THE GNOSTIC OF SIYAL

Precarious Condition of Society.

The nineteenth century was a century of great pain and affliction for Muslims residing in the Indian subcontinent. The wide and expansive Muslim empire of India had been divided into numerous smaller states. The ruler of each individual state had become absent-minded and distracted due to his own personal importance to such an extent that he was neither saddened at the state of his community nor was he upset at his nation meeting its own downfall. The Muslims were now fighting amongst each other. The city of Delhi – which was for centuries the main centre of the Islamic state in India – due to the inability of its sovereigns, was fast losing its influence and authority. More grievous than this was the state of the believer’s connection and relationship with his merciful Lord and his affectionate Murshid, which was now becoming weaker? Various innovations concerning doctrine and practice had enervated the Islamic society. Mosques were deserted, religious schools were unlighted and khanqahs – where once lion-hearted friends of Allah used to sit – were now at the disposal of artificial unorthodox mendicants and dauntless persons completely lacking the reality of Islam.




Faces enlightened with the light of ma‘rifa and foreheads refulgent from the signs of prostrations were seldom seen. Fountains were drying up that saturated the sown-field of life. Stars began disappearing one-by-one that guided the lost travelers in the wilderness of life towards their true destination.



Consider for yourself, a place where rulers remain preoccupied day and night in conspiracies to overcome and defeat one another, where the general populace day-by-day becomes distanced from its source and origin of life; in such a place what more could be expected and hoped for other than public dishonor, adversity, decline and downfall. That nation despite its smallness in number had ruled over such a vast country for centuries purely due to the might of its good practice, today those qualities of this nation had become a story and fable of the past. The end result of this was that on a certain evening during the year 1857 the sun of this Islamic rule set and disappeared. Every brick of the palaces was destroyed; palaces in which resided the people who had forgotten their Creator, whose days and nights were spent in luxury and gaiety and in whose courts gatherings of carousing, dance and music were always taking place. Foreigners who had now come from a distance of six thousand miles had mercilessly slaughtered these people who had rebelled against their own Creator. Learned scholars were hanged. Religious schools were locked. Precious rarities of knowledge and wisdom were set alight. The common Muslim had become bound in the chains of double slavery; to the British and to the Hindus.



The darkness of despair had spread everywhere. No ray of hope could be seen appearing from any corner. People had understood that the light of Islam would never be lit in this country ever again. The presence of the Muslims would be erased from the history of this country just like a mistaken letter.