The Hindu disciple of a Muslim saint in Shah Jahan’s India

Public discussions of the Mughal Empire today are often framed in terms of conflict between religious communities. Yet the surviving records of 17th-century India frequently tell a more complicated story.

One such document, preserved at Aligarh Muslim University, offers a glimpse of a social world where religious identities were real and important, but did not always function as rigid boundaries.

The document is the Tazkira-i Pir Hassu Teli. Written between 1644 and 1647 during the reign of Shah Jahan, it narrates the life and miracles of a Muslim saint, Pir Hassu Teli, and his successors. This biography of a holy man was composed a Hindu Mughal official named Surat Singh, a devotee who belonged to a different religious tradition entirely.

Who was Surat Singh?

Surat Singh belonged to a Kambo family from Punjab. His ancestors had been traders, but by the early 17th century his family had entered Mughal service. He held various administrative positions, moving between Lahore, Bhatinda, Kabul and Agra.

More significantly, he became a disciple in a mystical order centred around Pir Hassu Teli and his successor, Shaikh Kamal. The Tazkira, thus, is the work of a believer.

Surat Singh’s identity was multiple and layered: a Hindu, born into the Kambo caste, a Mughal servant, a Persian poet, and a disciple of a Muslim saint. Rather than contradictions, these were different facets of a single life.

Dreams of the Prophet and Imam Ali

Perhaps the most remarkable evidence of Surat Singh’s spiritual openness comes from his accounts of dreams. Despite never converting to Islam, he records having performed the pilgrimage to Mecca in a dream and meeting the Prophet Muhammad. He describes approaching the Prophet and seeing Imam Ali standing next to him. In other visions, he claims to have met numerous saints, including Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti and Baba Farid Ganj Shakar.

What makes these accounts so striking is that Surat Singh records them as a proud Hindu who saw no contradiction between his own religious identity and these profound mystical experiences. He simply presents them as genuine spiritual encounters that need no defending or explaining.

Guru Nanak in a Sufi biography

Surat Singh’s reverence for Guru Nanak is equally telling. The Tazkira contains several references to Baba Nanak, always spoken of with deep respect. On one occasion, Surat Singh describes a vision in which Guru Nanak and his mentor Pir Hassu Teli appear interchangeable. The lesson is that spiritual truth transcends external labels.

The manuscript also records Surat Singh’s visit to Guru Nanak’s shrine at Kartarpur. He describes travelling there with his mother and finding a funeral shrine and a tomb beside it. He was told the famous story of Guru Nanak’s death: the Hindus insisted he should be cremated, the Muslims insisted he should be buried. According to the account, two bodies appeared. One was cremated, the other buried. Surat Singh records this tradition with evident reverence.

Life in a shared neighbourhood

These spiritual experiences did not occur in isolation. Surat Singh lived in Lahore during Shah Jahan’s reign, and his neighbourhood, or mohalla, was home to both Hindus and Muslims living side by side.

His lifelong neighbour was Abdul Karim, the same Muslim scholar under whom he studied Persian. The two families lived next to each other, a common arrangement in Mughal cities such as Agra, Lahore and Banaras.

Poetry gatherings, literary life

Surat Singh was also an active participant in the literary culture that brought Hindus and Muslims together. He refers to a poetical session, a mushaira, at Agra where he was present alongside other poets, including the celebrated Hindu Persian poet Chandar Bhan Brahman.

In this mushaira, an equal number of Hindu and Muslim poets participated. A Hindu official could sit alongside Muslim poets, recite his verses, and be judged on literary merit alone.

Shah Jahan’s reign

Shah Jahan is often remembered for his monumental architecture and also for a turn toward more orthodox Islamic policies. But the Tazkira complicates that picture. Surat Singh was writing in the middle of Shah Jahan’s reign. He held official positions under the emperor’s government. Yet, he felt free to write a Persian biography of a Muslim saint as a Hindu devotee, to record dreams of the Prophet Muhammad, to revere Guru Nanak, and to live alongside Muslims.

This suggests that the character of any large empire cannot be reduced to the personal policies of its ruler. Whatever Shah Jahan’s own religious inclinations, the society over which he ruled remained deeply plural in its everyday workings.

A forgotten voice

The significance of Surat Singh’s manuscript lies in its ordinariness. Instead of emperors or battles, it records the experiences of a middling official moving between cities, attending literary gatherings, following a spiritual guide and negotiating life.

At a time when historical narratives are increasingly shaped by rigid communal categories, Surat Singh’s voice from the 17th century is a valuable reminder that the past was often more intertwined, complex, and perhaps more humane than the simplified histories we sometimes tell ourselves today.

The Tazkira-i Pir Hassu Teli deserves to be remembered as a record of how real people actually lived.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi teaches medieval Indian history at Aligarh Muslim University, where he is a senior professor. He is the general secretary of the Indian History Congress.