mecca was a S´aiva center, not only would testify
to the level of assimilation through intermingling, but also serves
as a basis for ongoing debate about the cross-influences between the
two traditions.36
In learning about the cross-influences, Carl Ernst has studied the
translation of an Indian text, Amrtakunda or The Pool of Nectar, into
Persian in Bengal in 1210 and its later translation into Arabic (as
Hawd ma’ al-Hayat). The book covers breath-control practices, Tantrism,
Hatha Yoga, chants, mantra, postures for meditation, Kundalini
meditation with seven chakras, the heart as the throne, the human
microcosm and the external macrocosm, visualization, and the invocation
of female deities.37 Through the production of poetry as well
as through this text, the Sufis became acquainted with Hatha Yoga.38
In the course of translation, the book was Islamized, and did not treat
“Hinduism as an autonomous religious system beyond the boundaries
of Islam.”39 The adoption of mantras into an Islamic context, and
further, into the practices of Tantra, were all part of the adjustment. But interestingly, as Ernst points out, the Mevlevi order, along with
other Sufi orders, in the course of their history continued to refer to
the text of The Pool of Nectar.40
In conclusion, when it comes to putting the Shams-Rumi interactions
into their proper context, the question remains as to how
familiar Shams was with Tantra, Yoga, non-self philosophy, the S´iva
tradition, and other practices—all of which might have traveled
through a Qalandarıˉ conduit—that provoked the traditional Sufis and
ripped Rumi from all of his old (as Shams saw them), redundant, and
stultifying practices and beliefs
influences on certain mystical currents in the Islamic world, it
behooves us to consider the need for a future comprehensive volume.
This appendix is only a brief introduction to what may be buried or
disguised in the memory of the past. The porous borders between the
Indian and the Islamic worlds have always created inevitable crossinfluences,
which can no longer be overlooked.
In India, if the Sufis and yogic masters lived side by side, they must
have intermingled and influenced one another. Certainly, various
Hatha Yoga and S´aivite ideas became manifested in the practices of
the Sufis in India as they absorbed non-Islamic elements.1 Chroniclers
record that in thirteenth-century Sind some dervish orders would
gather in certain S´iva temples.2
Shaivism as a potent spiritual order assimilated many elements from
other traditions. The multifaceted nature of some of its practices and
universal conceptual ideas meant that S´aiva practices could be carried
on under other names. And with its syncretic system of practices,
Shaivism spread through north India, Central Asia, and Iran, “influencing
both Qalandars and Sufis.”3 The strength of Shaivism’s historical
presence was such that the early Kushan dynasty (ca. 80–375),
in what is now Afghanistan, adopted Shaivism alongside Buddhism:
their coins depicted S´iva on one side and the Buddha on the other.4
The archaeological evidence for the spread of Shaivism into Iran and
Iraq is meagre, but it is epitomized by the presence of a S´iva statue in
Iraq dating to pre-Islamic times.5
The Qalandars in Iran seem to have come under S´aiva influences,
imitating them in wearing earrings and bracelets and behaving eccentrically;
yet, like Muslims, the Qalandars still faced the Ka‘ba in meditation.
6 The problem has always been when multiple eccentric groups and individuals with transgressive practices and views within Islamic
communities were considered “Sufis” when they were not, when in
fact they rejected the Sufis’ conventional religiosity and mundane
piety.7 Those who wanted to provide some sort of religious legitimacy
for these “non-Sufi” groups—so that the absorption of practices from
Yogic, Buddhist, Vedantic, Christian, and neo-Platonic sources could
operate behind an Islamic mask, and, to a degree, become “unidentifiable”—
would create genealogies to trace these groups’ founders
back to Mohammad, Abu Bakr, or ‘Ali.8 Some, thus, accepted the
“Sufi” label, although the radical mystics such as the Qalandarıˉs in
Western Asia did not.
In South Asia, various practices of Shaivism, Buddhism, and
Tantra became quite prevalent. Bengal, because of the availability
of the Sanskrit sources, became a region where the Sufis Islamized
some of those practices—and the commonalities between Indian
yogis and Sufis became apparent after the Muslim expansion into
north India between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.9 In light
of rich and intense spiritual developments in Northwest India,
Central Asia, and Tibet, the Muslim conquest encountered many
Tantric centers, especially in the Swat Valley (then known as Uddiyana—
home of Padma Sambhava, the pioneer Tantric Buddhist
who arrived in Tibet in the eighth century).10 The Islamization of
these regions in the eighth through tenth centuries did not eliminate
the antinomian mystics from Muslim culture, just as it later
did not stop the Qalandarıˉ and their progenies. Geoffrey Samuel
asserts that the antinomian practices of Tantra and Vajrayana Buddhism
were adopted and continued in the Sufi context as early as
the eighth and ninth centuries.11
The practice of yoga by the Shaivites of greater Khuraˉsaˉn, and their
intermingling with Muslim mystics, may have influenced what some
Muslim mystics called namaˉz ma‘kus (praying by hanging upside
down, sometimes all evening or even all night). The renowned mystic
Abu Sa‘ıˉd Abul-Khayr (d. ca. 1049) is believed to have done that while
repeating zikr (a repetitive chant or prayer), which led to the state of
fanaˉ al-fanaˉ (annihilation in annihilation).12 To justify and legitimize
this meditational yoga position, the Muslim mystics claimed that the
Prophet of Islam was the first to perform it.13 In Tantric yoga, this is
considered the union of S´akti and S´iva, or the Sun and the Moon.14
And Rumi, in fact, speaks of prostrating by standing on his head (D:
1603).
With his actions, Abu Sa‘ıˉd believed his body had now become
qibla (the direction for prayer).15 He set out on a new spiritual path, dancing and encouraging feasts of sweet meat, roasted fowls,
and all kinds of fruit—just what is usually offered in a Tantric feast
(ganachakra). —But he had to explain to Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni
(971–1030), who was informed about his practices, why his sermons
did not include the teachings of the Prophet of Islam.16
Abu Sa‘ıˉd lived in the towns of Sarakhs and Mayhana, on the edge
of Buddhist and Shaivite territories, and that may be where he learned
the art of the spiritual feast, the feast with dance and singing, and
other Tantric practices that gradually entered the Islamic territories.
The following poem by Abu Sa‘ıˉd (which may actually have been written
by Rumi: see chapter 4) is characteristic of his spiritually fearless
and revolutionary attitude toward the religious thinking of his time:
Not until every mosque beneath the Sun
Lies ruined, will our holy work be done;
And never will true Muslim appear
Till faith and infidelity are one.17
Abu Sa‘ıˉd’s challenge remained how to explain to his contemporaries
the false human preoccupation with the subject of worshipping
God.18 It is asserted that Abu Sa‘ıˉd was heading to Mecca for pilgrimage
but along the way was dissuaded by Abul-Hassan Kharaqaˉnıˉ
(d. ca. 1033); he then returned to Bastaˉm, the birthplace of Baˉyazid
(d. 874).19 Abu Sa‘ıˉd’s approach to loosening the burden of self was
to offer meditation on non-self. This insightful meditation, according
to him, should result in understanding that all things were created
from non-self.20 Abu Sa‘ıˉd preached explicitly against the boastful
religious people who would constantly express their personal interpretation
of things by saying, “I, I . . . ,” whom he thought were trying
to escape from reality, an act of self-centeredness that would lead
to their wasting away.21 Abu Sa‘ıˉd’s praying upside down, sponsoring
feasts, and non-self utterances are the recorded aspects of the outside
influences he brought into the Islamic world; what went unrecorded
were far more enigmatic interactions between the Tantric world and
mysticism in Khuraˉsaˉn.
In the Tantric context, it is also not surprising to learn about
Kharaqaˉnıˉ (whose words were quoted in chapter 6A) and his two
lions. He would ride on the backs of two lions he had domesticated,
which was strange and frightening for the people of his village. Lion
symbolism may have had a spiritual significance for Kharaqaˉnıˉ,22 and
it is common in many cultures and traditions. The closest of these
to Khuraˉsaˉn at that time was the Buddhist and Tantric symbolism of taming a lion through attaining extraordinary power. In the Buddhist
context, the lion symbolizes both the power of Buddha’s teachings
and his throne—a precursor to the Tibetan Tantric notion of the
“Lion’s Roar” (a fearless state of mind), and the basis for the spread
of Tibetan iconography of the lion figure. In Indian Tantric iconography,
a lion (or tiger) is ridden by the Goddess Durga (the personification
of Kali, the great Cosmic Power), who is the conqueror of
demons and darkness. Again, in Tantric practice, a lion guards each
chakra (while each chakra is controlled by a goddess) and does not
allow the yogi to access the chakra.23
‘Attaˉr dedicates over fifty pages to this evolutionary ascetic who
seems to have remained at odds with traditional and institutional
Sufism (perhaps in favor of a more Malaˉmatıˉ type of practice).24 He
left no writing behind except for a handful of poems. ‘Attaˉr states that
Kharaqaˉnıˉ’s wife used to call him “an apostate and zindı ˉq” because
of his unusual and perhaps un-Islamic spiritual beliefs. This may
have been because of what she witnessed in his practices, beliefs, and
expressions, at least from her own Islamic point of view—she claimed
she could not reveal all of them (see M: VI: 1120).
Kharaqaˉnıˉ, an extraordinary Sheikh whom Rumi depicts riding on
the back of a lion, had a precedent in Baˉyazid, who would also ride on
a lion with a snake whip (M: VI: 1123–24).25 Legend also attributes
riding on a lion to Khidr, the mystical and immortal prophet, and he
was followed by some unknown dervishes and Sufis in India being
shown on the back of a tiger or lion.26 In the Shi‘a context, ‘Ali, the
son-in-law of the Prophet, has often been identified with a lion, symbolizing
both his ferocity in battles and his astonishing power to tame
such a ferocious beast in his native Arabia.27 Lions continue to appear
in the iconography of the Bektaˉshıˉ Sufi order in Anatolia,28 as well as
in Qaˉdiri order when the portrait of their founder, ‘Abdel Qaˉdir Jilaˉnıˉ
(d. 1166) appears with a tamed lion seated before him.29 The Tantric
practice of taming and riding on lions has taken root in general Sufism
and Shi‘ism, as reflected in poetry, including that of Rumi.
The addition of transgressive behaviors to the practice of Sufism
kept Sufis who adopted such practices under suspicion from the conservative
jurists of Islam. The aim of changing physiology to release
the energy of consciousness by committing sexual acts (such as the
return of semen, see chapter 6B) and the manipulation of the respiratory
system were not the only practices that prompted the fifteenthcentury
Sheikh Abdul-Quddus to say: “Unless the brain comes
down to the foot, none can reach the doors of God.”30 Of course,
in Northern India the Tantric Buddhists’ worship of female deities and transformation of sexual behavior by sublimation (as discussed
in chapter 6B) were part of the approach to attain higher consciousness
and superhuman powers and to be able to practice magic.31 The
respiration, mantra or zikr, visualization of the Sufi master, and the
presence of nuˉr-e mohammadi (Mohammadan Light) were all parts of
the meditational yogic practices—and all in the context of the Tantric
conception of connecting the body as microcosm to the external universe,
the celestial realm, rivers, mountains, and even social realities in
order to master the external universe.32
The sexual aspects of Tantra were rejected as non-permissible and
carried out by “wicked non-believers,” but the unconventional Sufis
justified them by invoking a hadˉıth from the Prophet and used Tantric
yoga. This was possible because such Tantric yoga practices were so
adaptable that so-called Sufis considered them natural components of
Sufism.33 Among the Bengali Qalandars, some of the Sufi and Tantric
allegories and homologies became interchangeable, and the Sufis
adapted and domesticated them for their own purposes. The Sufi
maqaˉm (stage) seems to have been adapted from the Tantric chakra,
and to have replaced the head (intellect) in Sufi imagery with the heart
as the throne of their own designated deity, visualized by simply displacing
the Tantric deities.34
The possibility that the earlier Kubravi and Naqshbandi35 orders of
Central Asia borrowed various yogic practices; their similar adoption
of the seven chakras, and using mantras to awaken certain chakras; and
even the extraordinary claim that yoga might have been taught to the
Prophet of Islam or that Mecca was a S´aiva center, not only would testify
to the level of assimilation through intermingling, but also serves
as a basis for ongoing debate about the cross-influences between the
two traditions.36
In learning about the cross-influences, Carl Ernst has studied the
translation of an Indian text, Amrtakunda or The Pool of Nectar, into
Persian in Bengal in 1210 and its later translation into Arabic (as
Hawd ma’ al-Hayat). The book covers breath-control practices, Tantrism,
Hatha Yoga, chants, mantra, postures for meditation, Kundalini
meditation with seven chakras, the heart as the throne, the human
microcosm and the external macrocosm, visualization, and the invocation
of female deities.37 Through the production of poetry as well
as through this text, the Sufis became acquainted with Hatha Yoga.38
In the course of translation, the book was Islamized, and did not treat
“Hinduism as an autonomous religious system beyond the boundaries
of Islam.”39 The adoption of mantras into an Islamic context, and
further, into the practices of Tantra, were all part of the adjustment. But interestingly, as Ernst points out, the Mevlevi order, along with
other Sufi orders, in the course of their history continued to refer to
the text of The Pool of Nectar.40
In conclusion, when it comes to putting the Shams-Rumi interactions
into their proper context, the question remains as to how
familiar Shams was with Tantra, Yoga, non-self philosophy, the S´iva
tradition, and other practices—all of which might have traveled
through a Qalandarıˉ conduit—that provoked the traditional Sufis and
ripped Rumi from all of his old (as Shams saw them), redundant, and
stultifying practices and beliefs
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