Sufi Poetry: Discourse and Shifting Representations of Shah Abdul Latif's Risalo in Sindhi Literary Criticism

Considered as the opus magnum of Sindhi literature, the Risalo (poetic compendium) of eighteenth-century Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai has had a pervasive influence over the cultural life of Sindh. It emerged as the centerpiece of Sindhi intellectual and literary criticism in the late 19th century, sparking the production of an extensive number of interpretations, commentaries, and translations by Sindhi and non-Sindhi scholars. This resulted in the creation of multiple – and at times competing – discourses around the poetry and persona of Shah Latif, which remain productive to this day. This essay retraces the most salient phases and protagonists of this process of discursive formation, emphasizing the influence of coeval religious movements (e.g. Theosophy, Neo-Vedanta) and political ideologies in shaping ideas and interpretations of Shah Latif’s mysticism. It will be argued that pre-Partition poetry exegesis, leveraging on the tropes of universalism and religious pluralism, mirrored the cosmopolitan and liberal aspirations of the Sindhi urban intelligentsia at the turn of the twentieth century. On the other hand, the concern of post-Partition literary criticism with issues of religious identity and orthodoxy signals a widening rift along religious lines in both India and Pakistan, and speaks for the diverging cultural and political agendas pursued by the two nations in the aftermath of Independence.