داراشکوہ اورا حترامِ ادیان

Abstract

Despite being a scion of Mughal Empire and enjoying all the privileges of a Prince, Dara Shikoh was surprisingly more inclined towards Sufism. He was an established scholar and had authored several remarkable books including Sakeenatul Auliya, Safeenatul Auliya, Hasnaatul Aarfeen, Haq Numa, Mujmaul Bahrain etc. He discovered the implicit compatibility between two seemingly different philosophies of Vedanta and Sufism. He influenced the world through his thoughts and concepts. Even today, the debates of his “harmoniously mixed concepts”are still part of our modern discourse and multitudes of books are being written on his novel thoughts.

Dara Shikoh was blessed with immaculate perspicuity and matchless insight who tried to bridge the gap between social divisions on the basis of class and religion by exhorting the fact that there can be different ways to reach out to the common destination. He was the true epitome of harmonious combination of disparate philosophies. He surprised the world by discovering the common values between Hinduism and Islam. He is also credited with the proponent of the study of comparative religion with an entirely different point of view. The intellectual eloquence of Dara Shikoh in his writings regarding the Sufism, Vedanta and spiritual traditions of India, is still relevant and can be duly termed as our priceless cultural heritage.