Sarmad Kashani

• 1. Introduction

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  Sarmad Kashani once wrote that he was neither Jewish, nor Muslim, nor Hindu. That single line of poetry is one of the clearest things we know about a man who spent much of his life defying easy description. Sarmad was a merchant, a mystic, and eventually a condemned man in the Mughal Empire. The record he left behind raises more questions than it answers. What was his religion before he wrote that line? What did he do in India that made an empire notice him? And what did he refuse to say that ended his life?

• 2. Early Life

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  Around 1590, Sarmad was born either in Armenia or in the Persian city of Kashan, to a family of Jewish, Persian-speaking Armenian merchants. Persian was the language of his trade, and he mastered it well enough to produce his own translation of the Torah into that language. Some accounts describe him later renouncing Judaism for Islam, though that conversion looks only nominal. Sarmad was known to warn fellow Jews against converting at all, which sits oddly with any claim that he converted himself. Before he ever left for India, he studied under two Persian scholars, Mulla Sadra and Mir Findiriski. Those two names mark him as someone trained in serious philosophy and mysticism, not just commerce. It was as a merchant, though, that he first set out for the Mughal Empire.

• 3. Travels in India

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  In Thatta, in what is now Sindh, Pakistan, Sarmad took on a close disciple named Abhay Chand, a Hindu. He had traveled there after hearing that precious goods were fetching high prices across India, hoping to sell his wares. Little is known for certain about his relationship with Abhay Chand, since almost no historical record survives beyond Sarmad's own poetry. Some scholars argue Sarmad employed Abhay Chand to help translate the Torah alongside the Old and New Testaments. Others suggest Abhay Chand may have converted, to Islam or to Judaism, though nothing confirms it either way. By this point Sarmad had grown critical of every organized religion, taking what might now be called a spiritual but not religious stance. At some point he abandoned his wealth altogether, let his hair grow long, stopped clipping his nails, and began wandering the city streets. Later accounts place him moving from Lahore to Hyderabad before settling in Delhi, though no credible sources confirm any of those moves.

• 4. Life in Delhi

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  Sarmad's reputation as a poet and a mystic, built up over his travels, reached Dara Shikoh, the Mughal crown prince, who invited him to his father's court. Dara Shikoh was so impressed by Sarmad that he vowed to become his own disciple. Word of this unusual mystic also reached Francois Bernier, a French physician and traveler passing through the empire. Bernier later reported seeing Sarmad as a naked faqir. That closeness to Dara Shikoh would prove costly once the prince's brother took the throne.

• 5. Death

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  Dara Shikoh lost the War of Succession to his brother Aurangzeb, who reigned from 1658 to 1707 after taking the throne. Aurangzeb had his former adversary killed, then had Sarmad arrested and put on trial. Sarmad was convicted of atheism and unorthodox religious practice. Aurangzeb's religious scholars, the Ulema, questioned him about a habit of reciting only half the Islamic declaration of faith. He would say only "There is no God," without adding "but Allah." Ordered to complete the phrase, Sarmad answered, "I am still absorbed with the negative part. Why should I tell a lie?" That answer sealed his death sentence. In 1661, Sarmad was beheaded, and his grave still stands near the Jama Masjid in Delhi. Ali Khan-Razi, Aurangzeb's court chronicler, was present at the execution and recorded verses Sarmad spoke at the stand, including the line "The Mullahs say Ahmed went to heaven, Sarmad says that heaven came down to Ahmed." He also recorded another verse: "There was an uproar and we opened our eyes from the eternal sleep. Saw that the night of wickedness endured, so we slept again." Those final words would later be quoted by writers who saw in Sarmad's death something worth remembering.

• 6. A Lasting Legacy

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  Abul Kalam Azad, one of the leading figures of the Indian independence movement, compared himself to Sarmad for his freedom of thought and expression. In 2009, a book titled The Romances of an Outlaw was published, edited by Abdolhamid Ziaei. It revisited Sarmad's life, poetry, and thought under his full name, Saeed Sarmad Kashani. In 2022, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen premiered a film by the Iranian artist Lior Shamriz, partly based on Sarmad's life. It was titled Port Said, Santa Cruz, Sarmad Kashani. Later that year, both the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea and the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia presented the work. A mystic executed in seventeenth century Delhi was, centuries later, being screened in museums thousands of miles apart, in Korea and in Australia.