Farahi. Who?!

Who is this Farahi? Haven’t heard of him.

Here is a small story to get to the towering. A scholarly sparring between two well known Muslim intellectuals, one hugely popular, other reasonably familiar. Abdul Maajid Daryabadi and Abul Kalam Azad. Does it sound closer now. It does.

Maajid wrote a piece for Azad’s al-Hilal. In this piece he used  Hazz-o-Karb, as Urdu equivalent to Pleasure and Pain. Hazz – Pleasure and Karb – Pain. The o in the middle stands for &.  Azad put an editor’s footnote on this, preferring Lazzat-o-Alam as the apt translation.  Lazzat- Pleasure, Alam-Pain; the o in the middle firmly stands its ground.  Daryabadi severely resented to it, arguing strongly for his choice of words. The argument dragged, and the two exchanged letters on this two-word matter. Now those who know the two, know well the command they exercised on language and literature. After all, one of them, Abul Kalam, was named as Abul Kalam – Lord of Language. His prose was sweeter than poetry, ask Hasrat Mohani. But Daryabadi was not convinced at all. This man was no ordinary soul. Like Abul Kalam, Daryabadi translated Quran to Urdu, and wrote a commentary on it. Coming from an eastern background, his book The Psychology of Leadership, was published by Louis Fisher, London in 1913. So he knew both the worlds.

Finally, Abul Kalam gave up. But not before invoking a referee. Now who could be the man settling an argument over a fine point of language between two great scholars of the subject. Someone who knew both the languages, and the two epistemes, Muslim-Eastern and Christian-Western, better than anyone else. It was Farahi. In this, there was no argument. All the popular greats of his time knew that the man who chose obscurity for himself was a singular greatness.

But how did Abul Kalam, whose knowledge of Arabic, Urdu, Persian, classical and contemporary philosophy, and Islamic sciences, is extra ordinarily impressive, think of Farahi as the Master Great. He attended Farahi’s lectures at Nudwa, and found a whole new world of knowledge opening up before him. The Farahi effect can be seen in his Tarjuman ul Quran, that is a departure from usual insipid, and stiff Urdu translation of earlier commentators. ( The same tradition was carried forward by Abul ‘Ala Mawdudi. A free flowing translation of Quranic text, that takes you closer to the soul of the message, remaining loyal to the literal at the same time).

When Farahi travelled to Rangoon, Abul Kalam met him in Calcutta., expressing strong desire to draw from the Master. Farahi retorted back: ” You are only Abul Kalam – a man of words. Things can work out only if you become a man of action – Abul Fa’el.” Finally, Abul Kalam was sucked into the fanfare of politics, and Farahi scaled new peaks with a handful of his students around. A calm mind, breaking new grounds, unmindful of all else.

Turning away from the chaos of the times, Farahi gave himself to creating new forms. He was least attracted by sensation, totally immersed in substance. All this while, and almost a century after his death, he remains Farahi, the obscure.

Rubin W. Smith comments about Marshall Hodgson, in the backdrop of Hodgson’s Venture of Islam: “He was a lesser known giant among the better known scholars.” This fits so well to Farahi. Farahi is a lesser known giant among popular greats.

A man whose intellectual prowess goes way beyond the familiar greats of our tradition. A lone man on the summit, none comes any close to him. But how many of us in the mainstream Muslim society known him; not even a handful!   It  perplexes, why such a huge mind  is so little known. One of the reasons can be his choice of subjects, and themes. Another, his language and approach. Third, he wrote in Arabic language, and in our sub-continent the language of Islamic literature and sciences is Urdu, and of late English. Part of it has to do with his own person; he runs away from limelight, and immerses himself into a journey towards dark, and unknown frontiers.  One plausible explanation is his disengagement from the superficial, and popular. His is a realm of difficult. It demands a certain rigour, and refined taste to read a serious work.

It reminds of Foucault’s definition of work: “That which is susceptible of introducing a significant difference in the field of knowledge, at the cost of a certain difficulty for the author and the reader, with, however, the eventual recompense of a certain pleasure, that is to say of access to another figure of truth.” Farahi embraces that difficulty, and anyone who wants to read him has to encounter that difficult to the measure he wants to draw from him. He makes a “significant  difference in the field of (our) knowledge”, and gives us access to the Quranic figure of truth. In the process he dismantles an entire empire of Muslim traditional disciplines.

On his being unpopular Shibli makes a lovely comment: “usually popularity doesn’t spare a person of excellence, but history and experience tell us that no rule is without exception. Farahi is an exception to this rule”.  This great mind is still to shine in the glory he deserves. But thanks to his students, light is turning towards him. We are slowly discovering a giant of our intellectual tradition.

A Moroccan scholar, Dr. Taqi, was asked that how did he find Farahi. “An ocean, bottomless, boundless.” – Bahrun Zaakhirun La Sahile Lahu – he answered. Farahi was born in November, 1863. He died in November, 1930. This month, let’s talk Farahi.

This, because we need him. From Srinagar to Sarajevo.

mrvaid@greaterkashmir.com