A New Prophetology for Bengal

Saiyad Sultān’s narratological innovation of a Hindu prehistory to the traditional Islamic prophets is examined in this chapter. Saiyad Sultān reconstitutes Islamic prophetology to include Hindu divinities and sacred texts, tacitly enlarging the qurʾānic category of People of the Book to embrace the Hindus of Bengal. After the creation of Nūr Muhammad, specific Hindu deities, identifiable as Śiva and various avatāras of Viṣṇu, make their advent to eradicate evil from the earth. Their failure to reform their communities brings forth Ādam, and after him the line of Islamic prophets, culminating with the Prophet of Islam. One concern of this chapter is to demonstrate Sultān’s reliance upon various Perso-Arabic sources of the Tales of the Prophets (Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ) genre. Through analysis of Sultān’s portrayal of Ādam, Śīś (i.e., Shīth/Seth), and Iblīs, the chapter also highlights narratological features that exemplify how the author composes a “Purāṇa-Korān” salvation history for Bengal.

Ascension and Ascendancy

The NV’s narrative of the Prophet’s ascension is first situated in the context of the Perso-Turkic miʿrāj tradition, showing how it draws closely upon the Ibn ʿAbbās/Bakrī narrative tradition. This chapter studies the portrayal of the Prophet as God’s beloved, as a model phakir, and as intercessor for his community. Such representations serve three interlinked purposes: first, to compose a supersessionist narrative that exalts the Prophet’s holy stature and establishes his spiritual ascendancy over all other prophets; second, to provide an ethical template for individual and communal Islamic practice, and a communal identity aligned around the axis of pīr, Prophet, and God; and third, to invite others to the faith by presenting the Prophet as intercessor, an attractive figure of compassion and power. Additionally, conceptions of Islamic eschatology and cosmology are also examined through the NV’s ascension narrative. The chapter concludes by examining the entwined relationship between the historiographer and sacred subject, and the ways in which they each legitimate the other at various historical junctures.

Hari the Fallen Prophet

Born into the degenerate and idolatrous line of Kābil (Cain), Hari (Kr̥ṣṇa) is the only Hindu god who punctuates the line of traditional Islamic prophets after Ādam. The narrative unit on Hari is the singular focus of this chapter. Hari’s tale exemplifies Sultan’s effort to minimize local competition to the Prophet of Islam: the inclusion of this “fallen” god-turned-prophet—one of the most popular deities of medieval Bengal, and the supreme deity of the Gauṛīya Vaiṣṇavas—appropriates and marginalizes a native rival through his demotion to human status, and his conversion to Islam. He is upheld as a warning to the people of Bengal, a false god and seductive icon, whose adultery would lead only to divine wrath and the punishments of hell. In examining the complex strategies by which Sultān simultaneously demolishes the Kr̥ṣṇa avatāra while establishing the Prophet Muḥammad as the avatāra for the Kali age, this chapter shows how missionary translation is a form of creative iconoclasm.

Conclusion

The conclusion begins with reminiscences of a visit to a mosque in the Baṛaliyā village of Patiya district, Chittagong, which houses a cot that supposedly belonged to Saiyad Sultān. The chapter tells the tale of this miraculous cot, and the connections of its master to the kingdom of Arakan. This account highlights the interconnected nature of the histories of Chittagong and Arakan, and the bitter irony of today’s Rohingya crisis. It foregrounds this book’s contribution to translation theory and to research on the Islamization of southeast Bengal and the Islamic cosmopolis of early modern South Asia, while pointing to new directions for research.

The Prophet of Light and Love

The opening chapter begins with analysis of Saiyad Sultān’s invocation to God in the Nabīvaṃśa (Lineage of the Prophet), highlighting the translation strategies he uses to present Islamic cosmogony to Bengalis. Sultān’s Nūr Muhammad, the primordial principle of the light of Muhammad, draws upon a range of medieval Islamic sources. At the same time, it acquires a new brilliance while being reflected in the mirror of Bengali cosmogonical ideas and symbols, including the cosmic syllable om̐, the principles of Sāṃkhya philosophy and of the Dharma cult, and the Vaiṣṇava doctrine of divine descent (avatāravāda). The chapter argues that this approach, which represents the doctrine of Muhammad’s ancient light as being continuous with indigenous cosmologies, is emblematic of the Nabīvaṃśa and one of Sultān’s most effective literary strategies for conversion. This chapter also situates the author in the historical context of seventeenth-century Caṭṭagrāma (Chittagong).

Translation and the Historiographic Process

A theoretical framework for interpreting the Nabīvaṃśa is laid out in this chapter. Crucially, this chapter examines how the author’s salvation history becomes a new “prior text” for Islamic Bengal. A hermeneutic model of Muslim missionary translation is delineated to explain the literary strategies via which translation entextualizes conversion. Founded on a semiotic theory of religion, this model sheds light on the specific intertextual and lexical interventions made by preacher-translators in producing missionary texts, and the crucial role played by astutely translated religious literature in conversion. The Nabīvaṃśa played a pioneering role in marshaling, and in turn setting into motion, various lexical, literary, performative, theological, and ultimately ideological processes that led to the establishment of Islam in East Bengal in a distinctively Bengali form.

Text, Author, and Authority

This chapter studies the NV as a pāñcāli on the Prophet in its Bengali oral-literate and performance contexts, and in relation to the wider world of Islamic literature. It examines the manner in which the author harnesses orality and literacy in the service of his text, discusses the structure of the NV, and analyzes the relationship of the critical edition to the manuscript tradition. This chapter also studies the role of the author in forging Islamic identity and community.