Ghalib and Religion

Ghalib’s outlook on life was a kind of revolt against restrictive morality and his ideas on religion were in opposition to those of the orthodox. At the time of his arrival in Delhi, the intellectual life of the city, as mentioned earlier, was dominated by the religious controversies between traditionalists and radical thinkers. These controversies were not confined to theologians alone, all educated Muslims were affected by it and, in general terms, allegiance would be given to one side or the other. But Ghalib’s own position was characteristically different, though his closest friend, Fazl-i-Haq, was the main protagonist of the traditionalists. Ghalib did not allow his admiration of Haq to dominate his own judgment. Although we do not possess any detailed knowledge of the evolution of Ghalib’s views on religion, his own attitude towards God was not always one of reverence. He shared the views expressed by preceding Persian and Urdu poets that man was a helpless puppet in God’s hands, yet he is unfairly accountable to God for his actions. Such sentiments however, occur with a touch of humour in Ghalib’s writings.

Ghalib’s attitude on religion was akin to those of the Sufi mystic lover of God. He lived his life by principles, radically different from those of the orthodox, personified in the ghazals as sheikh, an elder or a religious leader. He rejects with contempt, their doctrine of prescribed conduct of life motivated by hope of reward and fear of punishment in the life to come. Thus, Ghalib writes:

“Abstinence wins no praise from me. What thought be it sincere?

Behind it lies raw greed to win reward for virtuous deeds.”

The reference to wine (prohibited to Muslims on earth), the saqi (the wine server) and the tavern, occur repeatedly in his poetry, but in keeping with the best traditions of the Indo-Persian poetry, mostly in symbolic terms. Ghalib never kept the Ramzan fast and was prepared to admit it. He admitted his vices (wine drinking and gambling), ridiculed the sermonizers and in general, lived a life-style of flamboyance, whenever his financial condition permitted him to do so.

God, according to Ghalib, was not to be found in the idol in the temple or through obeisance in the mosque. The truly spiritual could not be constrained by such narrow categorization. Underlying this contempt for religious rituals was a profound eclecticism, a deep-seated conviction in the brotherhood of the human race, each of them being symbols of the divinity and love of the one almighty. Ghalib’s secular ideals can be measured from his expressed desire to ultimately settle down in Banaras (most revered of the Hindu places of worship). Ghalib’s contempt for established tenets went down well with the eclectic Sufi mood of the times. This eclectic mood itself had played a catalytic role in the development of the Urdu language. Although Persian was the court language of the Mughals as well as that of the Islamic orthodoxy, it never became the language of the masses. The evolution of Urdu, gaining from Persian, but drawing real substance from the idiom and vocabulary of the everyday language of the people, thus, also went a long way in bringing about a cultural synthesis.

Following most ghazal poets, Ghalib also uses the common mystic concept of God revealing herself/himself in the beauty of the universe and therefore equates the worship of beauty with the worship of God. The embodiment of the beauty worship could be equated with a beautiful women or a handsome boy. Here we can get a glimpse of the symbolic use of Hinduism, as the embodiment of the worship of beauty. The orthodox Muslim opposition to the Hindus was also related to their idol worship. To the mystic thinker like Ghalib however, it is not important whether they worship idols but whether in doing so, they are expressing in their own way, a true love of God. The idol, according to Ghalib, was the symbol of irresistible beautiful mistress that a lover idolizes and adore. She, at the same time, is also the symbol of the divine beloved. Ghalib’s views on religion may match with the mood of the ghazal of the times but it is true that his verses were not simply exercises in the conventions of the ghazal, but expressions of his own beliefs and practice.