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by a correspondent

At the recent World Conference on Islamic Tamil Literature held at the B.M.I.C.H. with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, as the Chief Guest, many International scholars of distinction specially from India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore were present in large numbers.

Deshamanya Dr. A.M.M. Sahabdeen being presented the traditional ‘Shawl’ by Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Many research papers were read and scholars of distinction were honoured with the traditional "Shawl" as a mark of appreciation. Desamanaya Dr. A.M.M. Sahabdeen was one of them and had the distinction of the "Shawl" being presented by the Prime Minister himself.

Dr. Sahabdeen is well-known as an elite member of the former Ceylon Civil Service, but what is remarkable about him is that his interests are far and wide, diversified on several fields from entrepreneurship to philosophical research.

Amongst his well known books are "The Sufi Doctrine in Tamil Literature, Iraivanum Pirapanjamum' and "The Circle of Lives'. The first of them is well-known in South India and Sri Lanka. In this book Dr. Sahabdeen explains many of the important landmarks in the development of Islamic Tamil literature particularly in South India.

Early Muslims who were Arabs came to Sri Lanka as peaceful traders, several centuries ago and inter-married with the local inhabitants, both Sinhala and Tamil, converted them to Islam and founded a community who now number 8% of the present population. According to tradition, the earliest settlers who belonged to the house of Hashim who came to Sri Lanka from Arabia during the eighth century or so and made eight settlements along the North East, North and western coasts of the island. Later on, colonies of Indo Arab Muslim settlements numerically strengthened the earlier Muslim settlements. They all came as peaceful traders and certainly not as conquerors and enriched the economic and cultural life of this country.

They integrated with the indigenous population, absorbed the local culture and co-existed with other communities in peace and harmony. Nevertheless, the Muslim adroitly maintained their Islamic identity inspite of their adaptation to local, social and cultural norms. As Professor Lorna Devaraja points-out in her outstanding book 'The Muslims of Sri Lanka', the Muslims managed to endure and survive two diametrically opposed pressures, a gravitational pull towards the Islamic core in order to preserve their Islamic identity and a similar pull in the opposite direction in an effort to integrate with the rest of society as a means of survival and sometimes hostile climate".

This they were able to do due to three reasons-

1. Their linguistic capability in all three languages (Arabic, Sinhala and Tamil).

2. Their international links due to their navigational skills and overseas contacts, and

3. The internationalism of the Islamic faith.

The mother tongue of the Muslims of Sri Lanka has been the subject of controversy. The earlier migrants from the Middle East spoke Arabic, which was the language of the Quran and the language of devotion. However, since Tamil was widely used in maritime commerce in the Indian Ocean it became a practical necessity for the Muslim traders to speak Tamil.

In course of time many Sufis (Islamic mystics or saints) began to compose inspired poetry in Tamil itself. As Islam spread over to India, the doctrines of those saints which represent the inward aspects of Islam found a new geographical and cultural background for original development both in doctrine and rituals.

According to Dr. Sahabdeen the Sufis of India adopted new literary forms for the conceptualization of their esoteric experience from the poetic and prose traditions of the Indian languages. There were several eminent Sufi poets who wrote in the Urdu, Punjab, Bengali and South indian languages. There were more than one hundred Sufit in South India during the last seven or eight centuries. Many of them convey their spiritual experience in inspired poetry of the remarkable literary excellence in the Tamil language.

The uniqueness of their composition is evidenced by the great skill with which they adopted the Tamil langauge to convey and communicate the Sufi esoteric doctrine previously written mostly in Arabic and Persian. The best known Sufi poets are Kottar Gnaniar, Thakkalai Peer Muhammed, Kunankudi Masthan Sahib and Machcha Rehhai Chchithan. Several other less known poets also left behind an impressive volume of Sufi literature.

Dr. Sahabdeen views Tamil as one of the oldest languages of the world and is a repository of inspired poetry of almost all the major religions of mankind. When Islam came over to South India, there did exist a spiritual vacuum caused by the decline of Jainism. The mindset of a large majority of people was predominantly vedantic. When the Sufis of Islam gave vent to their feelings of the Divine in highly inspired poetry in a literary style and symbolism too familiar to the average man there was a meeting of minds and parallelism of ideas. There was commonality of concepts and symbolism.

Esoteric Islam profoundly appealed to the common man and Muslim shrines attracted large number of devotees of all religions. It continues to be so even today particularly in times of sickness and distress.

The Sufis addressed their devotees in the language of universalism eschewing religious bigotry and sectarianism. Dr. Sahabdeen, quoted two verses (He has translated into English from the original Tamil) to illustrate this point:

The real in all, knows no frontiers nor space
It's the Essence of all in all locations
Faulty is the Knowledge
That learneth not, that inquireth not,
that reflecteth not
This Truth Supreme
Ineffable is the truth
That Allah and nothing but Allah
Encompasses all as Super-Soul
In transcendent purity
As the Lord (Rab) of compassion
What else has life to offer?
Save the eternal remembrance, Allahu, Allahu
Names and analogies, forms and conceptions
Frontiers and connections, the drudgery of rituals
Enslaving traditions in periodic repetitions
Aren't they all but detractions?
Hindrance in the clear path?
To dispel this melancholy
What else has life to offer
Save the eternal remembrance Allahu, Allahu.

What is the Essence of knowledge supreme
That surfaces when all is distilled?
The perception of the Soul,
in wisdom and knowledge
And the incitations in the multiple disciplines
And the awareness of that silence in space
And the ecstatic vision of the Real unveiled
This the One Old Truth in many forms
The Ruh is the Ruhul Kudusi (the Divine Spirit)
Issuing from the Creator Supereme
Whether thou sayest Anallahu Muheeth, or Aham

Braham Asmi

Assamadu Minallahi, or Atman the Super-Soul
Shinning in its sacred splendour
As the ecstatic form of Omniscience
And the ambrosia of unending bliss
The established way is Illallahu
Also known as Thou art that (Tat twam Asi)
Such is the ratified knowledge
Of Seers in the many disciplines
As the gracious gifts of the Sacred One.

Nevertheless, the Sufis were careful to anchor all their doctrines in the Supreme source the Holy Quran though they took liberty with interpretation.

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