Muhammad Sa'id, mostly known as Sarmad Kashani or simply as Sarmad (Persian: سرمد کاشانی) was a Persian mystic, poet and saint who travelled to and made the Indian subcontinent his permanent home during the 17th century. He was of Jewish[1] or Armenian origin[2].
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Sarmad arrived in Mughal India (consisting of modern-day India and Pakistan) from a Persian-speaking Armenian merchant family,[3] only to renounce his religion and adopt Islam, which he allegedly later renounced in favor of Hinduism. Sarmad was known for espousing and ridiculing the major religions of his day, but also wrote beautiful religious poetry in the form of quatrains in Arabic and Persian.[4] He had an excellent command of both Persian and Arabic, essential for his work as a merchant. Hearing that precious items and works of art were being purchased in India at high prices, Sarmad gathered together his wares and traveled to India where he intended to sell them. Near the end of this journey, he fell in love with a Hindu boy. His ardent love created such a radical transformation in his awareness that he abandoned his considerable wealth and, losing all concern for social convention, began to wander through the streets and courts of the emperor completely naked, a naked faqir.[5]
Sarmad was close to Dara Shikoh, the heir presumptive to Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor. However, the actual successor to Shah Jehan, the Emperor Aurangzeb, beheaded Sarmad in 1661 for poetry deemed heretical and apostasy from Islam .[1]
During his life, Sarmad produced a translation of the Torah in Persian.[6]
Sarmad described himself as “a follower of the Furqan (i.e., a Sufi), a (Hindu) priest, a (Buddhist) monk, a Jewish rabbi, an infidel, and a Muslim."[1] Sarmad's ambiguous religious affiliation is disputed today by Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. His grave is located near the Jama Masjid in Delhi, India.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, one of the leading political personalities involved actively in India's struggle for freedom, had equated himself with Sarmad in an essay which he had written at the age of 23. He had identified himself with Sarmad for his freedom of thought and expression.[7]
During the time, a number of Muslims had adopted an ascetic approach that was very similar to that of Hinduism. This attitude was offensive to Aurengzeb, who singled out Sarmad. There was a certain amount of political maneuvering in Aurengzeb's persecution of Sarmad; since he was under the protection of Aurengzeb's older brother Dara Shikoh and rival to the throne. Like Mansoor al-Hallaj, Sarmad was viewed within the context of Sufi antinomianism and is said to have debated a number of times with court jurisprudents. Aurengzeb has Sarmad arraigned and forced a death sentence against him which was carried out almost immediately by beheading him. [8]