The identity of a mystic: The case of Said Sarmad, a Jewish-Yogi-Sufi courtier of the Mughals (Exploring complex contradictory confessional/religious identification in 17th-century northern India)

Sa'id Sarmad's "dargah" (saint's tomb) dominates the entryway to Delhi's imposing Jama Masjid. But Sarmad was a Jew, both by birth and affirmation. He was also, according to his "Rubaiyat", a "follower of the Furqan (i.e., a Sufi), a (Catholic) priest, a (Buddhist) monk, a Jewish rabbi, an infidel, and a Muslim." Indeed, it is hard to imagine a mystic with a more complex confessional identity. This paper explores both Sarmad's apparently contradictory religious self-identification and the complex religious context which Sarmad found in seventeenth-century North India. It will trace Sarmad's spiritual path as it meandered between Judaism, Islam and Hinduism, as recorded in his poetry and in the hagiographical ("taskira") traditions which surround him, and will contribute to the discussion of the relationship between the mystic and his or her religion of birth or adoption.