Love’s Bewilderment: Siraj Aurangabadi’s Verse of Mystic Love

Sayyid Sirajuddin Husaini, better known as Siraj Aurangabadi (1715 — 1763) was a poet from the Deccan region. An 18^th century travelogue of Aurangabad mentions his name as a saint and his tomb as a place of pilgrimage, neither of which survive now. As part of a Sufi order, religion formed a central part of his life as well as his art.

It is often said that he took to writing poetry naturally, and that it came to him as an expression of spontaneous love, not as conscious composition. Interestingly, he compiled his poems in 1738 and stopped writing poetry when he was twenty-four. This decision was a conscious choice on the advice of his pir, his Sufi master. In his quest to further his proximity to the divine beloved, he was told to abandon his art and focus on his eventual goal. Most of his legacy was oral, lending itself to song and eventually put together by his friends.

Siraj began to display mystical tendencies in his youth — he sought periods of recluse and had moments of overwhelming emotional frenzy. It is no wonder then, that his poetry displays much of his life. One particular ghazal, ​“Khabar-e-Tahayyur‑e Ishq” has been put to song by many prominent voices across generations and genres.

khabar-e-tahayyur-e-ishq sun na junoon raha na pari rahi
na to tu rahaa na to main raha, jo rahi so bekhabari rahi
//
Hear news of love’s bewilderment:
no beauty remains, no feverish madness
No you remains, no I remains—
all that remains is unself-consciousness

It is interesting to listen to its fluid beauty but also to notice the invocations to crucial symbols of Sufi thought. Concepts of being and nothingness; the state of bewilderment in love; metaphors of being shorn of material possessions; pain in the path towards love; and eventual fearlessness — the poem takes you through these stages of an elevated consciousness on the path of love.

Much has been speculated about his romantic life including theories about a love affair with a boy, which led him onto a path of spiritual growth. Siraj eventually renounced material life, never married or fathered children, instead choosing the lifestyle of an isolated ascetic.