February 13 , 2009

Sufi Sage of Philadelphia and His Devotee from Toronto

I had met him over 35 years back in Colombo when he was on a visit to his native land from Philadelphia where a vast number of his dedicated disciples had moved him from Colombo. I was stationed there at that time and a friend, Prof. Akhtar Imam, took me to the house of Macan Markar, a prominent Muslim jeweler, where the holy man was staying. He struck me as an old, emaciated and physically insignificant person but with rare penetrating eyesight. He was sitting cross-legged on a platform, addressing scores of his devotees sitting tight on the floor. He was speaking in Tamil, a Dravidian language of South India, far beyond my comprehension. In a corner of that room I found a group of hippie-type white young men and women, tape-recording his discourse. I attributed this to the strange ways of the hippie culture prevalent at that time. Presently, some one brought a bunch of bananas to him and he tossed one to me. I heard someone proclaim that he was 160 years of age; another said he was over 300, yet another added that he had known him for over 60 years and he had always looked the same.

I took it all to be no more than folklore floated by his jealous followers.

In July 2005, on a visit to my daughter in Pennsylvania, I read a mention of a Sufi saint of Sri Lanka, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, whose mausoleum, mazar, was in the vicinity of Philadelphia. This was in a message posted on the website ‘Writers-Forum’ by the well-known writer, poet and editor, Munir Sami. He confirmed to me later that the saint was the same person that I had met in Colombo.

A few days after I reached Pennsylvania, my daughter drove the 100 miles to reach the exquisitely beautiful, lush green area of rolling hills, tall trees with trunks covered with ivy and other creepers. Sitting on the top of a hill amidst this scenic beauty of Chester County was the white mausoleum built in the tradition of Mogul architecture –the first of its kind in the U.S. Behind it was a cemetery containing graves of the Sufi’s followers whose tombstones showed that many of them were converts to Islam.

A week later I had to go to Toronto to attend a family wedding. Mr. Munir Sami came to visit me and took me to the local chapter of the Fellowship set up

by the Sufi and his followers. I met there Sharon Marcus who gave me a copy of her fascinating book “My Years With the Qutb: A Walk in Paradise”, which had just been published.

The book is an honest, objective and fascinating account of the twelve years spent by her in the company of the divine figure. A little note on the back page points out: “This book is for all those who have wondered what it is like to sit with a sanctified master of wisdom, absorbing his love, his grace and the transformational teachings which illuminate the path to God.”

Sharon Marcus had already published nine books of poetry, four novels, a collection of short stories, three works of non-fiction and numerous book reviews. She had remained associated for years with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation .

Her companion/husband, Sayyid Ahamed, a convert from Christianity, a classic singer and accomplished viola player, was like Sharon herself given to spiritual pursuits, and both were “earnest seekers of enlightenment, illumination, the truth”. Before the truth dawned on them, both had led a Bohemian life, given to drinks and drugs, and regarded marriage a Victorian vestige and experimented with the rituals of various spiritual precepts without much satisfaction.

Then, a lawyer friend informed them that a real teacher would be visiting Toronto for five days to deliver talks at different locations. Their schedule to give concerts that very week in Ottawa was unexpectedly cancelled by the organizers, thus affording them the blessing of connecting with the “exquisitely ancient being”, the perfected human, insan-i-kamil, and the Qutb in Sufi terminology.

His origin has faded into myth and mystery. Sharon Marcus, who subsequently became close to the sanctified being could not or did not probe into his past. For, “an ego less person does not accumulate a personal history.”

“We know”, she writes “that he was the king of some small kingdom probably in India, that he gave it all away, that he spent years in all the major religions studying, seeking and searching for God, that he was identified in the jungles of Sri Lanka early in the 20 th century, persuaded to leave the jungle and teach in Colombo”. Finally his American disciples brought him to Philadelphia in 1971where he spent most of his time till his death in December 1986.

At the time of his demise, his bones had become, owing to age, so brittle that they could break under the slightest stress.

He had some knowledge of Tamil and Arabic scripts. Otherwise, he was virtually unlettered. He is, nevertheless, author of some 30 publications, all dictated. Many of these have been translated into English and other languages. His first significant book was Maya Veeram, written as far back as 1940. Sharon Marcus, who translated it into English forty years later, found it to be “a revelation of the prophetic storyteller in the tradition of the Mathnavi”.

Describing her initial impression of the sanctified person, she writes: “Certainly there was an intensity of light pouring from him, a power that was formidable, electrifying and present, yet modified by an incredible gentleness.”

His words, she felt, always spread across a great spectrum of understanding, “each of us assimilating at a level appropriate for our own capacity”. The teachings that poured from him “in a tireless, purifying stream were the highest abstraction I would ever encounter”.

For serious students of Sufism, her two chapters on Dhikr would be of particular interest.

Sharon Marcus, a student of philosophy at college, and a rationalist by conviction with an open mind in her search for truth, could easily set aside her Jewish breeding and the temptation as a poet and artist to mythologize the personality of her Sheikh and paint a spiced up version of his feats. She has successfully skirted folklore and has even shown distaste for myths built by his over-zealous devotees. Yet, her devotion to her spiritual master was next to none. That is what makes her account so riveting.

She does not ignore mentioning that Bawa used to be a cigarette addict before he gave it up and smoked subsequently a pipe or cigar mainly in his bathroom. He ditched these too, as well as snuff. He was fond of watching Hindi, Tamil and biblical English films. He composed Tamil songs and sang them at random. He was fond of cooking and according to Sharon whatever he cooked, often for as many as 200 guests, was “not only delicious but a culinary master piece”. These traits showed that he was a human, not an ethereal being as made out by some of his devotees. But, he had the heavenly quality of unmitigated love for his fellow beings and zeal to help them towards righteousness and the path to a happy life and to God Himself.

The house where he lived in Philadelphia houses now a Fellowship named after him with a beautiful mosque nearby designed by him and built under his guidance by his followers most of them eminent doctors, lawyers and other professionals.

For specific information about the Sufi, his Mazar or Fellowship, please reach www.bmf.org.

arifhussaini@hotmail.com